What Gets Me Up in the Morning?

I've been writing about thoughts I've had while reading Blue Zones--9 Lessons for Living Longer from the people who've lived the longest. The last of the characteristics which centenarians in "blue zones"--those regions that have a disproportionate number of individuals who live to be over 100--shared across the globe was a "sense of purpose."  I particularly liked the Okinawan's embrace of "ikigai"--the reason they get up in the morning.

While I've always felt like we have a reason that we are in the world, and I've also thought that it evolves over our lives, I've generally had the mental model of life purpose as a major contribution to the world.  However, in the blue zones the reason that gets people up in the morning is a focus of activity that individuals take with them through life.  For one, it is maintaining his ability to do certain physical exercises.  For another, it is hiking to the top of a ridge he has scaled every day for 80 years to see the spectacular view. For still another, it is caring for her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and sheer delight in holding her first great-great-grandchild.

Whatever it is for each of these, it is something that gets them out of bed in the morning.

I've actually been struggling with getting up in the morning during my transition period.  Not in a depressed way.  After a lifetime of bouncing up and hitting the day running, as the old commercial used to say, "My get-up-and-go got up and went."  I have shifted to a night-owl schedule which is more natural to me.  And, I really wanted not to have to b aroused by an alarm ever again.  I used to wake after 7-1/2 or 8 hours of sleep, even without the alarm, so why should I need it?  At first, when I slept long, I thought it was years of exhaustion accumulated and demanding rest.

Once I am up and moving, I can focus from activity to activity, and I get a reasonable amount accomplished.  I've been ticking things off my to-do list, and I am pleased to say that a long Outlook task list was completed today.  I've taken a number of webinars and am reading several books in parallel.  When I start moving, I have plenty of focus and energy.

It's just getting started.  About a week ago, I even started setting the alarm again, but except on the day when I had to report for surgery, I've shut it off and gone back to sleep.  Then I read about ikigai. While I have lots to keep me busy once I am awake, I don't feel like I have a reason that compels me to get up in the morning.  In large part, that is what this transition is about--finding that new purpose. But perhaps I've been aiming too high.  Maybe my purpose could be as simple as living the best life to carry me to 100 or writing in this blog every day, even though there are many days when no one reads it.

What, I've been asking myself, will make me want to bound from bed the way serving my clients did when I had a regular job? (And when that was gone, it told me that it was time to find something different to focus on in my life.)  I'm not there yet, but having the question will allow me to play around with some options when the alarm goes off in the morning.

Who's in Charge?

I finished reading Blue Zones--9 Lessons for Living Longer from the people who've lived the longest last night.  It has left me pondering two questions.  I will explore one today, and I'll save the other for tomorrow's post. I'd like to start with "locus of control." The textbook that I used to teach organizational behavior defines "locus of control" as "the degree to which people believe they are masters of their own fate."*

What the textbook says, and what I taught, is that if a person believes their success is internally driven, called "internal," they are more highly motivated and willing to take action to make things happen in their lives. They generally perform better on the job, demonstrating their belief that they are the ones that influence career success. Internals believe their health is largely in their hands, and they take steps to stay healthy. Consequently, they have lower rates of absenteeism.

By contrast, "externals" believe that some force outside of themselves determines their fate.  In that case, they are not inclined to take steps to advance their careers or their lives.  Why would they, since they don't believe that anything they do, for good or not, can change the course of their lives?  They generally aren't engaged in their work and are less satisfied in their career and life in general.

Many externals believe that God or some other outside force is piloting the ship of their destiny, but many internals attribute God's desire for us to experience abundance to the reason they are in charge of their destiny.  Prosperity gospel churches and Mastermind groups are examples of the latter group.

The uncomfortable juxtaposition of these ideas has been on my heart for decades.  I am all about intention, which might lean to internal locus of control, but I clearly believe that God steers us, uses us as vessels to accomplish work, and stops us when we go astray.  Many years ago I came to believe that God would guide us but we had the responsibility to execute The Plan.  Furthermore, if we have spiritual lessons to learn, God won't intervene without being asked, forcing us to grapple with whatever lesson is at hand. In Choice Point, I wrote about this as the dance we do with God: God leads, we follow but we have to know how to do our part.

Now, you may ask, what does all this locus of control talk have to do with Blue Zones and living longer.  It ends up that people to live to be 100 and beyond demonstrate the dichotomy with which I've wrestled.  Most centenarians do have faith that something beyond themselves is steering them through life.  But, contrary to what behavioral researchers have found in workplaces, those who live long are happy, they find joy in life, and they laugh off things that don't go as they might have liked--even in situations as trying as the death of a child.  "There's a bigger plan," is what most would say. "Don't worry."  And, clearly, the external orientation of their destiny has not had negative impact on their health.

Stress and worry are detrimental to our health. Those "externals," who just let go of things, rid their bodies of cortisol, the stress hormone which has significant deleterious impact on our bodies. Wherever Buettner and his team found high concentrations of people who live to 100 and beyond, Bob Marley's lyrics, "Don't worry. Be happy," echo prominently, but joyfully.

Once again I find myself in a gray zone, wishing to ask, "Is it internal?" or "Is it external?"  Instead I am going to integrate the several lessons.  While behavioral researchers have found that externals are less satisfied with their lives, it is because of a sense of resignation that whatever is controlling their lives has decided, "This is as good as it gets." Conversely, the centenarians who believe an external force controls their lives believe that it is a force for good which is watching out for them.  "Things are going to be better; I just don't understand how."  Rather than the source of control, I think satisfaction of life lies in a deep-seated optimism that whatever is going on--good or bad--it is destined to be better.




*Stephen P. Robbins, Organizational Behavior, Prentice Hall, 2005, Glindex, P. 642.

Health, Happiness, Wholeness

I had minor surgery a couple of days ago and after a day of pretty much sleeping it off, I've been up to my ears in exploration--watching videos on YouTube and reading.  Spiritual teacher Caroline Myss has said that when we find what we believe to be a spiritual truth, we should seek to find it elsewhere. She generally has in mind other religious traditions: Myss says key truths of most religions can be found in some manidestation in others, often several others.

My frame of reference for spirituality extends beyond religion, but with that said, I believe that when we find what we believe to be truth anywhere in the world, we will find it multiple places.  As those who have been reading recently know, I've just finished my certification as a health coach, and this little post-surgery respite has given me the opportunity to start reading the stack of health-related books that have accumulated by my desk over several years.  There's at least 80 per cent congruence (maybe more) between the content in all of them, and yet each brings a different nuance or something new.

What has continued to astound me has been the intersection between health and happiness.  It doesn't surprise me at all that we are happier when we are healthier, but it seems to me that the things that we do to be healthier are the same things that we do to be happier. The causality may not be between health and happiness, but rather between a set of behaviors that cause us to be both healthier and happier.

My old friend "laughter" shows up a lot. Today I've been reading Blue Zones--9 Lessons for Living Longer from the people who've lived the longest, by Dan Buettner.  The book is based on research he did for National Geographic on regions of the world where a disproportionate percentage of the population lives past 100.  There's even a subset of the "blue zones": semi-supercentenarians--referring to regions with a disproportionate percentage of the population over 110.  As he did his research, Buettner and his team traveled to often-remote regions to interview those over 100.  I was struck by how often the centenarians burst out in laughter.

Laughter is a characteristic of both health and happiness. A couple of years ago when completing my certification to be a laughter yoga teacher, we were given a full page of benefits of laughter, most of them were health enhancements. For instance, one minute of laughter has the aerobic impact of 10 minutes on a rowing machine.

Dr. Martin Seligman, father of positive psychology/psychology of happiness, has said that lack of laughter is a challenge to the happiness of those who live alone because they don't laugh enough.

Spiritually, laughter is often observed in those who are truly "light."  If you've ever watched a video or interview of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, you know that he often bursts out in contagious belly laughter.

It has been said that the road to Hell is paved by good intentions. When I set out to live my life with intention and to share my journey with others, it was specifically so that my life's intentions would not be squandered. My intentions are to have a life of health, happiness, and wholeness that will grow me spiritually.

Yet, despite knowing the benefits of laughter to health, happiness, and my spirit and my pathetic moaning and groaning about lack of laughter in my life, at least 18 months after completing my Laughter Yoga certification, I have yet to teach a single class. As I've been leaning into my transition, teaching Laughter Yoga (LY) must be part of my health coaching practice. Laughter is clearly a component of both health and happiness; it would seem it would be neglectful of me to omit it.  I've just drug out my LY textbook, and I am throwing it into this soup I am making called "My Life as a Health Coach."

Synthesis

"When the student is ready, the teacher will appear."  This much-quoted thought is most often credited to Buddha Siddhartha Gautama Shakyamuni, or to many of us, just "The Buddha."

I'd like to alter the line just a bit. "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear...and appear...and appear." So often, it seems that when I start working on a spiritual lesson, everywhere I turn I bump into a slightly nuanced version of the same lesson.  Like a fine crystal, every way I turn it, I see unique impressions which describes a nuance of the lesson.

The last two evenings I've written about slightly different versions of seeing lessons through a lens of letting them support me in experiencing the beauty and wonder of spiritual growth as an endpoint but through which I must tiptoe through lessons.  Today brought two very distinct, yet remarkably similar extensions of those lessons, or "teachers," if you prefer.

"People's Pharmacy" is one of my favorite sources of well-researched health information, and I've been a faithful listener for over 25 years (and an avid reader of their newspaper column for years before that.) When I moved to DC, I could no longer get the show. Since discovering the podcast about a month ago, I've been devouring many back episodes. As consequence, I am not sure when ones to which I listened today aired.  The show's guest was Matthew Sanford, a yoga instructor and paraplegic. He lost use of his body from the chest down when he was 13, if I recall correctly 38 years ago.+

Because I've had significant body function/pain issues over the last 25 years, I listened carefully as he described the change he had experienced in his relationship with his body.  (You might say he was rewriting his story.)  His rehabilitation programs taught him how to overcome his disability by using parts of his body that were able to do so to facilitate movement through the world. But, Matthew missed his body and didn't like the image of dragging non-functioning parts of his body through the world.  (My words, not his.)  He began doing yoga to assist his experience of how his mind and body connected: his body is his body to be experienced not overcome.

As I listened, I drifted to the years I spent in rehab.  At first, I wanted someone to make it better, and I spent years just doing with determination whatever I needed to "get back to normal."  As soon as I'd experience a modicum of time with minimal pain, I'd stop doing my exercises, and soon I'd be in pain again.  Ten or 12 years ago...maybe more...I had an aha! moment when I realized that if I was going to live with a minimal amount of pain, my physical therapy exercises were going to be an everyday part of life.  I wouldn't like it but I would commit to doing them, day in and day out.  It was a good decision.  Although I do fall into periods of pain from time to time, if I faithfully do my exercises, most of the time I am relatively pain free.

I was doing a light jog on the treadmill as I was listening to the interview with Matthew. Mirrors all around me showed that I was in pretty good shape.  A personal trainer who had worked with me last week had pronounced my routine as pretty thorough and had little to suggest that I add. I was able to walk 65 minutes on a springlike day yesterday.

As I listened to Matthew talk about the change in his thinking about his body, I realized that, perhaps less consciously than Matthew, I too had changed.  I've moved beyond having to do exercises every day to stay out of pain to being delighted with this machine which is carrying me through life so effectively.  If I were able to stop the exercises without pain, I wouldn't want to do that now.  That is how I've come to show my body love...as it is.

Less than an hour later, I bumped into another teacher: an article by Dr. Tim Lomas, Ph.D., in Psychology Today.* He wrote about the approaching 20th anniversary of the positive psychology movement, launched by Dr. Martin Seligman. The piece was both retrospective and prospective, attempting to point the way forward for the growing psychology of happiness movement.  The article described three stages: thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.  For the first part of its history, psychology had been concerned with how to get us out of misery--the "thesis."

Then along came Seligman with the antithesis: the point of psychology should be to have us experience well-being and happiness.  In so doing, all the miserable parts of our lives were castigated or discounted as negative or lacking in value. But, the article proclaimed, there is usefulness from fear: it allows us to assess risk. Lomas continues that "'anti-social' emotions like anger can impel one to resist injustice, and drive progressive social change."*

Finally, Lomas predicts the future of psychology as being a synthesis that values the downsides while supporting our individual quests for well-being.  As he described this integration of resistance of the negative while supporting happiness and well-being, it seemed to me that what he was describing for our psyches was a parallel to what Matthew and I had come to in our relationship with our bodies and what I've been coming to over the last two days in this blog.  There is value in the struggle with the parts of ourselves that we might not like, but as we learn to accept the richness of the whole, we enable our souls to reach their potentials.

This is not a new concept to me.  In fact, I wrote about it in Leading from the Heart, which is also marking its 20th anniversary.  I actually looked through the book this evening to get my exact quote, but I was unable to locate it; the gist is that we see the world in black and white when in truth it is a million shades of gray. (That was when shades of gray weren't X-rated.)  When we only focus on what we perceive as bad--disability or misery--or good--overcoming and happiness, we lose the texture of the fullness of our existence. Wholeness lies in the synthesis--accepting the fullness of our possibilities.

+https://www.peoplespharmacy.com/2017/01/19/show-1065-how-can-yoga-benefit-everyone-fit-and-flexible-or-not/

*https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/finding-light-in-the-darkness/201602/second-wave-positive-psychology-introduction

Rewriting Our Stories

For a long time, I've worked with coaching clients to "rewrite their stories."  This language is certainly not unique to me and my coaching clients or even my own personal work.  The idea is that whatever we've told ourselves about what is possible is a made-up story, so we can make up a different one...and then step into the one we prefer.

I didn't start dancing until I had literally hardly survived a personal health crisis.  If I lived, there was a high likelihood that I would be a quadriplegic.  I had always wanted to dance, but initially my mother didn't want me to dance and later circumstances always seemed to intervene. (Excuses.) When faced with the possibility that I might never walk again, I knew that the one thing I really wished I had done was dance.

By the grace of God and the hands of a remarkable surgeon, I am both alive and mobile, a fact that goes in my gratitude journal every day.  As soon as I was finished with rehab, I went out and signed up for dance lessons.  The rest is history.  Thankfully, last night I danced almost every dance for three hours straight.  Nothing makes me feel more alive or brings me more joy.

But, when I was learning something many learn in childhood or early adulthood, shall we say at a much later stage in life, I struggled.  It felt to me like I took the same dance lesson over and over again.  I was clumsy and certainly not the vision of grace that I dreamed of being.  One day I heard that our brain needs to hear something 10,000 times before it believes it.  Well, I thought, if that is my only problem, I will just start saying, "I am a dancer," until I've said it 10,000 times.  Doing so became the soundtrack of my life.  While I was driving in the car, while I was running, while I was swimming, and while I was bathing: "I am a dancer."

I said it different ways:

• I am a dancer
• I am a dancer
• I am a dancer

Then I added pizzazz, spinning about with my arms wide to the heavens: I am a dancer.  One day it finally happened: in a split-second in the middle of a lesson I'd repeated over and again, the figure happened easily.  Then I couldn't imagine how I hadn't been able to do it. By force of will, I had convinced my brain that I was a dancer, and now, humbly speaking, I am a pretty darned good one. I don't know if I said it exactly 10,000 times, but it must have been close. (I am sure that I hadn't put in the 10,000 hours that some people say is necessary for mastery.)

Today I was listening to a podcast interview with Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., the founder and medical director at the Trauma Center of Boston and a professor of psychiatry at Boston University medical School.  He first worked with Holocaust survivors. More recently, he has worked with Iraqi and Afghan veterans and 9/11 and Boston Marathon survivors.  He described one of the essentials in transforming a person's trauma experience is the ability to visualize a different ending.  That prevents the individual from fearing a repeat experience.

He shared a story of a five-year-old who attended the childcare center at the Twin Towers and actually saw the planes fly into the skyscrapers.  When van der Kolk had the boy draw a picture, as you might expect, it included the tall buildings with planes flying into them, and it also included a trampoline in the foreground. When van der Kolk asked about the trampoline, the boy said that was so people jumping from the towers would bounce with they landed.  That boy experienced few traumatic after-effects that those who hadn't found an alternative resolution for the crisis did.

As I listened, I realized that what he had done was the same thing that I had done, as well as what my clients had done: the boy had rewritten the story.  The scenario changed from people dive to their deaths to something vaguely resembling a game that most kids would enjoy: jump on the trampoline and dismount so the next person can use it.

Yesterday's blogpost about being hypercritical was fresh in my brain as I listened to this interview. What occurred to me was that in my shift from viewing spiritual lessons as drudgery to slog through, I had rewritten my story, visualizing a different ending this time. The slogging is now a passage way to something I want in my future. It seems to me that what works in goal setting for coaching clients and survival tactics for trauma survivors is also a good tactic for making our way successfully through our spiritual work. Visualizing what it will be like on the other side of the lesson and writing that ending for our story seems to be the key.

A Wall of Criticism

My book club chose Hillbilly Elegy this month, and consequently, I've been reading it.  Although the book has been on the New York Times Bestsellers list for 29 weeks, it soared to Number One after the election and has been described as one of six books to help understand Trump's win of the U.S. presidency.

While I would like help getting my head around that victory, I've resisted the book since it came out early last year and began getting a lot of press coverage.  I am not sure it has been a conscious resistance; it just hasn't appealed to me for some reason.  I put off starting the read until I'd finished my final exam, so now with the club meeting just 10 days away, I finally sat down with it.

I was surprised to learn that the focal point for the book is Middletown, Ohio, a small city in which I worked for a couple years in my early twenties.  At first, I thought its portrayal was inaccurate, but then I reminded myself that the author was writing about the city at least two decades after I left it. The more I read, the more uncomfortable I became.

What author J.D. Vance labels as "hillbillies" were what we called "back-homers" when I lived there. On Friday afternoons, all the bridges across the Ohio River from both Indiana and Ohio would be jammed for miles and miles with the Kentucky hill people, who had come to the industrial midwest for jobs, going home for the weekends.  Then there was something called the Monday flu that they seemed to get in all four seasons, when they would call in sick on Monday morning to grab an extra day "back home;" thus, the name "back-homers."

My father's family were not hill people, but he did come from Kentucky, and I grew up amidst criticism of these "irresponsible" behaviors.  While the behaviors that Vance describes were mostly arm's length from my own personal experience, at least in part because of the generation between my tenure in Middletown and the time about which Vance writes, I have become increasingly uncomfortable with some trickle-out effects that I did experience as a child, growing into adulthood in that part of the country.

Vance describes a distrust of "outsiders," and while he doesn't use the term, what I experienced that was similar was what I will call vigilant criticism.  The distrust part is that for some unidentifiable reason, it was assumed that everyone outside the nuclear family not only didn't want us to succeed but intentionally set us up for failure.  The consequence in my case was that I was taught the need to be hypercritical, allowing me to anticipate and compensate for any metaphorical landmine that might explode in my face.

My personality type is one that is prone to demonstrating competence, so when coupled with this hypervigilance, I became very good at anticipating any possible problem and finding every flaw. Those qualities served me well in my career.  Every boss or client I have ever had knew that if they put me in charge, they would get an excellent event or product.

The downside, however, has been that I don't trust easily, and that I am always looking for a flaw, even when there may not been one, or, heaven forbid, that a flaw might be of no consequence.

Vance clawed his way up through poverty, drug and child abuse, and eventually made his way to Yale Law School, where he describes a secret code or barrier perceived by him to be designed by the upper crust almost with intention to stop those of us on the "outside" from getting in. The result as he described it, and I experienced it, is that we put up the barriers because we think others are "outsiders," not be be trusted.

While my ability to be critical served me well in my career, I am certain that it hasn't served me well in life, and I don't think I knew that until this afternoon.  As I read Vance's description of not trusting outsiders, tears ran down my cheeks because it just felt too close to my own experience.  I've used my criticism of others to build a wall between me and others.  I think few have penetrated it.

I started out the year by pledging that the next stage of my spiritual growth would be the fun stuff, but today didn't feel much like fun.  There was a lot of sadness about the people that I've probably shut out because I couldn't trust them, not because they weren't worthy of trust but I was literally incapable of trust. Others must have felt that they could never get things perfect enough to pass my scrutiny. In keeping with my pledge, I expect that this lesson, and possibly/probably more to come, has been one that will allow me knock down the wall of criticism and let others in, and that is a spiritual lesson to which I look forward.

My Set Point

I was listening to a podcast the other day about fat.  I would say that it is an occupational hazard now that I am officially a certified health coach, but truthfully, I've always been interested in understanding our bodies.  (And, yes, I did successfully complete my training.)  The woman who had been researching the fat organ--yes, fat is an organ--said that we all had a "set-point" for our weight. Unless we were consciously engaged in practices to change the set-point, our bodies go back to their "normal," which for many is a few pounds heavier than we might like to be.

Now, this post really has nothing to do with fat, but more with the concept of a "set-point," as a state of mind with which we are familiar or comfortable in whatever we are doing.  I am a reasonable neatnik, although I truly hate to clean.  It takes about two weeks for my apartment to get cluttered enough that I am uncomfortable with it.  I take 60 to 90 minutes to declutter and do some superficial cleaning, and then I can heave a sigh of relief and feel like my home is mine again.  That point had arrived earlier this evening. There's something in my that becomes uncomfortable if I get too far from that neatnik/not cleanik zone.

About an hour ago, I had my kick-back moment when I reclaimed my home. It was in that delicious reverie that I realized I'd been struggling this week.  My set point in life has been "on overdrive." When I first married, my husband described me as a mosquito on speed.  We had lived three hours apart before marrying, and there are some things that we don't learn when we only see our intendeds on weekends and vacations.  I hit the ground running in the morning, and I pretty much ran until we were finished cleaning the kitchen after dinner.  Then, I would relax.

Since 2001, I've worked very long hours and had very little time to take care of me, until now.  Yet, even in this transition time, I took only a week of meditation before driving head-first into the health coach training, which, along with refugee meetings, has pretty much consumed me.  I have been getting a full eight hours of sleep each night and exercising most days.  I have even written for this blog most days.

But, since my final exam on Wednesday afternoon, I've been struggling with what to do with myself. I have my lists of "things to do" and "things to explore," which I've been working.  I did my taxes today. (Yeah for refunds!) I spent yesterday taking care of a lot of insurance paperwork. A friend had me over for wine and snacks last night. I worked with a personal trainer this morning for the first time since college.  It's not like I have been bored. Yet all this "to-do list" activity feels like more of my overdrive set-point.

A few days ago I had a wonderful conversation with a friend who retired last summer, and she goes to coffee and movies with friends on weekdays. What a delightful idea!  I am not there yet. I have been looking forward to a matinee tomorrow--Saturday--after reclaiming my apartment and doing taxes.

Even in high school and college, I was an honor student, active in a lot of school activities and working a part-time job. Before that I had a healthy set of household chores that I had to do around school and church activities as a kid. I am not sure I can remember a time when I didn't need to be on overdrive.

I don't need to be on overdrive any more.  I don't want to be on overdrive any more...but that is my set-point.  Even as I look at my lists of activities, I realize they are to keep me moving and busy.  I expect that some of this harkens back to the strong Protestant Work Ethic upbringing I had in the hard-working Midwest of my early years.  Relaxation was a sin.  Really.  We were expected to be doing things.  Play even had to be productive.

Breaking out of that early programming is a challenge, so I feel like I am in a bit of freefall now. I know that I'd like to slow down and enjoy life.  I'd love to read the book that my book club has chosen for the first week of March, but there is something so uneasy for me about just sitting and reading a book. And, I've been struggling.  I've actually been struggling all week, but I think I just finally recognized it this evening.

What comes to mind are the old wind-up dolls of my childhood.  If you cranked a key on the doll's back, she would walk for awhile. At first she'd walk very fast, but eventually, she would wind down and stop walking.  The overdrive me is like the doll on full-wind-up mode.  I don't want to completely wind down, but I would like to crank my set-point back to somewhere in-between. Somewhere between the mosquito on speed and staying in bed all day would be perfect.  I realize there is a lot of leeway there, and I am still figuring out what my sweet spot is.  I am an active person, and I want to keep that.  I would also like to read that book and go to a weekday matinee.

This feels very important to me because I think starting up a health-coaching practice could be a very slippery slope, if I haven't learned how to be more relaxed about life before I do so. I expect I was continue to struggle for a bit as I learn to reset.

Could It Be Love?

Chapter Nine: Could It Be Love?

Funny that I should be led to the page of The Alchemy of Fear on Valentine's Day.  For whatever reason, I was.  A bit of a goose chase as it was, starting with my dream work from last night. When I translated the symbology, the message was clear. The quote at the front of this chapter captured it in English words:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us...We were born to manifest the glory of God within us...And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others."

The words are those of Marianne Williamson, but many people believe them to be from the late South African President Nelson Mandela because he quoted Williamson's words in his 1994 inaugural speech.

These are the words to which my dream led me this morning.  Without great detail, the images in my dream were of my power--great power--surrounding me on all sides, and I sat in sheer terror. Frozen. Afraid of my "power beyond measure." Afraid to let my light shine. But, the power was moving in on me, getting closer and closer, and as it did, the power seemed to increase.  And as it did, so did my fear.  Small wonder that I recalled this passage.

Only when I returned to the volume this evening to get the exact quotation did I realize that this--these haunting words--headed a chapter entitled "Could it be love?"

It has been said that we teach what we need to learn, and we write what we need to know.  Could it be that in this book, written 21 years ago--reaching the age of maturity, I was exploring the same spiritual questions that I am even today? Actually, it has been longer. As I am writing this, I recall a similar dream, recurring when I was younger.  Perhaps I've been working on this lesson my whole life.

On the second page of the chapter, I wrote, "The love...is an unconditional, universal love that spiritually connects us all through time and space. Time as we know it stops. A deep resonate peaceful energy seems to flow through us when we feel this kind of love. It is peaceful. It is joyful. It brings us to life with enthusiasm. We discover faith and trust."

The premise of the chapter is that there is only love and fear, and when we move beyond fear Universal love is what remains.  "Love is what life is about...Our purpose in life and work is to be love and bring more love into being."

My dream seemed to be saying, "Step into God's love and claim your power," and by so doing, make it safe for others to let their lights shine.  Before I can do that, though, I must look my fear in the eyes and move beyond into the "deep resonate peaceful energy" that "seems to flow through us." Apparently, I've been trying to do this for decades. I believe it is time for me to get over it.

Given the size of the power in my dream, the Universe is showing me that I can no longer run from it. My power will have its way with me, and I've fought the Universe on other things: it doesn't end well. The real power is in the surrender.  Surrender to God. Surrender to Love. I really know not what that means, but if I've been trying to learn this lesson most of my life, I would say it is time to hang on and find out.

Tamale Time

When I was a girl, my mom and a neighbor would sit on the front porch with stew pots full of freshly picked green beans at their feet, snapping the ends off and breaking them for canning. They would sit and talk and snap for hours.  I recall once stumbling onto five old women sitting in a circle of rocking chairs and doing something similar in the shade of a big oak tree when I was in North Carolina.  I wandered over and spoke to them, recalling how it had brought back my childhood memories.

Today I traveled about 50 minutes out of town to make tamales with a friend.  We both love to cook, and she has a bigger kitchen and better food prep equipment, so I go to her. We don't get to visit often but this tradition started several years ago.  We both worked for NASA but different locations.  We emailed or talked by phone about food discoveries.  We felt like good friends even though we had never met face to face.  One day she suggested that we take our days off and make tamales together. I had never been wild about tamales and certainly never made them, but I wanted to get to know her better. I knew she'd lived in Mexico for several years, so "Why not?" I wondered.

(Well, first off as an aside, the only reason I'd never liked tamales is that I had never had her tamales.)

In the beginning we did this about every 6-8 months, but she's been as busy as I have over the last year or so, and today we recollected that it had been almost two years.  Since I drive, she does the food prep, then we sit and roll tamales: first spreading the maize/cornmeal paste onto the moist corn husks, then adding a spicy filling, and finally, rolling and tying the little packets of flavor.  As soon as we have one pot full, the steaming begins; they cook for an hour while we roll more tamales. Eagerly, we wait for the first batch to finish cooking so that we can taste them.  You know, just so we can make sure they are "OK."

We spent close to five hours on today's project.  Like my mother and her friend and similar to the women in their rocking chairs under the oak tree, our conversations meandered all over. Recent employment.  Next career steps. Relationship histories. How she found her house...or it found her. Her grandfather's refugee history and the contribution of four generations of his progeny had made after landing on the shores of the U.S.  Scientists, teachers, business people and entrepreneurs, and even the seemingly inevitable immigrant restaurateurs. We agreed that probably his family was not that different from many refugee experiences.

Absent our devices, what amazes me each time is the level of intimacy that we develop just rolling tamales.  I realize that part of what has been lost in potlucks is the intimacy of cooking together. Maybe that is only true of cooks, but I know for me there is something quite wonderful about preparing food over conversation.  Today I am happy to report on wonderful connected time...and a bin of homemade tamales...to warm my heart and my soul this evening.

Inner Compulsions

I listened to several podcasts, including the DR Show podcast, today while running errands and walking.  One of Diane Rehm's guests was Sharon Begley, who has written a book on compulsion. She's written a book on the topic.  She talked about our device-driven compulsions, which I've written about in the blog as "addictions."  She describes the anxiety that people experience when they are not able to constantly check their devices.

Begley also talked about inwardly-driven compulsions, such as the compulsion to write. She used the examples of classic writers John Milton and Ernest Hemingway, who claimed the deeply driven need to write every day.

I had dinner last week with two people who are readers of this blog, and they talked about my "discipline" with writing it.  I laughed off the comments because I feel totally undisciplined about my writing...even my books.  I've often described the months before I locked my doors and wrote Leading from the Heart as my pregnancy.  Something was gestating within me, was growing, and couldn't be stopped. I had no choice but to deliver. I literally felt that I would go crazy if I didn't write even though I sat down not fully aware of what might come out. I think it was my way of saying what Milton and Hemingway described, not that I am comparing my writing to that of those masters.

When I get in the rhythm of writing, most of the time I really can't stop myself.  When I say I am undisciplined, it is because I feel like I am channeling something deep inside myself which bypasses my brain.  Even my books felt to me as if I was typing as fast as I could to see what would appear on the computer screen.  I've also felt a little embarrassed that I didn't put in lots of disciplined research, but I won't apologize for writing what is in my soul.  That is my compulsion.

Over the years, I've spawned a number of visual artists, each producing amazing work, which I sense bubbles from within them in a way that I imagine is much like my writing is for me.  I recall a coaching client coming for our session one day with a sheet wrapped around a painting that she didn't want anyone to see because it was totally different than anything she'd seen before and thought that it didn't count as "real art."  Of course, it did: it was her art.  Another former coaching client has been experimenting with a new medium and is producing some truly remarkable work which is unlike anything I've seen before.

While I almost never know before I sit and look at the empty blogger page each night what it is I will write, once it begins coming, it is effortless and bursts from within me, sometimes at a fearsome pace. I wrote 32 pages in one day when writing The Game Called Life: I truly don't know how I did it. So, despite the impressions that my friends had about my discipline with this blog, the only discipline that I bring is making myself sit down each evening.  And, I suppose that is a genuine discipline, and it is one that I haven't had for a couple years.

What is unique in this time for me is that I don't feel any bigger projects gestating: I don't feel something that I am compelled to say. I miss that rush, but it almost feels like that was of a different time, and what I feel drawn to right now is sitting each evening and sharing what I know in my heart. Maybe that is all I should be feeling as Valentine's Day approaches. The arrow that Cupid seems to have aimed at me is the love of writing and sharing that "compulsively."

A Giggle's Good for Everyone

Yesterday I wrote about attending the Washington Interfaith Network 2017 organizing meeting and finding myself surrounded by people that aren't in my normal circle of friends. Many were poor, some quite poor, minorities.  Several had brought wiggly preschoolers, I imagine because they couldn't afford the cost of child care. As a "more mature" white woman, I was clearly in the minority, but since I'd taught at an historically black university for several years, being in the minority was one of the things that wasn't uncomfortable to me.

I'd arrived at about the middle of the big crowd that would assemble, found a seat at an empty table, and started to read through some of the papers I'd been handed when I entered.  Suddenly, up popped a surprise from under the table: a delightful little African-American girl with beads in her braided hair and somewhat a sense of style in her not-too-expensive clothes. I am not good at guessing ages, but I am thinking 24 to 30 months: small enough that she could stand up under the table but I could clearly understand her full sentences.  She giggled and said, "Can I sit on your lap?" as she was making her way onto it.  "Sure," I said. She giggled again.

She picked up a pen and began drawing on the papers, but became frustrated at ink on your hands and was trying very hard to get it off.  I helped.  She gave me a big smile.  Then she was off.  I smiled.

Among the two things in my life that were not quite where I've wanted them to be is laughter.  I've yearned for laughter in my life, and I've given it a lot of thought.  I am intentional about watching at least an hour of comedy every day, but that's different than having a real belly laugh about something as it is unfolding or sharing a funny story about something that occurred at work.  As a person who lives alone, I just don't have occasion for that kind of spontaneous laughter.  I understand the value of laughter to our health and well-being.  I became a certified laughter yoga instructor a couple years ago but couldn't find time to teach. Poor excuse.

This week laughter has been on the syllabus for my health coaching class.  One of our assignments has been to share something that makes us laugh on our class electronic discussion board.  There have been a couple jokes, but family stories, particularly those that involve children, have dominated.  I've been having a little bit of a pitty party for myself as I've read these stories and lamented the downside of living alone.  Then, God dropped this little charmer into my lap...literally.

When she returned, she brought a snack with her, and not a healthy one, I am sad to say. The aspiring health coach in me bit her tongue and smiled. She sat it right in front of me as she just made her way back up on my lap as if she'd known me forever.  She politely offered me some junk food.  I politely declined.  This happened a couple of times, and then, I am truly not sure how it happened, but my mouth was open enough that she slipped a Cheeto into the gap.  I was shocked, and laughed...and she squealed with utter delight.  My little friend stayed for a while longer, drew some more, finished her snack, and then became enamoured with a photographer that she wanted to take her picture.

I would say that I have no idea why she picked me out of the crowd...especially since I don't look like people she is probably around most of the time.  I would say that, but I know it isn't true.  I know exactly why I got that giggle that popped up from under the table: I needed a little kid levity, and I got it, when and where I really least expected it.

What an adventure!

Earlier this year I proposed that as a growth step we do something that scares us every day.  Since writing that, I've discovered that there really isn't very much that I actually fear; however, I have pushed myself out of my comfort zone and into new experiences on a reasonably regular basis during this year that is only now five weeks old.

While it was not my intent, I attended my first community organizing event this evening.  I thought I was going to a meeting where we were going to have a dialogue about a citywide strategy for dealing with the refugee crisis.  That was one of several topics.  I have to say my most accurate description of my personal experience was that of being plopped down in the middle of pure chaos.  It didn't feel to me like anything was really discussed, and organizers kept wanting us to make commitments for action, but I was confounded as to what they wanted us to do.

I do find that I always grow in new situations, and tonight was no exception.  As someone who has spent her career in organizational strategic and tactical planning and event organization, this chaos was a bit of a strange and wonderful mystery to me.  It was very cold and one of the ushers from our church offered to drop me home.  He had been involved with this group for many years and was quite excited at what they had accomplished over the years.  I am open, but the most growthful part of the experience was to just go with the flow and resist any and all temptation to try to organize something that clearly no one wanted organized.

The group sponsoring this event was the Washington Interfaith Network.  There were at least 200 people from a broad range of protestant denominations, non-denominational churches, Roman Catholics, Jews, and Muslims, and we did break into discussion groups.  The experience gave me the opportunity to interact with people of different faiths in a way that I don't believe I have before.

Participants obviously cut across classes as well.  Many more educated and financially comfortable advocates were socially justice-minded progressives.  Others were from poorer minority communities.  One young African American man of perhaps 30 told about attending a meeting with the mayor to discuss his public housing project.

While I like to think of myself as have a diverse group of friends, it didn't take long this evening (like maybe 5 minutes) for me to consciously think to myself that while I do have a racially, culturally, ethnically diverse circle, that diversity is within a narrow educationally and economically homogenous group.  Except for grocery store clerks, nail technicians, and my one homeless friend, my "diverse" friends all have at least one graduate or professional degree and are comfortably in the middle or top-of-the-middle of the middle class.  I don't think I've ever met someone who lives in a public housing project before.

Tonight I realized how arrogant I had been to think that befriending two homeless people in my 10 years in the city was understanding the city's underclass. The issues in our discussion groups tonight was the things of the national headlines--lack of affordable housing and homeless families with small children (on a bitterly cold night at that,) gun violence, and police violence. That agenda did make me think my concerns for refugees 6,000 miles away had diverted my attention from needs in my own community.  I am still very committed to the refugee issue, and my awareness of local deprivations is heightened.

The only time I was afraid tonight was when walking in the 15 mile an hour winds which drove the wind-chill factor down to 15.  I was afraid my chattering teeth might damage my expensive new dental.  (That's a joke.)  However, this rich experience certainly was a rewarding journey outside my comfort zone, and I think it accomplishes the intent of doing something each day that scares me. I understand now that it is only when we get out of ordinary frame of reference that we truly grow.

Relationships

Whatever your belief system, I am fairly confident that I can say, life is not a dress rehearsal. Whether you think that this life is one and done or that you will live many lives, we don't get do-overs for this one. Why, then, I have asked myself in recent years, have I invested so much spiritual energy in earning a living and so little on the things that really matter?  I wish I could answer that, but if I had been that conscious, I probably would have been making different decisions.

In the summer of 2015 I completed a Psychology of Happiness certification.  The Number One Habit of happy people?  Relationships.  As I raced through evenings and weekends of studying about happiness after long days of racing from meeting to meeting at work, I lamented the state of my relationships.  It is not that my relationships were bad; they were just all arms-length or physically distant.

Fast forward to February 2017, and nothing much has changed.  I am once again taking a class in which I am learning about the importance of relationships--this time the value is to my health. Yes, I eat right; superfoods line my pantry and make my refrigerator bulge. I exercise regularly. I meditate. But, even with a decades-old commitment to health, do you think I have done anything about the state of my relationships?  Nyet.

I have very dear friends who are scattered all over the globe.  I did receive a calendar from a friend in Tokyo. I email another in Greece a few times a month. Skype connects me with one in California a couple times a year, and thankfully I Skype with another a couple times a month. My college roommate and I have been spiritually close since we met, but often go months without talking.  Just last evening I dined with four old work pals which get together two or three times a year, and I have dinner with two others from a different job a couple times a year. I see my closest friends two to three times a year. My best friend and I may make it four times a year these days.

I am grateful to have all these people in my life, and, there's nothing like curling up on the couch with a friend, a bowl of popcorn, and a movie, especially if we just decided to get together spontaneously. Best of all for me, is the unplanned drop-in.  Someone who knows they will be welcomed and loved anytime they grace my doorstep, and I won't care if I have study materials scattered all over the living room floor from study.  Whatever happens it is OK.  Unfortunately, I don't have any of those kinds of relationships.  In fact, mostly I don't have any relationships that don't have to be scheduled months in advance.

Maybe I delude myself with memories of a different time or a different place, but I recall such relationships...almost every time of my life until the last 15 years.  If life is not a dress rehearsal, and I know that relationships are good for both health and happiness, what have I been waiting for?  Beats me.

The best news of all is that I am now creating my own life, one day at a time.  I am now conscious that if I don't take building relationships seriously, no one else is going to do it for me...and I will probably die with the same weary state of my relationships.  A few days ago when I wrote that I was in the best place I've been in for a while, except for a couple things: strengthening relationships was one of them.

I have open invitations for lunch with a new friend and coffee with another. I'm waiting for another friend to recover from surgery to get together. I brunched with another work colleague Sunday, and we committed to seeing each other more often.  (She is good about texting, which may be the 21st Century replacement for the drop-in visit. Amazingly, it does feel quite connected.)

I had a friend in my building over for casual soup and cornbread this evening.  We met when I first moved to the building.  She's always been friendly but passing occasionally in the entry or the grocery store is as far as the friendship developed.  We had really never had a conversation until tonight.  I feel enriched by the time we spent together.

The college roommate and I committed to walking and talking together or having tea together through the wonders of modern technology that bridge the 500-mile divide between us. I may even schedule a Skype with Tokyo or Greece.  I definitely need to get back to North Carolina to see my friend and her two little ones.

In some ways, it feels like this may be the friendship equivalent of throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks, but I have to start somewhere.  I care about each of these women, so they seem to be a good start. After all, when I think about what is really important in my life, it is friendships...happy, connected relationships. How can I create my life without them?  I feel that 2017 will be the year that is foundational in having a satisfying relationship habit and the happiness that is sure to follow.

Cleaning Out

I had dinner with several long-time friends this evening, walked when I got home, and then sat to write, and my mind was a clutter of random thoughts, shooting off in a dozen different directions. I meditated. More clutter. In my drafts folder for the blog, I found a piece that I thought I'd posted over a month ago.  It was somewhat out of date, but, probably not by accident, it is also something that has been on my mind lately.  Cleaning out.

In late December, I cleaned out all the unsolicited cosmetics with which various companies have gifted me. It freed up significant space in my medicine cabinet and left me even freer psychically. Then, I took on my bag bin.  In the 1980s when almost no one except Kay was reusing bags, I was taking the same paper grocery bags back to the store week-in, week-out. At one point, I began dating them to see how long they would last.  One lasted a whole year--52 weeks.  So you can imagine how delighted I was at the advent of bags which were actually designed for reuse.

But then everyone and his/her cousin discovered the reusable bags were perfect little billboards. Every conference or show gives them away. My public radio station gives them away.  When I looked at apartments a few years ago, they gave them away.  Even my local hardware store gave them away. When DC passed a bill to charge for paper or plastic, the stores gave them away.  All those bags and only four or five that I used regularly.  Most of the others were gone with the start of the year.

The second week of January I went into a sorting frenzy with books.  I donated about six boxes to the library in my building.  They don't take textbooks, so I have another box in the corner of my living room still looking for a home. Those seven boxes were the books at which I knew I would never look again.  I fussed as I contemplated at least 10 boxes moved out of my offices or my storage bin await sorting. I was able to get rid of one box, but there are nine more.

The only pleasing I needed to do was my heart, and I had struggled.  What would be part of my future? What would not?  Do I throw away hundreds of flyers for professional speaking which were really great designs, but were printed at just the time the dot.com bust and 9/11 killed the keynote conference-speaking circuit I'd been on?  Of course, I do.  That 16-year-old photo is almost unrecognizable.  How do I let the Universe know I am open to professional speaking...just not the badly dated flyer, I had wondered, wanting to be careful not to send the wrong message.

Then something funny happened.  I got distracted. My class and refugee resettlement activities picked up the pace, and I was able to back-burner the sorting.  I did, however, leave several of the boxes right in the middle of my closest so that I cannot easily get to more than a few clothes without high-stepping over them. I didn't want to forget about the sorting. That's how I've been dressing since the end of the year.

A week or so ago I began to be impatient. Not with the climbing over the boxes, although that has been an annoyance.  I got frustrated at the time my class was taking because now I knew exactly what to get rid of and didn't have time to do it. Almost all of it.  As sparks within me have been ignited for these new directions, the mind-numbing boredom with my old work has become clear to me.  While I'd like to think I have the capability to do whatever I need to do to support myself, my heart is shouting...not whispering, but shouting..."NOT THAT!"  There was a time when I was energized by the work, but that is definitely the past.  Enough already.  I am ready to move on.

I am at the point in any class during which final projects and exams are occurring, so I must stay at it. While there is part of me that would like to just chuck it all, I suspect that there are things in each box that I do want to keep, but not much. Yet, having taken time to reconnect with my heart, I am certain that the decision-making will be easy.

All that brings me back to my intention to listen to what I know in my heart--the very purpose of this blog. In my heart I know that my future lies in what brings me to life, and what I did for 25 years no longer does that.  To hang on to even one shred that isn't aligned with my future would again be a breach of my integrity.  I am just unwilling to go there, and I have to believe that if the Universe has given me this spark, it will make sure I can support myself in my new directions.

Being in a Really Good Place

Twice this weekend I found myself in conversations with friends that I hadn't talked with much since I started my "exploration." In each conversation there came a point at which the words, "I am in a really good place," came spilling out of my mouth. In one conversation the words were actually "I am in a better place than I've been in 20 years."  They weren't words, or even a concept, to which I'd given thought.  They just seemed to be my truth at that point in each conversation.

Now what was all that about?  To start with, they were "my truth." When I drew a line in the sand and said to myself that my work was killing me, I knew it was true.  Except for fairly healthy eating, I hadn't been doing a single thing that I knew I should be doing for my physical, mental, or spiritual health.  (I had been eating healthy foods but as I raced through most days, a lot of time I had to snarf meals or snacks down at a pace that couldn't have been good for my digestive track.)

I knew how to live better; I just wasn't doing it.  What has happened over the last five weeks is that I have been living the way I know is good for me.  I've been sleeping well and at least a full eight hours every night.  I've exercised every day.  I've prayed and meditated twice a day. I've been dreaming actively and mining them for spiritual insights.  I've taken time to stop and chat with friends and neighbors, and I've made some new friends, leaving me feeling more satisfied about my relationships. I've read several books.  I've been getting involved in my community on issues that I really care about.  In short, I have felt like I was in personal integrity.

As I've described in this blog before, the word "integrity" derives from the Greek root which also gave rise to "integer"--a whole number.  Before my exploration began, I was badly conflicted. I wasn't demonstrating wholeness in body, mind, or spirit. Now I am almost there and in addition to the impacts of each of the activities listed in the last paragraph on me, which have been significant, perhaps the strong effect is that of feeling whole again.  I used to spend moments throughout every days wishing things were different: I wish I could just sleep until I was rested.  I wish I could sit and enjoy this meal.  Blah! Blah! Blah!

Among the realizations that came to me as I pondered "being in a really good place" was the one that even though there are a couple of areas of my life I'd like to enhance, I recognized that I hadn't even thought about either for weeks.  I've been so focused on what is working that to think about what isn't working feels insignificant and a waste of energy.

This week's health coaching class includes coping with stress. Where was this when I needed it? Actually, there was nothing that I hadn't known, but when I was caught up in in, I seemed incapable of turning the tide. On occasion, I would attempt to redirect myself, but I felt like I was caught in quicksand and just couldn't pull myself out of it.

When I am in integrity, I am more resourceful. I am not sure the complete difference, but I've certainly been losing energy in the cracks between what I know to do and what I was doing.  I think that some must be chalked up to having more time. In truth, I had a lot of colleagues who should have/could have worked the way I did, but they just chose not to. When lunch, workout, or quitting time came, they walked out. I always chalked it up to a deep service ethic, which is true, but in the ultimate act of lack of integrity, I'd remind my clients of the airline security announcements telling us to put the oxygen mask over ourselves before putting one on a child.  If I didn't put the oxygen mask on myself, who else was going to do it?

Yes, I am in a really good place, and that place is integrity.  My challenge will be to keep my attitude adjustment when I am more actively engaged in the world around me again.

Having the Right Tools

Many years ago I was visiting a friend, who didn't cook often, for dinner.  I watched her labor over tasks that I could have done in seconds with a better set of tools in my kitchen.  At some point, I observed to myself that people who "don't like to cook" often don't have the right tools, which might be why they don't enjoy it: it's just too much work.

I spend most holiday dinners with a friend who is a great cook, but who doesn't have the best tools. She often asks me to carve the turkey or whatever piece of meat is to be at the center of the table, and then gives me a knife that wouldn't cut butter on a hot summer day to do so.  I started bringing my own knives, which make the task much more enjoyable.  The right tools make all the difference.

There was a man in my life once who liked to putter in his woodshop. He loved to hang out in the local hardware store, and after every trip, he would bring home what I perceived as a "toy." For him, it was probably just the right tool.  He produced remarkable works of art in our garage.  I suspect that the things he brought home from the hardware store were the guy equivalent of the right kitchen tools for me.

Today I walked from my home in Washington to Bethesda, Maryland.  I do so a few times a year.  It took me 57 minutes which is just a good workout, but I am sure I have done it in less time.  It was cold and windy, and as often occurs in those conditions, my nose dripped a lot.  Those, I thought, were the reasons that it took so long.

I had been aware that after about 40 minutes, my right foot was hurting a lot.  It has been bothering me when I exercise for a few months now.  I thought maybe I was getting arthritis in my foot.  I was not happy with the prospect, but resigned that at some point the vagaries of aging were inevitably going to start.

When I returned home, a new pair of running shoes were waiting for me.  I couldn't remember the last time I had new ones, but it had been long enough that these were shipped to a friend where I used to live.  I haven't lived at that address for almost 10 years.  It hadn't occurred to me that my slower walk or my uncomfortable right foot might actually be the result of aging athletic equipment.  At least, not until I put the new shoes on at about 8 p.m. and wore them around my little one-bedroom apartment.  It wasn't much walking, but by 9:30, I was keenly aware that my  right foot had stopped hurting. Then I noticed that my calves were relaxing.  I felt like my whole posture was more relaxed.

When I ran regularly, I  would never have worn the same shoes for more than a year or 18 months tops, but somehow when I was working out less frequently, I had lost awareness that I needed new equipment: the right tools for being active.  Now after three hours, all the discomforts I've been charging up to the vagaries of aging are gone...completely. Instantly, I am younger. I am eager to do a full workout in them.

It seems to me that whether we are in the kitchen, the woodshop, or working out, we need the right tools to do the things we do well.  It is the same with our spiritual practices.  I wrote earlier in January about Caroline Myss's expression of having a "prayer bank account" to draw on.  We show up daily and make prayer "deposits," and then when we have a serious need, we can make a withdrawal.  It is the same with journaling, making gratitude lists, dream journaling, or meditating.  If we are disciplined--regular students--about our spiritual practices, they become like the tools that we use in other pastimes.  The more we use them, the easier and more reliable they become.

Just after a month of more disciplined spiritual practices, I am finally falling back into the rhythm of regularity. I am remembering several dreams a night in great detail. My mind stills quickly for meditation.  My voice is clear as I pray.  Like good knives in the kitchen or new running shoes, my tools feel like they are working for me.

Dogs with Purpose

A friend and I just returned from seeing the movie, "A Dog's Purpose."  It will not win any awards, and it was a sweet dog about the relationship dogs have with their owners.  Projecting human thought on the dogs, we seem them concerned about their owners and trying to intervene in whatever way possible to make the lives of their owners better.

As we walked to our bus, my friend shared her experience of the movie and then asked me about mine.  In my late-20s through my mid-30s, I had the most wonderful dog--a Golden Retriever and collie mix.  She was the most carrying dog I've ever been around.  She would literally sit for hours without moving with her head by mine when I was curled up on the sofa, suffering through an ugly divorce. We played together a lot, running, playing Frisbee, and hiking in the Oregon mountains.

The thing I found most remarkable about her was her relationships with children.  We had no children, but every afternoon and evening our front yard would be full--like 8 to 10--of children playing with the dog.  They loved her, and she loved them. One of the children was a 10- or 11-year old girl with Down's Syndrome.  Somehow the dog understood that she was different, and while the fairly large dog was happy to rough-house with the bigger boys, she was gentle as a lamb with the developmentally disabled girl.

Once I stopped by the house during the day, and the dog was gone.  I was in a total panic. I called for her, walked the neighborhood talking to neighbors who might have seen her, and driving up and down local streets.  I couldn't imagine losing her.  Finally, I found someone who said that he'd seen a dog that met my description walking with the children to school that morning.  I drove to an elementary school that was four or five blocks away.  I inquired if anyone had seen the dog.  The janitor reported that she followed the kids to school every day.  He put her in the boiler room and at the end of the day he'd let her out to follow them home.  Somehow she'd figured out how to escape our backyard with a six-foot fence to shepherd her brood to school.  Collies are sheep dogs; herding is what they do.

If dog's have purpose, Nicki certainly fulfilled more than one.  I still think of her often.

Last night just before I went to sleep lat night I watched a three-minute video on YouTube, called "Dear Captain."* The speaker in the clip is a Afghan War veteran who suffered from debilitating Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD,) and he shares that he had contemplated suicide nearly every day after returning. That was until "Captain" came into his life.  Captain was named for the woman who, as his captain, supported him in getting treatment for PTSD.  The veteran credits Captain, a K9 for Warriors service dog, with saving his life.  (I highly recommend taking five minutes out of your day to watch it.)

Just as Nicki "saved my life" during a difficult period, we've probably all read or heard stories about a dog saving someone's life, walking across the country to be reunited with it's people, or in Captain's case helping her owner through PTSD.  They truly are in service to those of us who are blessed to have them in our lives.  I really believe that sometimes God brings an animal into our lives because that is what will heal us, and healing is a remarkable purpose.


*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Up6Vg70RJnQ

Exhale After Inhale

I have belonged to a book club for about a year.  Tonight I made it to my second meeting.  Several times in recent months I was on work-related travel and unable to attend.  At least twice, I intentionally missed because I hadn't had time to crack open that month's book.

We had a meaty 90-minute conversation.  I  discovered the members are well-educated, well-read, and thoughtful.  I found myself remembering things I hadn't thought about in years. The evening was stimulating.

About an hour into the dialogue, I shared something from my undergraduate years that I hadn't thought about for a very long time--something as an undergraduate I wanted to learn more about "when I had time."  Of course, I never had time or more accurately other things were priorities. Breaks between terms were always too short for the things I wanted and needed to accomplish. As soon as I graduated, I headed to grad school, where there was hardly time to breathe.

Grad school was followed by starting my own business; anyone who has done that would laugh that I might have time to go research something of interest, but the truth is, by then, the thought was long forgotten. As testament to our amazing brains, although forgotten, certainly not gone, just lingering in the gray matter eagerly awaiting attention.

Almost immediately my train of thought in the last paragraph began to chug through my reverie.  I consciously felt myself exhale.  Until this month, I can't remember when I wasn't racing from one thing I had to do to another thing I had to do, rarely taking time to breathe much less check in on what I wanted to do.  In my exploration time, I can exhale...regularly and often, and take time for things I want to explore.  That's the point: learn about things that interest me.

I knew that taking time to exhale was something that I will relish and I wanted to write about it.  Yet, as I sat down to write the title of this piece, I believe I heard a chuckle in my ear: "Inhale first."  Then I chuckled.  How many times have I suggested to coaching clients to "breathe"?  Yet from that crazy treadmill I've been on, I haven't taken time to either exhale or inhale.

Even though I had made a commitment to write for this blog every day, I sat and explored the  topic that has been sitting in the back of my brain, awaiting attention for decades. It fascinates me still.  I know that I will investigate more this weekend.

In the meantime, I will exhale...and inhale...and exhale...and inhale...just like it was a normal thing to do, because I think it is.

Could This Be My Path?

Back in the 1990s when I was conducting my Intentional Living Intensives (ILIs) for executives and professionals, I was surprised about two persistent experiences in my clients' lives.  First, almost all of them were within a year (+/_) of being 50, and, retrospectively, they could almost always look back and see a thread that had run through their lives, sometimes from childhood.  As we pulled the thread, it became apparent that everything they had done had uniquely prepared them for what they were doing right then.

It happens that adults have normal transitions, just a predictable as the "Terrible Twos" are for children.  Sometimes we are aware when the transition is occurring; often we need to look back to see it.  One of those transitions occurs around age 50, and most of my clients were squarely in it. The 50 transition is about legacy. When I've passed from this world, what do I want to be remembered for? How will the world be better because I am in it?  It was logical that at that crossroads, they would have been attracted to the ILI.

I have not kept up on the research, but when I was doing so, these transitions were described as occurring at about age 28, around 40 (most of us know about that one by reputation,) and around 50. Then, they stopped describing transitions, like we got to 50, and frozen in time, we stopped growing. America (and I suspect the developed world) is getting older.  In the United States 25 per cent of the Baby Boomers are expected to reach age 100, becoming centenarians.  I cannot believe that they aren't going to experience developmental transitions for the second half of life.

I've been thinking a lot about the second half of life this year because the health coaching track I chose is one for "Prime-Timers." That group is described as those who are in the second half of life. In this work, my role is to help them to be healthier so they can enjoy those years, but how very boring, I think, that they aren't expected to grow.

This evening I was reflecting on my life, and I can see two distinct threads, both of which go back to elementary school for me.  As an adult, I've sometimes woven more deeply into one than the other, but it has always been present while taking vastly different manifestations.  The other--food...healthy and delicious food, studying it, cooking it, eating it--has pretty much been a constant.

Although it has only been a month, in the exploratory transition in which I find myself,  the things that have ended up intriguing me relate to those two things.  What I find particularly intriguing is the difference in my attitude even from a year ago, when I first decided to step away from the workforce to explore.  During major chunks of my past, instead of just enjoying both, I would have tried to figure out which it was, and almost as certainly, I'd be thinking about how I could make money to support myself.

Little of that now, I am just delighting in the journey.  I am confident that the money I need will come...somehow.  For now, bouncing from one to the other, sometimes within an hour's time has been fun and satisfying.  I would describe it a bit like learning to juggle, but I never did master that and didn't find it much fun at it either.

I had this thought today that perhaps, for me at least, the second of life is going to be about pursuing whatever I enjoy, making a little money here and a little there.  Why couldn't I follow both of my passions? And why would I even need to focus on one aspect of them rather than discovering the wonders of all their different manifestations?  I've thought of four or five directions that might be fun for the health coaching to go, and I don't see any reason not to say "yes" to all of them as long as they bring me pleasure.  I'm less far on the other journey, but it has already taken me in multiple directions that seem to support each other.

Even as I write this, it occurs to me that maybe this isn't new at all.  Maybe I just diverted for a number of years before finding my way back home.  When I had my own consulting business and was writing, I was an author, speaker, coach, consultant, and business press columnist.  The books brought me speaking gigs, which often brought me coaching and consulting work.  Then, I'd occasionally have a TV or radio interview or write a magazine article, which would feed the cycle. And, why should we not be surprised that I particularly enjoyed cooking for my ILI clients?  I enjoyed the variety and found myself intellectually and spiritually challenged.

I now ponder that perhaps part of the reason that I stayed to long at my job was that it did offer a lot of variety, even if most of it wasn't my "sweet spot."

Maybe I have found my path, and it isn't a single path at all but a web of adventures, each promising more joy than I might have imagined possible even six weeks ago. I think I've found my way home in the middle of the messiness of it.