My Own Medicine

As a writer, speaker, and coach, I help others connect who they are with how they live. It’s great work, and I love supporting people as they endeavor to live authentic, wholehearted lives. One of the things I find myself doing frequently in that process is encouraging them to trust that things will work out despite all evidence to the contrary.

The problem with my work is that in order to be authentic and wholehearted myself, I have to be willing to take a dose of my own medicine more often that I’d like to.

Take this morning for instance when the day before leaving on a bucket-list horse pack trip to celebrate our 25th anniversary, Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle decided to go into heat.

Things will work out.

Which meant that our well made plan to drop her off at her favorite boarding facility went out the window.

Things will work out.

Not many places will even take a dog in heat, not to mention that this is prime boarding time as people head out on vacation.

Things will work out.

At this late date, we stand to lose a substantial chunk of change if we have to cancel the trip.

It was getting harder to see how things would work out,

What to do?

At 10:30 in the morning there is only one thing to do. Make BLTs with extra bacon and extra mayo, split a beer, send up a short fervent prayer for help, and then start looking for other options. All the while trying to remember that things will work out despite all evidence to the contrary. Which they eventually did.

We just dropped Gracie off at her temporary digs. She will be alive and very happy to see us when we return, but it was hard work practicing what I preach. So for good measure we just stopped at Starbucks for grande mocha Frappuccinos. As it turns out, a spoonful of sugar really does help the medicine go down. Even my own.

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Road Trip

A good friend who is no longer with us was fond of saying that when God wants to teach us something, He takes us on a trip. I love that idea. Kind of like She is riding “shotgun” next to us, and of all the possible trips we can take, the most insightful, instructive, and inspiring, a road trip wins out, hands down. Extra points for other people in the car.

A road trip requires us to pack for the trip to the best of our ability, and yet it teaches us that we can never be prepared for every contingency, and if we try, we will be burdened with too much stuff, and miss the opportunity to get creative, wing it, and work with what we’ve got.

A road trip taken with others gives us the chance to connect in new ways, hold new kinds of conversations, and, find new ways in which we drive each other crazy. Enclosed in the same vehicle, headed in the same direction, we might just discover new ways of being on the same page.

A road trip lets us get up close and personal with anything that grabs our interest along the way. If we build in enough time to allow for a few side trips, detours, and unexpected surprises, we return home more informed, inspired, and possibly inclined to learn more about something we encountered along our way.

A road trip always has a snafu, big or small. A flat tire, road work delays, the campground that is full, the trail that is closed for the season, or the unexpected snowstorm with our chains still in the box…back in our garage. It is the snafus that make the story interesting and worth telling again, and again, and again in the years ahead.

A road trip brings out the best in us, and, the worst in us, and when those two collide, well, that’s why God took us on the trip in the first place. Stuck in a car, with miles to go, we have a chance to bring out more of the best in us, and leave behind more of the worst in us.

Roadtrip!

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Equipped

We want to be equipped for whatever comes our way.

Sometimes we are.

Sometimes we aren’t.

Whenever we come to the edge of our capacity, we have the choice to retreat back into our safe arenas, or step out into the risky territory that spans the gap between who we are now and who we want to become. It is there, and only there, that we are challenged to show up more fully, and bring more of who we are to our relationships, conversations, and the world around us.

It isn’t easy and it’s scary as hell to risk new ways of being in the world, but it is the only way I know of to become more well equipped for the life I am here to live.

Full Circle

“We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.” T. S. Elliot

From the moment we arrive on the planet, we are meant to be at home in our own hearts, and yet we often wander far and wide in search of what has always been right here.

We look outside of ourselves for love and belonging, rather than remembering to love and belong to ourselves.

We look to others to do for us what we are meant to do for ourselves.

We look to our work to give our lives meaning rather than bringing our lives to our work in a meaningful way.

The only path home brings us full circle back to ourselves.

Welcome home.

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The View

Have you ever put on someone else’s eyeglasses by mistake? Or grabbed an old pair of your own and realized that the lenses through which you see the world today aren’t the same as they were a few years ago?It is so easy to forget that we all see the world differently, and that our own view changes over time as well. When we take the time to understand one another’s perspectives, it goes a long way toward creating better communication, deeper connection, and greater compassion.

Tomer Dahari - Pexels.com

Tomer Dahari - Pexels.com


Fire Safety

There is a simple fire safety technique called Stop, Drop, and Roll, that is meant to prevent further injury if our clothing ever catches fire. This technique is meant to extinguish the fire by depriving it of the oxygen which fuels it. Most of us probably remember practicing this when we were little kids, and while we hopefully haven’t had to actually put it to use, if we ever did, or do, we will know how to protect ourselves..

Emotions can be a lot like fire. A sudden small spark, if given enough air, can burst into flame and engulf us before we know it. Different emotions enflame different people. One of mine is a sudden inner rage, and while yours might be something different, what they have in common is the need for something to keep them going. We stoke our fire with the stories we tell ourselves in its presence, and without a technique to extinguish it, we continue to fan the flame into a roaring fire that will not only burn us, but can endanger those around us as well.

When it comes to our fiery emotions, maybe we can take a lesson from those three steps we learned in school The next time we feel that first spark of anger, fear, shame, resentment, guilt, anxiety, hatred, or fill-in-your-own-blank, let’s Stop, Sit, and Notice. Literally.

Stop whatever we are doing. The simple act of stopping will slow the fire down.

Sit down on the ground, a chair, our bed, the kitchen counter, or on the floor of our own mind. The simple act of sitting will give us a new vantage point from which to see.

Notice what we notice. The simple act of noticing will give us a chance to name what we see.

With practice, we can learn to catch ourselves sooner.

With practice we can learn what fuels the fire that threatens injury to us, those we love, and the world around us.

With practice we can learn instead to tend the fire that fuels us, our work, and the world within reach of its warmth.

Stop.

Sit.

Notice.

With gratitude for the wisdom of my sister Margie, and my spiritual director, Dane Anthony.




The Power Of A Decision

One of the most crucial tools we hold is the power to make a decision. What we, I, sometimes fail to realize is the power an unmade decision holds over us. Not all decisions are created equal, and while some carry more weight than others, leaving them unmade can weigh us down, leaving us paralyzed and uncertain as to what to do next. But what to do next can’t make itself known until the decision is made.

When Tom and I began dreaming about purchasing property and building a home in the mountains, we couldn’t figure out where to start, and so we didn’t. Start I mean. We thought about starting. We talked about starting. We brainstormed about starting. We strategized about starting. We agonized about starting. We worried about starting. We dreamed about starting. We just never started because we couldn’t figure out what to do next.

Until we made a decision that is.

We decided to sell our house. Once we made that decision, the next steps started to appear, and one-by-one, we took them. From the vantage point of one step, we could see the next. And the next, and the next, and the next, until one day we moved into the rustic home we built at the base of a mountain on the land that was now ours.

We all have decisions looming. Some big, some small, some exciting, some boring some mandatory, some optional, some energizing, some excruciating, but whatever kind it is, it will loom until it is behind us. On this side of some decisions, the weight feels like more than we can bear. On the other side, we wonder what took us so long.

What decision can you make today that will help you move forward tomorrow?

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