Word Of The Day: RESILIENT 2.0

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on a word of the day drawn from a list created at the beginning of January. Each word was chosen to serve as a guide to inspire and inform my steps through 2020. If you are just joining me now and want to look in on earlier posts on this topic, you will find links to each at the end.

Good writing, but a little too “self congratulatory” was my husband’s response after reading RESILIENT. In it I told the story of summiting and surviving an unexpected night on Mt. Adams. Tom is one of my most trusted feedback providers, and as such I work to listen with more curiosity than defensiveness. Always a growing edge for me.

This morning over coffee in the pre-dawn light, defensiveness won the first round. As a female, I was raised to keep my strengths, intelligence, and strong opinions under wraps. His comments about the tone of my post smacked of that early upbringing. He was told from his earliest years never to toot his own horn, and the tenor of my words sounded like boasting. Our morning heart-to-heart was a convergence of our early messaging. Curiosity eventually won the match, and our conversation evolved into all of the ways resilience can manifest in our lives, including the willingness to receive and reflect on feedback when it is of the more “constructive” nature.

Divorce, death of loved ones, financial hardship, broken trust, the loss of a job, unrealized dreams, failure in front of our peers, being passed over for a promotion, fighting injustice, crafting meaningful lives, taking on our own inner demons, fostering authentic relationships, strenuous exercise, living with debilitating health conditions, or the Seattle Seahawks losing a game they fought relentlessly to win. We are all daily surrounded with opportunities to practice being resilient. Some small, some large, and some that feel insurmountable. When we practice being resilient in the face of the small, the more equipped we are for the large, which is what readies us when faced with the seemingly insurmountable.

Onward.

(And for the recored, I am pretty damn proud of summiting and surviving an unexpected night on a mountain. Just sayin’)

Photo by Suliman Sallehi on Pexels.com

Photo by Suliman Sallehi on Pexels.com

Word Of The Day: RESILIENT

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on a word of the day drawn from a list created at the beginning of January. Each word was chosen to serve as a guide to inspire and inform my steps through 2020. If you are just joining me now and want to look in on earlier posts on this topic, you will find links to each at the end.

RESILIENT

Standing on the top of Mt. Adams, the 12,283 ft. high volcano we see out our window every day, the sense of accomplishment of having made it to the top was diminished by the overwhelming sense of how small I am in the bigger scheme of things. I am a tiny blip on the radar screen of the very long arc of time. I do however like to think that I’m a resilient blip.

We had arrived at the summit late in the afternoon, several hours after we should have been making our decent to pack up our tent and gear before continuing on down to our car at the trailhead. It was quickly obvious that we wouldn’t make it, and would have to spend another night on the mountain. Not the worst thing in the world to spend another night in our tent that we had left at our basecamp the night before.

When climbing up a mountain, it’s hard to lose your way as all trails converge at the top It’s a little trickier on the way back down. It is easy to get on the wrong ridge and miss your intended trail down. We obviously hadn’t paid close enough attention to our route on the way up, and as night fell it was clear that we were lost. The only option was to find a wind break and hunker down for the night. Choosing a flat spot ringed with a low stone wall erected by former climbers, we put on every piece of clothing we had, rested our heads on our packs, and pulled the space blanket (think tin foil) over us. Imagine trying to sleep in your driveway on a cold night and you get a pretty good idea of our predicament.

It was a long night.

For 7 hours I turned from one side to the other, only able to last about 10 minutes on a side before the ache in that shoulder and hip needed a rest. As cold and miserable as it was on the one hand, it was breathtakingly wondrous on the other. A chance to watch the Milky Way rotate in the sky, the fireworks of the Perseid meteor shower, and eventually the miracle of the sun touching the top of the mountain.

At first light we were up and out to find our way down. (We didn’t find our tent and gear, but that’s a whole other miraculous story to be explored another day.) By 4pm we were back home. After 36 hours with no sleep, a shower and a strong cup of coffee to go we were on our way to my brother’s 70th birthday celebration.

It’s no small thing to summit and survive an unexpected night on a mountain, just like it is no small thing to reach seventy years of age, having survived all the unexpected things that have happened along the way. Both call upon us to be resilient. To recover from difficult conditions and challenges. To spring back into shape after being bent by life’s storms. It is those same challenges, difficulties, and storms that create resilient souls. A willingness to get up and go at it, whatever it is, again, and again, and again.

Yes, we’d summited a mountain.

No, we hadn’t gotten any sleep.

Yes, we were tired.

And no, we weren’t about to miss that party.

To be resilient is both a practice and a choice. We were able to make our way to the top of the mountain because of the endurance and strength we’d trained so hard to develop. We weathered a night of aches and shivers by focusing on the miracles unfolding in the night sky above. We made it to the party because after making it back home, the option to crash for the night couldn’t compare to the chance to celebrate the life of someone we loved.

To be resilient is to remember what has brought us thus far. It is to call upon the best in ourselves in the face of the unexpected challenges, losses, and heartaches that life can throw at us. Which it has, and does, and will.

Onward.

Photo by Suliman Sallehi on Pexels.com

Photo by Suliman Sallehi on Pexels.com

Word Of The Day: WHOLEHEARTED

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on a word of the day drawn from a list created at the beginning of January. Each word was chosen to serve as a guide to inspire and inform my steps through 2020. If you are just joining me now and want to look in on earlier posts on this topic, you will find links to each at the end.

WHOLEHEARTED

One of my core beliefs is that we are all called to live wholehearted lives. I aspire to live into that truth every day with varying degrees of success, and with sometimes slow but always steady progress. In my work, through speaking, writing and teaching, I invite others to aspire to the same.

It is a way of living that on the surface is hard to disagree with. I mean who would admit to wanting to live halfheartedly? And yet, what does it really mean to live with our whole heart? Our entire heart? All of it?

A friend recently reminded me of the truth found, but potentially overlooked, in the very title of David Whyte’s poem, Everything Is Waiting For You. The good news is that everything is waiting for us. The harder news is that everything is waiting for us. Everything. The good and the bad, the easy and the hard, the energizing and the exhausting, what we welcome and search for and what we dread and avoid. A whole heart has space for it all. (Hear David Whyte read Everything Is Waiting For You in his interview with Krista Tippett.)

In Autumn: A Season of Paradox, Parker Palmer, the educator, activist, and founder of The Center For Courage & Renewal puts it this way—“Split off from each other, neither darkness nor light is fit for human habitation. The moment we say “yes” to both of them and join their paradoxical dance, the two conspire to make us healthy and whole.” To live wholeheartedly means to encounter and engage with the truth of our lives, the whole of which can only be found by welcoming the dark as much as the light.

There are no two ways about it. Living a wholehearted life is not for the faint of heart. It is the most challenging, and the most exhilarating, work we will ever do. It’s why we are here.

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Words To Hang Our 2020 Hats On

Yesterday as I wrote about 2020, my first thought was to come up with ONE word for the year. One word that would capture my vision, hopes, and thoughts for the year ahead. One word that would help me make choices in line with the person I want to be, and the difference I hope to make.

That’s a tall order for a single word.

The more I tried to come up with one word, and one word only, the more restrictive it felt, kind of like when you can’t catch your breath. That is when the idea of a collection of words took hold, and as the list of words appeared on the page I began to breathe a little easier.

As I look at the word cloud created from my list, and now displayed nearby for quick reference, it is clear that I will need every one of them. I already know that there will be days when I won’t be able to muster a speck of fierce if my life depended on it, and on those days will be grateful that grace is there at the ready. Some days I will embody those words, and on others only aspire to them. Keeping them close at hand might just help me embody more and aspire less.

We human beings are complex creatures, and the lives we live are equally complex. Every day we make choices that, when cobbled together, create the life we have, and it is hard to imagine summing up a life in a single word.

Going Deeper

If you want to take a deeper dive into today’s post…

Find a bit of time and space to create your own collection of words on which to hang your 2020 hat.

Create your own word cloud. (I used Word Clouds (simple, free, fun).

Hang it nearby, refer to it often, and see what happens.

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Old Friends

It is fair to say that I am comfortable with melancholy. She is an old friend who has been with me for as long as I can remember. There have been chapters in my life where hers was a constant presence, in others she lingered in the shadows, but she is never too far away. I am so at ease with her that before I know it, I’ve welcomed her in, and allowed her to make herself way too comfortable. Sitting with her for too long, I forget that there is work to be done. The good and hard work of crafting a meaningful life, and becoming the person I am here to be.

In a recent and rich conversation with my spiritual director, Dane, we talked quite a bit about my longtime relationship with my old friend Mel. Today I was looking over my notes from that conversation and found these words:

Melancholy—

I know it.

I’m comfortable with it.

We are old friends.

For today, I will build you a fire and you can rest. I on the other hand, have work to do, and I don’t need your help.

You may not have a long and abiding friendship with melancholy, but my guess is that you might have some version of my story. Are there any old friends for whom you can build a fire and let them rest? Remember, we’ve got work to do.

(As always, with gratitude to you DA)

Photo by Jenna Hamra from Pexels

Photo by Jenna Hamra from Pexels

It Takes Practice

The more we commit to doing the work of becoming more authentic and whole-hearted, the more we discover about ourselves. The more we discover about ourselves, the more things we find that we love and appreciate about ourselves, and the more things that, well, we don’t. So just what do we do with those things that aren’t what we might call our most endearing qualities?

First we notice them - There it is again.

Then we name them - Hello impatience, anger, defensiveness, fill-in-your-own-blanks.

Then we practice navigating them in better ways when they show up. Take a breath and choose a better response than the knee-jerk one we’ve been perfecting for all these years.

Notice.

Name.

Navigate.

Repeat.

If you’re like me, you’ll get plenty of opportunities to practice.

Pexels - Phtographer: Snapwire

Pexels - Phtographer: Snapwire


On A Dime

All we have to do is decide what to do with the time that is given us.

~ GandalfJ.R.R Tolkien: The Fellowship of the Ring

It is good to remember that our days are numbered. It is hard to be reminded of how quickly our number can be up. Let’s make our lives count.

It is good to remember that life is the currency given to us to spend as we choose. It is hard to be reminded that life can turn on a dime. Let’s spend our lives well.

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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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