Tag: inspiration

To Start

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“Do the difficult things when they are easy and do the great things when they are small. A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.” – Lao Tzu

When my toddler learned to walk about a year and a half ago, he would slowly teeter his way to standing and then do what looked like a couple of deep knee bends to gain momentum before thrusting his foot forward. It was a great visual on preparing to get moving. I think of it often when I’m starting something.

Often when I get out the yoga mat, spread it on the floor, light the candles all around, I find myself just standing on the front of the mat, feeling the stiffness of my body straight out of bed and the reluctance to start.

Or I’ll have a tedious task at work, one that requires me to block out everything else to do it but I stall at the start finding five other things to do that don’t require the commitment.

And when I have an idea of what I want to write about sometimes before I can even put my fingers on the keyboard, I get lost because I get distracted by trying to map out where the thread will end.

I’ve come to think of that pause before beginning as a gathering. It’s the natural pause that allows my heart, mind and spirit to all show up. I used to have a great deal of impatience with this delay thinking it was a lack of willpower.

But now I recognize the beauty of it and see how often it is that I do daily tasks like the dishes without being all there. That’s okay for the things I do by rote but for things that require true presence, I’ve come to relish the practice of gathering my heart and soul.

If I’m too much in my head, I get distracted because the end isn’t clear. If I’m too much in my body, I feel the inertia that prevents me from beginning. But when the spirit comes to join the rest, it moves me into gear. Sometimes, I picture my toddler and do some deep knee bends, literal or metaphorical, as I gather and get ready to go.

This idea seemed perfect to post for a Monday. Do you ever have trouble starting? Or a ritual that helps move you into gear?

The Inner Hustler

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“We drink the poison our minds pour for us and wonder why we feel so sick.” – Atticus

I woke up this morning in a sheer panic at 5am worried about money. Getting up at that time isn’t unusual but the panic is. And I wasn’t worried about money now – I was worried about money in 6 months for no particularly good reason because as a self-employed person (or maybe even an employed person), the future that far out is never possible to see.

Sitting on the meditation cushion 15 minutes later, I went diving to find the source of the panic. As I peeled back the layers, I kept stumbling on the idea that I hadn’t been working hard enough.

Taking two days off to take care of Mr. D as he’s recovered from his cough had been enough to awaken my inner hustler. And this beast was telling me I wasn’t keeping up with my hustle for self-worth.

I find it so insidious that the more work I do to meditate and be aware of my internal state, the more I sometimes have to face the things that are as natural as breathing. Hustling for self-worth being one of them. As the daughter of two parents with a strong Protestant work-ethic, I like to say that I come by my productivity panic honestly.

Sure, I have to be responsible for my little family and that means constantly juggling trade-offs and boundaries as they relate to the work I do. But managing practicalities is a completely different reality from appeasing my inner hustler – you know the one that tells me that I have to DO something to be WORTH something.

Looking for some perspective on this panic, I found this passage from The Gifts of Imperfection by researcher, professor and author Brené Brown. “We convince ourselves that if we stay busy enough and keep moving, reality won’t be able to keep up. So we stay in front of the truth about how tired and scared and confused and overwhelmed we sometimes feel. Of course, the irony is that the thing that’s wearing us down is trying to stay out in front of feeling worn down.”

The remedy that Brené prescribes for letting go productivity as self-worth is cultivating play and rest. She quotes psychiatrist, clinical researcher and author Dr. Stuart Brown, “Play helps us deal with difficulties, provides a sense of expansiveness, promotes mastery of our craft, and is an essential part of the creative process.”

Play, as in activities that have no purpose, isn’t a part of my life that I have been focusing on even though I have two very willing playmates. I count this morning’s panic as my wake-up call to incorporate more of it.

(featured photo from Pexels)

The Right Thing To Do

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“We must be willing to let go of the life we planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.” – Joseph Campbell

After I dropped my daughter and her friend at school yesterday, I kept driving towards my toddler’s daycare while an inner debate raged over whether I should take him to school. He had a cough that he’s 85% recovered from and never had a fever. I tested him and it wasn’t Covid. He was mostly fine but cranky enough that he’d likely not have an easy day. I could drop him off and still be within the guidelines of the school.

But I kept hearing my dad in my head saying, “If it’s the right thing to do, often it’s the hard thing to do.”

Not taking my son to daycare would definitely be the hard thing to do. It was a Monday morning and I had a day packed with work and things to get done. After spending a weekend primarily focused on my children, I was more than ready to switch gears to productivity.

Pondering why the right thing to do is often the hard thing to do, I think it’s because it requires a sacrifice. We give up our plans in order to help someone else. We give up our pride in order to say we are sorry. Or we are giving up the expected path in order to find a deeper answer.

But on the other hand, we gain a freedom of spaciousness within ourselves. It’s a little like telling the truth all the time and then you don’t have to remember all the lies you told. It’s also like forgiveness – where you free up that energy that you no longer have to hang on to. It’s got a payoff in inner unity and less worry.

When I turned the car for home instead of his daycare, I felt the reward immediately because I was listening to my inner voice. In this case it was the voice of my dad but it was also the voice of the wisdom within.

Listening to that voice is never easy because it always makes me wonder if I’m crazy to give up my plans to follow it. But I’ve found when I do, it always puts me into the Heart of life where I can be surprised by the joy. In this case, the joy of an uncomplicated day with my son.

What about you – is the right thing to do is often the hard thing to do?

(featured photo from Pexels)

Dear Mom

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“Life doesn’t come with a manual. It comes with a mother.” – unknown

It seems like when I see a headline on the news relating to something that happened to a mom, it starts with something like, “Mom of two is ____” (fill in the blank with missing, found guilty, bitten by a dog and so on). She also might be a real estate agent, banker, engineer or some other profession but it seems in my non-scientific survey, that they always lead with her parental status.

Which I take to be evidence of the importance of mother figures. This post is a both a celebration of moms and also a chance for me, as a somewhat new-ish mom, to learn what is the essential stuff of motherhood.

If you feel comfortable, please tell me in the comments what was the most important lesson your mom or a mother figure taught you and/or if you are a mom, what is the primary thing you want your kids to get or learn from you. I’ll compile a list and publish it.

Here’s my start for the list:

My mom taught me to speak and write. Her precision with language is extraordinary so just by listening to her and having her guidance, I learned a great deal about speaking English properly. It’s only in later years that I’ve realized that my mom only speaks what she believes to be true, which is another dimension of her gift to not only be precise in how she says something but also in what she says.  

As for being a mom: I observe my kids eat better, communicate more clearly and follow the rules more closely when they are with people other than me. I sometimes, just for an instant, wish they would want to step it up and impress me. Then I remember what an honor it is to hold their fragile conception of love like a baby chick in my hand. When they are grown and have learned to behave and handle themselves well, I hope I’ve created a space in each of them that knows you don’t have to perform to be loved.

(featured photo is of my mom, my son and me)

(quote comes from a post on Philosophy through Photographs blog)

Working Out My Change Muscle

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“Everybody wants to be enlightened but nobody wants to change.” – Andrew Cohen

Last Monday when my mom was over, my 6-year-old daughter asked her if she wanted to get the stem out of a strawberry. Thinking that Miss O meant for her to do it, my mom grabbed a paring knife and reached for the strawberry. Then Miss O explained that she was going to show her how to do it.

Grabbing a straw, she pushed it up from the bottom of the strawberry until it popped out of the top, taking the stem with it. A pretty neat hack she learned from a You Tube video.

This makes me think of the quote from Andrew Cohen at the top of this post, “Everybody wants to be enlightened but nobody wants to change.” For me, I take that to mean at this phase of life that change is more about attitude than substance. That is to say, an openness to change is more important than what exactly it is that I will change.

I can name a half a dozen reasons why I wouldn’t stem a strawberry with a straw without even trying it. But that leaves me in a position of only trying change when I deem it to be important. How can I believe I’ll have the spiritual wherewithal to recognize and accept the one change I may need for enlightenment if I’m out of practice of changing at all?

So this week for Miss O’s school lunches, I’ve been popping the stem out with a straw all week. A change I’m not committing to stick to because I usually have knives more readily available than straws. But I consider it a workout for my flexibility.

What does change look like for you in your stage of life? Have you ever tried to stem a strawberry with a straw?

Reach Out and Touch Someone

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“Compliment people wherever you go. Praise every single thing you see. Be a ray of sunshine to everyone you meet.” – Rhonda Byrne

A couple of weeks ago my friend, Scott was watching the movie The Net and it reminded him of me. When that movie came out 27 years ago (I looked it up), it was in the brief time we worked together and I commented on a small technical detail about an IP address that pertained to the work we were doing at the time. He saw that detail as he watched the movie again and texted me.

I wonder what it is that makes us pick up the phone when reminded of someone from a long time ago – or answer when someone else does.

It seems like our imaginations often get in the way because I think more often than not I think we think of people and DON’T pick up the phone – we can’t imagine what their reaction will be because it’s been too long or we imagine that it will take more time that we have. And then we stop before we’ve even dialed or written the note.

Many years ago, I had a friend who was writing a novel and was trying to think of a plausible way to introduce time travel. We brainstormed ideas and I remember not having much to offer. Thinking about it now – I realize that reaching out to someone when we think of them is a great way to travel in time.

Because whenever I take the time to pick up the phone, write a letter or make a comment, I get a boost of good feeling. Even in the cases that it doesn’t work out the way I expected, I feel more connected to others for making the effort. It is another way of experience the goodness of our interconnected humanity.

So when Scott texted, I said “yes” to meeting him for tea to catch up. Not only did I get to find out how he, his wife and kids are doing, I got a little chance to travel in time and remember the energy and promise of those days when we were getting paid to wire people to the Internet. It probably was back when AT&T ran the commercials reminding us, “Reach out and touch someone.”

Have you called an old friend lately?

(featured photo from Pexels)

The Peak-End Rule

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“All’s well that ends well.” – William Shakespeare

On our way home from the airport after 9.5 hours of traveling, my kids broke into a scrum. Mr. D was saying, “This is not our car. This is not a Toyota!” and Miss O had discovered on the trip that giggling softly when he talks is a truly effective way to make Mr. D mad. After doing so well on all the different legs of our journey including all the waiting when our plane was delayed, we were at risk for falling apart.

It made me think of the research of Daniel Kahneman, psychologist, behavioral economist and author of Thinking, Fast and Slow who found the way that we remember both painful and pleasureful experiences as defined by the peak moment and the end moment. So, if we are getting a painful medical procedure, we’ll generally not remember how it felt all the way through, just how it felt at the end and at its most intense. Research bears this out for positive experiences as well.

Applying this to life, it made me think of my relationship with my ex-husband. Over 8 years of marriage, we laughed a lot. In fact, that was probably what we did best. But I have a hard time remembering that because I most often think of the moment my business partner told me of my exes infidelities and I not only had to deal with that in my personal life but also walk into work the next business day and face all the people I worked with who knew. And I think of the end of the marriage, when no amount of talking could overcome the defenses we’d built.

Now, a dozen years later with the remove of time and healing, I strain to think of the fun times and I honestly can’t. I come back to the peak moment and the end moment.

Conversely when I think of every mountain I’ve ever climbed, even though I know it was a lot of hard work, what I picture is the summit and having beers with friends at the end. The peak-end rule as applied to fun stuff is capable of filtering out a lot of discomfort.

Not wanting the same rule of memory to apply to our very enjoyable recent vacation, I sat in the car trying to think of how to turn around these last moments when we were all tired and past our limits. But the kids did it for me when they started singing The Lion Sleeps Tonight from the Lion King and we bopped along to wim-o-weh. I needn’t have worried – it felt so good to be home, we all ended on a good note!

Confession of a Writer

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“What you are afraid to do is a clear indication of the next thing you need to do.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

In the year before my dad’s sudden death in a bicycle accident, I had a soul whisper that I needed to get to know my dad on his terms. He was such an enthusiastic supporter of so many people that it was hard to get him to talk about himself. But I sat him down and asked questions and recorded his stories. It was one of the most inspired things I ever did. His death catapulted me into an ambition to write a book about him.  In those months as I was pregnant with my daughter and writing about my dad, spinning between death and birth, I met Sheila, my writing coach.

With her help, I finished and published the book, and after my daughter was born, I found more to write about. When I contacted Sheila again, she asked, “Do you remember the first thing that you said to me?” I didn’t so she reminded me that I had told her I wasn’t a writer, I just wanted to write a book about my dad. But as we worked together, she told me along the way that I would have more to write about.

I think back to how I was so quick to disavow any greater aspirations to be a writer and it showed how much I feared admitting what was calling to me. I didn’t want to presume that I had anything valuable to say (or write) and it wasn’t what I went to school for. In fact, when I was finishing my BS in Electrical Engineering, the last course I needed to complete was a technical writing course, and it took me until after I walked through ceremonies and had a real job to complete those credits and finish my degree.

Sitting down to write and publish blogging posts every morning has been my practice to walk what my inner self already knows is true. That I’m driven to write about this one wild and precious life of mine, to quote Mary Oliver, and that it’s not presumptuous to own that.

I like to think of writing as the last gift that my dad gave me before he departed this planet. And as such it’s the one that helps me integrate him with the life I have now with these two beautiful children. It’s the gift that has brought me depth and wonderful relationships with you all in the WordPress community. To not own that I love writing is a betrayal of all that so I guess I need to call Sheila back up and tell her I’m a writer.

How about you – do you admit that you are a writer?

(featured photo from Pexels)

Just Say Yes

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“Respond to every call that excites your spirit.” – Rumi

A couple of months ago when my high school friend generously offered me and my family a free place to stay in Vail, Colorado for 4 nights, I didn’t think about it much and just said “yes.” Now my little family and my friend Eric have made our way here. It took us 10 hours of car, bus, airplane, bus, and car transport to get here but we made it.

Then we walked in to a place so fancy I have trouble believing it’s a vacation place. If all the coffee mugs match and the appliances are not cast offs from some other home, it somehow doesn’t match with my image of vacation accommodations. But I have proof that we are on vacation, because I’m saying “yes” to most everything.

“Mom, can we stay up late?” – YES

“Can we make s’mores out by the fire pit tonight?” – YES

“Will you go swimming with us in an outdoor (heated) swimming pool when it’s 50 degrees out?” – YES

“Can I put this dirty brown snow in my mouth?” – NO

Okay, so I’m not saying yes to everything. But I’m finding that this adventure is all about living life without the rules and schedules that mark life at home.

And the effect has been to shake off the sliver of patina that grows between our hearts and living on a regular basis. Getting everything done in a day means keeping a bit of wildness in check and not listening to where our adventurous souls want to go.

Now we have a couple more days of leaving behind the rules and finding our natural rhythm close to nature and close to each other. As long as it doesn’t break any matching coffee mugs, I’m up for saying “yes” for just about anything today.

What are you saying “yes” to today?

Dancing with Our Stuff

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“Wherever I go, I meet myself.” – Tozan

When I was climbing Mt. Elbrus in the Caucasus Mountains in Russia about twenty years ago, the first stage of the ascent was to climb to the hut we stayed at until our summit attempts. At about 13,000 feet, it was a pretty rough shelter with nails that hadn’t been all the way hammered in, porch railings that didn’t go all the way around (see featured photo) and no exterior finish but it afforded us a good place to rest and try to summit the 18,510 feet peak.

The outhouse was just down a little path and set right on the edge of the ridge. That is to say, the hole in the floor opened directly onto a rock field. The placement was interesting and created some aerodynamic challenges. Anything light put down the hole would come right back up again.

This was discovered by the first climber from our group to go in there — a really funny, nice guy from California. He came back to the hut with his cheeks flushed, a little out of breath with a surprised look on his face. He announced, “I just spent 5 minutes dancing with my toilet paper.” At that altitude, any kind of dancing would take your breath away.

This always reminds me that, as the quote at the top of this post says, wherever we go we meet ourselves. Even when we are in the most scenic places, poised to accomplish some personal milestone, we still might have to dance with our toilet paper. If we’ve done our work, that can be more amusing than horrifying.

(featured photo is mine)

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