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.
Showing posts with label spiritual lesson. Show all posts
Showing posts with label spiritual lesson. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 1, 2017
Monday, January 19, 2015
Ladybugs
I've been down with a humdinger of a cold for most of a week, and I'd been fighting it for at least 10 days before that. My body has seemed to be thumbing its nose at my "New Year's resolutions." I generally don't believe in "resolutions," instead favoring "intentions," which are renewed in the decisions of every moment. My "intentions" for this year were to 1) be regular about exercise and 2) to bring a special man into my life.
Unfortunately, I embraced my intentions with the zeal of resolution, and they bounced back in my face. I was off to a magnificent start on both. I walked an hour a day, beginning New Year's Eve and straight through the holiday week. Then the pre-cold fatigue set in, and I could hardly make it through my days at work.
Over the New Year's weekend, I also joined an expensive internet dating site, which boasts of a higher success rate of matches and marriages than others, while updating my profiles on others, and I've been faithful about checking "matches" every day even while being down sick. Quite frankly, I'm weary of it.
During the last week as I lay lifeless, dozing, and curled up under the quilt my grandmother handmade for me when I was 20 years old (literally my security blanket,) I've caught up on missed television programs, Golden Globe winners, Netflix that had been awaiting viewing, and even reviewing some of my favorites.
About 2 a.m. Sunday morning, I was out of new viewing and pulled a favorite movie, "Under the Tuscan Sun," from the shelf. I've watched it so many times that I know the lines before the actors even begin to speak them. Perhaps the movie is a favorite because there is some sage advice sprinkled through the picture. And some of the sage advice flies right in the face of my resolutions.
"Dolce far niente" is an Italian concept, which means "the sweetness of doing nothing." There was no sweetness in my doing nothing over the last week, but this concept, by contrast, connotes that we are capable of doing something and choose to do nothing. I think what it really means is "just being present" and "feeling alive." We choose to meander, following our hearts, instead of focusing on the goals of our minds. Savoring the moment, one moment after another, choosing in each moment the life I want in that moment. Clearly my body hasn't wanted to exercise in the last two weeks.
The protagonist in the movie is a middle-aged writer who has been jilted by her cheating husband. After months alone, she is ready to have someone in her life, not unlike myself.
The other bit of wisdom comes to her from a flamboyant but aging bon vivant relates who relates that, as a girl she would look hard for ladybugs, and when exhausted from her efforts, she would fall asleep in the grass, only to awaken to find herself covered in ladybugs--those delightful little red spotty beetles that just seem to come out of nowhere. The parable of the ladybugs being that some things can't be forced, they will happen in their own time. It was true of the protagonist in the movie, and it is true of me.
When I get away from the craziness of resolutions and settle back into my wisdom, I know that what I need to do it to relax and be what I want to be in a relationship to my body and to a potential partner--dolce far niente--and the ladybugs will find me.
Unfortunately, I embraced my intentions with the zeal of resolution, and they bounced back in my face. I was off to a magnificent start on both. I walked an hour a day, beginning New Year's Eve and straight through the holiday week. Then the pre-cold fatigue set in, and I could hardly make it through my days at work.
Over the New Year's weekend, I also joined an expensive internet dating site, which boasts of a higher success rate of matches and marriages than others, while updating my profiles on others, and I've been faithful about checking "matches" every day even while being down sick. Quite frankly, I'm weary of it.
During the last week as I lay lifeless, dozing, and curled up under the quilt my grandmother handmade for me when I was 20 years old (literally my security blanket,) I've caught up on missed television programs, Golden Globe winners, Netflix that had been awaiting viewing, and even reviewing some of my favorites.
About 2 a.m. Sunday morning, I was out of new viewing and pulled a favorite movie, "Under the Tuscan Sun," from the shelf. I've watched it so many times that I know the lines before the actors even begin to speak them. Perhaps the movie is a favorite because there is some sage advice sprinkled through the picture. And some of the sage advice flies right in the face of my resolutions.
"Dolce far niente" is an Italian concept, which means "the sweetness of doing nothing." There was no sweetness in my doing nothing over the last week, but this concept, by contrast, connotes that we are capable of doing something and choose to do nothing. I think what it really means is "just being present" and "feeling alive." We choose to meander, following our hearts, instead of focusing on the goals of our minds. Savoring the moment, one moment after another, choosing in each moment the life I want in that moment. Clearly my body hasn't wanted to exercise in the last two weeks.
The protagonist in the movie is a middle-aged writer who has been jilted by her cheating husband. After months alone, she is ready to have someone in her life, not unlike myself.
The other bit of wisdom comes to her from a flamboyant but aging bon vivant relates who relates that, as a girl she would look hard for ladybugs, and when exhausted from her efforts, she would fall asleep in the grass, only to awaken to find herself covered in ladybugs--those delightful little red spotty beetles that just seem to come out of nowhere. The parable of the ladybugs being that some things can't be forced, they will happen in their own time. It was true of the protagonist in the movie, and it is true of me.
When I get away from the craziness of resolutions and settle back into my wisdom, I know that what I need to do it to relax and be what I want to be in a relationship to my body and to a potential partner--dolce far niente--and the ladybugs will find me.
Friday, December 5, 2014
Noticing
Since my trip to Greece, which ended in early October, I haven't been eating as healthfully as I'd like. After eating way too much on Thanksgiving, I knew I had to do something different. I decided to do a cleanse that I'd read about in The Washington Post. The eating regimen isn't that differently from how I try to eat most of the time. No dairy, but that's no biggie. I don't eat much dairy any way. Most importantly, however, is no sugar. After just a couple of days of having sugar out of my system, I felt much better, and I know I am much more relaxed.
The interesting thing about this cleanse is not just what I eat or don't eat, but also how I eat. Specifically, I am not to do anything while I eat except eat.
I didn't realize until I attempted to comply with this part of the regime how I'd slipped big time into multi-tasking while I eat, and everywhere else. I know that multi-tasking has become a fact of life in this decade, but I am not even aware how or when I slipped into the multi-tasking habit. Eat my breakfast fruit while doing my makeup in the morning. Catch up on my email while I eat lunch at my desk. Watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert while I have dinner. (I watch it the next day, when it airs at a time that allows me to view without literally losing sleep over it.) Snacks are even worse, often they're eaten "mid-flight" while running to my next meeting. As much as giving up sugar, giving up whatever else I am used to doing while I eat has been harder.
One of the first things that I noticed was that most of the time, I eat about half as much. I eat more slowly. When I am only concentrating on eating, I actually notice when I am full, probably because I've taken enough time to let the messages reach my brain and register that I'm full. Or maybe the messages have been there, and I haven't been noticing. And funny as it may seem, I actually feel more full than when I am eating more but not being mindful.
I'm sure that I was a rabbit in a past life, because I love eating the crunchy greens. Most often, dinner is a large salad. When I am actually paying attention to my eating, I notice that I get tired of chewing about half-way through the salad, and I'm kind of bored with the chewing, too.
Little cues, like being full, tired of chewing, and bored, have just gone flying by without me noticing. So, now I am noticing.
Curious about what else I've been missing, I've tried little single-tasking, focusing-on-what-I'm-doing experiments. (I wouldn't want to go full throttle.) Tonight, I turned off radio, music, TV, and Greek lessons and focused completely on preparing my salad. While it is not uncommon for me to nibble as I cut and chop ingredients for my salads, since I wasn't multi-tasking, tonight I had to actually stop what I was doing and enjoy the grape tomato that I'd popped in my mouth. What an experience!
I could hear and feel my molars breaking the skin of the tomato. I could feel an explosion of the juices as the tiny fruit sprayed my mouth. The taste was delicious. I just stood there for 20-30 seconds, leaning against the counter, totally absorbed into the experience of one solitary grape tomato. One grape tomato! Something similar happened when I stopped my preparations to eat one of several pecans that I was chopping for my salad.
The exquisiteness of being totally in the moment with my dinner preparations didn't stop with oral experience. I noticed cutting a wedge of lemon how I noticed the different textures on my fingers and how my knife moved differently through the skin/rind than through the inner recesses of the fruit and the juice.
And, all of this in less than the 20 minutes it took to make a salad...just because I was noticing.
I've written a lot in this column about being present. I've quoted spiritual teacher Carolyn Myss as saying "being present" was the most important spiritual lesson that we have to learn. I know it is hard, but in such a short time this evening, I really "got" what that means on whole different level.
I will continue my cleanse because I know how much better...how much mellower...I feel when I don't eat sugar, and it seems that the only thing that can keep me away from the white stuff is something like this cleanse or Lent. Yet, I am certain the spiritual lessons that I have to learn from this focus are to be present, to do one thing at a time, and to truly notice all of the dimensions of experience that can be had from even the simplest of things, like popping a grape tomato or pecan in my mouth while cooking.
The interesting thing about this cleanse is not just what I eat or don't eat, but also how I eat. Specifically, I am not to do anything while I eat except eat.
I didn't realize until I attempted to comply with this part of the regime how I'd slipped big time into multi-tasking while I eat, and everywhere else. I know that multi-tasking has become a fact of life in this decade, but I am not even aware how or when I slipped into the multi-tasking habit. Eat my breakfast fruit while doing my makeup in the morning. Catch up on my email while I eat lunch at my desk. Watch Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert while I have dinner. (I watch it the next day, when it airs at a time that allows me to view without literally losing sleep over it.) Snacks are even worse, often they're eaten "mid-flight" while running to my next meeting. As much as giving up sugar, giving up whatever else I am used to doing while I eat has been harder.
One of the first things that I noticed was that most of the time, I eat about half as much. I eat more slowly. When I am only concentrating on eating, I actually notice when I am full, probably because I've taken enough time to let the messages reach my brain and register that I'm full. Or maybe the messages have been there, and I haven't been noticing. And funny as it may seem, I actually feel more full than when I am eating more but not being mindful.
I'm sure that I was a rabbit in a past life, because I love eating the crunchy greens. Most often, dinner is a large salad. When I am actually paying attention to my eating, I notice that I get tired of chewing about half-way through the salad, and I'm kind of bored with the chewing, too.
Little cues, like being full, tired of chewing, and bored, have just gone flying by without me noticing. So, now I am noticing.
Curious about what else I've been missing, I've tried little single-tasking, focusing-on-what-I'm-doing experiments. (I wouldn't want to go full throttle.) Tonight, I turned off radio, music, TV, and Greek lessons and focused completely on preparing my salad. While it is not uncommon for me to nibble as I cut and chop ingredients for my salads, since I wasn't multi-tasking, tonight I had to actually stop what I was doing and enjoy the grape tomato that I'd popped in my mouth. What an experience!
I could hear and feel my molars breaking the skin of the tomato. I could feel an explosion of the juices as the tiny fruit sprayed my mouth. The taste was delicious. I just stood there for 20-30 seconds, leaning against the counter, totally absorbed into the experience of one solitary grape tomato. One grape tomato! Something similar happened when I stopped my preparations to eat one of several pecans that I was chopping for my salad.
The exquisiteness of being totally in the moment with my dinner preparations didn't stop with oral experience. I noticed cutting a wedge of lemon how I noticed the different textures on my fingers and how my knife moved differently through the skin/rind than through the inner recesses of the fruit and the juice.
And, all of this in less than the 20 minutes it took to make a salad...just because I was noticing.
I've written a lot in this column about being present. I've quoted spiritual teacher Carolyn Myss as saying "being present" was the most important spiritual lesson that we have to learn. I know it is hard, but in such a short time this evening, I really "got" what that means on whole different level.
I will continue my cleanse because I know how much better...how much mellower...I feel when I don't eat sugar, and it seems that the only thing that can keep me away from the white stuff is something like this cleanse or Lent. Yet, I am certain the spiritual lessons that I have to learn from this focus are to be present, to do one thing at a time, and to truly notice all of the dimensions of experience that can be had from even the simplest of things, like popping a grape tomato or pecan in my mouth while cooking.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Helpers
I've learned a lot this week from working on the book I wrote. Almost every page has seemed to offer a spiritual lesson that I'd been choosing to ignore. Just yesterday I was reading/writing about spiritual helpers--those people who are in our lives to help us learn spiritual lessons, to perform spiritual service, and to encourage development and use our gifts and talents.
Sometime they are people who are there in an obviously helping way. My friend Amy Frost has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since we met after she read Leading from the Heart right after it came out in 1996. She has done more to bring The Game Called Life into the world than anyone. Thanks, Aim!
Other times our spiritual helpers are difficult people in our lives, but they present us with lessons we need to know but with which we struggle. I find it extremely difficult to make the leap from intellectualizing that they are spiritual helpers there for me to actually being grateful for their challenging presences in my life. There are a couple in my life right now, but I won't mention any of them by name. I will say that my friend Evelin was sent as a spiritual helper to support me in some of those lessons.
Often spiritual helpers show up in a most unusual way in our lives. I met Amy in the elevator at a conference in Mexico when she recognized my name as the author of the book she'd just read on my name badge. Another reader/helper ended up appearing in my life over Easter Dinner at her daughter's home, both of us from very different parts of the country brought together at a still different part of the country to provide me encouragement at a time when I really needed it.
Most of the time, we don't recognize spiritual helpers as such. They are just people in our lives. Today I talked with a spiritual helper that I was certain was there as a spiritual helper even as we spoke for the first time. Darwin Gillett and I have communicated by email for at least a couple years, but we couldn't remember how we knew each other. We had a conversation that would not have happened if I had not been furloughed. He had shared by email that he's between books and wants to refocus his business more specifically about the role of heart in building an effective business. Since that is something I did for many years, I thought I might have some useful thoughts to share, and I had time to actually talk with him this week.
The miracle occurred as I spoke with him. I needed to hear what I was saying to him about allowing the business to grow organically, the right people finding me, and listening to my heart. I spoke about how totally aligned I'd felt when I was writing, speaking, coaching, and consulting. I am so grateful for this furlough and so grateful I decided to reach out to him. As we spoke, I finally honored my knowing that I have several books to get out. Choice Point has been gathering dust since the late 90s, and Leading from the Heart has been crying for a second edition since Butterworth-Heinemann closed the division that published it and The Alchemy of Fear over a decade ago.
When I think about how lifeless and under-utilized I feel on my current job and how energized I've been this week, working on my blog and my e-book, it doesn't take a magician to figure out what I should be doing. But, then there is that money thing. I don't know how that part works out, but I do know that I am awake again. This afternoon I am able to feel who I AM again. That's all I need to know for now. I am confident a spiritual helper will come along to show me the way.
Sometime they are people who are there in an obviously helping way. My friend Amy Frost has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since we met after she read Leading from the Heart right after it came out in 1996. She has done more to bring The Game Called Life into the world than anyone. Thanks, Aim!
Other times our spiritual helpers are difficult people in our lives, but they present us with lessons we need to know but with which we struggle. I find it extremely difficult to make the leap from intellectualizing that they are spiritual helpers there for me to actually being grateful for their challenging presences in my life. There are a couple in my life right now, but I won't mention any of them by name. I will say that my friend Evelin was sent as a spiritual helper to support me in some of those lessons.
Often spiritual helpers show up in a most unusual way in our lives. I met Amy in the elevator at a conference in Mexico when she recognized my name as the author of the book she'd just read on my name badge. Another reader/helper ended up appearing in my life over Easter Dinner at her daughter's home, both of us from very different parts of the country brought together at a still different part of the country to provide me encouragement at a time when I really needed it.
Most of the time, we don't recognize spiritual helpers as such. They are just people in our lives. Today I talked with a spiritual helper that I was certain was there as a spiritual helper even as we spoke for the first time. Darwin Gillett and I have communicated by email for at least a couple years, but we couldn't remember how we knew each other. We had a conversation that would not have happened if I had not been furloughed. He had shared by email that he's between books and wants to refocus his business more specifically about the role of heart in building an effective business. Since that is something I did for many years, I thought I might have some useful thoughts to share, and I had time to actually talk with him this week.
The miracle occurred as I spoke with him. I needed to hear what I was saying to him about allowing the business to grow organically, the right people finding me, and listening to my heart. I spoke about how totally aligned I'd felt when I was writing, speaking, coaching, and consulting. I am so grateful for this furlough and so grateful I decided to reach out to him. As we spoke, I finally honored my knowing that I have several books to get out. Choice Point has been gathering dust since the late 90s, and Leading from the Heart has been crying for a second edition since Butterworth-Heinemann closed the division that published it and The Alchemy of Fear over a decade ago.
When I think about how lifeless and under-utilized I feel on my current job and how energized I've been this week, working on my blog and my e-book, it doesn't take a magician to figure out what I should be doing. But, then there is that money thing. I don't know how that part works out, but I do know that I am awake again. This afternoon I am able to feel who I AM again. That's all I need to know for now. I am confident a spiritual helper will come along to show me the way.
Monday, September 23, 2013
The cycle of nature begins again
The first full day of fall hit Washington with a very chilly morning and a late afternoon sun that bathed me with its warmth as I left the office at the end of the day. I just stood and drank in its wonder. As just a few leaves drifted gently to the ground, I was reminded that this is the beginning of the year. Seeds fall, nestled into the soft ground and germinate for the next season...just like me.
While some make resolutions in January, for me the cycle begins with the transition of season into the fall. As this transition began to dawn upon me this weekend, I was drawn to commit to who I am...who I have always been...a writer. And, I've sacrificed the writer inside me over the last few years on the altar of earning a living. I've been longing for the integrity of putting words to the page, so even if no one reads this, I become more whole by doing it.
As I was halfway through writing my first book Leading from the Heart, I can remember thinking that I didn't care if anyone ever read it, I was learning so much from writing it that was all that mattered. (Thank you for all who did read it. ) What I know in my heart is that if I do nothing else, I must find time for writing.
A few years ago I had an astounding meditation one day when just flowing from me were the words of why we are here in this world.
Writing is clearly a gift that it is time for me to develop again. Today, I write for the second day in a row. I am planting seeds which will sprout in the spring and yield fruit in the summer. Today, I begin the cycle of nature...again.
While some make resolutions in January, for me the cycle begins with the transition of season into the fall. As this transition began to dawn upon me this weekend, I was drawn to commit to who I am...who I have always been...a writer. And, I've sacrificed the writer inside me over the last few years on the altar of earning a living. I've been longing for the integrity of putting words to the page, so even if no one reads this, I become more whole by doing it.
As I was halfway through writing my first book Leading from the Heart, I can remember thinking that I didn't care if anyone ever read it, I was learning so much from writing it that was all that mattered. (Thank you for all who did read it. ) What I know in my heart is that if I do nothing else, I must find time for writing.
A few years ago I had an astounding meditation one day when just flowing from me were the words of why we are here in this world.
- We came to deliver a service that is needed at this point in time.
- We have certain lessons our soul needs to learn.
- We are here to develop our unique gifts and talents.
Writing is clearly a gift that it is time for me to develop again. Today, I write for the second day in a row. I am planting seeds which will sprout in the spring and yield fruit in the summer. Today, I begin the cycle of nature...again.
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