Choosing our Dreams...or Not

I've been considering dreams and particularly which ones that I will consciously keep and others that I will intentionally let die.  I've discovered that it isn't as easy as I expected.

First there are a host of dreams that I've actually achieved.  Consider joining three cousins in being the first generation in our family to graduate from college.  Actually, you could even say "go" to college, but we also graduated.  It was a very big deal for me, since it took me 22 years after I started college before I graduated.

Then, there was getting a graduate degree.  I think I was the first in my family to do that.  That allowed me to get the kind of professional work that I had dreamed about.  That was followed by the dream to work globally, which I did 25 years ago and to publish a book, then two, which I did almost 20 years ago.  What I discovered is that there were a lot of these dreams that once I achieved them, their completion left something of a vacuum that I never consciously either replaced or celebrated and really en-joyed.

Somewhat disturbing to me are some material dreams that were very important to me in my twenties and early thirties.  The big house with a pool. Lenox china and Waterford crystal.  Later the big house in the woods on a lake.  There was the Jaguar XKE.  It really was a lot of fun to drive and watch heads turn when I drove down the street.  Having grown up in a lower middle class neighborhood, maybe just having the heads turn was a dream.  As I reflect on these dreams, they hardly seem worthy of being a dream.  Yet, they occupied a lot of psychic space for a number of years.

I've also recalled the dreams that fall in the category of "be careful what you wish for."  Thank you, God, that many of those dreams didn't come true.  The relationships that I wished wholeheartedly would materialize, and in retrospect, I know they would have been horrible mistakes.  Even the relationship I was certain would resurrect itself after 20 years (its been 22) now seems like it would never have worked.

Similarly, there were jobs or even employers that I was certain would have been perfect.  Later I worked with people from those companies and discovered that the work those companies did wasn't a good fit for my skills or the culture wouldn't have been nurturing for me.

I've had purpose dreams: I dreamed that I could make the world a better place and even visualized what it would look like when we all loved each other. A ribbon of love that connects the whole world from heart to heart. In times when there is a mass shooting almost daily in the US and some really big ones, like Paris and San Bernardino, not that uncommon, and when ISIS electrifies the internet with beheadings, a world in which we are connected to every single person through love seems very 1990s.  That contradicts my dream of living beyond fear.

A friend helped me think through this, and I believe that some dreams "expire," sort of like milk or meat.  But when mine have expired, I have not been conscious about choosing to not have them as dreams any more.  I am not really sure how this happens in the Universe.  If I've prayed for a dream, especially some dreams for years, how do I say, "Uh, God, could we cancel that one?" but some clearly don't feel right any more.

I believe that we communicate with God in feelings.  Maybe I will just share with God what the feeling that I want will be and let God figure out how to get me to those feelings. Then, the picture of the dream can change without changing the feeling.  I think it is called "Letting God be God."  Novel concept, would you say? As I sit in my New Year's meditation, maybe that is the real dream, that I can surrender my dreams and allow myself to experience God's dreams for me...and for the world. Now that will be living my dreams.

Death of a Dream

During my vacation in September, I read The Pilgrimage, a novel by best-selling author Paulo Coehlo's.  It had a number of several exercises that I thought might be helpful in my upcoming retreat, which I dog-eared, as well as a some passages that I wanted to note.  (When I have finished with a book, it is well-marked with lots of pages turned down.)

The night before I started my retreat, I pulled it out and looked over some of the passages, and one which spanned several pages was about the death of a dream.  Now clearly I had not just read this passage but had read it carefully enough that I'd marked it for a return visit, but I really didn't remember it.  Yet as I read it on Thursday evening, I did so with great attention.  In the almost month since my retreat, I have continued to "chew" on the passages.

The passage is a conversation between a spiritual teacher/guide and his student on the Compostelo de Santiago pilgrimage in northern Spain.  The teacher is telling his student how/why our dreams die.  "The first symptom of the process of our killing our dreams," the teacher says, "is our lack of time." Those who have read this blog for awhile will know that this immediately grabbed my interest.  My dream of writing regularly, even for this blog, has seemed to be gobbled up by lack of time.*

As I reread this passage, I looked at it differently.  The teacher doesn't say the dream dies from lack of time.  He said that we kill our dreams because of our failure to make them priorities--to make time for them.  Suddenly, the lack of time for writing has moved from a passive thing that is out of my control to the deliberate and active action of killing my own dream.  I am keenly aware of the choices that I make at this busy time of the year.

"The second symptom of the death of our dreams lies in our certainties.  Because we don't want to see life as a grand adventure, we begin to think of ourselves as wise and fair and correct in asking so little of life...we never see the delight, the immense delight in the hearts of those engaged in battle.  For them, neither victory nor defeat is important; what's important is only that they are fighting the good fight."

Hmmm. Fighting for our dreams. Sir Winston Churchill once admonished: "Never give in. Never give in.  Never, never, never, never..."  I know that fighting the never-give-up fight for all of our dreams is not possible or even wise, which means that we have to choose the ones that we really fight for and which we allow to languish.  Yet, more often than not, I do not make conscious decision to let go of one dream so that I can consciously put more energy--more fight, if you will--into a more important dream.

"The third symptom of the passing of our dreams is peace..."** I am passionate about using my special talents and gifts.  Doing so may be seen as a "dream."  But I do have more than one gift.  I like to think writing is a gift.  So are dance, gardening, and cooking.  When I do any of those things, I do fall into what approximates a peaceful meditation.  I lose track of time.

When I write, I also lose track of time, but I also wrestle with angels as I struggle to find the truth of what I want to say.  When I was younger, I was much more certain what was true.  Now, not so much.  I am reminded best-selling writer and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck's work The Four Stages of Faith in which he described those who were most dogmatic as having a lower level of faith than those who have gone through a period of questioning and understand that faith is almost never black and white.  My writing dream may have succumbed to the more peaceful passions of dance, gardening and cooking. Questioning is work, often hard work.

What bothered me most as I first read, and continues to annoy me when I reread Coehlo's description of the death of a dream is what happens when we allow a dream to die.  "...Dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being.  We become cruel to those around us..., and one day the dead, spoiled dreams make it difficult to breathe, and we actually seek death."***

I am not suicidal, nor do I expect to be.  However, I have from time to time begun to feel the rot of dead dreams within me...before slipping back into the peace of auto-piloting through life rather than fighting for them.  I don't believe I've been cruel, but I certainly do become irritable from time to time.  Some days I just don't like myself much, and I believe those to be the days when I feel the rot of abandoned dreams most strongly.

In five weeks I am supposed to leave the temporary assignment I've enjoyed so much and return to my regular job.  Over the last two weeks, I have occasionally felt physically ill thinking about going back, even though I am returning to an almost completely new leadership team.  My new boss is someone I've worked with from another location, and I liked working with him a lot.  There is some toxicity left among staff that I dread, but as I've pondered, in my heart of hearts I am certain that my nausea is about going back into a situation in which I fear that my dreams will once again succumb to the fast pace of day to day work that doesn't inspire me.  What The Upanishads call "The sleeping state that men call waking."

I will write more on another day about consciously choosing to let go of a dream, but, for today, my learning is to just keep my dreams conscious until I intentionally let go of them, rather than letting them rot and making me a person I don't like very much.



*Coehlo, The Pilgrimage, P. 57
**Coehlo, The Pilgrimage, P. 58
***Coehlo, The Pilgrimage, P. 59

Islands in Ourselves

This Sunday marked the beginning of the Advent Season in the Christian tradition, and in scripture it reveals John the Baptist announcing the forthcoming birth of Jesus.  While that is a distinctively Christian commemoration, as we often find across religions, there is a theme that demands all of us to rethink our lives.

John asks us to "repent," a word that in the original Latin means to "rethink" or to "think again." Today our pastor invited all of us to to rethink the "islands in ourselves."  By that he meant places in us which we consider unchangeable, where we are not open to influence from others.  He used by way of example our eating habits when we know our cholesterol levels are too high, but we refuse to consider other ways of eating. Clearly, there is something for us to learn...and change, but often we are intransigent to change.

In a world which is characterized by intransigence, perhaps we should look to find common ground with others who are equally intransigent...but on the other side(s).  How easy is it to think that our perspective is the only one or the only virtuous one, when in most cases, no side is without fault or virtue.

Yet, I struggle.  Integrity is critical to me.  Being "at one" with what is right and true is core to who I am.  How do I make sense of "rethinking" and still stay in integrity.  Does integrity mean that I am not vulnerable to other versions of the Truth?  Does it mean that I should pick up what I believe to be true and examine it to determine if there are other sides of the Truth?

As we go into a season which is characterized with singing, eating, drinking and socializing, I will step back this year and wonder, "Are there places in my life in which I might find other versions of the Truth?"  I believe that the message of the Christmas holiday is to find peace, joy and love and to come together as a single humankind.  How can I do so with the Truth that we are all connected, and each of us contributes to the real Truth of coming together?  How can I do so without owning that there are islands in myself that are and should be vulnerable to other versions of the Truth?

Dark Nights, Extraordinary Grace, and Humility

I have just completed one of my silent meditation retreats.  I used to take four days, two times a year, for these retreats.  I am not sure how it happened but in recent years they've been more sporadic and often shorter.  This time I took three days.

For many years I would choose a book around a theme I intended to explore in my meditations and read it in the few days before I began my retreat.  Occasionally, I would finish it on the first day of the retreat.  About 10 days before I started this withdrawal for reflection, I got a message about Choice Point, a book that I first drafted in 1997 and which I continued to revise until about 2000.  I hadn't read it since about 2009, so revisiting it seemed in order.  While I didn't have time to read the book prior to my retreat, I did bring it with me and I read about half of it in bits and pieces over the three days.

When I last read the book in 2009, I recognized that it was badly dated, and that was even more apparent this time.  However, the thing that I noticed most was what I can only describe as my arrogance in tone.  I can assure you that was not my intention.  In the mid- to late-1990s, my life worked extraordinarily well spiritually, and I just assumed that was "normal."  The years in between have demonstrated to me that my experience was not in any way "normal," but instead was extraordinary grace.  My failure to recognize that was arrogant.

Choice Point is a guide to listening for our inner voice or divine voice or whatever it is that guides us on a spiritual path.  For 8-9 years in the 1990s,  my inner guidance system worked extremely well. All I had to do was ask a question, and the answer was there.  I moved across the country, worked globally, designed a new home, and wrote several books on that guidance.  So, it should not be surprising that the book I wrote about that intention process carried a "just do it!" attitude, implying that if we express the intention, the communication will just flow.

Sometime, and I can't really say precisely when it was, I stopped being able to get that guidance.  I struggled to get anything.  I would like to say that as the regularity of my meditation time waned that my guidance did as well because, if that were the case, fixing the problem would be easy.  I'd just have to start meditating regularly again.  I actually think just the opposite was the case.  I think my failure to get guidance precipitated my willingness to meditate less frequently.

Several saints from the Roman Catholic tradition have written about their inability to receive guidance after rich periods of regular communication with the divine.*  A book released after her death revealed that Mother Teresa had struggled for decades with the inability to communicate directly, as she had done quite regularly in her younger years.  The most common term for that absence of communication is "the dark night of the soul," and the period of non-communication--often for the rest of life--usually follows a rich period of dialogue with the divine.  While I haven't experienced the depression that many described, I have keenly felt the lack of communication which characterizes the "dark night of the soul."

My just-completed three days of sitting continued the lack of communication.  Even exercises that I've used to jump-start the flow failed me repeatedly.  So, I mostly sat.  Occasionally, I picked up Choice Point to read a chapter.  Taking time from the fast-paced life I find myself living for personal reflection is reward in and of itself, but I am definitely not stepping out with the feeling of personal enlightenment that I used to experience.

I have learned that the 8-9 years of constant dialogue with the divine that I used to experience as "normal" was instead extraordinary grace.  The communication vacuum, which has dominated my life for 15 years, has taught me what a gift I received for the preceding years.  If I revisit Choice Point again for rewrite, it will be from true humility as I will bring the understanding of what a gift it was.


*I believe this is true of other traditions as well, but I am less well read on them.

Getting in the Way of Better Things

Sometime in the last month, I heard an interview with comedian and now dramatic actor Bill Murray. In it he related that he had lost his smart phone recently and described how liberating it had been.  He said, "The things you usually do get in the way of better things you could be or should be doing."

I am not sure I could live with out my smartphone, and yet, I really understand what he was saying. I love reading The Washington Post on my phone on the way to and from work.  It is great to catch up on my email on the train so when I get home, I can devote my attention to other endeavors.  The reminders of birthdays and special events have prevented me from missing landmarks.  My calendar gets me where I am "supposed to be" more often than not.  The My Fitness Pal app has helped me lose 15 pounds this year.  I've even been learning Spanish as I walk and ride about.

Yet while there is immeasurable value in my smartphone, so much is lost along the way, and I think that is what Murray was relating.  Pre-device days, I used to actually have conversations with strangers on the train.  Some would share funny stories or new pieces of music they had discovered. When I was looking for a job, a man once told me about one in his agency that might be a good fit. Now, everyone is hunkered over their device with ear buds in place.  With the exception of an occasional pair that get on the train together, I almost never see anyone talking these days.  So among those better things we could or should be doing, connecting with our fellow humans might be one.

The concept of my book Choice Point was to be totally present in the moment and choose second to second what we should be doing in that moment.  While there are days, like this one, when I unplug most of the time, when I find myself doing what Murray described, I stop letting the things I usually do get in the way of what I could/should be doing.  I just listen...to my body, to my heart, and to my inspirations.

As I went to bed last night, I had several things that I wanted to do today, beginning with going to church.  Generally, on the weekend, I don't set my alarm, and most of the time I wake up after about eight or nine hours of sleep.  I find it delicious to wake up on my own though, even if I am not sleeping a lot more.  Last night I slept 10-1/2 hours, which meant that I missed church. It also meant that my body must need more rest. I allowed this day to be one of those days in which I did what I could/should be doing--what I knew in my heart, instead of what I usually did--what was programmed into my schedule.

I did enjoyed time in the kitchen, something that I usually do, but also something I love.  Then I turned my schedule upside down and meditated for a couple of hours, gaining clear insight on something with which I've been wrestling.  I dug out my hard copy of Choice Point because I haven't read it in a while, and in my meditation, I got that it was time to revisit the book.  While I know there is rewriting needed, my sense is that this visit is for my personal spiritual learning I need.  So the day is some, but not earth-shatteringly different.  Yet, I feel so much freer by having listened to my internal compass as opposed to responding to reminders and habits driven by my smart phone.

Spreading Love

On Sunday of a weekend, which began with reports of the simultaneous and horrendous attacks in Paris, I am still digesting and attempting to make sense of the world in which we live.  My friend and frequent contributor to this blog, Amy Frost, texted me on Saturday, "I pray this will evoke people to stand up and do what they can to create a loving world."

In a similar vein, a survivor of the concert attacks, interviewed on the BBC, said that he heard many evoking revenge, but continued, "When I thought I was about to die, what I thought about was those I love.  It is love we should be spreading," he said.

For almost 30 years, I've been writing about the love that connects us all and how it its the duty of all of us to keep that connection alive, vital, healthy, and flowing.  I still believe that to be true.  And, increasingly, I've struggled with what that means exactly.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see the newly released movie, "Suffragette."  Unfolding on the screen in front of me were extremely difficult scenes of ordinary women, attempting to listen to a speaker who was advocating for giving women the vote. They were brutally beaten and jailed, just for association, assembly, and listening.  One woman is kicked out of her home by her husband and loses her son.

"Suffragette" was set in Britain, but similar scenes played out in the US as women attempted to get basic rights. In the US it was common to send women to mental institutions because, of course if they wanted the vote, they must be mentally ill.  Here, too, women lost their children. Could that evil have been confronted by love?  I'd like to think so, but given the brutality, I am doubtful.

Last Wednesday much of the world marked "Veterans Day" or "Armistice Day," observed on the date of the end of World War I, but generally recognizing all those who had served in foreign wars. Most often, speakers use language about those who made "the ultimate sacrifice" while fighting for the freedom we hold dear.  I can't imagine anyone advocating that we should have taken on Hitler with love instead of bombs.  Even I, a devout pacifist since I was 19, cannot conceive that would have worked.

In 2001, I was an advocate that instead of dropping bombs, we should spend the same money dropping packages of food, books, and other gifts into an impoverished Afghanistan.  We will never know if that would have produced more favorable outcomes, but that surely would have been a closer to a love response to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  Yet the warfare response has certainly not produced the results for which we had hoped either. I am no longer ready to suggest that I think dropping groceries on Afghanistan would have brought either the Taliban or bin Laden down.

Muddying the waters still further are the consequences of our wars.  We see our Wounded Warriors come home absent limbs and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD,) but this is nothing new.  How many Civil War veterans came home without an arm or leg?  What we call PTSD now was called "Shell Shock" in World War I.  My grandfather spent 20 years in a mental institution in a catatonic state as a result of his service.  I would love to have had a present grandfather instead.

Can the world really be dominated by love if we don't weed out evil?  Having come from the Christian tradition, I can't forget that even Jesus, often described as the Prince of Love, violently turned over the tables in the temple to weed out evil.  A friend, who knew him, told of how she once saw the Maharishi Maresh Yogi exploding angrily--once.  Clearly these men of peace and love understood that there was a time and place for anger, rather than love.  But, just when is that time and place?  So, I struggle.

I started this blog with the hope that by wrestling with the difficult issues that, if we faced them on a heart and love level, the answers would be clear.  However, as I write more about both personal and universal dichotomies, I become more aware that those crystal clear, right-as-rain love answers just aren't always there.  As I seek the Truth, the answer I often find is to listen deeply to our hearts to what the appropriate response is in each situation, rather than having a go-to automatic response.

With somewhat regret I say that while I hate violence was required, I am glad the suffragettes responded to brutality with violence, and I am glad that our world is without Hitler, Stalin and bin Laden.  In the end, the Truth seems to be in the wrestling.

Woman's Work

What is "woman's work"?  While the very question may suggest to male readers that this is not a post that relates to them, that would be inaccurate.  What I am writing about here is the spiritual growth of the feminine in each of us, both male and female.  The Father of Modern Psychology Carl Jung and his followers believe that mythology offers archetypes of aspects of the human psychology, which describe spiritual lessons that we must learn in order to become more whole.

Jungians generally point to the myth of Psyche and Eros as the myth that describes the spiritual journey of the psychological feminine in all of us.  For those who like all the details, I apologize for what will be the 50,000-foot view of this myth.*  Conveying the details of the myth are not my purpose here.  Suffice it to say, the name "Psyche" means soul and also means butterfly. The myth is about the transition that our soul's make in transforming from chrysalis, the soul as promise, to beautiful and mature butterfly.

The myth symbolizes Psyche's work with a lamp and a knife, and her work is to take a good look at the person she is in relationship to other people, things, and situations.  At the start of the myth, she is pretty much unconscious, simply doing what she is told or expected to do.

As her transition progresses, she is forced to look at things differently, creatively, and intuitively because a set of tasks that she must complete would be impossible, given the context from which she starts. Along the way, Psyche learns to listen to her own rhythms and to not get emotionally attached. For the feminine in many of us, her lesson about learning to say "no" and protect her boundaries will resonate.

The lesson of  Psyche is often described as "sorting," and it is in that context that I've been revisiting this myth that I first read at least 30 years ago.  Both literally and metaphorically, I am in a transition period wherein I have the opportunity to work away from the toxic environment of my normal job for four and a half months.  What a perfect opportunity to be able to play around with options in my life without making any permanent commitments.

A former colleague and I lunched on Friday about how transforming it had been to be out of that work environment, freed of the pain-generating physical tension both of us had experienced.  With literally a full day of extra time each week, we actually have "a life" again.  I have found my humor and creativity return as I work in a respectful and supportive situation.

I confess that the Adrenalin withdrawal has been a struggle, but like any addict who has gone through withdrawal, I have come through the other side happier, healthier, and with more than a little trepidation about slipping back into the addiction when/if I go back to my real job.  That brings me to my first sorting.  Symbolically, using Psyche's lamp and knife, I am examining my relationship to my job, and maybe to work in general.

Because of a later in life business failure, I have felt driven to rebuild financial assets to support me through retirement.  Confronted by age discrimination all around me, I've forced myself to do more and better in whatever I do to counter the occasional ageist jibe.  I've also taken jobs that didn't use my strengths, abilities, or creativity to have a regular paycheck.  While I do seriously need a regular paycheck for several years, I am no longer willing to work to my weaknesses.  That is the lamp shining on my relationship to work.  I haven't yet mustered the courage to use the knife to sever ties, but it is much more difficult to keep doing what I've been doing with the light of exploration shining on it.

There is other sorting I choose to do.  The house of a friend was flooded about a month ago.  He texted me about all the things he was having to throw away.  I was more than a little jealous.  For some time, I've been bumping into an accumulation of things that are no longer useful or desirable, and, when I do, I wonder, why don't I get rid of that?  There is also a growing accumulation of things that I've received for gifts that I don't and won't use, but I have felt that I need to hang onto for fear of offending the giver.  For several years, I've asked friends to not give me material gifts but instead plan to do something together, but largely my pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

I am also recognizing the need to sort activities more judiciously, so step away from habitual activities or things that I "should" do and to plan to devote time to things that are important to me. During the six weeks I've been in my temporary job, I have started to exercise regularly again, and tomorrow I will meet a colleague after work to practice a dance routine for a talent show which will raise money for charity.  Still on the list of things to choose, strengthening exercise in addiction to aerobic.  Live theater is working its way back into my schedule.

Using the knife to cut away other activities that I have missed and enjoyed to make time for writing has been more difficult.  While I say it is a priority, choosing to write regularly is something that regular readers of this blog will attest is not something I've made time for as I did even two years ago. Cooking is a delight, and I know that I spend a disproportionate amount of time doing so.  Is it wrong to spend too much time in something which brings me pleasure? Is that even the correct question? Perhaps I need to weigh writing against cooking before I decide where to use the knife of sorting. I enjoy volunteering and I believe service is how we make a life, but knowing where to say "no" among things I enjoy is challenging.

I have my lamp out and my knife in hand to do the "woman's work" to which the myth of Psyche points.  I am eager to take the chrysalis of awareness and transform it into the butterfly of conscious living.  Doing so, though, is, well, work...the work of my soul.


*For an extended discussion of the Myth of Psyche and Eros, see: http://www.peace.ca/mythofpsyche.htm

Boundaries and Priorities

I went by my old office today to plug my computer into the network, which updates software and allows me to perform functions that I can only perform when I am "in house."  I thought I would coach two clients from there rather than by phone since I was in the building.  I needed to chat with my boss about my detail. Slam dunk, I thought: three hours tops.  Out by 4 p.m., I guessed. Wrong!  I walked out just before the 7 p.m. closing of the entrance to our building closest to the Metro.

How did this happen, I thought, as the security guard swung by our office at 6 to see why I was there so late.  I've continued to ponder that question into the evening.  I took a walk and thought about it more.  I need to be better about establishing priorities and setting boundaries.  I have made the assumption that if something was on my plate, I had to do it.

As I walked, I thought, I need to be better about assessing the consequences.  If bad consequences will result, I should probably do a task.  If really bad consequences will result, I should definitely do it. But, what, I asked myself were bad consequences.  I've learned during this detail that I can push things off for several months that I used to think needed immediate attention.  No bad consequences. No dire consequences.

I also thought about what were bad consequences.  I actually sat and brought my relaxed self to conversations with three colleagues.  I took time to embrace and connect with another colleague who is battling cancer and was back in the office.  Sitting and talking have not been luxuries that I thought I could afford, but the truth is that neglecting those relationships may have carried the worst consequences.

Yes, I will submit my input for my evaluation for to not do so would be foolish and may have significant consequences.  But, my email box that is in Outlook Limbo, I have no ideas what will happen if it overflows.  So I don't get email.  I have an out-of-office message that says I won't be back until February.  Shrug!  Somewhere in between is the password that I need to update, which seems always to need to be updated.  Maybe yes, maybe no.

Most important of my discoveries today is that I need to make myself a priority.  I am much better leaving an office at 5 than at 7, especially since my days start at 7:30.  Getting my exercise, having a relaxed dinner, reading a book, and getting a good night's sleep have been the bottom on my priorities, which I've learned are really nourishing to me.

If this all seems like common sense that I could/should have figured out decades ago, you're right.  I should have.  I didn't.  I am getting it now.  Better late than never.

Spiritual Loneliness

Most of us have seen movies or television depictions of addicts in drug withdrawal.  One of the most moving performances that I recall was that of Diana Ross in the 1972 movie, "Lady Sings the Blues," which portrays the struggle that jazz icon Billie Holiday had with heroin.  Ross made her audience feel Holiday's pain. (I still think she deserved the Academy Award for the performance.)

As I've been withdrawing from work addiction, I too have been adjusting to physical changes.  While I have been working fewer hours and having more fun, I do find that I am often very tired, and I've been sleeping...a lot.

Work addiction triggers other addictions, and it ends up that one of the most destructive is adrenaline addiction.  Adrenaline is a powerful hormone, which nature gave us for emergencies--when we needed to pull out the stops and do something extraordinary.  The classic example is the mom which finds it within herself to lift a car when her child is trapped beneath it.  Adrenaline is supposed to help us do something extraordinary in unusual circumstances.

However, increasingly, adrenaline is being used just to get through our normal daily schedules, where multi-tasking and long hours have become the order of the day.  We, myself included, have often used it to keep us focused on what is in front of us in that moment...and the next...and the next.

I am sure that, rarely having needed the addictive hormone in the last month, I should expect some withdrawal symptoms.  Most troubling to me is how detached that I must have become to my body's physical needs.  Somehow the adrenaline has allowed me to push down my exhaustion so I didn't notice it until I was out from under the destructive influence of the hormone's destructive power when it is used habitually to just get through life.

More important than the physical withdrawal is the spiritual loneliness that I've been feeling.  Back in the day when I lived a normal, relaxed life, I meditated daily, and I prayed off and on all day. Dancing gave me a physical creative outlet almost daily.

My writing kept me in touch with my soul and how I connected with all of human kind through my soul.  Although I've had more time recently, I haven't written much in this blog for these weeks.  I have almost never, even as a child, sat down to write and not had words flow through me.

But, they just haven't been flowing.  I would sit and stare at the computer screen, and nothing would come.  Or a thought would come, and it would be gone as fast as it came because I'd be so physically tired from the adrenaline withdrawal.  Only this week have I been able to sit and get my words again.

Almost always in my life, I've been able to push through what was in front of me and get done what needed to get done.  I've thought that a good thing.  Determination and perseverance of qualities valued in our culture.  Now I am not sure that the ability to push through whatever is in front of me is a good thing, certainly not for me.  I've used those qualities instead of establishing priorities and setting boundaries.  I've tried to prove I could do it all, without ever asking myself "What is the value of doing it all?"  And even, "Is that value something that is meaningful to me?"

I've written a lot about intention, and I've even written about buying into our culture's expectations to the exclusion of our personal spiritual intentions.  And without adrenaline masking what was happening, I can see how I've been seduced by the cultural norms.  Now, stripped of the adrenaline, relaxed, and much more conscious, I feel spiritual loneliness.  I am aware that I've lost important pieces of myself along the way, and I haven't really known exactly how to begin reclaiming them.

As I write, deep within me is a muffled chuckle: "You had to come to this," it says.  On New Year's Eve 1997, I finished my first draft of a manuscript for the book Choice Point.  I worked on it for another couple of years after that, polishing it.  About 50 people read it and thought it was an important work.  I was never able to find a publisher for it.  In the craziness of the last 15 years, Choice Point has gathered dust on a shelf, becoming badly dated.

The book is about choosing your soul's intention for its life, rather than buying into expectations of the popular culture around us.  I believe the principles are solid, but when I wrote it in the 1990s, I was in my relaxed period, and I couldn't really understand, or maybe remember, what it was like to make those hard choices.  I hadn't made them for a very long time.  In the frenetic years, I couldn't write about them, because I wasn't conscious enough.  Now, in my spiritual loneliness, I see the potential to bring life to the manuscript with full consciousness of the spiritual sacrifices that we often make, without even being aware we are making them.  That is the knowing of the muffled, "You had to come to this."

My experience reflects this truth: when I am writing a book, I need to live it before it can be birthed into the world.  So it was with Leading from the Heart, subtitled "choosing courage over fear."  I repeatedly had to reach deep within myself to find the courage of my heart.  As I was birthing The Alchemy of Fear, I had to face some of my deepest fears.  I am not surprised then that the Universe has provided me with this opportunity to step into my spiritual loneliness and find the truth of Choice Point.

Welcome back...to the world, that is!

Today I have completed one month on my new temporary assignment.  Two days ago I went back to my home agency to spend a few minutes with each of several people with whom I had loose ends to tie.  It was unanimous:  "You look so relaxed!" each of them said.  I actually had to sit for 15 minutes outside the office of one of them, waiting for her to be free.  And, I just sat there...relaxed, breathing.  What a difference a month makes.

How did I get here in just 30 days?  Well, let's start with where I was a month ago.  I'd been working 12-hour days for years.  I almost never got to eat lunch unless it was grabbing a bite, quite literally on the run.  Meetings were scheduled back-to-back, every 30 to 60 minutes, with no breaks, meaning that drinking water and bathroom stops were luxuries about which I'd forgotten.

When I walked out of the office at 7:30 most evenings and commuted home, I usually hit the door, headed to the kitchen to make coffee for morning, prepare lunch for those fleeting pass-throughs of my office when I might grab a morsel on the run, and cooked dinner, which I then tried to eat without falling asleep in my plate.  (Usually, but not always successful.  Success was usually contingent on the day of the week.  Higher likelihood of staying awake through dinner on Monday than Friday.)

That had been my life for years. So, when I started this new job which allowed me to work a "normal" workday and then walk to a Metro stop that was closer to home, My old programming was still in place.  One of the first evenings, I came home and did all of the above without falling asleep, and when I was cleaning the dishes from dinner, I glanced over at the clock, and it was 7:00!  I had done all that stuff, and it was still earlier than I had been accustomed to leaving the office.  I literally heaved a sigh...and then laughed out loud.

I quickly adjusted to being able to do things after work--run an errand or two, go to a dinner at my church or with a friend, go to a movie, volunteer for a local theater and see the play without falling asleep, do my laundry or pay bills on a week night, leaving time for more fun stuff on the weekend.  And, I started breathing and moved at a normal, rather than break-neck, pace.

When each of my appointments acknowledged how relaxed I looked Monday, I felt  acknowledgement that I was back in the world--I am a real person again.

On September 29, just days after starting the new job, I wrote in this blog that I had discovered that my accelerator had stuck in high gear, and I pledged to use these four and a half months to remember how I used to live.  I have to admit that early in my career, I had been a workaholic, and like any addiction, once an addict, always an addict.  When things got tight, in the early 2000s, I just fell right off the wagon and back into those old habits.

But, I do remember a very long time when I lived a sane life, stopping at the gym on the way home from work, having a drink and going over mail with my partner, and cooking together joyfully in the kitchen.  After it was established and when my business was going well, I both exercised and danced almost every day, and I took time to write. I cooked for fun and even played the piano occasionally, although never well.  My life was full but relaxed much of the time.

I have proven that I can reclaim that part of me again.  I have yet to prove that I can sustain it.  I do know that I need to be clearer about my boundaries, and I am optimistic that with a new boss when I return, I can maintain them.  Yet, I know the Universe abhors a vacuum, and the Universe of a recovering workaholic certainly abhors a vacuum.  I am being very intentional about identifying and exercising practices which will solidify my resolve.  Writing regularly again is one of them.  So is exercising. Pleasure reading is up there too.  I want to learn to do those things so regularly in the next three and a half months that my new healthier habits will sustain me when I go back to my old job.

I understand that having a life is a choice, and it is a choice that I am going to make, each and every day in the future.

In Service

A few weeks ago when Pope Francis was in the United States, he said, "Live authentically in a concrete commitment to our neighbor."  The following Sunday our pastor's sermon was on the duty to serve our fellow humans.

This week the scripture once again pointed to service, but this time to service to God.  You might easily summarize the text with President John Kennedy's famous quotation, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," except substituting "God" for "country."

In his remarks, our pastor ran through a litany of things that we ask God for: to get the job we want, to get in the university we want, to get the promotion we want, to have the romance we want, to have or recover health, to receive an important reward, to bring rain, to have the rains stop...you get the gist.  I have heard God referred to as the great carhop in the sky that we constantly turn to in order to bring us something we want.

Without doubt some of us do pray, "God show me where you need me," or "Allow me to be of service." And, often that comes with a caveat.  When I was spiritual coach to executives in the 1990s, one woman tearfully said how she wanted to be of service, but wasn't getting guidance.  As we talked, she clarified, God wanted her to do something up north, and she couldn't stand to be cold. Really?  "Oh, God, please use me between 9 and 4 on weekdays and only in places that aren't too hot or cold or wet or dry."  I am not sure that is how the prayer to be of service goes.

When doing the spiritual coaching, I used to remind clients that when they prayed, they needed to listen at least as much as talk, but most of us who do pray tend to talk a lot more than listen.  When we do listen, it is with filters about what we find acceptable to hear.

Spiritual listening is like a muscle, which must be worked regularly to become strong.  I am finding that in my own life.  In the 1990s when I had my own business and more or less controlled my schedule, my spiritual listening muscles were strong.  I regularly received very clear and precise guidance from whatever it is out there that I call God.  I was quite comfortable with totally changing course on a speech right in the middle of it, calling someone I didn't know for a conversation, and even moving across the nation to a place where I knew no one and didn't have work.  Things always worked out.

As those of you who follow this blog know, I am in a 4-1/2 month stint in a different job, raising money for 20,000 charities in an annual giving campaign.  I love being of service.  I am one of a group of loaned executives working with groups of managers with whom we brainstorm, track progress, share ideas, and even cheer-lead as they run their individual campaigns.  I love it.  I truly feel like I am serving--I am serving the agency campaign managers, and I am serving the charities who will do service with the money we raise.

The more normal work schedule I now have allows me to do some other things as well.  I have done some things at my church on week nights, and last week I volunteered at a theater, which I used to serve.  But I need to give more of myself.  My listening muscles have grown flabby from lack of use, or maybe I stopped getting messages because I was so regularly finding myself needing to ignore them. (Neither my boss nor my clients would have taken well to me not showing up for an event I was leading because I'd been called to write that day.) I truly don't know if I stopped getting them because I didn't follow, or if I got so good at ignoring them that I no longer hear them.

This morning in church I noticed a line in our "prayers for the people" that I have missed before.  I truly don't remember it, but I think I was listening differently this morning, "Free us from lack of vision, and from inertia of will and spirit."  Ouch!  I am not sure, but I think "inertia of will and spirit" may be the result of flabby listening muscles. It took me a few weeks to physically recover myself from the long hours of my regular job.  I am now entering a stage of spiritual recovery in which I intend to recover my listening muscles.

Winston Churchill once said, "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."  Whether I follow Pope Francis's encouragement to "Live authentically in a concrete commitment to our neighbor" or this week's scriptural encouragement to be of service to God, which in the end is likely to be the same,  I think it doesn't matter.  What does matter is that I step into a space where I am focused on giving instead surviving.

Engaged

Jose Carlos was the evening desk clerk at the small hotel where I stayed in Madrid.  Late one evening I went down to ask him for some directions that I needed for the next day.  He was so gleefully into whatever he was working on that I just stood and watched for a few minutes.  Now I want to clarify that this wasn't the situation which I've often encountered where someone is on their email or having a person conversation.  Jose Carlos was doing work.  I think he was working on something so unglamorous as charges for those checking out the next day.

Finally, I said something, and it was immediately apparent that he had no awareness that I had been standing there.  As soon as he saw me, he shifted his focus completely to me and my question. Whatever he had been consumed by was instantly a million miles away, and there was nothing in his attention except me and my need for directions.

Over the few days that I was stayed in the hotel I witnessed Jose Carlos being completely engaged in what he was doing a number of times.  Sometimes it was helping other guests. On a couple of occasions he was helping me.  But, always he was completely engaged in whatever he was doing.  In an era of multi-tasking, he was a sight to behold.

Since taking the psychology of happiness class this summer and being reminded of the "flow" state, I've increasingly been aware of how rarely I am fully engaged in activities.  I am doing a Spanish class on my iPhone while making dinner.  I am talking on the phone while checking email.  I am taking calls and responding to emails and people stopping by my office while attempting to design a session.  As research on multi-tasking has been proving, when we multi-task, we don't do anything well. I know that I don't do my best at anything when I am multi-tasking.

When I think about times when I was really into designing a session or writing a book, nothing else crept into my mind.  I was totally focused and extraordinarily creative. Work flowed through me. Time stopped.  At the end of the day, often I felt more energized than I had at the beginning.  And, it has been a long time since I worked like that.

For four months I am working out of a different office and doing a different job.  It is a job I've done before, but a long time ago and in a different setting.  I do have to pay attention to new particulars to the job, but it is still familiar enough that I can do a lot on autopilot.  What I've noticed in my first nine days on this job is similar to what I wrote about on September 29 in "The Accelerator is Stuck." I've been in a situation that has required multi-tasking for so long that I've forgotten how to focus.

My friend Amy who is a frequent contributor the this blog recently was guest on the "Transformation Cafe" radio program.  She spoke of finding God in the messiness of our lives.  I've known for decades that is where the real spiritual learning and growth occurs.  If, as spiritual teacher Carolyn Myss has said, "being present" is our most important spiritual lesson, then the ability to be fully engaged in what we are doing at any given moment is an essential aspect of that lesson.

Like taking my foot off the gas pedal of my life, being engaged might actually be more of an exercise in learning to say "no" to things that are less important so that I can focus on what I consciously choose to be really important in any moment.

A little bit ago, I received a phone call from someone while I was working on this blog post.  I really didn't want to talk on the phone. In looking back I was so disinterested in the conversation that I am certain that message came across.  I might even have been perceived as rude.  What I really wanted was to write.  I've missed it, and I actually had a 30-45 minutes in which I could write, and I'd been interrupted.  But, the truth is that I didn't have to answer the phone.  I could have stayed focused on the writing.

That was when it occurred to me how important it is to say "no".  Just because my phone rings doesn't mean that I have to pick up.  I can say "no" to it, let it roll to my voice mail, and return the call later when I could be fully engaged in the phone conversation.

I recently took samurai training.  We learned to live by a set of values, and the lines aren't always clear.  How to I choose between loyalty and compassion or commitment and compassion.  I need to say "yes" to both.  How do I do that?  At the end of the day of training, I wrote that to make this work I need to stay centered and stay present.  I need to be fully aware of what I am choosing and as importantly to what things I choose to say "no."

Jose Carlos was such a wonderful example of being engaged and choosing to be fully present to whatever has his attention.  I can imagine remembering his model as I choose to find God in the messiness of everyday life.  If I don't, God could be talking directly to me, and I might just miss it.

The Accelerator is Stuck!

This afternoon I went into the kitchen at work to toss together the ingredients for the lunch salad that I'd prepared the night before. As I was racing around, I man said something to me that just totally shocked me into consciousness.  He said, "You have no where to be and nothing to do.  Take your time."

Since sometime in late 2000 or early 2001, I've been racing.  In the early years, the dot.com bust had tanked my business, and I was attempting to right it before it sank. I raced. When I failed at that, I started teaching.  To earn a living as an adjunct college instructor requires teaching a lot of classes. That means lots of class preparation, paper grading, test making, and office hours. Up at 4 a.m. most days, my evening classes usually ended at 9 p.m. I raced all day.  Then when I got a consulting job that paid a normal salary, the expectation was that I'd work almost every waking hour to justify the salary.  I raced. I often fell asleep over my computer.

You get the gist.

I've been racing so long, and I think my accelerator has been stuck in overdrive.  When Thomas said to me, "You have no where to be and nothing to do,"  you could have knocked me over with a feather. For years there have always been five other things I should be doing and back-to-back meetings.  But, not now.  Of course, I had no where to be, and nothing I had to do. For a few seconds, I didn't know what to make of that.

When I finally got my head around it, I went into the lunchroom table, and I did something I've rarely done in the last 15 years. First, I breathed.  Then, I sat down, ate my lunch, and chewed my food. I tried to see if I could make my food last for 20 minutes. I had conversations with two interesting new coworkers.  With one, I shared Italian food/cooking stories.  My creativity kicked into gear as I thought about things I haven't cooked for a while, and mentally, I played with variations I might make.  I took a full 40 minutes for lunch.

I've been "loaned" by my employer to work for the Combined Federal Campaign (CFC) for 4-1/2 months.  I needed a break from the pace of work I've been keeping for years and from the toxic work environment in which I have found myself, which increasingly seems to be spinning completely out of control. I applied for the opportunity and was accepted.  Tomorrow I will have been there for a week.

There are times when we are very busy, but on each end of most days, there is time to catch my breath and to do paperwork, return email, make calls, and even to do analysis about how to improve campaign performance.  Such a luxury.

Today when Thomas made his life-changing comment to me, I'd been in overdrive for about four hours.  In my "regular" job, that wouldn't have slowed down for another seven or eight hours, and when it did, I'd be looking at a ton of email and prep for the next day.  Today, my four hours of overdrive was followed by delicious sanity...and lunch, of course.

I've read a number of different estimates of how many days it takes to develop a new habit.  Some say 30 days, and others report 21. Some longer, others shorter.  But, I have 4-1/2 months to practice breathing, walking at a normal pace, eating lunch, being creative, talking to coworkers, and just generally enjoying myself at work.  Surely I can form a useful habit in 4-1/2 months that I can take back to my "real job" with me.  That will definitely be my intention, and taking a new habit back to work with me will certainly be a wonderful investment in my life.

Fully in

Once again I find that similar messages surround me wherever I look.  This time the message is about being "fully in" or completely "going for it."  To mark the 200th anniversary of the founding of our church, the Bishop of Washington visited and preached today.  She shared a story of a friend who had an opportunity to be influential at a national level, but to do so was going to require the person to be "fully in."

Her friend was uncomfortable with that because opportunities in her life had just seemed to float by, and the individual could hop on the boat, so to speak, as it was passing if she was interested.  She'd really never needed to fully commit herself to something before.  But this time, she felt it was important enough that she should be fully in.

Three days ago I coached a client who had been fully in during the application process for what would have been a nice promotion.  She didn't get it.  Now, another opportunity has come along.  She is inclined to not get her hopes up again so that if she doesn't get the promotion, her hopes won't be dashed so terribly as they were last month.  Yet, in our conversation, she identified several things she needs to do to be a good candidate that really require her to be fully in.

She is from the Christian tradition and we talked about being "lukewarm water."  The book of Revelation in  the Christian scriptures says, "I know your works, that you are neither cold not hot: I would that you were cold or hot. So then because you are lukewarm, and neither cold not hot, I will spew you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:15-16.)  By the end of the session, my client really "got" that she couldn't be successful unless she was fully in.

As I walked home after church, I kept playing with this.  Be either hot or cold, but not lukewarm. The problem is, I have nothing that I can really get cranked up about enough to be "hot," and really nothing I am so indifferent to as to be "cold."  There must be something, I thought.

Almost as I had that thought, I knew what I needed to be fully in about: in 1997 I "finished" a book, which I call Choice Point.  I passionately marketed it for several years.  About 50 people have read it, and most feel like it was important and different from anything else in the market.  Repeatedly, the book met with rejections.  One publisher returned it so quickly, that I couldn't believe that enough time had passed for the manuscript to reach the publisher and be returned.

When my business tanked, I was forced to push the book to the back burner.  Out of sight, but definitely not out of mind.  It has been a couple years since I got it out and reread it.  The message is important, but the book is badly dated.  It would require major rework/rewrite.  I simply have no time or energy to do that.

Yet, today I knew the thing that I needed to be fully in about was Choice Point.  I truly have to admit that over the last decade, I couldn't even say that I had even cranked up the temperature on my passion for the book to lukewarm.  Totally cold.  Not fully in.  Not in at all.

I don't know when I will find the time to even read the book again, much less rewrite and update it.  Yet, I know in my heart of hearts, that is what I must do.

My  problem is not feeling fully in about anything.  I believe that, like my coaching client, I have been wounded too many times when I was fully in, and I don't want to pain of disappointment again. Yet, I know, that this book deserves the light of day.

When I think about being fully in, the first thing that comes to my mind is when will I find time?  I work very long hours, but I work those hours because of my commitment to my clients. What, I wonder, if I made my book as important as my clients.  Somehow that feels like a false choice to me because my clients are living breathing humans who are often in pain, and my book is a stack of paper.  But I know that my stack of paper could change lives, and it might even change the world.

Ten days ago, I took samurai training, and one of my take-aways was that I can't take care of others until I take care of myself.  My soul is in Choice Point.  Maybe I can't really take care of my clients until I take care of fully birthing this book into the world.  I am not sure how I will make this happen, but I am confident that if I make a commitment to my intention to do so, it will happen.

Being Flexible with the Universe

As I've written in this blog a number of times before, I love to take a few days at the Jewish New Year to reflect on the past year and to imagine the path before me in the next year. I choose to use this time to set my intentions for the year ahead. The date of the holiday fluctuates, but it is generally between mid-September and early-October.  This year it began at sundown on September 13.

I am not Jewish, but coinciding the timing for such reflection with the holiday makes sense to me, perhaps because I spent so many years, either as a teacher or student, starting a school year in the fall. I love to learn, and the anticipation on new lessons always excited me. Similarly, my reflections inevitably reveal lessons from the year past and point to potential learning in the year ahead.

Or maybe the timing makes sense to me because I am a gardener, and fall marks the conclusion of the harvest and the dropping of seeds into the ground to sprout the following spring. It is always rewarding to consider what I've grown in the past year and to wonder what I will seed in the year ahead.

For whatever reason, taking a few days of silence at this time of year has become essential to my spiritual growth and development for the last 20 years.  You can understand my consternation, then, when I discovered that this year's somewhat early holiday was going to occur during a short trip to Spain that I'd booked some time ago. I was book-ended on the trip with work commitments and a training session, making it difficult to extend my vacation in either direction. What would I do?  Fortunately or otherwise, the pace of activity leading to the trip overcame thoughts of figuring out what I would do.

As it worked out, I was in Barcelona on the 13th.  I love architecture, and there is nowhere that I've been which is more richly endowed with extraordinary edifices as those seeded by Antoni Gaudi about Barcelona.  At about noon on the 13th, as I sat soaking in the light and color, awestruck again as I'd been during an earlier visit in 2012, the date occurred to me.  For someone who loves architecture, there could not have been a more spiritual setting for reflection.  So I sat and reflected.

(For  more images, see: https://www.google.com/search?q=pictures+of+la+sagrada+familia+barcelona&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0CDgQ7AlqFQoTCMz83Lif_scCFYVWPgodmpQFtA&biw=864&bih=494#imgrc=5xYv7yXQlAZ4LM%3A)

The funny thing is that when I'd shared my dilemma about not having my meditation retreat with my friend Amy a few weeks earlier, she'd suggested that I find a church wherever I was and meditate. Without conscious intention, that is exactly what had occurred. Over the next 24 hours, I kept bumping into experiences that stimulated reflection, and the day ended with me sitting and reflecting in the Cathedral of Barcelona, the only Gothic cathedral in the city.

Furthermore, during the week I was in Spain, I ran into one situation after another that encouraged me to look inward. (More on some of those in the next few days.) So, my time of reflection was quite different than had been my norm, but by being flexible with the Universe and letting it leading me where I needed to be, I accomplished the intention of my annual retreat in a very different way. (And for my listening and flexibility, the Universe threw in some very good Spanish food and wine as a bonus--have to say that really beat my usual fasting regime.)

Where has compassion gone?

As the image of a dead three-year-old refugee boy, laying face down in the sand at the edge of the surf, gripped the world over the weekend, stories of compassion began to emerge.

Bryndis Bjorgvinsdottir, a young woman still living at home with her parents, scoffed at the Iceland government's offer to take in 50 refugees.  She launched a Facebook page, saying a friend had opened his home to several families, and she would pay airfare for five people.  Over the last few days, 11,000 Icelanders have offered to support refugees to resettle in their country, over and above the meager response of their government.

Iceland isn't alone in the paltry government response to the current refugee crisis. Not only are numbers low in many developed countries, including the US and Canada, but the processing time is so glacial that people die for lack of response.  The family of the young boy above, who had relatives in Canada and had attempted to resettle in both Canada and the US, is among them.  The boy, his mother, and brother all died as their inflatable raft deflated while they literally and unsuccessfully hung on for dear life.

On Canadian Broadcasting's Day Six, host Brent Bambury interviewed a middle-aged Vietnamese woman who, as an 11-year-old child traveling alone, was one of the earlier "boat people" that time from Vietnam. She had been sponsored to come to Canada, where she started a new life.  She eventually became a professional, started her own business, and brought other family members, who also started businesses, to Canada.

For several years while I lived in North Carolina another of the Vietnamese boat people manicured my nails.  She and her husband, also a boat person that she met in a refugee "tent city" in Hong Kong, also started a successful business and a family and became active in their community. They frequently hosted fund-raiser for one charitable cause of another.

In my lifetime, I recall the Vietnamese boat crisis and before that Cuban Mariel Boatlift,  who risked their lives to make a run to Florida. Over 600,000 people, many lone children, resettled in the US. My pastor was about the same age as the girl above from Vietnam, when he too made the risky journey to the US.  In 2013, he gave the invocation at President Obama's second inauguration.

Not so many years before I was born, 250,000 refugees were resettled in the US after World War II. Throughout the 19th Century, thousands of Jewish refugees of pogroms in Eastern Europe landed in the US to make a better, safer life for themselves and their families. They, their children, and grandchildren have become a who's who of the entertainment industry and the professions.

Also in the mid-19th Century, droves of Irish fled to the US to escape the "Potato Famine."  In 1947 the city of Boston alone, then a city of 115,000, took in 37,000 immigrants, roughly one-third their population. In the same year, New York with a population of 372,000 took in 53,000 Germans. Even though it is easy to dismiss these surges with idyllic views of the 19th Century, a careful reading of history shows that the influxes were not painless.

As recently as last year, the US attempted to lock out or return thousands of refugees from gang violence in Central America.  El Salvador is now known as the most dangerous country on earth. One of the leading presidential candidates disparages those attempting to come to the US as murders and rapists, rather than showing us a path to our compassionate roots.

Having slept restlessly Saturday night with aching for the thousands fleeing some of the worst monsters ever to walk this earth and our developed world's lack of gumption to do something to help, I entered an UberX vehicle Sunday morning and chatted with my driver, a man I would guess to be in his late 20s.  He had come here from Ethiopia two and a half years ago. He was quick to tell me he was a Christian, signalling that he has probably been the brunt of the anti-Muslim prejudice that predominates this country.  Running his own business, he told me his day begins at 4 a.m. on weekends, starting with people who are going to the airport.  He generally works 14 hours on the weekend days.

As he dropped me at church, he asked that I pray for him. I felt like asking for him to pray for those of us who can't see the richness that comes to our country with industrious and talented immigrants like himself.

While one great-great grandmother was Native American, the rest of my ancestors were immigrants. In fact most of us in the US today are the descendants of immigrants.  Many of their ancestors were in a similar situation to the current refugees, fleeing physical, emotional, cultural, religious, or physical persecution in their homelands.  Yet there seems to be collective amnesia that there were people in this country that may have found the onslaught of their very own ancestors just as potentially unsettling as they do the current wave of refugees.

Every major religion has a belief that is somehow equivalent to the "Golden Rule"--do unto others as we would have them do unto us.  Would we not want compassion if we were in inflatable rafts, risking life and limb to escape barbarians in our homelands?  What has happened to our compassionate roots?

I am troubled about how I can make a difference, even as Pope Francis has called for every Catholic parish to take in a refugee family.  Bryndis Bjorgvinsdottir has demonstrated once again what Margaret Mead showed us decades ago: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."

My Own Personal Genius

After church yesterday, I came in and flipped on the local NPR station as I often do. I listen as I cook. Radiolab was mid-show when I tuned in, so I don't have a lot of context for what came earlier.  I was, however, absolutely fascinated by two interviews about the creative process.  The first was with a musician, who shall remain nameless because I tuned in mid-interview and can't find it on the web. The other was with best-selling author Elizabeth Gilbert of Eat, Pray, Love fame.

My fascination was with their separate descriptions of controlling the creative process--what I will describe as managing the muse.  Gilbert described the difference in how we talk about "genius," as something a person is, opposed to what the ancient Greeks did, which was something we have.  Having a genius feels rich, maybe even decadent.  Having a genius at my personal disposal offers limitless possibilities.

Both artists described talking to the muse as something one masters. The musician described being in heavy traffic when a marvelous song just came to him.  He said that he told the muse, or as Gilbert would say the genius, that it was obvious that he was in traffic and couldn't capture the song.  He ordered it to come back when he could write it down, if it was to be his song...and it did.  He literally acted as if the muse was his servant.

Gilbert told similar stories, but I was most interested in the one about the title of her popular Eat, Pray, Love book.  She said throughout the writing and even through editing and proofing she could only come up with a "working title" that she knew wasn't right.  She told of an extensive process of soliciting input from many friends, but she knew that none of them were correct.  It was only when she told her muse to give her a title that she awakened the next morning with Eat, Pray, Love, and instantly knew it was the title for which she'd been waiting.

This grabbed my attention because I have had a compelling relationship with titles of my books, both written and those still incubating. I have often had the inspiration for a book that felt like it wanted to pour out of me right now but inconveniences of daily life, like earning my paycheck, got in the way.  Unlike Gilbert, I most often get the title before I get the book.  Years ago I started a folder on my computer called "Books in the Making," and when I had one of these inspirations, I'd start a new document and write a paragraph or two to jog my memory when I have time to write.

It's not like I have had an excess of writing time in recent years, but on the occasions when I have set aside writing time, reading the files has not recaptured the energy of the inspiration that I'd had earlier.  In fact, if I can remember any of it, what remains is a lukewarm trite topic.  Where was the idea that was so great?

I am truly intrigued by the concept of ordering "my genius" to hold that energy and come back to me when I have time to at least write a chapter or two to warm the groove.  I can promise you that I will do so the next time I have an inspiration.  In the meantime, I expect that I will need to build a little "mastering my genius" muscle to figure out how to make the concept work for me, but doing so is a task that I am up to.  In fact, I am actually looking forward to it.  Do you suppose I can name "my genius?"

Lazy Summer Day

Saturday I had a wonderful lazy afternoon with a dear friend.  We lunched ever so slowly on my balcony, enjoying a little prosecco as we looked at some art photos she had developed and talked of both past and anticipated travel adventures. We luxuriated on a comfortably warm, late summer afternoon. We also spoke of challenges and deeper things.

Tonight I shared a bi-weekly call with another friend.  For the first bit I was walking as we talked, and then I found a shady park bench and just enjoyed the conversation.  We chatted of triumphs, challenges, and, aware of the coming Jewish New Year, of hopes for the year ahead.

One of the Seven Habits of Happiness in the class I just completed is "Relationships." The first habit we explored in the class, it is the one in which I feel the greatest void. I've truly pondered how I can fix that situation, but I can't resurrect family members that are no longer with us. When I've moved, although friends have said they would come and visit, each time only one has actually done that--one time. One of the prices I've paid for needing to start over again later in life by moving to a new city is that at a certain stage in life my contemporaries are solidly in long-term relationships.  I have a few friends who are there occasionally, but the truth is that they are infrequent relationships.

These were the first times since my class that I spent time with friends.  With each, I really savored our time together.  While I often rush from one event in my life to another without really enjoying any of it, in these times I was present, totally in the moment, mindful, and grateful--all habits of happiness.

As a definite introvert, I more often than not go through life happily alone, but my class and time on Saturday heightened my awareness of how relationships enrich my life, so instead of slipping into church, participating in worship, and quietly slipping out the side door as I usually do, yesterday I made a point to introduce myself to a couple I hadn't seen or talked to before. Today, I went out of my way to talk with someone in my office that I usually just greet in passing.

I believe that my happiness boils down to holding myself accountable.  Taking a class won't do it unless I act on what I have learned, and this week I've really learned how important relationships are. I am holding myself accountable for creating more of them.

Remorse and Redemption

I just saw "Ricki and the Flash," Merryl Streep's new movie about a woman who abandons her three children and husband to pursue a career as a rock musician.  Although Ricki attempts to put the family part of her life behind her, the hole in the center of her life gnaws at the edges of it, stealing her joy and capacity to love.  In the end (no spoiler here) she is able to redeem herself.

During the 30-minute walk home from the movie the themes of remorse and redemption kept toying with me.  I did a little research when I got home and kept bumping up against Khaled Hosseini's best selling novel The Kite Runner about the boy Amir who betrays his best friend Hassan.  When his guilt gnaws at him, he attempts to assuage his pain with yet another duplicitous act.

Eventually, both Ricki and Amir find redemption and atonement.  The word "atonement" has been broken to demonstrate its meaning as "at-onement."  Atonement does imply a healing--a softening of the separation created by betrayal until we are able to be whole, both within ourselves and with the victim(s) of the act.

While I like to assuage my own guilt at pain I know I have caused by saying "I was doing the best I could with where I was at the time."  But, is that enough?  Twelve-step programs demand "making amends."  In Amir's case, he is able to adopt Hassan's son after he has been orphaned.  Ricki, too, finds a way to heal relationships. Neither can remove the pain caused, but each is able to bridge the gap caused by their acts.

As I walked this evening, I felt truly remorseful.  I know that I haven't always been the easiest person to live with, and I have struggled with how to follow my heart without being selfish and hurtful of others in my life. I have the deepest regret at the pain I caused my ex-husband when I, not that much unlike Ricki except there were no children, moved across the country to pursue to dream to be an author, coach, and speaker.  I also know that the same move really hurt my adopted parents with whom I was very close before they died.

I believe that remorse is the first step toward redemption, but atonement requires "making amends," and that is often much harder, especially if someone isn't still in my life or, as with mama and papa, have even passed away.  I wish I could say I knew how to bridge the gulf that I've created, but I really don't know how.  What I do know is that when my intention is clear, God will provide me the means to do what I need to do.  All things considered, I guess that is really all I need to know.

Micro-moments of Love

One of the greatest discoveries in my Psychology of Happiness class was a YouTube video, featuring Barbara Fredrickson, a dual professor in psychology and business at the University of North Carolina. Entitled "Love--A New Lens on Thriving,"* Fredrickson describes what happens to us physiologically when we love someone. She isn't necessarily talking about romantic love or "chemistry," but more universal love.

Not only does love make us feel better, i.e., have more positive emotions, but the health benefits are significant, ranging from the production of Mother Nature's feel-good chemical oxytocin, nicknamed the hormone of love, to deeper sleep, and reduced depression.  Furthermore, it increases trust and resilience.

Among other research findings, Fredrickson reports that in as little as 10 minutes of loving kindness meditation a day over a three-month period we can change the vagal tone of the heart, something previously believed to be unchangeable.  What occurs is that our heart slows on the exhale, actually producing a positive moment of warmth and love.

I wondered, exactly what is loving kindness meditation?  I did a little research, and, while there are countless descriptions, quite simply put, it is thinking positive thoughts of love about the world around us and imagining those positive feelings flowing in and out of our hearts with the breath.  (If there are authorities on loving kindness meditation out there cringing, please jump in on the conversation, but this is a three-line description, not a dissertation.)  In 10 minutes of this practice a day, we can literally change our physiology in a positive way.

In the three weeks since I first watched the video, I've been practicing for 10 minutes a day, and I've discovered an amazing thing.  Just by starting my day with the loving kindness meditation, I am able to "plug into" that wonderful positive, relaxed feeling at just the expression of intention during the day.  Very cool stuff...when I am awake enough to realize I need to pull in the heavy duty love chemicals.

The second item of interest in the video that I will talk about has to do with creating connection.  Eye contact and smiles have an amazing ability to evoke mimicry, whereby we unconsciously begin mirroring the other person which creates even more connection.  (The technical term if bio-behavioral synchrony.) A virtuous cycle of connection leading to more connection to even more connection is perpetuated.  We build escalating love and trust. As long as we feel safe we can generate "micro-moments of love" just by making connection--eye contact, smiles, touch, or voice.

I've been pondering The Grocery Store Game, which I've written about a number of times.  (See the blog-post for December 1, 2013, "Could We Change The World in 30 Days?") The secret to the game was to make eye contact and really feel gratitude as the player says, "Thank you."  I've played it many times, as have a number of my coaching clients.  There can be a real and sincere connection made in a split second at a grocery store check stand.  While Fredrickson spoke of connections with those we know, as I read about Fredrickson's micro-moments of love, I couldn't help but wonder, is that what is happening in The Grocery Store Game?

While the intention of The Grocery Store Game is to give a simple gift of gratitude to a stranger, it would seem that as we play it, the giver of gratitude is actually starting in motion many positive physical benefits for him/herself as well.

As I think about both my ability to "drop into" the feeling of loving kindness and generating micro-moments of love through connection, my belief in the ability of humankind to generate a "river of love" that connects all of us is renewed.  That we might be healthier because we have is an added benefit.








*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZxoPLtRnxZs

Housecleaning

I have just finished a fast-paced course on the Psychology of Happiness.  There was a lot of writing and even more reading, as well as participation in online class forums.  While I have definitely just done a major sigh of relief, I will miss some of the fruitful conversations (and consequent personal insights) that I've had with my classmates.   Not much of content was new to me but the self-discoveries along the way were invaluable.

There was a twice a year ritual that I experienced while growing up in the Midwest:  housecleaning. We cleaned more than twice a year, but the fall and spring housecleaning was different.  Literally everything in the house was turned over and cleaned.  Windows were washed. Drawers were emptied, sorted to dispose of things that had outlived their usefulness or size, and reordered.  More than just cleaning, the ritual was cleaning out.

For a few years in my adulthood, I continued the ritual, but gradually it went from twice a year to once a year.  First the windows were dropped off.  Then the cleaning out the drawers fell away. Gradually, the ritual just disappeared. Even on my way-too-frequent moves, I seemed not to find the time or priority to clean out.

As my class has been drawing to an end, I've felt myself itching to clean out.  That may at least be in part due to the fact that stacks of reading materials and outlines for essays have overtaken my small desk.  A second computer that is still not been completely replaced by the new one, and related technology items, add to the disarray as does an inappropriate gift I received a few months ago and haven't quite known what to do with.  I've wished I could just push it all into a waste bin and make it go away, but I know things of value lurk in the piles. I think that has just been symbolic of what has been going on inside of me as this class is drawing to a close.

I've been feeling the need to psychologically and spiritual clean out as well.  After 14 years of serious financial struggle since the failure of my business, I am finally to a place where I can let my shoulders drop a bit.  After five years of the most dysfunctional work environment that I've ever witnessed in 25 years of consulting with organizations, three layers of management above me have either been removed or quit in the last months.  While we are now at about half-staff, and a crushing workload faces me daily as far as I can see, I can find potential that new leadership may bring.  Hope is on the horizon.

All that leads me to have discovered in these three weeks that I've been in serious fight-or-flight mode for years.  For so long, that it has become habitual.  While the content of the class has not been anything I didn't know or even anything that I didn't practice for years, it has helped me re-member who I am. I say re-member because it feels like part of myself was put on a shelf and forgotten.  If this class hasn't helped me pull it off the shelf and reintegrate it completely, at the very least I have it in my hands--all of me in my hands.

The cleaning out that I really feel the need for right now is getting rid of all the habits and behaviors that came with the fight-or-flight so that I literally have room to breathe again.  And, the funny thing is that I also think I want to actually clean out, not just metaphorically.

The myth of Psyche demonstrates that the role of women is to sort, pick out what is useful and what has outlived it usefulness.  I think my sorting muscles have atrophied, and physically cleaning my desk, files, closet, and pantry will help me get them in shape for the spiritual sorting I am beginning. While I might like to treat my psyche like my desk and make all the clutter just go away, I know that good stuff is buried in there that I don't want to lose. So, sort I will.

Bisy Backson

My course reading for yesterday included Benjamin Hoff's the Tao of Pooh.  When I picked the book up after class, I was on the chapter, "Bisy Backson."  Bisy Backson is a character named for the expression, "Busy--Back Soon."  Bisy, it seems, frenetically dashes through life, first in one direction and then another.  When Bisy exercises, the intent is to force fitness, as opposed to allowing it to develop naturally from the inside.  Bisy reminded me a lot of myself.

Thirty years ago a friend described me as being like a mosquito on speed.  He could have as easily described me a Bisy Backson.  For 15 of those 30 years, I mellowed out, mindfully and joyfully going through life.  What happened?  Life is part of it.  Part of it is having an employer instead of being self-employed, but those years have also occurred in a time when employers behave as if they own the people who work for them instead of renting them for 8-9 hours a day.  In my world, you haven't done anything special until you've put in 12 hours a day, and even then, it must be persistent.  (What have you done for me lately?)

Still another part is living in a larger city, which I love for many things it has to offer, but also fully recognize life in the city is much faster paced. There's so much to do, and I want to make up for all those years living in small cities and do it all. Finally, our devices keep us connected and multi-tasking 24x7.  (Understand that I would not want to give up my devices either.)

My class yesterday really heightened my awareness of how the level of mindfulness that used to pervade me had evaporated.  Through the late afternoon and evening, I was increasingly aware of my racing about.  I even noticed the tension in my shoulders as I brushed my teeth, as if the two minutes on my brush timer would go any faster if I was tense than if I just relaxed and enjoyed it.

The three scripture readings in church this morning, one from the Old Testament book of 2 Samuel, one from the epistles of the New Testament, and the third from the Gospel of Mark, all had to do with God being at home in us.  The Assistant Rector's comments addressed the need for us to provide an appropriate "home" for God within us.

Oy! OMG! Eek!  I experienced physical pain in my heart when I thought about God being in me, and I really believe that God does dwell in each of us.  I wouldn't think of having guests in my bricks and mortar home with such chaos.  I go out of my way to have peace and order--to provide a warm and welcoming place of refuge for my guests from such freneticism.  I prepare favorite foods or pick up special treats.  I want my guests to feel how special they are to me.

Yet, I clearly am not making nearly so fostering environment for God as I make for my human friends.  The visual that came to my mind was that God would be trying like crazy to escape my body.  When I thought what it would be like to be trapped in my body, I imagined God being thrashed about in several directions as I chaotically went one way and then the other, constrained by the tension in my body and hardly taking time to breathe--literally.

Why would God want to be at home in my body? Could this be why, after feeling God's presence so intently for so long, that I've frequently felt so disconnected in the last dozen years?  I want to put Bisy Backson to rest, but that allows me to get off without being accountable. Bisy needs nurturing of the kind that I've been unwilling to give myself. To put Bisy to rest allows me to continue mindlessly thrashing about with the consciousness of Bisy put out to pasture. Can I even find it in me anymore to mindfully love the person who lovingly builds a safe, sane and tranquil refuge for God in me?

Even though I am only a day into the class, it seems to me that the Seven Habits of Happiness are so inter-related that doing one really well will accomplish doing them all.

The First Day of Class

As a youngster, I always looked forward to the start of school, and my first encounter with insomnia came the night before the first day of school.  I'd be so excited that I couldn't possibly go to sleep. Not much has changed for me.  Today was the first day of my Psychology of Happiness class.  While I did sleep last night, I was just as excited. My passion for learning sparked yet again. Up earlier than usual this morning, I completed my chores had been completed 90 minutes before the start of class. I was eager and waiting.

There are so many ways that I am grateful for this class, and I'm particularly happy that I delayed my March start of this class until this group.  As we did our class introductions, almost ever one of us spoke of "resilience" as the trait that we are most proud of, and all of us shared that we'd had to overcome major, multiple, and even recurring challenges in life. About two-thirds of the way through introductions, one of my new classmates said we must all be related--from the same family.  We are certainly kindred spirits, who seemed to bond almost immediately.

Like many first classes, this one started with a high-level overview, and we will drill down into each topic as the course proceeds.  For this class, the overview revealed "Seven Habits of Happiness":

• Quality relationships
• Caring & acts of kindness
• Physical health
• Flow
• Character strengths & virtues
• Spiritual engagement
• Positive Mindset

Even though this was the survey class, I immediately recognized how these seven topics and the characteristics within each splendidly tied together many aspects of life with which I've struggled.  We were asked to pick one of these to focus on for the duration of the class. Intuitively, I knew "physical health" was the one for me.  As frequent readers will recall, I've struggled with allowing work to squeeze exercise out of my daily routine, and I've wrestled with my sugar addiction.  My desire to be present significantly impacts several aspects of my health.  Doing my physical therapy exercises daily greatly influences the level of pain with which I live. 

As my day began to wind down, I reflected on this list of happiness habits, and I thought about how powerful my intention is when I really put my mind to something, most certainly the foundation of my resilience.  I knew specific things that I want to do for each of the areas, except "Flow."  

I know "flow" well: it is that state in which we are having so much joy with what we are doing that we lose track of time and consciousness.  It requires a high skill level and equally high challenge.  Flow requires that we really care about what we are doing. The possibility to "win" must be present.  

The place in my life in which I am most predictably in "flow" is when I write.  When writing Leading from the Heart, I would often find that it was getting dark outside on long summer days when I began to get tired, the first experience I'd had of being conscious since sitting down to write, maybe 8 to 10 hours earlier.  I wouldn't eat, drink, or go to the bathroom, not due to deprivation, but because I was really out of my body and unable to experience the signs of bodily needs.  

Similarly, I recall one day when writing The Game Called Life, a book that I finished in five days, I actually wrote 32 pages in one day.  With my conscious logical mind, I have absolutely no concept how I did that, but I truly surrendered to my flow state.

I've experienced flow in other places in my life--when gardening, when dancing, occasionally when cooking, often when coaching, and sometimes when working on designs for my organization development (OD) work.  Currently, I am encountering impediments to the flow state in most of these areas of my life.  The northern exposure of my balcony garden makes "winning" almost impossible. (My neighbor warned me, but hope springs eternal.) I rarely have a dance partner any more who challenges me.  My OD design work is often not challenging, and when it is, there are so many interruptions that getting to that place where I lose consciousness is impossible.

Lest you think this is a lot of grumbling and complaining, it is not.  In my heart of hearts, I know that I can experience flow every single day just by choosing it.  Every time I write this blog, I fall into a flow state.  Yet, with increasing frequency, I have chosen to let the demands of longer and longer days on the job push writing out of my day.  A week ago, I had a really good idea for a post and even wrote myself a note so I wouldn't lose the thought.  By the time that I found energy to write Thursday evening, I sat staring at the note with no recollection at all of my earlier inspiration.

I have no illusions that taking this class will transform all of my bad habits, or that I will miraculously find the energy and will to write at the end of a 12-hour day.  However, there is one thing about intention about which I have become very clear: it is like target practice.  If I miss the bulls-eye, I aim again and give it another shot. Over time, I become more and more consistent at reaching my intention.  There are aspects of my life that 30 years ago I would have been shocked to learn that I now do quite consistently.  My hope is that looking back to 2015 in another 25 or 30 years, I will see that the things with which I struggle today have become happy habits in my life.