Gratitude...

 A couple weeks ago, I began to feel an urge to write again, but I knew I didn't want to write another book.  Then it occurred to me that I could resume writing in my blog.  I couldn't remember when I abandoned it, but I knew in my heart that it would serve me now.  When I finally found my way back to the site today, I note that I last wrote a post in spring of 2017.  So very much has happened since then. Thanksgiving week seems an appropriate time to reflect on the many things for which I am grateful this year.

Since I last wrote, I have survived early stage breast cancer and Stage 2 tonsil cancer, and it's accompanying two surgeries, radiation, and some annoying long-term effects. And, my last PET scan showed me cancer-free. I've always brought conscious intention to creating health. This Thanksgiving, just a year after my first surgery, I am truly grateful that I am healthy again.

After 27 years alone, I discovered an old, dear friend (John) was a romantic interest, something I'd long since given up on ever experiencing again.  After 14 months, I am happy to report that the love between us has deepened and brings me great joy every day. I am so grateful for this second chance at love, companionship, and adventure with this extraordinary man.

Yesterday, John and I loaded a pot of homemade soup, cornbread, and pie, and we drove three hours to bring lunch (they'd call it "dinner") to my 94- and 95-year-old aunties.  I am fortunate and amazed that at their ages, they both are in incredible health and living independently.  As we lingered over dessert, I shared how grateful I felt to have both of them in my life.

I've mostly retired at this point, although I do have some remaining executive coaching clients which I delight in helping.  I am grateful for the opportunity to continue to serve them.

Scratching below these high points, though, the last year has brought me something much more extraordinary.  I've learned an incredible lesson. A lesson of love...a different kind of love. When I became ill a little over a year ago, friends--some very old and others very new-- came out of the woodwork to help.  I am sure I couldn't have made it without them.  I am very grateful that I didn't have to. They supported me in a breadth of tangible ways, and they enriched me, heart and soul.

A woman who had been a neighbor for several years, but with whom I'd had only passing acquaintance, formed Team Kay, Identifying my needs--food, exercise, company--and she became a touch point for all the people who said, "What can I do to help?"  She is a treasured friend and neighbor now. Through the system she created, friends knew what I needed, and they were there. One brought homemade soup. Others showed up to walk me, which at a low point meant only two blocks, but they kept me moving. One woman emailed some hilariously funny items, when I really needed to laugh. Another emailed almost daily with updates on activities which had been an important part of my daily life. Different individuals volunteered to get me to radiation treatments and home again every day for several weeks.  

One out-of-town friend sent me "a flower" every day from my first surgery until I was fully recovered from radiation.  Some days the flower was on a card. Another it was chocolate tulips, and there were socks with a rose on them.  A packet of flower seeds showed up in my mailbox too.  A Swedish dishcloth with flowers on it.  You get the idea.  I put them on the back on my entry door and by the end they covered every inch. I was so grateful for the thought and creativity she showed me.

Still others would tap on my door and ask if I felt like company.  I did.  I felt so isolated, and one day I was so weak I literally fell on my face on my sofa when I got home from radiation, awakening 90 minutes later, still face-down on the cushion. But, I could talk.  I loved having time with no other distractions or commitments to really get to know people.  Three people traveled from long distances to stay with me for weeks at a time. 

We had planned for John to arrive to be with me during what were predicted to be the worst weeks.  They were.  The pain was so intense that I can't describe it. John was there with love, steady assurance, and interventions with my doctors to get me relief. 

I've come through all this with a new understanding of what love is, and I've felt it on a visceral level.  Love is a neighbor who made me cornbread at 9 o'clock at night when I'd run out and it was one of the few solid foods I could eat.  Love is walking at a painstakingly slow pace when we were both accustomed to power-walking just to keep me moving. Love is getting me out for even a short walk in the national park next door for nature bathing.  Love was finding an Eagles concert for me on Netflix when I wanted to be out doing "normal things." Love is doing my laundry when I didn't have energy to do it myself.  Love is even a periodic visit from a 2-year-old who always makes me smile and warms my heart. For all of these gifts, I am grateful.

If you'd asked me two years ago, "What is love?" I am sure I wouldn't have answered any of these things, but today I understand love differently. Even as I write, tears come to my eyes and my heart swells in thinking of these many acts of love and kindness that got me through. On any given day now, I take time to remember all the little acts of love that come to me each and every day. And, I am grateful...very grateful for each of them.

As Thanksgiving approaches this week, I am grateful for having grown in my understanding, appreciation, and experience of love.

Radical Gratitude

I just spent a lovely, relaxed evening with friends--chili, cornbread, prosecco with a Hallmark movie. Eleven years ago, I didn't know they existed; yet, for most of the intervening years, we've spent holidays as if we were family. In truth, we are family.  Last week I enjoyed leftovers and a movie with a different friend that I didn't know existed 11 years ago.  How interesting to me that people who are so special--and these are certainly not the only ones--weave into our lives effortlessly.

By the grace of God.

A couple days ago, I wrote about the sacred space our group created at our Theology on Tap gathering.  While it was an extraordinary experience, my conversation after our adjournment triggered a memory in me that had lapsed over the years.  After the adjournment, I talked with the Bishop,  and he shared with me the concept of "radical gratitude."  I was puzzled when he first said the term.  I asked about it.

Radical gratitude, he said, is looking at the things we have to be grateful for as a result of things that happened in our lives that we consider to be bad or negative.   Then, being able to be grateful for those things because of the gifts that we received as a result of the "bad" events.  How quickly I resonated with the concept.

Every Intentional Living Intensive that I facilitated was unique.  I was guided what exercises to do with each participant.  Yet, there were several that almost all of my clients participated in.  One was what I called the Extreme Gratitude exercise.  I would start by working with the client to identify a situation that he/she considered "the worst thing that had happened" to them.  Then, we would tease out all the good things that had occurred because of that "bad" situation.

I can recall one man sitting with tears rolling down his cheeks as we identified many wonderful things that had resulted because of his "bad" situation.  How interesting to think that something just a few minutes early we considered personally devastating, and then to discover what a gift it had been. Radical gratitude...what an appropriate term.

In the documentary "Happy!" about which I've written several times this week, the concept that bad things happen to happy people was discussed. They happen, and happy people respond appropriately...and then they bounce back.  I think that a key piece of the bouncing back is recognizing that whatever occurs on our paths is a gift, and each circumstance leads us to people and situations that could not have occurred without it.

Just as my clients discovered their gifts in difficult situations, I, too, have experienced radical gratitude. Had my business not failed in the dot.com bust, forcing me to move to Washington, none of these people who I value would have come into my life.  I would have missed all of the experiences that I've had in the last 11 years.

I am grateful...radically grateful...for the people with whom I spent this lovely evening and for the often uncomfortable circumstances that brought us together.

Expectations

I still have a baby tooth.  The technical term is "deciduous," but most of us call them baby teeth.  We get them very early in life, and like the leaves that fall from deciduous trees, a few short years later they get loose and fall out.  Even though we start getting them at six or seven when the replacements push the baby teeth away, the new ones are called "adult" teeth.

For whatever reason, an adult tooth never formed under one of my baby teeth, and with nothing pushing the process forward, my little deciduous tooth just hung in there...and hung in...and hung in. From the time I was a teenager, dentists have been telling me that I would lose it.  As some point in earlier adulthood, the tune changed to take good care of it so that it would last as long as possible.  I got that lecture less than a year ago from my current dentist.

Last month both my dentist and a periodontist told me it had to go. An infection under the tooth threatens other teeth, and apparently my heart and kidneys as well.  Since I feel like my little tooth has served me extraordinarily well, I can't really say I am sad or even surprised.  After all, this should have happened decades ago.

As I contemplate the demise of my stalwart servant, I keep coming back to my expectations.  Early on, I expected to lose the tooth.  Then at some point since it had been with me for so long, I expected to have it for the duration.  However, even when I was young and expecting it to fall out, I had never expected that there were be a gaping hole in my mouth.  I just never thought about what it would be like after I lost it.  For that matter, I hadn't thought about what I would do with it when it was no longer in my mouth.

I suppose that there are parents who save their children's teeth after the tooth fairy makes her visit. Mine were not among them.  I don't have a vial to which I can add this one when it comes out on Friday, but given the time it was part of me and the extraordinary service it rendered, I do feel like it should get some special recognition.

That's how this whole thing has led me back to one of my perpetual growth spots: gratitude.  In all the years that my tooth has served me, I have rarely thought about it and the service it was rendering.  I have certainly never thought about the richness it has added to my life.  Only when I am about to lose the tooth does it get the gratitude and appreciation that it has been due.

My tooth is not unlike so many things in my life.  I pretty much took my mobility for granted until a disease threatened me with being a quadriplegic.  I had a good education and employment history so I just expected I'd always have a roof over my head and food in my belly...until my business went bust, and I didn't.  Later working for the federal government, I just pretty much assumed that the checks would keep coming until I decided for them to stop; when the government shut down for three week in 2013, I developed a whole new appreciation for the regularity of my paychecks and the benefits that came with them.

It has been the same with people in my life.  A friend that I saw three days early is suddenly dead.  I know that I didn't appreciate her the way I should.  Another that I used to talk with regularly met a man and took off on life's great adventure, and I miss our periodic talks.  An aunt, who is now in her late 80s, was very special to me when I was younger, and I've let our relationship devolve into a few phone calls a year.  When she is gone, I know that I will regret not valuing her more when she was alive.

Somehow the expectation that the people in my life will continue to be there is a faulty one.  Last Monday I had a drink and dinner with several friends who used to work with me.  We see each other two or three times a year now, and I realized after leaving them that they made me feel like being wrapped in a warm blanket.

Even though I didn't really want to return to my current job after my temporary assignment, I have really enjoyed reconnecting with some of my favorite clients and coworkers.  While not in the warm blanket category, I do value them, and I have certainly become aware that they value me.

Because gratitude seems like a perpetual spiritual lesson for me, I know that I will backslide on my commitment a few days or a few weeks from now.  Yet in the meantime, I am going to value being intentionally grateful for the people in my life...now...when I really can appreciate with them.

40 Days

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Season of Lent. Lent is the Christian tradition of taking the 40 days before Easter for prayer, engaging in spiritual study, fasting, and giving up something that separates us from God for the season.  As those who have been reading my column for a while will know, for me that means that I give up sugar to satisfy the last of those requirements.

Lent is one of many biblical references to the number 40, which some biblical scholars believe to be God's number for times of trial and hardship. Although there are more, some are honored by all three of the Abrahamic traditions. Rain fell on the earth for 40 days and 40 nights in the great flood. Moses spent 40 days in the desert after killing the Egyptian and another 40 days on Mt. Sinah. (For others, see: http://www.gotquestions.org/40-days-Bible.html.)

In the Christian tradition, it is appropriate that Lent is 40 days because before his crucifixion, Jesus was tempted for 40 days and 40 nights, and 40 days also passed between Jesus’ resurrection and his ascension into heaven.  It makes sense that one of the aspects of the holiday is to give up what we are tempted by.  

I find it interesting that biblical scholars consider 40 the number of trial and hardship.  Maybe I am not doing it right, but I find this time to be one of purification or "coming clean." While I am usually fidgety for the first two or three days as I flush out the junk from my system.  I have prepared some detoxifying foods this evening to accelerate that process, and I've done this enough to know that this too will pass.

With three or four days I am noticing that I am much calmer and making healthier choices. While I am very active, I have fought going to the gym in recent years.  On Ash Wednesday instead of heading home at the end of the day, I went down to the gym, and I enjoyed it. Being more disciplined about meditation also contributes to that calm. 

I expect within a week or so, I will feel quite calm and centered. I am more relaxed.  I will move through the world with more ease than any other time of the year.  So, biblical scholars aside, I do not think of this as a hardship at all, and only to the extent that the detoxifying process is a bit of a struggle is Lent a trial for me.  Instead, it feels like coming home.  For that I am grateful.  

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.

On further reflection...

I wrote yesterday's post about the need to create a memory every day at the very end of my day. After I shut down my computer, my head kept spinning in different directions about the topic.  

I've fallen off the daily gratitude journaling in recent weeks (months?) but I had the thought that gratitude journaling has a common purpose.  By taking time to reflect at the end of the day to identify things for which I am grateful, I also allow myself to remember each of those occurrences.  The remembering has the impact of creating a memory.  Actually, it has the impact of creating several memories--exactly however many things about which I journal.  Then I don't have to worry any longer about wasted days.  Abundantly grace-filled days flow naturally, every day.

At the same moment, I recollected that when I was writing posts for this blog daily, I was also creating memories--ones particularly valuable to me.  The purpose of this blog has been to serve as a shared platform for me to wrestle with the questions that I encounter on the path of my intention to live consciously.  

On tests of motivation, I consistently score highest for learning and growing and making a contribution. (I've never understood being motivated about getting stuff.) On the days that I write in this blog, I am learning and growing, and, for those who receive value from the posts, I am making a contribution.  From my perspective, that is the stuff from which real memories are made.  I am receiving a gift of value and giving one.  

Last night I restarted recording gratitude in my journal again.  I was sure to include that I wrote in my blog, and I learned something about myself.  Furthermore, I had an entry for the side of the journal in which I record gifts that I've given.

Seeing the Bigger Picture

For over two decades I've done a special Thanksgiving meditation.  It hasn't always fallen on Thanksgiving Day; sometimes I've done it a day or two before or after in order to accommodate travel, cooking, or social demands on the "big day."  Each year my Thanksgiving meditation has proven one of the most spiritually rewarding focuses of my whole year, and once again the practice was powerful.

This year the meditation happened last evening, and I noted a difference in how my thoughts presented themselves.  Generally, I've tried to think through the year, day-by-day, beginning with the last Thanksgiving.  As I got to each day, I tried to recall something I'd been grateful for that particular day.  On years when I've kept a gratitude journal the practice has been easier than others, like this year, when I had been sporadic in doing so.

What I discovered last evening was a struggle to even remember what had happened in the last year, even month to month, much less day to day.  I believe the crazy pace of the last year of having 20 glass balls in the air at any given time, any one of which would be irreparable if dropped, has "smooched" (technical term) the year together in very non-linear way. 

After fighting to make the old way work, I surrendered to what every meditator knows is the best way to reflect: let go of control.  When I did, an amazing thing occurred.  I held the intention to be grateful for the last year, and I surrendered to how that would occur.  I was able to observe that even amidst the craziness, something larger was afoot.

Instead of working my way through the year in a linear, one-dimensional way, clusters of events, people, and occurrences bubbled up.  What might have seemed unrelated on first blush actually did connect from a spiritual growth point of view.  I observed progressions of seemingly unrelated events that occurred during the year that actually supported bigger spiritual lessons.  Normally, I would have been grateful for single occurrences.  Last night allowed me to begin to see how random events weren't isolated at all, but were very much related to evolving me spiritually.

My one-dimensional gratitude practice quickly evolved into a multi-dimensional one.  This seems like important learning to me, and it is learning that I don't want to lie fallow until next Thanksgiving.  I am considering "upping" the gratitude journaling practice to reflect throughout the year how an event on any given day is connected with something that occurred previously. 

Before meditating last night, I watched on episode of Neil deGrasse Tyson's series "Cosmos," which aired earlier this fall.  The episode that I watched last night examined DNA and how most human DNA is shared across all species, including plants.  Earlier this week Louis Henry Gates looked at DNA on his "Finding Your Roots" program, where his conclusion across humans is that what we share is much more similar than what distinguishes us.  Sometime in the last year, I read that humans around the world share about 97% of our DNA with all other humans. 

As I drifted off to sleep last night, what spun in my head what how connected everything is. Events in our lives are not random and disconnected.  Neither are we as beings or even as a species isolated.  Seeing the bigger picture truly does allow us to see who we are: we are One.

There will never be a time...

Famed mystery writer P. D. James died today at the age of 94.  In the news coverage of the passing, NPR played part of an old interview with James.  The lead-in to the interview was the notation that James didn't begin writing until she was middle-aged (whatever age that is.)  Then she produced popular works almost until her death.  In the interview, James says that she always wanted to write, but was so busy with her family and her job that she never had time.  When she reached middle-age, she said, she determined that there was never going to be time to write unless she just made the time.

As I began reflecting on the last year in preparation for my annual Thanksgiving meditation, what immediately popped into my mind that I had to be grateful for in the last year was writing.  For close to half of the year, I wrote posts for this blog almost daily and for two months early this year, I produced almost fifty pages of my memoir manuscript.  I also connected in a deeper way with regular followers, many of whom had been in my life for years...even decades.  I loved that.

When I heard the James interview, I realized that she was right.  If I waited to have time to write, I wouldn't ever write.  Just as she had done, I needed to make time to write. 

As I reflected, I realized that what had shifted since last winter was my intention.  My work hours were just as long, and I was just as mentally exhausted and tired of looking at a computer screen last winter as I am now. I even managed to keep writing pretty regularly through two eye surgeries. Last winter, however, I came home with the intention to write because I knew that doing so was feeding my soul in a way that nothing else in my life did anymore. 

Today I am grateful for the time I invested in writing last winter and for the realization that I would make writing a priority again.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. 

My Prayers Praying Me

When I was growing up, I was taught that prayer was about talking to God: impassioned pleas, begging, bartering, asking for guidance from God by only offering two options, or the metaphorical equivalent of parting the waters for us to get the date we wanted for prom.  Clearly, it was about asking God to help us get what we wanted.  I once heard something (Marianne Williamson?) refer to this kind of prayer as "the carhop in the sky." We tell God what we want, and he/she is supposed to bring it to us.

I have come to believe a few different things about prayer.  First, it is at least as much about listening as talking...maybe much more.  Second, when we ask for guidance, we should do so with open-ended questions so that we really give God room to point us in the right direction, and when we ask for help, we should listen very carefully.  The answers often float in as if on the wings of a butterfly and always without explanation.  Reasoning with Go about why is pure foolishness.  The answer is the answer. 

Third, everything is a gift; no matter how much we don't like or understand the answers when they show up in our lives, if we are open-minded, we will eventually see that they are a gift. 

Finally, God will tell us what to pray, if we will still our minds and listen.

All of these weave together to produce a very different kind of prayer than what I grew up with.  When I started to pray this way, the term that came to me for it was "my prayers praying me."  How this works is that I allow myself to become very still.  Then I express the intention to prayer. Since everything is a gift, I begin by expressing gratitude, but not for stuff  in my life. When I say that God will tell us what to pray, I mean that things will become apparent for which I should thank God.

I don't know if it works exactly the same way for everyone.  Most of the time, I hear what to be grateful for, but occasionally I may see a picture which reminds me of something to be grateful for.  In a recent prayer, I started noticing the buzz of the cicadas in the park behind me.  That reminded me to thank God for having an apartment in a large city that overlooked a national park.  It also reminded me of my home, having a home, and being able to afford my home, all things that I've learned to not take for granted. I was grateful that I had friends who opened their doors for me and that I was never on the streets during my season of homelessness.  Then I remembered how wonderful it was to have a trailhead into the park just feet outside my backdoor. 

After I'd taken time to be very grateful for my apartment and a number of other positives in my life, I started to thank God for things for which others may not take time to express gratitude.  I thanked God for my pain because there was a time when I might have become a quadriplegic and couldn't have felt pain. Then I was grateful that I could wiggle my fingers and toes.

I thanked God for my difficult bosses because I was grateful to have bosses and all the things that went with them--a regular paycheck, benefits, and even paid time off.  I even thanked God for my less-than-wonderful eyesight because before my February surgery, I understood I might lose the sight in one eye.  You get the idea.

I wasn't running a stop watch, but my guess is that I was grateful for at least 20 minutes. Most of what I was thankful for weren't things that normally would have been on my Top 10 of gratitude.  Instead, they were really very meaningful things for me to remember.  When I am thankful for pain, bad eyesight, and even not being on the streets, when I get curve balls in my life, they remind me to look for the gift.

Then, it was time to ask.  Once again, I asked: what should I pray for?  There it was, just like in the wings of a butterfly, "Heal me."  There was a knowing acknowledgement in my throat as my head involuntarily shook to the affirmative.  "Heal me," I said.

Then, there was stillness again.  No drama.  No begging.  No choices.  Just "heal me."  The roots of the word "heal" are "to make whole."  Gratitude, and a request to be made whole.  When my prayers pray me, they are simple and distilled.  What more could I ask for?

Beauty Many Places

Twenty years ago when I first left Oregon to move to North Carolina, the first thing my friends would ask on my monthly business trips back to the West Coast was "When are you moving back?"  I'd laugh, and, to their incredulity, I'd say "Never." They just couldn't imagine I could move from such a beautiful place as Oregon. There certainly were many beautiful places in Oregon. AND...North Carolina also had many beautiful spots.

When I left the Midwest for Oregon in my twenties, friends there also questioned my sanity when I left "God's Country," the name many Hoosiers call Indiana. There were many beautiful places in Indiana and Ohio, where I'd lived during two college years.

I've driven across the United States several times and on each trip I've discovered beauty in almost every state. In trips abroad I've found beauty in many spots there as well. Despite what my friends in Indiana might believe, if God created special places of beauty, he/she was most generous with them.

I am writing most of this post in Wilmington, Delaware, where I've just spent a lovely day. The gem in the crown of this city is certainly the riverfront, and as I think of beautiful places I've visited, they've often had focal points of water.

Wilmington's Riverfront includes several aspects of others in one setting. It is beautifully landscaped along a wide brick and concrete path, which is actively used by runners, walkers, and cyclists. Yesterday I took the water taxi from one end of the city to the other and back again. Like San Antonio, Wilmington's riverfront hosts several restaurants which were packed and bubbled forth with music and laughter...and cheers for World Cup goals from one. Crewers rowed their skulls along the river.

Wilmington also hosts some bits of human history. Harriett Tubman had led over 700 slaves to freedom using her Underground Railroad which ended in Wilmington.  During World War II, Wilmington fostered freedom in a different way: it was the largest producer of US Navy ships in the country.  What had once been shipyards now hosts the Riverfront path I have walked several times since arriving.

One of the unique characteristics here, though is the "urban wildlife preserve." Behind meticulously tended landscapes are wilder sanctuaries throughout, culminating in several hundred acres of preserved marshland at the end of development.

As I've reflected on this and lots of other places of beauty, I started to use the word "extraordinary," but "extraordinary" implies out of the ordinary.  Beautiful places so abound in our world that they are not out of the ordinary. Perhaps that is a problem. We've become so accustomed to the beauty around us that it has become ordinary, when it should quite rightly be remarkable. The brooks and streams, wild flowers, trees, and every other creation ought to take our breath away...daily, even hourly.  Sadly, most of the time it passes unnoticed.

If we would just notice what is working, we might also notice people cooperating and collaborating.  Ever notice when someone is attempting to open a door with their hands full (and sometimes when they aren't) that another person often opens the door.  Or, ask for directions in a public place, and several people within earshot will add pieces.  Comedian Jon Stewart once described that we know how to cooperate by explaining that cars making their way onto a freeway alternate methodically without direction.  The way that we cooperate and collaborate is a thing of beauty, which we seem to ignore until it stops working.

I've written about gratitude many times in this blog, but today I am wondering what it would be like if we all noticed both the natural beauty around us and the generally cooperative spirit of humanity.  Maybe that is where the gratitude journaling helps: it forces us to sit and remember things of beauty--natural and human--around us.  But, I think real magic might happen if we focused our intention on noticing beauty in the moment...oh, what a beautiful world it could be.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Living Like It Was My Last Day--Part II

Back in November, I published a post about living each day like it was my last. (11/28/13)  That was really about doing things on my "bucket list"--those things I've known for a long time that I wanted to do before I died.  Earlier this week (3/11) I wrote about not putting off those things that we yearn to do.  I firmly believe in the importance of doing those things in life, and I regret that time seems to pass so quickly that whole years pass in a blink without more of them happening.

Last night's movie viewing started me thinking about living each day like it was my last in a different way.  If this happened to be the last day of my life, what regrets would I want to fix?  Who would I want to forgive? What frayed relationships would I want to mend? To whom would I want to say "I love you?"  To whom would I want to thank or express gratitude?  This train of thought opens a whole new set of possibilities of living without regret. 

I've often wondered why it is that people who haven't spoken to each other for decades wait until their final days of life to mend fences and express regrets.  Of how many hours or days of joy have they robbed themselves?  Why is it that all those years during which the pride was so hard to swallow, but when the end is near, those are the people that they want to see, to touch, and to love again?

I have someone who was very special to me for the first 20 years of my life.  I have only seen her incidentally two or three times since then.  We started talking by phone again 10 years or so ago.  I would really love to see her again.  I would crawl on my hands and knees halfway across the country to see her again, but when I've asked she says, "No."  While I know I am responsible for the frayed relationship in the first place, I ache that my olive branches have been spurned.  She is much older than I, and each time we speak I hope that she doesn't die before I see her. 

As I reflect upon it, there are people that have been special to me and with whom I don't have frayed relationships, but as we've moved around the country, I've just lost touch.  If this were the last day of my life, I'd like to have one last conversation, a good laugh, and one final hug. In these days of the Internet and Skype, there is no reason for me not to have that conversation and laugh, although the hug will be a bit more challenging.  Facebook has given us the illusion that if we connect as "friends," we are really connected, but Facebook knows nothing about an afternoon laughing and spinning stories together over coffee.

In the last 15 hours or so since I've been thinking about this other side of the "last day," I've also thought about unspoken or under-spoken gratitude.  It is funny how people have just popped into my mind that I haven't thought about for decades.  I don't know why, but my high school government teacher has just been hovering there.  I would love to thank her for the passion she instilled in me for government watching.  I went on to major in political science, and politics-watching has been my favorite indoor sport for all of my adulthood...and probably before.  I remember impassioned debates with my father, lingering at the dinner table, when I was still in school.  I don't know if she's even still alive, but I think it is time to reach out. 

I think, too, about nameless people to whom I will be eternally grateful, like that college advisor that suggested that he thought I might find another career more satisfying than accounting, a potential job I'd selected because I thought it would always be secure.  After all, we always need accountants, no matter what the economy is.  EEK!  While I completely value those who do this work, it is mostly so I don't have to do it.  I am sure I would have slit my wrists in a few short months.

Writing this blog seems to have the effect of causing me to start a lot of lists, and while I don't always make it through all of them, the intention gets me started.  Sometimes I do make it through the whole list after a few months: this list seems too important not to write.

Paying It Forward

This afternoon I dutifully met with a friend of a friend, who was interested in talking about her job search.  I did so only as a courtesy to my friend. This week had been a killer at work, and I had scheduled something each evening after work.  By Friday afternoon, I was ready to head home and chill.
I wanted to go home, but I remembered how many people that I didn't know who had kindly met with me when I was new to Washington to talk to me about my job search. I really didn't want to do meet this woman.  However, I was richly rewarded with a delicious treat at the end of a hard week--a treat that perked me up dramatically and left me reaching my home feeling full of energy instead exhausted.

My delicious treat was an energetic conversation with a woman I hope will be a new friend and at the very least a professional colleague.  I find it interesting how I seem to "click" with some people so quickly.  Although the expressed intention of the meeting was to discuss a particular job for which she was applying, our conversation meandered all over the map.  It was fluid and lively.

There is a concept, known as "paying it forward," popularized by the 2000 movie of the same name.  It the movie instead of paying someone back for doing something nice for you, a youngster comes up with the idea that we should pay it forward--do something for someone else.  Actually, his idea was for every time someone does something nice for us, we should do three nice things for someone else.  In the movie, the ripple effect of paying it forward spreads across the country, each good deed tripling itself.

Today's meeting really started me thinking about that idea again.  When I thought about all the people who had helped me as I was settling in to the city, I should be meeting and talking to someone new every night for at least a couple of years.  Yet I have let my life get so busy that I don't do that.  I often remark about one of my work colleagues who has two children and seems always to be volunteering for this or that.  I don't know how she does it. Yet she always has lots of energy.

Perhaps tonight I had a glimmer of understanding. When I gave a very little, I was richly rewarded, not only with a delightful conversation, but literally with more energy. I had to question if I hadn't been so stingy in giving of myself if I might have as much energy as volunteering colleague.

Tomorrow I go to volunteer at a theatre here in Washington.  I go about once a month.  I do feel good when I do it, but honestly, I do it so that each month I can see a play for which I couldn't afford to purchase tickets.  That it is "pay it back" arrangement.  I give my time to the theatre, and the theatre gives me a seat in the performance.  Paying it forward is just giving to three strangers without allowing oneself to be paid back.  But, I was paid back today...by the conversation. Even when I didn't try, I was rewarded.

I recall again a gratitude practice that I wrote about some time ago, whereby a person attempts to give more gifts each day than they get.  "Gifts" might be letting someone in front of you in traffic, opening a door, or giving a compliment--anything which amounts to doing something for someone else. I've played this game before, and at the end of the day I make a list of gifts given and gifts received.  I am never able to give more gifts than I get.  I've have had days in which I set out with the express intention to see if I could actually do more than I would get: I believe it is impossible. When I gave more, I always got more.

This realization isn't a new discovery for me: I've discovered it many times, but I always seem to let this universal law of giving and receiving slip from my consciousness.  Then something happens to remind me again.  I am not sure how I get this in my psyche on a cellular level so that it will always  be in the front of my consciousness, but I really want to do that. I want to live from a place of giving and generosity. I will hold that intention, and I will reflect on how I can ensure that it doesn't slip away for yet another few months.

For now, I am reminded of one of my favorite quotes from Sir Winston Churchill: "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give." I am ready to make a life.

Baby, It's Cold Outside!

I confess to a passion for music of the Big Band era.  My mother had a huge collection of old 78 records that she played continuously when I was in utero, in the playpen, and throughout the time I was growing up. Big Band music was the soundtrack to my childhood.  Although we periodically argued about whose music was the best, the old stuff worked its way into my blood. ("There will never be anyone like Sinatra." She wins.  "The Beatles' music won't last five years." I win.)

As corny as it may seem, I think in lines to those old songs, and tonight I would be thinking, "Baby, it's cold outside."  Since the snow stopped yesterday, the wind has blown ferociously.  The wind-chills were at -6 degrees Fahrenheit (-22 Celsius) at high noon today.  Once again, I think about Alexander ("Expecting the Unexpected," 12/14/13,) and others like him who are homeless.  Baltimore, just north of Washington, has a "Code Blue," which means that it is cold enough that the homeless are being rounded up to keep them from freezing to death.

But tonight that isn't where I am going.  As I think about "Baby, It's Cold Outside," I just found myself going to contentment.  I thought about a fire roaring in a fireplace, a glass of wine, and curling up on the sofa with someone special.  In that moment, time stands still for the contented. 

Contentment seems not only increasingly rare in our culture, but an almost denigrated quality.  If we are contented, there is the implication that we don't have ambition or goals: we should be making something happen. I prefer to think that we can really be in joy--enjoy--what we have earned and what we are fortunate to have.  Perhaps contentment is the ultimate act of gratitude--appreciation of what has come our way.

So, tonight as the wind blows, I will sink into my contentment with my apartment which has good heat, an evening that I can just relax, and a long-awaited movie that has just arrived from Netflix. For now, I will just be...contented.

Giving Thanks

In the United States tomorrow afternoon or evening begins what for many is a four-day Thanksgiving holiday.  The roots of this holiday, one of the biggest of the year in the States, go back to the earliest days of the settling of North America.  Marked by family traditions of food, the two things that are common to most menus are roast turkey and dressing.  Almost as much a part of standard Thanksgiving fare in recent years has been football on television and the onset of holiday shopping season on "Black Friday," the day when most merchants move into the "black"-- profit column -- for the year.

Other countries have holidays of gratitude, such as a similar one in October in Canada.  In some countries, such as Germany's Erntedankfest, the holiday is more driven by local and regional custom.  But for most, the holiday comes at the end of the harvest season, when the larders are full, and the bounty of the year is most apparent.

For at least a dozen years, maybe longer, amidst the food, football, and shopping, I have turned to a practice that reminds me of the reason for this holiday. My custom of Thanksgiving (or the day or two before) has been to have a gratitude meditation.  In that meditation, I go through every single day of the year in my mind's eye and feel gratitude.  A stroll through my calendar beforehand is helpful, but it is amazing how much comes to memory as I mentally stroll, day by day, through the whole year.

My gratitude meditation is something of a condensed version of the gratitude practice I wrote about earlier.  (Gratitude, 9/24/13)  Complaints don't exist: everything is a gift.  As I go through my days one by one, I feel gratitude.  A new client, an interesting piece of work, or perhaps a new friend...I feel in my body and my soul those experiences.  I literally let my heart run over with joy and gratitude. 

Now for most people there are three kinds of days: really good or pretty good ones, ones that we would prefer not to live through again, and nondescript days, which kind of blend together.  In the 365 days that make the year, most of us have a fair distribution of all three types. The intention of the gratitude meditation is to find something to be truly grateful for each and every day. 

Those days that I would prefer to not think about force me to remember that everything is a gift and to find the gift.  The first cold that I'd had in over 20 years knocked me flat for almost three weeks: my over-tired body got rested, and I read a book that had been on my nightstand for weeks.  The eye surgery that didn't go so well: I am so grateful that the other eye works and has learned to compensate.  You get the idea.

Now, what about those unremarkable days?  I think they are the very best.  When I meditate on those days, they make me realize how truly blessed I am.  A rainy day? I am so grateful I have an umbrella.  The garbage truck that awakened me early on my day off? The sun coming up over the trees in the woods behind my apartment was spectacular. 

On one of those ordinary days I received a LinkedIn message from a man in Pakistan.  He'd bought a used copy of The Alchemy of Fear a decade ago from a street vendor for a penny: he said it changed his life.  I was so delighted that I had tears in my eyes walking down the street, reading the message on my iPhone.

Maybe I just remember that I have a roof over my head, and I've had food in my belly every day for the year.  This year, I will definitely remember how grateful I am to be writing this blog, to have had time to work on the electronic version of The Game Called Life, and for the government shutdown that made those things possible.

The gratitude meditation has never failed to transform me.  One holiday when I was traveling, I did the gratitude meditation on an airplane, and I was certain I would levitate right out into the clouds.  This discipline puts everything in order, and I know what is really important.  As I write about it, I am so looking forward to this year's reflections. I have something else to be grateful for: I get off early tomorrow, which means I have a perfect hole in my holiday calendar to do my gratitude mediation.

For those in the United States: Happy Thanksgiving!

For others: Happy Giving Thanks!

Joy to the World

I've had a earworm today.  "Joy to the world...to all the boys and girls...joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea...joy to you and me."  Then it starts over again.  I've always loved the Three Dog Night class rock hit, but why it is spinning over and over again...today...I don't know.

Even though the song recalls the initial theme of the Christmas carol about a time long ago, this joy to the world is about being joyful in the here and now and celebrates all of life around us.  Maybe that is why the song has been playing for me.  I've been noticing life around me today and mostly being joyful about it. 

Enough leaves have fallen from the trees in the park behind my apartment that I noticed seven deer just below my apartment the first thing this morning.  I thought how fortunate that I can live in a city and still have the deer almost close enough to touch.

Then, I went to the Farmers' Market. Harvest is a rich bounty at this time of year.  I love the smells of perfectly ripe tomatoes, fresh lettuce and peppers, and I was so tantalized by the smell of fresh basil that I brought a bunch home and placed it in a vase in my kitchen.  The fragrance has filled my kitchen all day.  And, I noticed.

I had no more than finished washing and storing my vegetables when it was time to have my periodic conversation with a friend in Canada.  We talk every four to six weeks, and I always delight in the connection we have.  We studied together a couple years ago, and because we both lived in the Eastern time zone, we often ended up partnering on assignments.  I have never met him, and yet,  I have felt blessed to have him in my life since we first talked.  When we ended the call, I just sat and was grateful to have him for a friend.

When that reverie passed, I could not resist creating wonderful foods with the bounty, so I puttered in the kitchen off and on all day.  The flavors are so intense when the vegetables are this fresh. 

So, yes, this has been a joy-to-the-world day.  All of them could be, if I just took time to notice.  I remember a line from a movie about an "angel" who has just passed over.  She says to her transition partner that she never took time to notice when she was alive.  I would hate to think that when my time comes that I haven't taken time to notice all the joy that is in my life. I've loved my joy-to-the-world day.  Joy to the world!

Rewriting Our Stories

Our minds play tricks on us, and the really tricky thing is they can totally transform for either good or bad how we experience life. Events in our lives are by and large neutral. They only become positive or negative because of what our minds tell us.

For instance, there are number if stories about people who were distressed because they missed a plane only to later learn that the plane had crashed.

Or there is the story about the man walking down the street, who was knocked over by a skateboarder, only see a heavy flower pot land on the sidewalk where he would have been if he'd kept walking.

If we are to experience everything as a gift, I believe it is essential that we become conscious of our stories and then rewrite them so that they help us see the gift.

This morning I cheerfully headed out for work, and I was hardly out the door before I began encountering delays. When I got to the corner where I would normally enter the Metro, the entry was closed. I was directed to a different entry.

I was just inside the alternative entry, when I saw my train leaving the station. When I made it to the platform, there were no times for upcoming train departures. A disabled train had blocked the tracks, and trains were bottlenecked from coming into the city. The missed train was the last for a while.  A long delay ensued, thereby assuring that I will miss my first meeting.

I finally entered a train that was packed like sardines. When I was almost to the station where I would change trains, the driver pulled in the station and said, "This train is out of service." So, everyone on the packed train offloaded.

At this point, I decided to walk a long block to another line where I would catch the train I would have changed to if my train had made it to the expected change point. It seems that was not an original thought. Hundreds of others joined me in the race to the other line, pushing and shoving all the way.

I allowed myself only a moment's pity before asking, "What's the gift? What's the gift?" Then I laughed out loud. I'd been struggling to fit exercise into my schedule thus week. Each of my delays had added more walking or escalators to climb. Was this a serious workout? Of course not. But it did get my heart rate up for a bit. By choosing to see all the delays as a gift, I started the day with a smile on my face and grace in my heart.

I was proud of myself for being awake enough to notice and to rewrite my story. That is a powerful act, choosing how to experience life without regard to circumstances.

Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Going to school

My life has seemed to go in cycles.  For a few years life flows swimmingly.  Money, relationships, health, and career all work well. Then, for no apparent reason, one day it shifts, and life can be very difficult for the next few.  While I certainly think the easy times are much more fun, in truth, I am sure that the difficult ones are more important to the evolution of my soul. 

I think of the difficult times as when we are in "spiritual school."  It is easy to have faith when everything is easy. I have learned the most about faith when it is tested.  Like in the life of the Biblical Job, if we are able to remember that we are on a spiritual journey, we come out the other side stronger and closer to whatever we consider the divine.  When things really fall apart, we are going to spiritual graduate school.

When I was publishing a book each year, writing several newspaper columns, consulting globally, and delivering a reasonable number of keynote addresses, I had lots of people around me who loved me.  Then the economy went bust...and my business with it.  Suddenly, most of my "friends" evaporated.  I found out who my true friends were.  I would never have learned what makes a real friend without those times.

Similarly, I won't ever really learn about forgiveness and gratitude until I need to forgive someone for a particularly wicked deed and then take it one step further to expressing gratitude for the deed. Twenty years ago a friend and I would talk about "being in lesson" at moments like that.  We would know that there was a spiritual purpose for our challenging times.  The more challenging the times, the more we were sure we were "in lesson."

School goes in other cycles too.  A different friend and I were talking over dinner Sunday about the same lessons that seem to keep showing up in our lives every few years. In my belief system those repeating lessons are ones that our souls signed up to master.  But, with each cycle, we learn something different.

I am a bit reluctant to announce at this early stage, but I feel a difficult cycle is approaching an end.  You may recall that a few days ago, I wrote about feeling as if I were pregnant (11/2/12.)  I've been restless and keep feeling like I have been about to deliver something.  Today, I think my "baby" is an easier stage of life.  In several arenas in life, I feel little breakthroughs, harbingers of better times.  I feel as if it might almost be safe to relax.  Ah!

While I look forward to easier times, I am cognizant of being truly grateful for the years I've been "in spiritual school," maybe this time for a spiritual post-doc. 

Remembering to Pray

When I finish this blog at the end of most days and then head to bed, I find I often have an Aha! moment.  So it was last night, as the night before.  As I was writing my gratitude list--things that I have to be grateful for at the end of each day--there were two things for which I was most thankful.  First, I was grateful for having spoken truth to power.  Almost as I had that thought, I remembered early in the day I had prayed for courage to do so, and then I had promptly forgotten about the prayer.  I am sure it was why I finally said what I should have said a year ago.

As I reflected about this little miracle (or maybe not so little,) I "got" on a deeper level than before about prayers being answered.  I tend to pray gratitude and for guidance.  I rarely pray for help.  Now, I know that just by simply asking in the morning, and then "letting it go," made a huge difference to me. 

Why then have I rarely asked for help? It is a good question. Maybe it feels selfish to ask for something for me.  Perhaps, as the author of a book on courage, I think I should be able to muster my own courage without help.  The truth is that I don't think I am very good about asking for help in anything from anyone--human or divine. 

I could blame my reticence on events of my childhood that made me fiercely independent, since asking for help just doesn't seem very independent.  I might say that all those years of education trained me to take care of myself. Even that my generation of women thought they had to be superwomen to claim our place in the work world. However, I think more likely is that I am terrified that if I surrendered even a chink in my armor of independence that I might just not exist.

Many years ago I heard an essay which proposed that the four most powerful words in any language were, "I need your help."  At all of 5'1" tall, I often find myself looking for tall shoppers in the grocery store to reach items on top shelves that are far higher than my fingers can stretch.  Over the years when I've needed assistance, I find people are often genuinely happy to help. I asked a friend to pick me up after a recent surgery because the surgery center wouldn't let me leave on my own.  How silly!  My friend was happy to help and good enough to tuck me in before I drifted back to sleep. Asking for help out of anything except sheer necessity has mostly been absent in my life. Why? I have no idea.

Dear God, I do need your help: I need your help remembering to pray.  I need your help to just allow myself to collapse in the warmth of your love and to know that you will be there with me and for me.
Always!

What goes around comes around

In my blog on gratitude (9/24/13), I described keeping a daily record of gifts I received and those I'd given.  No matter how hard I tried to keep up with what I received, I just couldn't.  A funny thing has happened over the last few days since I have been playing The Grocery Store Game (10/25/13) again.
What has been occurring parallels what happens with the gratitude lists.  The more I try to connect with others, heart to heart, the more people do and say kind things to me. 

I have been pondering this and what it means.  I really think that what we put out does come back to us, but I am pretty confident that it cannot be put out for the purpose of bringing things to us.  A giving heart is pure in motivation.  If something comes back to me, I am grateful, but I shouldn't give for the purpose of getting. 

So I believe it is with connecting, heart to heart, with people.  If something comes back to me, that is nice, but if I connect with the purpose of getting something in return, I have put up a wall between my heart and that of the person with whom I wish to connect.

There is an old expression: "what goes around comes around."  It suggests that how we live in the world is how we will experience the world around us.  We really plant the seeds for what we want in our own hearts, reflected in our actions.  When we give gifts or connection, that is what we attract to ourselves.  If it is done for selfish reasons--hoping to get something back, selfishness is what we will experience coming back.  If we do from pureness of heart, that too is what we will receive.

The Grocery Store Game

Back in the day when I was conducting Intentional Living Intensives with clients, I often encouraged them to play a game that I used to play.  It is a most enlightening (literally) game.  Last night after writing in this blog about connecting, heart to heart, with people one at a time, I was reminded of the game that I haven't played for years.  I decided to try it again. 

Here's how to play.  The purpose of the game it to make a heart connection with people that are often "invisible" in our lives.  They are grocery checkers, waiters, sales clerks, taxi drivers, baristas, the receptionist in a doctor's office, and anyone else with whom we transact business, often so closely that the only thing that separates us is the thickness of a dollar bill or credit card receipt, but most of the time we don't really see them.

In order to make a connection, it is essential that the "player" be focused only on the object of our heart connection.  Slowing down is essential. Eye contact helps. Most of them are not accustomed to being noticed, so it is important to just allow them time to be noticed.  The words that I exchange are said in a way that says I really mean them and not the typical, "Have a good day," said to lots of people without really thinking about them.  "You've been most helpful today.  I really appreciate it."  Often, at that point, they will break into a smile, but they will give you some indication that you've made a connection.  You've scored in The Grocery Store Game. 

I encouraged clients to make at least one connection each day to start with and to work up to the point where they made a connection at every transaction point.  When we "compared notes," what I often heard was they started out thinking they were going to do something for people in their transactions.  To a person, my clients ended up finding the connection was a gift to themselves.

Like my clients, I remember how good it used to feel to walk away from the check stand with my heart vibrating from that connection. I also remember how stress-reducing those encounters were.  They forced me to stop, still my mind and be present. How did I let that slip?  I'm not sure, but as I went to bed last night, I decided it was time to start playing again.

My day started with a smartphone which wouldn't work and me running late to a doctor's appointment, so I admit that I missed several opportunities in the doctor's office and the first two shopping stops before I was jarred from my autopilot life.  But as I set out to visit my service provider on the first of two visits, a little bell went off: this will be an opportunity to connect. 

When I was assigned to a technician, I recognized him from a couple earlier visits more than a year ago.  Before we talked about my problem, I took a moment to say I remembered how helpful he had been in the past and how grateful I was that I had the opportunity to have him support me again.  He looked delighted that I had not only remembered him, but had remembered that he had given me good service.

Sadly, the first visit didn't solve my problem, but when I went back, I used the opportunity to make another connection.  This was a much longer visit, and when I arrived at 6:30 p.m., I was tired, hungry, and frustrated. But to make the connection, I had to let go of all that. I just relaxed and partnered with this technician.  When I finally left at least an hour later, I looked her in the eyes and thanked her for being so helpful.  I said it had been a frustrating day, and she had made this very easy for me.  (My frustrating day!  Really!  This girl had been dealing with frustrated customers all day.)

She looked me right back in the eyes and started to tell me how much she'd enjoyed working with me. Then she went on to tell me how much I reminded her of her mother and how much she loved her mother.  The encounter ended with tears trying to well in her eyes.  When I left, I was still tired and hungry, but instead of the frustration I'd felt earlier, I just felt warm all over.  There was a spring in my step.  Life is good, and I like to think that both of us spread love out into the world around us.