Tethering

There is a tool when raising a puppy or training a dog called tethering.

Tethering means that if you are with your dog and not actively training, or the dog is in their crate or some other assigned rest area, you and your dog are basically attached at the hip. Literally. You attach a leash around your waist, and clip it onto your dog’s collar. Where you go, the dog goes, training her to stay close, strengthening the bond between you and your dog, and allowing you to observe and respond to her behaviors appropriately. Rewarding what you want. Ignoring or correcting what you don’t.

Gracie, our 14 week old chocolate labradoodle and I are becoming increasingly comfortable with this tethering routine. She is relaxing into it, sticking closer sooner, and is starting to offer behaviors that get rewarded, and learning to avoid those that do not. Left to her own devices, without this practice, it would be easy for her to wander, ok, race, into territory where she could do harm to herself, her surroundings, and other dogs or people.

Standing at the counter with her calmly sitting by my side, it struck me that left to our own devices, untethered from our true self, and our values, beliefs, and priorities, we too can wander, ok, maybe race, into territory where we can do harm to ourselves, our surroundings, and other people.

In order to attach ourselves closely to our deepest values, beliefs, and priorities, we have to know who we are and what we care about, and then tether ourselves closely enough that when tempted to wander off course, we are pulled up short. The way I stay tethered to what matters is by declaring my bedrock beliefs. To trusted family, friends and colleagues, giving them permission to check me if they see me straining against the leash. On my website or at the beginning of a retreat, workshop, or keynote, I declare them publicly, compelling me to stay accountable to what I profess. When struggling to stay true to who I am, there are trusted professionals to help me do the inner work necessary to live into my truest self.

Gracie doesn’t always love tethering, but as I stay calm, solid and strong, she is learning to trust the bond being created by sticking close.

If Gracie can do it, so can we.

Mirror Mirror

“Our deepest calling is to grow into our own authentic self-hood, whether or not it conforms to some image of who we ought to be. As we do so, we will not only find the joy that every human being seeks--we will also find our path of authentic service in the world.” 
― Parker Palmer

When we look in the mirror, who do we see?

Do we recognize the image looking back at us?

Does our outside match our inside?

If not, what do we need to do to uncover or reclaim our own authentic self-hood, so that we can walk our path of authentic service in the world?

It is our deepest calling.

Let’s answer it.

Write here…

True North

There are such things as magnetic moments. Times when we sense an inner pull, an invitation to step more fully into our lives, calling us to our own true north, that unique, authentic, wholehearted life that is ours, and only ours, to live. 

Magnetic moments ask us to step over the threshold of uncertainty and fear, cross over the border of the familiar and the comfortable, and venture into the unknown. Marking both the ending of what has been, and the beginning of what could be, it is the threshold that bridges the gap. Sometimes that threshold sits beneath a door that opens inward, drawing us deeper into self-knowledge and awareness. This usually requires that we find the courage to look into our shadows, those parts of ourselves that we prefer to ignore or keep hidden, or those issues and relationships that call for our attention, but are painful, or scary to look at. Other times we are invited to venture further out, beyond the boundaries we’ve come to count on. Taking risks, embarking on new work, making important changes, practicing new ways of being in the world.

In case, like me, you didn’t know this, there is a difference between magnetic north and true north. A compass automatically points to magnetic north, which shifts over time, while true north does not change. In order to find true north a compass must be adjusted. Magnetic moments are an alert to adjust our inner compass. In the world of auto-correct, adjustments happen automatically on our devices, but not so in our own lives. Recognizing that magnetic pull, we adjust our inner compass to make sure it is aligned with who we are and what we care about. This adjustment doesn’t keep us safe…It keeps us true.

Magnetic moments are game changers, and the choice is always ours to step over that threshold.

Or not.

Either way the game changes.

This first day of the new year is a chance to adjust our inner compass, allowing it to help us make any necessary course corrections so as to step boldly towards true north. The life that is ours, and only ours, to live. This adjustment won’t keep us safe…it will keep us true.

First light of the first day of a new year.

Working For Hope

“Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”

~ Barack Obama

Hope is not static.

It is a noun that names a state of expectancy and anticipation, and, it is a verb that describes an active expectation and anticipation for a treasured outcome. Hope is a two-step process.

Step one is gaining clarity on a treasured outcome. The more clear the desired outcome, the stronger the state of expectancy and anticipation as we wait for our hopes to be fulfilled.

Do you want to write a book? Create a more fulfilling life? Stand on a stage and move an audience? Make a ton of money? Help heal the earth? Climb a mountain?

Step one only gets us so far.

Step two is doing something about attaining what we hope for.

Books get written by those who write. A fulfilling life might mean letting go of what and who no longer fit, in order to fit in what and who just might. The stage door opens for those with a compelling message. People will pay big money for what they deem valuable. The smallest right actions helps to restore the planet. Summiting a mountain starts with summiting a hill.

Sometimes hope looks like waiting and working your ass off all at the same time.

Broken Records

Sometimes I know that I sound like a broken record, but then I guess there are some things that are worth repeating. My dad was a broken record.

Remember who you are and what you stand for.

If I heard that once, I heard it several thousand times. And so did everyone else who knew and loved him, and some who didn’t know him and if they did, they probably wouldn’t have loved him. I got tired of hearing it, and there were times I wanted to throw the nearest sharp object at him for saying it. But you know what? It stuck, and those words spoken to me, over me, and around me, have gone a long way toward helping me to become a better version of myself. There are things for which I’ve thrown my dad under the bus, but these words are not one of them. I will alway be on board the bus with him on this one. 

Recently I’ve begun to hear my own broken record. Like my dad’s words, mine are short, not-so-sweet, and to the point.

Do the work.

Simply stated, it means choosing over and over and over again, to do the hard work of becoming your best, most authentic and wholehearted self.

Do the work. 

It means uncovering our wounds (we all have them) and doing what it takes to heal them, and turn them into scars. It means sitting with our pain, anger, grief, and all of the other shadow emotions, and learning from them rather than running from them. It means asking ourselves what we are currently carrying with us that needs to be dealt with and left behind, so as to move into whatever is next with more love, compassion, freedom, and peace. It means admitting when we are wrong, and making amends. It means learning how to apologize and mean it not justify it. It means having the hard conversations and doing the deep listening. Again, and again, and again.

Do the work. 

It means figuring out what makes us tick, and what triggers us. It means taking ownership for everything in our lives. Every. Single. Thing. Not that we are responsible for everything that has happened to us, or for the wrongs committed to us by others, but that we are responsible for what we do with what we’ve got.  

Do the work.

It means finding the professional help to support our efforts. At the risk of sounding like another broken record, we all need professional help to become our best selves. Every. Single. One. Of. Us. Depending on the circumstances, that might mean a therapist, psychiatrist, coach or spiritual director, or some combination thereof.  

I’ve been heartened recently by examples of those doing their work, and heartbroken by examples of others who are not. When we do the work every one around us benefits, and when we don’t, everyone around us pays. Which is why, later today, I am grateful to be meeting with my spiritual director. I know I’m better when I do, and it’s better for everyone around me too. 

Some things are worth repeating. 

Let’s do the work. 

Eyes Wide Shut

"Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find."

~Ann Patchett

For the last 10 years, my husband Tom has commuted from our home to his office in Vancouver, Washington. Leaving home on Monday morning, we had the exact same routine every week. He’d pack his bag the night before, get up early, shower, get dressed, have one cup of coffee, eat breakfast while we played one game of Backgammon, load up the car, take a travel mug of coffee, and head down our road. The routine was so familiar we could almost do it with our eyes shut.

From door to door that commute is exactly 88 miles, driven on the same stretch of road, along the same stretch of the Columbia River, in the same car. If it wasn’t so dangerous, he could almost do it with his eyes shut.

One day last year however, he almost drove off the road, and it wasn’t because he was sleepy or on auto-pilot. Quite the opposite, he was wide awake with his eyes wide open. Which is what allowed him to see this…

UNTOUCHED photo: Tom Pierson

On auto-pilot, we might get where we are going, but completely miss the trip.

(For more inspiration about coming upon the unexpected, visit a recent post by David Berry complete with sound effects.)

What If It Didn’t Have To Look Like That?

 “Find that far inward symmetry to                                                                                

all outward appearances, apprentice

 yourself to yourself, begin to welcome back

all you sent away, be a new annunciation,

make yourself a door through which

to be hospitable, even to the stranger in you.”

David Whyte 

One of my greatest needs is for time and space to myself, by myself, and for myself. It is the water that quenches my thirsty soul, and the food that feeds my hungry heart. And, it is what helps me not to be a total, selfish...well, you know what I mean.

But what if it didn’t have to look like that? 

In my perfect little world, time and space to myself, for myself, and by myself, means whole days at a time with no one else around. It means the chance to chart my own course, bide my own time, and march to the beat of my own drum. When I’ve had one or two of those days in a given week, I can be a pretty nice girl to be around. When I haven’t? Well, not so much.   

But what if it didn’t have to look like that? 

These past two plus weeks in Germany and Denmark, by my calculation, I’ve had a total of one hour to myself, for myself, and by myself. The good news? There were days when I never had to apologize to Tom. The other news? On some days I did. More than once. 

But what if it didn’t have to look like that? 

Maybe it doesn’t.  

Maybe generosity and grace are almost always within reach.

Maybe being good company is almost always an option.

Maybe setting aside my needs is almost always a possibility.

With time and space to myself, for myself, and by myself, I can almost always choose to extend generosity and grace, be good company, and set aside my own needs. Without that time and space to, for, and by myself. Well, not so much.

But what if it didn’t have to look like that? 

Maybe it doesn’t. 

This morning, we enjoyed another lovely breakfast in a little nook off the kitchen and in the shadow of the village church. For the past week our host, Birthe, has extended generosity and grace, been good company, and set aside her own needs. For us. For me.

After breakast, I offered to do the dishes so that Tom and Birthe could go into her delightful sitting room and wander through old pictures and letters from his time here years ago.

In case it’s not completely obvious, this was not an entirely altruistic offer. 

We all have our own unique ways of keeping our best selves in tact. The one that can extend generosity and grace, be good company, and set our own needs aside. Understanding what it takes for that person to show up in the morning, ready for another day, is important information. Cultivating the practices that attend to those needs is our individual and necessary work.

But.

When life takes a temporary turn that makes tending to those needs, in just the way we like, difficult, if not impossible, it’s easy to ignore the better angels of our nature, who are always at the ready, and capitulate instead to their evil twins, who also seem to be always at the ready. 

But what if it didn’t have to look like that?

Actually, it doesn’t.

Fashion Statement

“Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who’s wearing it.”  ~Yves Sait Laurent

“I love your style!”

If I had a dollar for every time someone has sidled up to me with those exact words, I would have an unlimited clothing budget. While I love it when people compliment my style, it kind of cracks me up. I’ve been rocking the same style for years, which means that I am never in style with the latest look.

But I am apparently in style with my self. Somehow the way I put myself together on the outside matches the way I’m put together on the inside. 

I think that is what we are all after, after all. To be clothed in our true self. Lots of years ago, I went to a business lunch clothed in anything but. I was on a road trip with my sister, and she was coming with me to meet the literary agent for Letters to Our Daughters. As I was about to get dressed for the meeting, my sister suggested that I might want to borrow something of hers instead. While I knew then (as I do now) that she always has my best interest at heart, when it comes to fashion, she and I couldn’t be more different.

In a word, her style is fancy.

Mine is not. 

Ignoring my inner fashion editor I slipped on her clothes, and slipped out of myself. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more uncomfortable in my own skin, covered as it was in someone else’s cloth, and I couldn’t finish my overpriced salad fast enough. 

Lesson learned.  

When it comes to fashioning a wardrobe, or fashioning a life, remember the the words of Oscar Wilde...”Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

PS... if you want to see who I might have been, if I’d lived in a galaxy far, far away....http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Maz_Kanata

Fashion Statement

“Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who’s wearing it.”  ~Yves Sait Laurent

“I love your style!”

If I had a dollar for every time someone has sidled up to me with those exact words, I would have an unlimited clothing budget. While I love it when people compliment my style, it kind of cracks me up. I’ve been rocking the same style for years, which means that I am never in style with the latest look.

But I am apparently in style with my self. Somehow the way I put myself together on the outside matches the way I’m put together on the inside. 

I think that is what we are all after, after all. To be clothed in our true self. Lots of years ago, I went to a business lunch clothed in anything but. I was on a road trip with my sister, and she was coming with me to meet the literary agent for Letters to Our Daughters. As I was about to get dressed for the meeting, my sister suggested that I might want to borrow something of hers instead. While I knew then (as I do now) that she always has my best interest at heart, when it comes to fashion, she and I couldn’t be more different.

In a word, her style is fancy.

Mine is not. 

Ignoring my inner fashion editor I slipped on her clothes, and slipped out of myself. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more uncomfortable in my own skin, covered as it was in someone else’s cloth, and I couldn’t finish my overpriced salad fast enough. 

Lesson learned.  

When it comes to fashioning a wardrobe, or fashioning a life, remember the the words of Oscar Wilde...”Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

PS... if you want to see who I might have been, if I’d lived in a galaxy far, far away....http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Maz_Kanata

More Than A Thousand Words

Do you ever feel like this?

Yeah. Me too.