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.

Doing Something That Scares

I am solidly in the Hallmark Channel demographic, and during the holidays I fully embrace the back-to-back rom-coms that always have happy endings.  In one of them yesterday, I was struck by a line spoken by one of the minor characters to our protagonist.  She said, "You should do something every day that scares you."

I've heard the line before, but perhaps because it landed on New Year's Day, it has hauntingly lingered in my memory.  When I sat to meditate later in the evening, I pondered when I last did something that scared me.  Maybe 10 years ago when I pulled up stakes and moved to Washington without a job?  I recall feeling terrified six months earlier when I had given my notice at both of my teaching jobs, but at the actual time of the move, it just felt right.  In fact, I have done some things since then that maybe should have scared me, but they felt so clearly true to my heart that I recall no fear.  (Giving my notice on a "good government job" last spring when I didn't have another, maybe should have felt some fear?)

Then I melted away the boundaries of my denial and was honest with myself: no, I haven't done anything that scared me in a while.  But, as I reflected on the absence of fear-inducing activity, I realized that I've been running from the things that scared me, while using excuses.

Last week a friend who had lost his wife last summer wrote that over Thanksgiving he'd taken a retreat.  I wrote back congratulating him on his courage.

You see, I knew the courage required for several days of silence. I used to take four-day silent meditation retreats twice a year. I did it for at least 15, maybe 20 years. About two days in, I'd always spend a few hours "wrestling with my angels."  I'd discover something about myself that I didn't like. I'd heal it, and at the end of the retreat I would almost certainly be a more whole person.  Yet I knew that "wrestling with my angels," while reward-producing at the end, was terrifying when I was in it. My friend was courageous to take his retreat.

As I reflected last night, I recalled my correspondence.  I couldn't remember when I had displayed the courage to take a four-day silent retreat.  First I had gone from twice a year to once a year. Along the way, four days became three and then two, even though I knew that it took at least two days of silence to get deep enough to find my angels and then wrestle with them.  On occasion, I would start a retreat but get restless and, instead of staying with my restlessness, I'd abandon my efforts.  Is that something I should admit that I am scared of doing?  Absolutely!  So, as soon as I publish this post, I will begin my first four-day silent retreat in years.

But there were other truths that bubbled up last night when I was honest about doing what scared me. I've used the busyness of my schedule and the exhaustion from my work as an excuse to not write in this blog with regularity.  Almost every time I write, I wrestle with a truth that I know in my heart but would rather run from.  If I keep moving and don't write, I don't have to face those truths.

For long stretches of my adult life I haven't even owned a television, and for even longer stretches when I had one, it would sit for months without being turned on.  Increasingly, I've come home and turned on the TV as a way to escape my truth.  The truth is that I miss having someone to come home to. While I've lived along for 23 years now, I don't think I am well suited to living alone. The noise of the TV makes me feel like someone is in my apartment with me.

I have laughed that I have dinner with Stephen Colbert every evening as I watch his late-night show from the evening before while I eat.  Occasionally, I substitute John Oliver or Samantha Bee. I like to laugh, and one of the things that I miss most about living alone is the side-splitting laughter that erupts spontaneously over the silliest of things.  If I dine with comedians, I can be assured laughter daily.

That's where the Hallmark Channel comes in again.  I love being assured a happy ending.  I think that sometimes I am afraid my life will not have a happy ending, and these happy movies, while never without a stumbling block, always have a feel-good finish.

Somehow I've fallen into a television addiction--a verifiable addiction, because I use it to separate from my feelings.  I turned off the television at 10 last night, and I don't plan to turn it back on for a week.  Dinner alone without humor...now that scares me.

In my silent retreat I am going to figure out what else scares me and build the courage to do something every day in 2017 that scares me. In my heart I know that a year from now, I will be closer to reclaiming the Self I came into this life to be.

Endings...Beginnings...

While I am by no means an authority, for a long time I've been interested in the Jewish mystical study of numbers.  I apologize for anyone out there, who may actually be an expert in this field if I in any way misrepresent the study of numerology, but I will do my best to share what I have taken from my limited exposure that applies to what has been on my heart lately. I do so completely from memory because, as often happens, I apparently loaned my book to someone who hasn't returned it...and I don't remember who that was.

Numerology looks at the Jewish Tree Of Life, a set of spiritual lessons, which each person works through in cycles of nine years.  Each lesson has a feminine aspect and a masculine dimension. Throughout our lives, we repeat each of the nine lessons, one per year, and then we start the cycle over again. Some years the focus is the masculine side of the lesson; other years it is the feminine. Similar to the hero's journey about which I've written previously, although the basic lesson is the same each time, we go through more advanced versions of the lesson. We go through the cycles individually, and planetarily.

The cycle has been on my heart because the energy of the planet is now transitioning from the end of the cycle to the beginning of a new one.  The transition began at the Jewish New Year (October 2-4 this year.)  It will end at the Winter Solstice (December 21.)  During that three and a half months, it is our spiritual work to "clean house."  2016 has been a "9" year, which is about endings.  People often leave jobs, even careers, end relationships, sell houses, and let go other significant parts of our lives that have served their purpose, but with which we are finished.

By December 21, we should have cleaned out anything that is not part of a new beginning for us. What we carry into the 21st will be with us for another nine years.  I've had this on my mind, but all of the sudden this week I realized that I just have a month left, and I haven't done much cleaning out. Frequent reader of this blog and my friend Amy Frost told me in the Super Moon, which occurred a couple weeks ago, that we should write down anything we wanted to let go of and then set the paper on fire, letting the smoke release the energy of the past into the atmosphere.  That was a busy day, but I did some general letting go into smoke that day.

But I know I have way too much baggage to carry with me into the future.  Let me count the ways.

Besides the energy of spiritual baggage, there is some literal baggage I am dealing with.  Almost a year ago, construction in my apartment building's storage area required me to bring up everything from my storage unit.  It has been sitting in my bedroom closet since then.  I knew I needed to clean out, but I haven't made doing so a priority.

When I left my last job in August, I hastily packed up anything that was mine personally and brought five boxes home with me...also in my bedroom closet.  (Fortunately, I have a bedroom closet big enough to party in.)  I know there is a lot to be left behind there as well, but sorting through my office boxes has not been a priority either.

I thought I was going to have the time to just sit in my closet this weekend and sort, but I have allowed the approaching holidays and associated activities encroach on my time. I am not sure whether that is avoidance or choosing my future to be with friends...or a little of both. While I make an effort to keep my Sabbath sacred, I have decided that this spiritual sorting exercise is an appropriate Sabbath activity, and I will sit in my closet on Sunday afternoon.

I also have a desk at home that I have been sorting through for two weeks, and I am close to seeing the surface of at least a third of it now.  There is more, for sure, but great progress.  What remains are my time-consuming projects, and I am not sure when I will find the time, but doing so is a priority for me now.

There are bookshelves that are bulging as my appetite for new books always exceeds the time I have to read them.  My folder of clipped recipes was so full at the beginning of last week that it wouldn't close.  I am grateful for Thanksgiving and Christmas menu planning for nudging me to begin to go through it two evenings earlier in the week.  There is more, but I have found that some of the recipes just don't look good any more, and pitching them has been easy.

When I think about what I want to take into the next nine years, though, more important than cleaning out "stuff" is being conscious of what habits I am ready to let go of and what new ones I want to choose for my future.  As I reflect back over the last nine years, I think that this cycle has been about the time period during which I've forfeited the intentional life I had built and allowed myself to be overtaken by work, in every variety.

For decades, I ate healthfully, exercised daily, meditated at least once a day, did extended meditation retreats, danced several times a week, practiced gratitude daily, spent time with friends and laughed a lot.  Morsel by morsel, most of that has slipped out of my life since 2007, and I want to reclaim "my" life and let go of whatever has consumed me.

New habits are formed in 30 days. I could be overwhelmed as I look at all the new habits I want to form.  However, at least for me, I respond well to any positive change in my life.  Intuitively, I know that if I change one thing, changing others seems much easier.  I feel it is almost like flipping a switch back to the "real Kay," rather than changing eight different habits.

In my as-yet-unpublished book Choice Point, which I thought was "finished" in 1997, I wrote that life should be a meditation, and in each moment we should consciously ask, "Is this a 'yes' or is this a 'no?'"  When I think about reclaiming my life, the question I need to ask isn't will I exercise or not today, it is "Will I be who Kay's soul intended her to be today?"  A single question, applied to every situation, asked consciously.  Life as a moment-by-moment meditation.

What I know in my heart is that all I want to carry into the next nine years is the consciousness to ask that question a 1,000 times every day...and the courage to act on what I know.

$25,000 or 2,000 chocolate bars

In my last post, I wrote about attending a workshop on somatic (physical) aspects of personality.  In that post I focused on the deliterous effects of the gut-punched posture. Today I'd like to visit another dimension of somatics: the smile.  

Our instructor reported that on scans of the brain, the simple act of changing from a neutral face to a smile produces the equivalent brain response as receiving $25,000 or 2,000 chocolate bars.  All that we need to do is smile.  If you will allow a pun, this is a no-brained. 

I've been traveling for work this week, and while we had some serious laugh-out-loud moments at the destination meeting, in transit I saw very few smiles.  Now imagine that if even half the people at a boarding gate smiled, it would be like raining money...or chocolate (but that could be a messier visual.) But they don't.

I did observe though that I could create a little proverbial money magic by giving away smiles.  Without stopping or making other contact, about half of the strangers with whom I made eye contact as I smiled actually smiled back at me.

An old saying about hugs suggests, "You can't give one without getting one." While it would seem that not everyone to whom I smile also smiles back, a lot do. When I give my brain a shot of cash or chocolate with my smile, I am simultaneously able to give the same to a total stranger as they smile back. And, I get one back as well.  The possibilities are almost limitless.

Over the years that I've been writing this blog, I've encouraged readers to generate positive energy around the world by multiplying some spiritual quality, such as gratitude by saying "thank you." Today I am encouraging readers to smile.  Give smiles and get smiles.  I am certain you will feel richer at the end of your day.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Free at Last

I just finished my third week in my new job.  The journey (and it has been a journey) has been a defining one. 

While I fully understand that I am within a legitimate honeymoon period, there is almost nothing that isn't almost perfect.  That means my continuous improvement eye is just out of luck. The pay is at the top end of what I'd hoped for, the benefits are better, and the physical environment is quite pleasant.  I truly like my new team, which really seems to function as a team. So far, my clients have been pleasant, which, given that my clients are what held me at my old job long after it was healthy for me, is a delight.

All that given, I have been in something of a spiritual crisis these three weeks.  First, because I had worked exceptionally long hours I a job with normally long hours in order to meet client commitments, and I was just plain exhausted physically.  No amount of sleep would seem to relieve my fatigue during the first 2 to 3 weeks.

An overlay to the fatigue was an uneasiness, like waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Then, I noticed a reticence as I started into my work.  That really shocked me: having started semi-professional work at 16 and worked my way through college, I've always been quite confident in my work, even when doing something for the first time. And, the tasks I was assigned initially weren't at all challenging. That feeling continued for at least a week.

In parallel, or perhaps as a function of the reticence, I felt constrained, when I was fully aware nothing was constraining me.  I could intellectualize that part though.

In the late 1990s there was a study widely reported that often came to mind in the first days.  The study reported on fish in an aquarium. After swimming freely for a significant period of time, a clear glass plate was placed in the middle of the tank, blocking the fish from swimming beyond the midpoint.

For a while, the fish kept swimming, smashing repeatedly into the glass barrier.  After some period, the fish became conditioned to swim up to the plate and stop.

Eventually, the scientists removed the impediment.  The fish, who had been conditioned, continued to swim up to where the offending plate had been and would go no further. 

That's how I felt.  I had become so constrained in my last job, that I'd become uneasy doing activities that I'd done almost without thought for years previous to that job. 

I was angry.  How could I have allowed myself to tolerate such treatment, when I must have known what it was doing to me? I must have known, I told myself in the first few days of my new job. Yet, if I did, I had no recollection.  While some constraints had been  brutally blunt, the magnitude of hundreds of small limitations is what nearly destroyed me.

Now I was free; the proverbial glass plate had been removed.  And, I spent a few days frozen.  Then, one morning I was in my groove again on a design project.  A happy little introvert, I sat at my desk, cranking out work. 

Over the next 48 hours, I started to feel as if I was able to exhale for the first time in years.

Last week was my first facilitation in my new job.  For two of the three days, I was clearly not hitting on all the cylinders.  I didn't have energy or creativity.  I never hit the groove where I felt the group and I were one. 

I blamed it on lack of sleep, because I'd been awakening two hours early, able to go back to sleep.  Then, I questioned whether I'd burned out the small amount of extraversion the good Lord had given me. I was leading strategic planning, one of my favorite things, and it felt like crashing.  Finally I went to fear: what if I'd found this perfect place to work, and I was going to fail?

At last on Wednesday night, I slept all night and awakened full of energy.  I felt good.  I had some reflective time.  Over the three hours after awakening, I had several little epiphanies.  I was walking down the hall to my new office and realized I was carrying myself as if I'd been gut-punched.  Without losing stride, I opened my middle and breathed deeply into my belly...and smiled. 

When I arrived at my office, I was aware that mentality I'd gone back to the "running scared" mindset which resulted from years of way too much work and not nearly enough time to do it.  I took another deep breath. I had 90 minutes before the session started.  I told myself I could enjoy this.

Joy in my work.  I'd written about it extensively.  I'd lived it for many years, but temporary amnesia had possessed me in recent years as work had slowly slipped into a drudgery that I had to do do to buy groceries.  As I sat down at my desk Thursday morning, I smiled and gave myself permission to enjoy my work.

I remembered that the last time I'd facilitated strategic planning in June, one if the participants came up to me halfway through the day and said, "You really love this stuff don't you?"  I agreed.  He continued that I "radiated passion for the work."  Thursday morning I gave myself permission to radiate passion again.  Every few minutes that morning delivered an Aha!

When I hit the meeting room an hour later, I was energized.  I'd hit my stride.  I am certain that the team noticed: the difference was certainly palpable to me.

I have had what I think are a couple legitimate concerns about the work, but I am fully cognizant of my tendency to bolt when things are feeling too good, more conditioning but from a very young age. Right now, I am allowing myself to enjoy my new little piece of heaven.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Making Meaning

I finished Cameron Diaz's Longevity Book a few weeks ago.  It is a fascinating study of all of the human systems and how we age--not necessarily getting old; it describes how our bodies age, pretty much from birth.  As the book is drawing to a close, Diaz relates that when she turned 40, she was interested in understanding what it meant physically to pass this milestone.

This natural curiosity propelled her into an intriguing scientific investigation, which she generously shares with readers.  She continues to say that in this process, she came to understand that it was her job to create meaning in her life, which she did in researching and writing the book.  Then, she challenges the reader to create meaning in their own lives.

I've heard this message countless times. I've even written it a few dozen times...or more.  But this time, as I read her words, they took me in a different direction.  As someone who had little formal education in science until a few years ago, Diaz followed her natural curiosity like a string she was following to see where it led.  The reader can feel her excitement throughout the book.  There is a breathless quality to it.

I recall that over 20 years ago now when I was in one of many edits for Leading from the Heart, one of the leaders I'd asked to read the manuscript criticized it saying that there was a breathless quality to it, just like I was discovering something new.  While there was nothing I wrote that was new to me, following my own inspiration was an exciting journey.  I recall going many hours without food, water, or other biological relief because I was so excited about what was unfolding on the computer screen in front of me.

Last week I began briefings at the conclusion of a five-month organization assessment.  This one was particularly intriguing because of the interrelatedness and complexity of the organizational dynamics.  I said more than once over the last month as I was pulling my data together that it was like pulling apart a knotted ball of yarn.

Reading Diaz's charge, I realized that, while I enjoy making change in organizations, what really flips my switches is figuring out the puzzle and developing a hypothesis about what will address the challenges that people in that situation face.  I love getting things started.  Grinding it out over several years, not so much.

That is important to me, especially as I move to a new job.  As I define who I am in my profession, I will do so more intentionally with what brings meaning to me as the focus of my work.  I've used the "What brings life to me, what brings me to life" guideline in this blog before.  Too much of what I've done in recent years has sucked the life right out of me...and I let it.

Over the years, I've coached a number of people who were bent upon discovering what their life's purpose is, and I've always encouraged them to think about purpose as more of a process than a destination.  If we think of purpose as an endpoint, we have no room to grow as the world changes and as we grow and develop.  If, by contrast, we think about making meaning in this moment, we are able to continue to evolve for the rest of our lives.

As I think about Diaz's book which gracefully describes what happens in every one of our physical systems, I see great parallel.  Our cells don't leap frog from birth to death in an instant, they go through many stages of life.  Similarly, our respiration, our hearts, and other systems are vastly different as a newborn, a toddler, a teen, a young adult and a senior citizen.

Our purpose should evolve similarly.  Tomorrow, I start my last week in a job that has borne frustrations and accomplishments.  I will be very mindful about how my spiritual development is transition as I end this job and move next week to another.

Self-trust

Those who have been reading this blog for a while will recall that I've felt like I was in a transition for at least a year, maybe 18 months.  I have talked about "feeling pregnant," sure that I was going to "deliver" a new and fuller me without really knowing what that meant.

All of a sudden, it feels like I am in the final moments of giving birth.  I still don't really know where it is going, but I do know that I've learned a huge amount about myself and life over the last few months.  Whatever is coming feels like I've taken a quantum leap in the cycle of spirit growth.

In the process of doing some "cleaning up of the past" so that I can really move forward, I stumbled onto "self-trust" as an issue. It ends up that the whole self-trust thing has come up before.  20-plus years ago, I had a cranial-sacral session in which the practitioner said, "You have self-trust issues."  I was indignant.

My integrity is critical to me.  I wouldn't/couldn't lie, cheat or steal.  I am the girl who argued about the integrity of exceeding the speed limit by 5 miles an hour even if everyone else was doing it. How could I have self-trust issues?  But self-trust...even trust...is more than that. In fact, integrity is much more than not lying, cheating, or stealing. As soon as I was able to break through my self-righteousness after each of these messages about self-trust, everywhere I turned I was able to see lack of self-trust.

Integrity derives from the same Greek root as "integer"--a whole number.  Being in integrity is being true to who you know you are in your heart.  Self-trust is acting in accord with that "soul's intention" for your life.  Sometimes I've been very good at acting in alignment with my truth, but I admit that in recent years more often than not I've more reliably acting in accord with what the world around me has expected of me.

The world around me tells me that financial success, a well-founded retirement, and increasingly higher status jobs is "success," but I've really know that wasn't my definition of success. Why have I tolerated a job and superiors who treat me so disrespectfully for years? Do I not trust myself to do the things that I know are right for me? For that matter, why is it that I can't keep my intentions to avoid sugar, or to write this blog, or to meditate everyday? Those are the intentions that I know to be true to my heart.

Several months ago I mustered the courage to tell my boss I was quitting at the end of the summer...without another job in hand. That was integrity and self-trust. I gave a long notice because I needed that time to make sure current projects were either complete or at the stage of development at which they could be handed off to someone else. Taking good care of clients I love was integrity.  I couldn't have trusted myself if I'd done less.

As the weeks passed I found myself dragging my feet.  I kept saying the words but inside me I was afraid I couldn't do it.

In June I began to feel a real physical exhaustion.  Why, I asked myself, had I not planned to leave sooner?  Two things occurred about the same time that reinforced my decision to leave, and they were the final straws.  Suddenly I was like the proverbial horse headed for the barn.  I may not know what was at the end of the tunnel, but I was sure it would be better.  Almost overnight, I felt a super-charged sense of self-efficacy.  In retrospect, I had recognized my ability to come out on top... whatever life presented me.  I finally trusted myself.  Whoo-hoo!

The Universe was very affirming.  Almost as soon as I got really clear that I was going to come out better however I came out, things started popping.  I had two interviews in a week for a job I'd applied for in February.  The founder of a new consulting firm called and began salary negotiation for an executive position.  I attended a conference and a professional meeting and walked away from both with several leads on contract work if I decided to go independent.  All of this is 10 days time. Within another week, I had an offer for a job I've agreed to take that will allow me to do work that is better aligned with my strengths and is significantly more money and benefits.

I have wondered to myself a number of times  what would have happened if I'd quit this job years ago.  Did I just need to trust myself enough to know I would land on my feet for the Universe to support me?  Although we will never know, I am guessing that is true.

After a dry spell, my date life is picking up again, too.  No great loves on the horizon. What I've started noticing that if a man doesn't treat me the way I expect to be treated, I trust myself enough to just walk away (once in the middle of dinner) rather than politely tolerating unacceptable behavior.

One of my favorite rom-com movies is "The Holiday."  In it, Iris, played by Kate Winslet, has been a doormat for her "former" boyfriend.  Although he is in a relationship with another woman, he uses Iris when it is convenient for him. Iris encounters an octogenarian screenwriter, who "assigns" her movie watching of classic films with strong female leads.

Soon her boyfriend is once again asking her to do something for him again.  This time she indignantly refuses.  "What's gotten into you, Iris?" he asks.  Stopped in her tracks for a split second, Iris hesitates before saying, "I think it is something resembling gumption."

"Gumption" isn't a word I hear often these days.  Yet that is what I am finding seems to come in the wake of self-trust.  When I know what is right for me in my heart, and when I act on what I know is true, the gumption part seems to come easily.  Gumption isn't arrogant: it feels to me like a deep, peaceful truth that wells up inside of me, offering a sense of strength and focus that I haven't been conscious of for a while.

Trust, you see, is a lot like a hug: you have to give it to get it.  Once I started trusting myself with the truth of my heart, the Universe has trusted me enough to support me in my truth.  Can there be much more?

Play...woohoo!

Sunday afternoon I found a table poolside and sat and colored for an hour or so.  I didn't check the time, so that is just a guess.  I just got lost in the endeavor.  When I did need to look at the clock to go pack a bag for business travel, I felt amazingly relaxed.  And no small amount of pride in my evolving work.

The three- and six-year olds in my life about whom I've written previously sent me a set of 24 (yes!) placemats to color.  The mats were collages of scenes from 24 different cities. Sunday I lost myself in London and daydreamed about a visit there over 20 years ago.  I just drifted along in timelessness.

My reverie, which continued long after I stopped coloring, reminded me of a time in my adult life when I was truly playful.  I loved coming up with playful schemes.  I just let my inner kid spontaneously let me and those around me laugh...mostly.  I remember someone who once questioned, "Aren't you ever going to grow up?"  At the time, I was in my early mid-40s.  I pondered for only a second before responding, "I hope not!"

So what exactly is play?  Stuart Brown, head of the non-profit National Institute for Play, said in a 2014 interview for NPR** "Play is something that is done for its own sake....It's voluntary, it's pleasurable, it offers a sense of engagement, it takes you out of time. And the act itself is more important than the outcome."

As I read this definition, I connected the dots with one of the places I am really able to play--the dance floor.  I am a good dancer, as are most of the people I dance with.  What I really enjoy most is dancing with someone who is good but isn't dancing to prove something.  A partner who brings an element of reckless abandonment...with good technique...flips my switches.  I love it when I walk off the dance floor with both of us laughing.

I recall being in Seattle with a friend years ago.  Pre-GPS, we got lost.  The more we tried to find our way to the right freeway, the more lost we seemed to become.  Somehow, we got started giggling, and within a few minutes, we were laughing so hard that we had to pull over and stop.  A nice man offered help, but we were laughing so hard we could hardly get the words out about what road we were attempting to find. Our playfulness about getting lost took us out of time, and the fun we were having certainly was more important than finding I5.

It also seems to me that play brings to us that most spiritual of qualities--being present.  I am not sure it is possible to really truly play and not be in the present.  If the mind is wandering or we get too caught up in the win and lose, whatever we are doing ceases to be play and becomes some other sort of endeavor.  Many years ago during a personal growth seminar, my former partner and I discovered that all the things that we said we did for fun had really become work.  While it was great exercise, I cannot imagine any definition of play that includes climbing 18 miles up a mountain on a 100-degree.

One internet source* explains there are five key benefits for adult play:

• Relieve stress
• Improve brain function
• Stimulate the mind and boost creativity
• Improve relationships and connection to others  (Apparently, there is a lot of play in durable marriages.)
• Keep you feeling young and energetic

I once had a client who, in presenting the problems his office faced, said, "The administrative support professionals laugh a lot."  I queried, "And, that would be a problem how?" I have several games that I facilitate with adult teams at work.  Always, the relaxation and laughter break down walls and open communication.  Laughter and humor, in and of themselves, have been demonstrated to generate creativity and increase innovation.  

Play is apparently also effective at healing emotional wounds.  That may be why I so used to love to play. Notice I said, "...used to love to play?" I used to have a fun kit.  Among other things it included bubble to blow, three kites to choose from to fly, a full set of 64 crayons and a coloring book. I usually still have a bottle of bubbles and blower on my balcony, just in case I feel the need to blow bubbles, but somewhere along the way journey of surviving two gigantic financial crises and a business failure, the kit disappeared.

Like so many pleasures of life, play seems to have slipped away from me.  Brown says that "Adults without play are not much fun to be around."  I have found that...about myself.  I am delighted to say that the little ones are coming to visit in just over two weeks, and I am sure that I will play with reckless abandon.  I hope they will help me rediscover my funny bone and bring play back into my life.

*http://www.helpguide.org/articles/emotional-health/benefits-of-play-for-adults.htm

*http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2014/08/06/336360521/play-doesnt-end-with-childhood-why-adults-need-recess-too

Boundaries

Washington is in the middle of a week of brutally hot weather, exceeding 100 degrees and shattering long-standing records.  With the humidity, our heat indices have been even more relentless. Yet this morning I've been quite comfortably luxuriating on my north-facing balcony with a slight breeze. I breakfasted outdoors, a guilty pleasure I've enjoyed most of my adult life.  As I did so, I found my mind drifting back to several patios, decks, and balconies on which I had breakfasted and to the friends with whom I had  shared stories and laughed as we ate.

Before eating, I had finished a novel that I started a month ago on my staycation. In it the main characters started the book as boys, and by the end, they had become old men with failing eyesight. The book left me in a reflective space, which may have spawned my breakfast reverie.  I've been thinking about this post for some time. For once I am not going to use the excuse of no time to write. If you had asked I wouldn't have known why I hadn't written, but this morning I know that I just hadn't had enough perspective.

I believe the expression "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear" came from the I Ching, but I also believe that a number of Eastern philosophies hold something similar to be true. During my outdoor breakfast contemplation this morning, the pieces began to fall into place for me.  I, as the student, must be ready because lots of opportunities to learn a similar lesson have appeared.

During my four-month detail last fall and early winter, I became keenly aware that my life had spun totally out of control in recent years--to the extent that my physical and mental health were being compromised and my relationships were back-burnered, awaiting that precious "time" for nurturing. Certainly, time for writing, which really nourishes my soul, had become a low priority. I fell asleep from exhaustion when I tried to meditate. I had to be away from my long-standing, abusive work environment to get the perspective to recognize that.

In those treasured four months, I was able to see what had evaded me for so long. In my situation I had lost either the self-respect or the self-confidence to set and stick to my boundaries.  When I returned to my permanent job, I wrote in big block letters with a box around them on the whiteboard behind my desk, where I looked at it every time I entered my office, "boundary clarity."

In a matter of days, I was tested.  An unsustainable level of dark work again began flowing at me from very high places. Encouraged by my "boundary clarity" reminder, I began telling my clients that I would work with them, but it would be three months, four months, and even five months later.  I brought in a contractor to do work with one client organization, which had needs that wouldn't wait. Still, the darkness and the volume of the work were too much.

Within a month I knew something had to change.  After several conversations with my new boss, it became clear that the organization was more concerned about keeping my very senior customers happy than in keeping me healthy and happy. No relief would be coming, but I was assured that I was very good at this work.  After an unusually frightening dream about the same time, I knew I had to leave.  I began the process of planning for an end-of-the-summer departure.  I was quite transparent with my boss and his boss about planning for an August separation.

I had no other job from which to make money, and I really need serious income for several years yet I knew I needed to take care of myself. My friends worried a bit more than I did about how I would live, but as soon as I got very clear about needing to move on, I had faith that something would work out.  My big focus was on getting my clients, most of whom I'd worked with for years, to a good transition point. I learned about a month ago that the boss didn't really think I'd go, but he obviously doesn't know my courage when my spiritual path has become clear to me, and it had become very clear to me.

As soon as I had become very clear, out of the blue I received a call from a potential employer.  Job announcements began falling into my email inbox with regularity.  Even USAJobs, which has seldom had appropriate jobs, sent me a promising vacancy announcement. I am now just five weeks from my departure date, and I have two very strong prospects, each of which allows me to work in my "sweet spot," and each of which will be a significant increase in income.  Perhaps as encouraging is that along the way as I networked with former bosses and colleagues, I found great sources for independent contract work.

In parallel, I realized how my work situation has made me unavailable for time with friends and even to pursue a primary relationship.  In fact, for the first time in a long time, I added up how many years it had been since I'd had more than a date or two with someone.  It wasn't an acceptable number.  I began focusing my intention on at least meeting some men.  I had first dates with people I would have just checked off my list a year ago.  Most of them weren't serious prospects, but I was at least getting out and sending the Universe a message that I was serious.

Along the way, something else happened.  While I just didn't have much in common with most of these men, there was another category.  The only way I can describe them is "Really?!"  The one who pronounced that he had two other women in his life but would like to add others. "Really?!" There was one who was married but said his wife was OK with him dating others. "Really?!"  Last week, there was one who seriously treated me like a child. "Really?!"  I wanted to add, "What do I look like?" but the truth is, I probably looked like a doormat, both at work and in my personal life.

I like to be nice to people.  If I have ever been rude, it was either because I was tired or didn't realize what I was doing.  In each of these cases, I just walked out.  The last one in the middle of dinner at a famous-chef restaurant that I really love. As a serious foodie, that should have been hard, but it wasn't. Following each of these, someone more interesting followed.  I'm still not there yet, but...progress.

In the 2006 movie "The Holiday," one of two female leads, Iris, played by Kate Winslet, has also been down on her confidence and has allowed her former boyfriend to walk all over her.  In the movie, she meets an octogenarian, who is former screenwriter.  He begins "assigning" her movie viewing of classic films, all of which have strong women leads.  After said boyfriend crosses the line yet one more time, she kicks him out of her life.  He is incredulous.  "What's gotten into you, Iris?" he asks.

After a pause, she replies, "I think it is something resembling gumption." And, away she sends him.

As I've been contemplating this post over the last few weeks, that scene and those words have played over and again in my mind.  Where did my gumption go, and more importantly, how did I let it go. I have been a strong woman most of my adult life.  Anyone who has known me before this century would certainly have laughed at the thought that I didn't have confidence.  A former dance partner once remarked (paraphrased for the general audience) "You have more moxie than any man I know."

"Where did it go?" is still a question I ponder, but mostly, I don't care. What I am passionate about is sustaining it into what feels to me like the next phase of my life--one that promises to be the best ever.

While both personally and professionally my life has been about helping others, I now know that I can't sustain my help for others if I don't take care of my first.  How many coaching clients have I reminded that the airlines always warn us to put the oxygen mask over our own faces before attempting to help children around us. On this turn of the hero's journey, I've gotten this lesson differently than I had before.  Saying "Sorry, I can't help me, I need to take care of myself," really is uncomfortable to even consider, but, whatever comes next, that is a clear boundary that I must enforce.

Digital Addiction

(Note: This was written about two weeks ago and has, by an interesting twist of fate, been trapped in my iPhone.)

Recently several articles in the Washington Post have explored various aspects of digital addiction, even reporting on residential treatment programs where people can go for withdrawal from their devices. 

While I am certain that I am not nearly as badly hooked as many around, I have wondered several times in the last month if I might not be falling victim to this disease.  I have already decided that I want to go cold turkey during part of my staycation in early July.  But, even at that I have wondered what exactly does "cold turkey" mean? 

Since I get lost in my closet, I've been quite grateful for having Google Maps facilitate my arrival when and where I attend. If I go on an excursion during my staycation, must I really go back to reading maps, which I really don't do very well? 

If I totally give up electronics, that means I can't do my Spanish lessons which require daily practice to be effective.  Can I do my Spanish lesson once a day?

Can I sync my step- and sleep-tracker each day?  What really are the consequences of not knowing these things, which I cared little about until recently but which now seem indispensable?

Usually during vacations, I really enjoy writing for this blog.  Would it be OK to write a blogpost on one of several devices that I own?

You see the slippery slope upon which I am perched.

Back in the days during which the closest approximation we had to smartphones was a Blackberry, they were jokingly referred to as "crack berries" because even they were as addictive as crack cocaine.  Just the sampling of uses to which I put my iPhone, described above, make it really easy to see how it is easy to slip into this addiction. In and of itself, each use is benign; it is the accumulation of all those helpful apps that threaten addiction. Even as I write this, I am on my way to a Washington Nationals baseball game. Back in the day, like 2010, I would have taken a book or a magazine to read on the commute, and maybe I'd talk to people. Not today.  I love that I can finally have a chance to write, but relent the consequences.

While I've been thinking about this issue for several weeks, it is particularly heavy on me today.  I've been riveted to news coverage about the horrible tragedy in Orlando all afternoon. Wearing my ear buds plugged to NPR as I ran errands and did chores, I've hung on every word. Just before I started writing this post, I'd found myself looking at my phone offering the temptation that a bag of heroine might to a drug addict. 

The line in the sand came when I realized that I'd learned almost nothing...all afternoon. 

(Note: Since starting this post earlier, I've now been to a very exciting baseball game during which my phone remained happily in my purse.)

As I was saying, I came to the realization that while there had been 4 or 5 reporters covering the event, almost nothing new was reported.  So what was the point of hanging on every word, except for serving my addiction.  I do remember a time in the late 90s, though, when I was so disconnected that my editor at Butterworth-Heinemann shared with me a breaking event about Osama bin Laden, and I said, "Who?"  Clearly there is a happy medium between these extremes.

I do know that despite of, or maybe because of, that exciting two-run 9th inning for the Nats, I feel way more relaxed after this three hours than I did after three hours of the continuous news cycle. I take that as good data.  Now I just need to turn that information into wisdom. 

Because of a strange work week, my weekend is Sunday and Monday this week, and while I won't give up my laptop, I plan to abandon my iPhone except for what a phone is supposed to be used for--talking to friends.

Contemplation

A story bubbled up several times in my meditation today that I remember hearing years ago.  A baby chick was struggling to break free of  the egg shell in which it had been gestating.  Tap! Tap! Tap! Its little beak hit the inside of the encasement. Tap! Tap! Tap! Finally, a tiny crack appeared.  For hours this process continued, and at last the tiniest of holes appeared, and the beak could be seen as it worked to broaden the opening.

A well-meaning human observer thought he would help the chick so he broke the shell open to liberate the baby bird.  Very shortly after breaking the shell open, the baby bird died.  Apparently, process of fighting its way out of the shell develops the bird's lungs sufficiently that it will be able to sustain respiration when it finally emerges from the shell.  By breaking the encasement open for the chick, the human helper robbed the baby bird of the work which would allow it to live.

During an interview a few months ago on Oprah's "Super Soul Sunday," author and philosopher Sister Joan Chittister described "contemplation" as "seeing the world as God sees it."  I am in a period of transition, and sometimes it has felt to me like I am that baby bird, attempting to break free of the shell, or in my case the box, in which I've been trapped.

As the story of the bird breaking free drifted into my awareness today, I thought that God must be watching me struggle to break free, all the while knowing that the strength I gain in the struggle will be what enables me to thrive in whatever comes next.

An Eastern adage, from the I Ching if I remember correctly, advises that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear.  My own experience is that when a student is ready, many teachers agree. Everywhere I turn a lesson will be repeated for me until I "get it."

I am certain that it was not a coincidence that I ran into someone yesterday, who is a reader of this blog. As she walked toward me, she said, "No blog posts!"  I gave the feeble excuse about my job consuming me that has become old and pathetic even to me.

Then I shared that I had given notice that no later than the end of the summer I was leaving the job with which I've struggled.  I don't remember her exact words, but it was something like, "We've all been watching you struggle and wondering why you don't just get out of there."  Once again I could imagine myself like that bird, struggling to break free.

As I contemplated the image of the bird struggling to develop its lungs so that it can sustain respiration outside the egg shell, I was able to see my life in three distinct phases.  In two, I struggled significantly.  In the third, between the periods of struggle, my life flowed like a daily miracle.

I thought about God watching me and wondered what had flipped the switches from struggle to flow and back to struggle again.  Yet I saw no sign posts that pointed and said definitively, "This is what changed it," in either direction.  However, from the perspective of looking at myself in those three distinct phases, I was struck that during the struggling phases I excelled as using skills I'd developed at doing work I didn't particularly like, but because it was valued by my employers and/or clients, I performed the work for money. It was usually important work that helped people, but it wasn't my work.

In the miracle phase, from early morning until I often fell into bed exhausted from a vigorous evening of dancing, life flowed from my natural gifts and talents.  I embraced every moment of life passionately. Again, I performed important work that helped people, but in the miracle phase, it was my work.

While the most popular coach training and certification, both of which I have, requires that coaches work with their clients to set specific, measurable, achievable goals, during the period of my life which flowed easily I allowed my life to be led by intentions, instead of goals.  Deep inner knowing guided me on mysterious journeys, which I could not have imagined from my wildest goal-setting mind.

One measure about which I have written in this blog previously is the intention to follow "life."  To ask myself, "Does this bring me to life? Does it bring life to me?" If it "flips my switches," then it is almost certainly a path I should follow, and if it doesn't, that also is good data--information that I should walk away from that opportunity.

What I believe to be life's intentions were detailed in my book The Game Called Life. These are intentions that I say are written on the back sides of our hearts and were designed to be our internal compasses:

1. Lessons Learned--Will this help me learn a lesson that my soul needs to learn in this life? Or is it a lesson the world needs me and others to learn at this time to evolve humanity?

2.  Develop skills and talents--Am I using the unique skills, talents and gifts that I was given for this journey to help me serve the world?

3.  Do work put in front of you—What is the purpose for what you are doing at this moment? How will what you are doing serve to make the world a better place?

When my life was flowing, I didn't live by a goal to be a certain level in the company, revenue level in my business, or make a certain amount of money.  I lived by the intentions from The Game that brought me to life. In my current struggled, I've focused too much on being of service (and I am certain that I have been of service,) to the neglect of the lessons I needed to learn and using my real gifts and talents.

In this moment of contemplation, I believe that I finally can see Kay as God sees her.  After years of watching my struggle, this morning I am certain that God displays a broad grin, knowing that I have finally developed the strength to sustain me when I break out of my shell. What allows me to thrive is truly being who I know I am in my heart.

Not being who I thought I was...really...

In my March 12 post, I wrote about converging forces, demanding that I know more about who I am.  ("What's Going On With Me?") I shared how while watching the "Finding Your Roots" television series with Harvard professor Louis Henry Gates in parallel with the "Outlander" series, set in Scotland, a place from whence many of my ancestors embarked upon their journeys to North America, I suddenly became extremely curious about my own ancestry.  So, I swabbed my mouth and sent it off for information about my DNA.

A couple weeks ago, the results arrived.  I was shocked.  I felt like that man in the commercial, who had spent his whole life thinking his ancestors were German. He had learned German customs and dances and even acquired traditional German costumes.  Then, his DNA determined that he was Scottish.

My results weren't quite that different.  I have a very Irish name, and quite accurately, I knew that I was Scottish and Irish with a little Dutch and French.  The DNA tests confirmed all that with a bit more broad representation from the British Isles.

I also learned that I have 7% ancestry from Northern Spain, a place that I've gravitated to over the last half dozen years, and I've said many times that I could retire to Barcelona in a heartbeat. Walking the riverfront in Bilbao on a Sunday afternoon three years ago felt like home. Who knew that there might have been an ancestral attraction to the region?  Certainly not me.  Perhaps even more shocking was the 7% from the bridge between Finland and Russia and Scandinavia.  Really? Never heard anything about that before.

The real shocker, however, was not in these surprise pieces that are part of my ancestry, but in what is not in my ancestry...at all.

For generations of my family, the mythology has been about my Native American great-great-grandmother. I have been curious about it since I was a little girl.  One of my favorite dolls as a child was a Native squaw with a papoose strapped to her back.  As I matured, my grandmother told me how I had the Native cheekbones of her grandmother, as did my father. When sorting through photographs after my father's death, I asked my great-aunt (my grandmother's sister) who the woman was in a very old photograph. She reported it was her Native great-grandmother.

As I grew older, I have been intrigued in learning about Native customs and have even incorporated some in my coaching and consulting practice.  On occasion, I've made a traditional Indian pudding, and I've loved reading and occasionally presenting on the foods of the first Thanksgiving.  I've even had going to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian to work with their genealogists to learn more about my Native ancestry on my to-do list for several years.

Fiction.  All fiction.  Like the guy, who needed to trade in his lederhosen for a kilt, my DNA proves that our family mythology was complete fiction. Zero percent.  I am more than a little curious about how such a story could have passed along for several generations, even through those like my great-aunt and grandmother, who actually knew this mystery woman.  But, I can't dispute the science.

This shocking news arrives at a time when I am really trying to figure out who I am on a more existential level, The combination has left me feeling like I am in the midst of a hurricane with everything I've believed about myself spinning around me, and most of it blowing away.

For most of three decades, I have either been passionate about preparing for or having a career in organization development (OD) and coaching.  OD is a broad enough field that my career has morphed in a number of directions since finishing graduate school: putting together a joint-venture in China, taking a corporation global, leading communication and change management for a project across the whole federal government, leading a culture change that dramatically improved satisfaction in the organization, and even facilitating a 20-year roadmap for an organization.  I particularly enjoyed several years during which I helped executives as they sought to spiritually align the work lives and businesses with their spiritual purpose.

My coaching work has gone in as many directions as the people I've coached.  Writing has provided a rich means for processing what I've learned about myself and others along the way. How could I not love this work that made the lives of people at work so much more satisfying?

How could I not, indeed?  But like my mythical Native ancestry, when I work in OD these days, it feels like I've put on someone else's clothes that neither fit nor suit me anymore.  While I still love to write, and when I have the bandwidth, I love writing this blog, I no longer have no passion for writing books.  I have at least eight or nine that I've started over the years, and I can't even muster the interest to finish an hour's work that would be needed to finish publishing The Game Called Life electronically.  One hour! And it has been on my desk for 18 months awaiting a handful of edits.

It is a very dark and rainy day in Washington, so I decided to skip church this morning and have an extended time of prayer and meditation about what's next.  To say the things that floated through my meditations were all over the map is an understatement. Working on a political campaign, working with a non-governmental organization (NGO), especially with refugees, doing something artistic, developing gluten-free foods...

The next wave took me deeper in my core existence.  I wrote: feels like home, service, positive, helpful, resourceful, solution-focused, learning, solid relationships, and using my significant experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities.  In many ways, the shocking DNA results seem like a message to me to just give up anything I've thought before and just make myself available--like stripping away everything I've thought about work and making myself available for what God wants me to do next.

I've been in similar situations before, and one time I packed my house and moved across the country. What followed over the next few years was amazing--totally in flow with the divine.  Another time, I dillied and dallied for 30 months.  Eventually the transition has worked out, but not nearly as easily. I've often wondered what would have happened if I'd followed 30 months earlier.  That is a mystery of time.

I truly hope that this transition will not require a move--I love my home and Washington. However, I do know that I will be available when and where I am guided. I will let God be God.

I am NOT too busy to...

A couple weeks ago I sat having a deliciously lingering lunch with a friend.  The last time I saw her was last summer, probably at least 9 months ago. As we shared stories and reflections, I found myself lamenting that my work has so grabbed hold of my life that I no longer had time for things that were truly important, like connecting with friends and having such relaxed conversation.

In the course of our conversation, I discovered that my friend hadn't even been to my "new" apartment since I was still moving in.  I've settled in, painted, remodeled, and been in it now for 2-1/2 years.  How could I let that happen?  I love cooking and having guests in my home. I realized that, except for one friend who comes over 3-4 times a year, I haven't had people over except during the holidays.

Last week I had my annual physical, and my blood pressure, which has always been on the low side of normal, had jumped 20 points.  My doctor asked about exercise, mediation, and other stress-relieving practices that he knew had been part of my routine for years.  "My work allows for little except work and sleep.  When I try to meditate, I fall asleep," I explained.  It felt like a pitiful excuse.

Several weeks earlier, our assistant rector talked about the unpleasant reality for many of us of being too busy to do things we enjoy or think we would enjoy.  She encouraged us to catch ourselves each time we started to say we were too busy to do something and correct ourselves, by saying, "I am NOT too busy...."

In each of the situations above, I found her words echoing in the back of my brain.  While I have not developed the I-am-NOT-too-busy muscle yet, the haunting consciousness is there.  I always say that awareness is 90 percent of the battle.

Instead of cleaning my apartment, which really needed it, last weekend, I curled up with a book I had been enjoying, and then on Thursday I went to a new-to-me book club to discuss it.  I used to read a lot. Last weekend I reminded myself that "I am NOT too busy" to read.

Today after church I walked to the DuPont Circle Farmer's Market, one of the best in the nation, to buy my favorite gluten-free ginger chocolate chip scone.  Doing so was a treat in which I hadn't indulged myself  since last fall.  After two weeks of rain, we have a splendid sunny day.  I sat on a bench, lingering over each and every bite of the scone, and just drank in the sun, as it warmed my face.  "I am NOT too busy for this," I reminded myself.

While I have found it difficult to make doing things that I treasure a priority in recent years, I do like to think that when I do them, I am pretty good at really being present.  I will almost never check texts or email on my smartphone while with a friend, as many now make a regular practice.  When my friend and I had lunch, I was totally focused on our connection. When I was reading, I was in the book. When I was enjoying my scone, I savored every bite. While I'd like to bring the mastery of being present to the whole of my life, for now, I will be grateful that when I bring intention to doing so, I really can be present.

When I entered my door this afternoon, I headed to the kitchen to start my list of things I had to do before another busy week got ahead of me.  Instead, I caught myself.  Remembering the assistant rector's words, I said to myself "I am NOT too busy to write a blogpost," not only something I really enjoy, but a spiritual practice for me that keeps me headed in the direction I want my life to go.  So, I put down the list-making paper, made myself a cup of coffee, and here I am writing.

Although all those things still need to be done before the week takes off at warp speed, instead of doing chores and tasks, I think I will now change clothes and go for a walk on this first gorgeous spring day in a while.  At least for this day, my priorities feel like they are in order.

Time

Assuming that the snowstorm, which has pretty much laid low the nation's capital and much of the East Coast and South doesn't prevent it, next week will be my last week at my temporary job assignment.  I've enjoyed my time there enormously.  I've delighted in being part of a team that really pulls together toward one whopping big, positive goal--raising $50 million for charity in three months.  I've loved knowing that I am making such a difference for thousands in need, not just for the year ahead but perhaps for the rest of their lives.  I fully admit to feeling good when two of my agency campaign managers told me on the same day that I'd been the best person in my role that they'd ever worked with and, because of that, their teams had exceeded their goals.

My nature is to reflect on transitions, and this one is no different.  The things that I've just mentioned are the standard fare, and it is also my nature to reflect beneath the standard fare options.  What has been the spiritual consequence of these four months?

Almost since the beginning of my assignment, one individual has impacted me in a deeply personal way. Almost every encounter with her has been a learning experience.  Let's take, for instance, what happens when she is walking in during the morning, racing toward her desk as most of us do, and I ask the common question, "How are you?"  She will almost stop in her tracks, take a deep breath, get a huge smile on her face as she exhales, and say something like, "Thank God I am fine," or "I am really blessed with health."  The responses are rarely the same so as not to have become rote.  She assessed where she is and answers gratefully.

When I stop by her cube to talk with her, she stops everything, looks me in the eye, and stays totally present to our conversation.  We occasionally share a table over our brown-bag lunches, and she has some minusculely small containers.  When I once remarked about them, she says she is usually full when she finishes.  After that, I notice that she really eats very slowly and gives each bite of food the same attention that she give the "How-are-you?" question in the morning. I've noticed something similar during Lent when I give more studied attention to eating; I am almost always full half-way through my meal.

This colleague seems to get the "being present" and "being grateful" qualities of personal spirituality to which I aspire, and I've been privileged to have spent these months in her "classroom."  There is another quality of "being present" that I've learned from her as well. I am not quite sure how to describe it except to say that it has to do with recognizing how important boundary control is to "being present."  Maybe it could be described as being present to the consequences of not being present.

Almost all of us on the campaign are extremely busy and often simultaneously working on several deadline projects for different agencies, each one of which thinks its need should be Priority One.  If a colleague walks up to me at a time like that, I am embarrassed to admit that I forget my "being present" goal.  At times, I try to continue working while talking to the person, which means that I give neither the project or the person the attention each deserves.  Sometimes I will say, "I'm on a deadline, and I really don't have time to talk right now."  Even as the words come out of my mouth they feel rude and piercing. In my heart I hate that I felt like I cut the person off.  The times when I do stop and talk, I know I am not present; I am totally distracted by what I think I "should" be working on.

My colleague, who I am certain was sent to this assignment to be my spiritual teacher, has taught me a lot about that, as well.  In a similar circumstance, she stops, connects with me visually and spiritually, and looks me in my eye as she says something like, "I would really like to talk with you, but I want to give my full attention to the task I need to complete for Agency A by noon.  May we talk later?"  To be sent away by this woman feels like a privilege.  I have never felt slighted in the least.  Just the reverse, I feel like she is saying that our connection is so important that she doesn't want to give it short-shrift while she multi-tasks or is distracted.

Since the first of the year, I've sometimes been physically ill when I thought about going back into the pressure cooker that is my "real" job.  I've feverishly looked for other opportunities, without success. I even bought a lottery ticket toward the $1.2 billion jackpot, something that was so foreign to me that I had to ask someone how to do it.  Now that my return seems inevitable, and I am in my reflective space, I am being completely grateful for the opportunity to have worked with such a fine spiritual teacher.

I am also keenly aware that there is no finer place in the world to practice the spiritual lessons that my colleague has taught me than to go back into the pressure cooker and practice them, where I will really be tested.  I have already written reminders on the white board in my usual office, which I think will keep me on track.  They are at the top and marked as priority items.

I truly believe that life is a series of big spiritual lessons.  We get stuck in them until we learn them, and then almost magically, we are able to move on.  I don't want to get stuck in this one any longer.  I've been to spiritual school for four months.  I know what to do.  That means to remember the job isn't about customer service or earning a paycheck, although both are important.  This job is about proving I can do what I used to do and what I know to be the right thing to do.  Now, all I must do is have the spiritual will to do what I know to be right for me.

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.

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