Ladybugs

To my way of thinking, one of the great works of early 21st Century philosophy is the 2004 film "Under the Tuscan Sun."  I purchase few movies, but it was one. I watch it a few times every year with pen in hand because there are so many great quotes I want to remember.

A concept that the extraordinary character Katherine shares with Tuscan newcomer Francesca, who is impatient to have things in her life that she doesn't have--a man, children, and a family to cook for. Katherine tells her that when she was a girl she would look for ladybugs everywhere and not be able to find one.  She would fall into the grass in exasperation and fall asleep, awakening to find herself covered with ladybugs.  I have always taken that to mean that whatever we are looking for will find us, if we just stay still.

There were several things that I want to explore in this transition, but just really didn't know how and in one case even where to start.

One was health coaching and the last week or two of December my email box was full to overflowing with information about several health-coaching programs, free webinars to introduce programs and the like.  I don't recall ever getting such a plethora of announcements about the topic. Of course, those who have been following this blog know that I am enrolled in one of them, exploring a topic of lifelong interest.  Just like ladybugs, I put health coaching on my list, and the resource were there.

I have followed the field of positive psychology since Professor Martin Seligman, Ph.D., rocked the American Psychological Association (APA) in the late 1990s.  Prior to that time, psychologists were only concerned about how we were broken and dysfunctional rather than how we could be happier and more satisfied with our lives. The psychology of happiness was my research topic for my Coach Certification training program a few years ago.  Last summer I completed a Psychology of Happiness certification. I have several related books on this shelf of unread books, but I wanted to go deeper. Over the weekend, a colleague, who knew nothing of my interest, emailed me information about a documentary on happiness, and today another sent me a page of links about the second wave of positive psychology.  When I laid back and didn't focus, like ladybugs, sources of exploration just literally landed on my desk.

Since seeing the picture of the dead three-year-old Syrian immigrant boy on a beach about 18 months ago, my heart has ached silently for so many like him.  There are 21 million refugees in the world today; half of them are children. I've gone to the website of the United Nations High Commission on Refugees.  I've given what little I can afford to organizations doing good work. Yet, I have felt so distant from the agony of these people ripped from their homes, but I didn't really see myself traveling halfway around the world to work in a camp. There must be something more I could do; figuring out how has been on my list of things to explore.

Just like ladybugs, resources have fallen on my path.  My book club is reading City of Thorns this month, a book about life in a refugee camp in Kenya, housing refugees primarily from Somalia. Built as a temporary camp for 90,000 refugees 20 years ago, half a million people now call it home and no end for the need is in sight.

Yesterday, I received a draft of a plan for our church to be more actively engaged in responding to the crisis.  There are 12 months of activities planned.  More than that, attending tonight's dialogue about the crisis were people who have been or are actively engaged in this work in our community.

I was introduced to the concept of design-thinking four or five years ago in a creativity and innovation class I took. I read Tom and David Kelly's book Creative Confidence.  They are arguably the fathers of design-thinking. Last year I got a certification in Human-Centered Design.  Every time I've gotten near the topic, it flipped my switches.  It is on my list.  A few days ago I turned on a "Hidden Brain" podcast to entertain me while I was walking.  The topic: design-thinking.

With the exception of putting a few words on a list, entitled, "Things to Explore," I have not had to take a bit of initiative on any of these topics.  It has all just fallen to me.

An important lesson about intention lies in Katherine's ladybug wisdom.  Not unlike the joke, "Be careful what you wish for," we need only to have an intentional thought, and the reality can manifest right before our eyes.  We all have stories.  I think that the other side of this coin, however, is that we can't make things happen.  It's the Don't Push the River thing again (1/13/17.)

Why do some things happen so easily then, and we just can't seem to make others happen at all?  I think it has to do with aligning with the pureness of our intentions for our lives when we came into human form.  If our intention serves our souls, we will be covered with proverbial ladybugs, and they will come to us in ways we could not have imagined.