What takes up too much emotional currency in your life?
How might you begin to spend your life differently?
If some of those inner resources were freed up, where would you be able to invest that capital?
Photo: Pixaby
Now & Then
That was then, this is now.
What worked last week doesn’t necessarily work this week.
What was true yesterday, may no longer be the reality today.
What support looked like earlier may look different now.
What we needed to hear in a previous stage may need a new message in the new one.
What shape love took in the past may no longer fit.
The only way to know if whatever it is is still working is to find out. Ask the question, have the conversation, be observant, and stay open.
Curiosity And The Cat
Fear slinks in like a cat. So quiet, she goes undetected, and before we know it she is rubbing up against our leg, and just like that, we are under her spell. If you are like me, fear is rooted in the past, and left unchecked, will sow the seeds of the future. Here’s the thing about fear. We are usually afraid of what might happen, or could happen, but the truth of the matter is, it hasn’t happened yet. Rather than believe our scary story and act as if it is true, maybe we can find our way to curiosity. Take a deep breath and simply take the next step, see where it takes us, and trust that since we’ve made it this far, we have no reason to doubt that we will find our way further down our road.
I am no stranger to fear, and have to continually learn that it almost never leads to the next wise choice or the next right step. It only digs my hole a little deeper. Curiosity, however, always seems to lead me to the next rung of the ladder. And the next, and the next, and the next.
Curiosity may not kill the scaredy cat, but it can tame her just a little bit.
Photo: Gijs Coolen on Pexels.com
MASTERY
Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle has mastered the art of going crazy in the presence of other dogs and humans. It’s not her fault, it’s ours. Left to her own devices, whenever she is around her four-legged peers, or is introduced to new people, she will whip herself into a hot, uncontrollable frenzy. Ufortunately we left her to her own devices too often when she was a young pup.
What she hasn’t mastered is the art of being calm in the presence of other dogs and humans. It’s not her fault, it’s ours. As a result, we are helping her conquer this new and necessary skill. Whenever encountering other dogs or people, with the help of a few training tools, she is learning to calm herself and is developing good doggie social skills. If we had started this earlier, she wouldn’t have to work as hard as she is to overcome her fallback behaviors and develop new ones. Thankfully she is a smart girl and wants to please us, so she is steadily making her way to mastering these new skills.
Whether we walk on two legs or four, we master what we practice, and it’s never too late to develop new skills.
Take A Hike
Taking a hike can teach us about life and how to make our way in the world.
Pack light, pack smart.
Pack what you need, leave behind what you don’t.
The steeper the trail, the smaller the steps.
When the going gets steep, don’t stop. Just take smaller steps.
Choose traveling companions wisely.
Head out with those who will stick with you no matter how challenging the trail.
The hikers return from the top of Little Huckleberry
The Horse We Rode In On
We all have them. Decisions we wish we could revisit and choose another course. Words we’ve said in the heat of the moment, but are unable to take back. Relationships we started that turned out to be dead ends, and ones we ended too soon, missing out on the life to be found there. Times when we let fear hold us back, and others when we allowed our pride to push us ahead before we were ready. Some years feel like a total waste, as we lingered in our shame, fear, and disappointment. And then, there are those times when we made what can only be called terrible mistakes. Errors in judgement that cost us, and those we love great harm. Every experience up until now has made us who we are today, and we’ve all arrived to our present moment on the backs of our stories. All of them.
Looking back over my life, I have very few regrets. In fact, there’s really only one, and it cost me a lot. When I was in college, I had a conversation with my dad that changed the course of my history, and if I could have one do-over, it would be that one phone call. I allowed his patriarchal view of women and the world to color my own. Instead of speaking up and applying for graduate school, I stayed quiet and took a job to pay the bills. In listening to his, I silenced my own voice, and rather than owning my intelligence and strength, I turned them out to pasture. It took me a long time to find my way back to myself and take the reins into my own hands.
Slowly but surely I put a period on the end of that story, which was the only way I could begin to write a new one. It would have been easy to allow that many year detour to define me for the rest of my life, and there are still times, if I’m honest, that I indulge myself by replaying the shoulda-coulda-woulda song, but those times are short lived, and few and far between. It was that detour that led me to the work I have today. It is because of that experience that I am passionate about helping others step more fully into their own lives, access and trust their inner wisdom, and bring all they have to offer, in whatever form, to a world waiting for what they have to give.
Every choice and chapter will always be a part of our story, but they don’t have to define us forever. The only way they can is if we let them. In my better moments, I am even able to thank my dad for helping me to find an unconventional trail to wholeness, meaning, and purpose. Because that is that story that now defines my life.
Home Ownership
There is a big difference between a house and a home. A house is a structure. A framework within which we live, and what can be seen on the exterior says little about what goes on in the interior. From the outside, a house doesn’t give away much about what happens inside the home, and like many things, it’s what’s on the inside that counts. Having sold a house a time or two (five to be more precise), I know that location matters. Some neighborhoods are more desirable than others depending on our preferences, and most of us tend to buy into the best area that we can afford. When putting a house on the market, in order to distinguish ours from others that are similar, sellers are encouraged to create street appeal for potential buyers, and to stage the inside so that they can see themselves living within its walls. But location, street appeal and staging do not a home make.
Or a life for that matter.
When I set out to write a book a few years ago, I did it because it was the next right thing to do. I was compelled to write BLUSH: Women & Wine not to become rich and famous, but to discover why I had come to depend upon wine as a coping mechanism to soften the blows of my own life, and to invite my readers to embark on their own exploration with me. Yet the temptation was there, and sometimes still is, to make the book and my work look good out in the world, rather than using the book and my work to do good out in the world. I am often more easily enticed to sign up for another course to learn how to create a more successful platform instead of standing on the platform that I have and telling the story to those ready to hear it.
It can be easy to get caught up striving to situate ourselves in the right place, be seen with the right people, and surrounded by the right stuff. We develop an image that will appeal to those we seek to impress, and stage our lives to appear accomplished and successful. There is nothing wrong with working to cast ourselves and what we have to offer in the best light, but that is exterior window dressing to the real work of shining a light inside the walls of our life. The work of coming to know ourselves and our vocation, of cultivating our gifts and honing our craft. For only when we do that will we find ourselves at home in our own life, and it is only from there that we are able to step out into the world and offer what is uniquely ours to give.
When it comes to real estate it might be about location, location, location, but when it comes to real life, it is about vocation, vocation, vocation.
For Weekend Reflection
Maturity is not a static arrived platform, where life is viewed from a calm, untouched oasis of wisdom, but a living elemental frontier between what has happened, what is happening now and the consequences of that past and present, first imagined and then lived into the waiting future.
~David Whyte: CONSOLATIONS
What does your past tell you that can help you live more fully into your waiting future?
Real Life
It’s been in the works for awhile now. It all started with a phone call from a friend. We have a monthly video call where three of us connect to check in, go deep, and help one another become more of who we are called to be. He had booked a house on a beach overlooking the water for another gathering, but had the house for a full week, and wondered what it might be like to join him there, and for good measure, to bring our partners as well. Instantly we were all in. The dates went on our calendars, funds were contributed, and we all agreed to bring plenty of good food, good wine, and something meaningful to share with each other.
On our last phone call we talked about what we wanted the time to look like.
Did we have an agenda?
Were there topics to be covered?
Well. Yes and no.
The agenda? To show up as ourselves.
The topics to be covered? Whatever felt real, relevant, and revelatory.
It’s as simple as that and as hard as it gets. Kind of like life.
Spring Pruning
I almost forgot to cut the ferns back. It is a task that can be done in late winter or early spring, it doesn’t matter. It just matters that you do it.
Pruning away the old, brown fronds improves the appearance of the plant, increases the air flow to prevent mold, and allows new fronds to emerge. It only took about 30 minutes to complete the job, and the new fronds, now visible, were curled up tight as little fists. The very next day, those little fists began to uncurl into new vibrant green leaves.
Like a fern, for us to flourish the old needs to be trimmed away in order for new growth to emerge.
