Tag: inspiration

Walking Boldly into Truth

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“Everything you have ever wanted is on the other side of fear.” – George Adair

Last year a friend of mine realized that she was gay at 50 years of age. In the 6 months that followed her discovery, she came out to everyone significant in her life. She didn’t have a girlfriend or any other forcing function to do it, she just walked boldly into her Truth. I know that some of those conversations, especially with the older generation were hard but when I asked her about how she did it she told me she was ready to find love and hiding who she realized she was would only hinder her path.

As someone who is walking a less traditional path by having kids as a single person at age 46 and 50, I am so inspired and in awe of my friend. I remember being five months pregnant and feeling really glad I wasn’t showing because then I’d have to tell people what I was doing. (Yeah, that wasn’t going to stay hidden forever. 😊) I had told everyone close to me, but for strangers and acquaintances, I was sure they’d think I was some loser that couldn’t find a partner. Over the years it has gotten so much easier but I really had to work hard to be able to say it without fear.

I told a lifelong friend this the other day and she was surprised. “What?” she said “we just always assumed you were some super-empowered woman.” Ha, ha. If it were that easy, there wouldn’t be a whole genre of stories about heroes who spend the entirety of the middle act wandering around trying to do everything they could to pursue their path without being vulnerable. I can say with complete certainty that if the constriction around my heart hadn’t been so tight and getting tighter every time I thought of having a family and time hadn’t been running on out my ability to have or adopt children, I would still be wandering around trying to find the right husband with which to have children. Anything so as not to have to face the vulnerability of saying, “This is what I was certain I had to do even though the circumstances at that time of my life meant doing it alone. I didn’t want to rush finding the right man and in doing so, make a mess of it.”

In Harry Potter, the young witches and wizards learn to run into the brick wall between platforms 9 and 10 to get to the Hogwarts Express train leaving from platform 9 3/4. We reach thresholds in our lives and need to change something — a job, a place we live, a relationship, a way of thinking or being, or something we just have to do — and they feel a lot like that brick wall. It is terrifying to consider running into, always looks easier when someone else does it, and once across, it is the place that transports to the magic life beyond. It’s only a perception that we don’t want to stand out that keeps us from walking into our Truths. When we do, we break that constriction around our hearts and can feel the full power of the vital heartbeat of life.

The postscript here is that with one year of my friend coming out, she has found her person and they’ve bought a house together. She crossed her threshhold and is living in the fullness of her life and it’s a joy and inspiration to watch!

Time to Grow

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“When you are finished changing, you are finished.” – Benjamin Franklin

I was recently given the opportunity to do some consulting (my day job) for the church for whom my dad was senior pastor when he retired. A chance to do meaningful work for an organization that does amazing job of outreach in the community, racial justice and creating a base for growth for families is right where I want to be. To make it work, I hired a new caregiver for my daughter to come for four hours on the day she has remote school and her brother is in daycare. Naturally, my daughter was nervous on the first day even though she’d met her several times before but she seemingly got past it pretty quickly. Until a couple hours in and I had to leave the house. She bumped her ear on a chair as she was reaching to give me a hug and the tears that came were much bigger than the owie, “You are going to leave?” she whispered tearily.

Ugh, it’s no wonder it feels so hard to consider personal growth and change. My kids are changing at an incredibly rapid pace, the world around us changes but I feel like I’m supposed to stand still in the middle of it all like a statue in order to be that predictable presence, sorta like home base in a game of tag.

I have to consider that I might be the biggest believer in the fact that I cannot change for the sake of my kids. In order to create the consistency that is the cornerstone of their lives and to not be the source of any ruffled feathers, I likely am the most fervent proponent of this belief.

But I know I’m not alone in this. There is a myth from the Trobriand Islands off of New Guinea. In that story, humans were immortal because they could shed their skins and stay young forever. One day a grandmother went to bathe in a river with her granddaughter and while bathing, shed her skin which snagged on a branch. When she returned, her granddaughter didn’t recognize her youthful appearance and was afraid. The grandmother went back to the river, found her old skin and restored her appearance but humans henceforth lost their ability to live forever.

After I reassured my daughter I would be back in two hours, I set her down and resolutely walked down to my car. Then I panicked as I recalculated whether I could do the work without making the change, carving out the additional hours in the evening after I put my kids to bed. I couldn’t and more than that, I shouldn’t because that’s how myths get perpetuated, we pass them on generation after generation. I am fully committed to showing up for my children and the other people in my life – being present, interested, vulnerable and real. When I try to be unchangeable, I feel like I start covering over who I am like a cup that tarnishes so that I diminish my ability to show up. You can’t polish without some rub so even as uncomfortable as it is for me, I’ve committed to some gentle friction as I try to keep growing and changing.

Shame Resilience

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“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.” – Buddha

Last week when my daughter and I were dropping my son at his daycare, Simon the teacher in the 2’s class was at the check-in table. I was talking to Simon as we did the sign-in and temperature check and then when I went to say good-bye to my son, I distractedly said, “I love you, Simon.” (No, it wasn’t a Freudian slip, I swear). My daughter started to giggle as did I, we waved at my son as he walked away and just slipped out the door laughing.

It was embarrassing to make a mistake in front of my kids. To be clear, I’ve made plenty of mistakes in front of and with my kids but usually privately or before my oldest was socially aware enough to pick up on it. I know from the work of sociologist and researcher Brene Brown how important modeling shame resilience is for kids so that they can see how you can name it, talk about it and survive it instead of keeping it inside where it can percolate for a long time. Just thinking about it and I recall shame that I’ve never given air like the time I was in the toy store with my daughter when she was still in diapers and I overheard one parent say to another, “Someone in here has a poopy diaper.” And it was my kid. <groan>  I still can remember that vividly more than three years later probably because I’ve never talked about it before this post.

Shame resilience was not something that was modeled for me when I was a kid. I had two great parents, my dad who was so likeable and well-intended that it was easy to believe he never suffered and my mom who is such a perfectionist that it’s easy to believe she never did anything wrong. But I remember when I sat my dad to tell his stories when he was in his late 70’s and he told of a story when he had to let go someone on his staff. He’d hired a married couple to play a role in the church my dad was senior pastor of and the husband was noticeably absent. My dad had to let him go and the wife was livid and felt her husband had been terribly mistreated. In the few years that followed she then suffered a miscarriage and her marriage broke up and though those things had no direct relationship to my father, he felt terrible until the end of his days despite the many different ways he tried to apologize over the years.

These were the things we never talked about as a family when we were young. Perhaps that’s too big of an issue to hear about as a kid but it’s the only example I have. So I’m trying to remember that with my kids and stay open to just say a sentence or two. As we left the daycare, I said to my daughter, “That was embarrassing.” She asked why and I said, “Well, I don’t know Simon well enough to love him AND I didn’t properly say good-bye to your brother so I messed up both things.” And then she asked, “What’s embarrassing mean?” It was a great entrée to a little conversation about life. What I said wasn’t wise or big but it was transparent and true which I hope will ventilate my shame and show her how she might endure hers when she feels it.

You Should Say “Thank You”

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“Wear gratitude like a cloak and it will feed every corner of your life.” – Rumi

My 5-year-old got a new bike from her grandmother. We intentionally got it bigger because she’s growing so fast but it means she can’t touch the ground while sitting on the seat. So the way she was starting by pushing off with her feet and stopping while sitting on the seat wasn’t working. To help her practice, I was helping her start on the sidewalk out front of our house and then running about 200 feet to the corner and helping her stop. The standard parenting job for kids learning to ride bikes. We were doing it for about a half an hour, I was dripping with sweat when on one of our runs she says over her shoulder, “You should thank me.” And I huffed out the question as I ran, “For what?” She replies “For slowing down so you could catch up.”

If I could have belly laughed while running and out of breath, I would have. But it also rang an interior bell for me – how many times in life have I felt pretty smug for what I was doing and completely missed the big picture of what God was doing?

It reminds me of the time about a year and a half ago when I invited a family I didn’t know to live with me for three months. I wrote about it in my post Power Stance. I was feeling pretty gracious for being willing to open my house when I had a newborn and 4-year-old. But yesterday as I sat talking late into the night with the mom of that family who came this weekend for a quick visit, I realized that it was completely analogous to my daughter on the bike. While I was feeling so self-satisfied, God had been working to give me a lifelong deep friendship with a kind and thoughtful woman who affirms my spiritual nature. Now there’s something I should say “thank you” for!

I assume that it’s a little like riding a bike. Once we learn to balance on two wheels and get some momentum, we gain a whole lot of confidence and freedom. But every once in a while we skid on a patch of gravel and remember to say, “thank you!”  

Day of Rest

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“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience, we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” – Pierre Teilhard de Chardin

Twenty years ago at this time of year I trekked to Everest Base Camp with a couple of my friends who were attempting an Everest summit. It’s a thirty mile trek through beautiful country, crossing over raging rivers on precarious bridges, stopping at little Nepalese villages, staying near Buddhists monasteries with everything (trees, people, commerce) getting sparser and sparser the higher you go. Our rhythm would be to trek one day and rest the next because the climbers needed to let their bodies acclimatize to the thin air.

It was interesting to see what everyone chose to do on the rest day – lie in tents and listen to music or read, try to wash clothes or take a shower if you could find facilities, hike around the local area, go into a little village if one was nearby, play cards, or sit around a tea house table telling stories. It was a day that we weren’t on the move so there was no schedule. I usually would chose some alone time and then some time listening to stories. Amongst mountain guides, especially the ones I was with that trip, the ability to tell stories is nearly as good as their ability to climb.

Thinking back on that trek, I think of not only the amazing adventure and incredible views but the practice of the day of rest. Because we all need that day of rest to restore our spirits and bodies before we can climb again. But at home, the choices are too many and the pace too hectic that I often forget to celebrate the day of rest. So I’m inspired by my choices on that trip – spend a little time alone meditating and then swapping stories with others, even if this time it’s on a blog.

One day at about 15,000 feet of elevation we were trekking to our next camp site when we came across this football sized flat space where rock cairns had been created for people who had died on the mountain. I’m at a loss to explain the intensity of how sacred that place felt. It was, to say the least, an impressive reminder that we will all meet our ultimate resting place and until then, we would be well served to celebrate this sacred life with a day of rest from time to time.

Miracles

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“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

Back when I was engaged to the man who is now my ex-husband, there was one memorable hike that we went on with my parents and we discussed miracles. This conversation happened almost twenty years ago but to the best of my recollection, my soon-to-be husband wanted my dad’s professional opinion as a Presbyterian pastor on why God didn’t do miracles any more. He was sure he’d believe in God if He did some grand gesture. And from what I remember, my dad mostly asked questions like what country would this miracle appear in? And would it have to be certified as a miracle by a recognized authority like the Pope? And what was a gesture that was big enough?

There are so many conversations that I wish I could have with my dad in the six years since he died but recently I’ve been thinking about that one. Because two things have happened recently that I think of as miracles. First is that my refrigerator was leaking water about every 4 days. I looked it up on the internet and came to the conclusion that my defrost evaporation tray was overflowing. The how-to article suggested that I might make sure that the default vent wasn’t covered. I moved some things around, never quite identified where that vent was and it still was leaking. And then it stopped. Miracle, right?

And then my car was leaking oil. It’s 14 -years-old but relatively low mileage. I’ve kept up the maintenance pretty well so I’ve had very few problems with it. But recently a ball rolled under the car and when I fished it out, it had oil on it. So I took the car to the shop where I’d last had the oil changed and they said it was just leftover from the last oil change because someone didn’t wipe it down – until I told them my last oil change was 9 months ago. Then they were confounded. I was never quite convinced that the friendly guy helping me knew how to solve it but he changed out my oil filter for free(!) and not very confidently said that would fix it. It leaked for about a week more. Then it stopped. Miracle, right?

I can suggest more miracles. The birth of my two children. The fact that a COVID vaccination was developed in less than a year. That my clients sometimes pay early just when I need them too. And just overall that as I look back on my life, I’m certain that I get exactly what I need (not what I want which is whole other thing) but just what I need. And of course, even that I can reach out to you, dear reader, over space and time, and talk heart to heart.

I have a guess what my dad would say. That belief doesn’t require proof. He’d acknowledge, as do I, that all of those things have plausible explanations but that miracles are a matter of one’s heart not one’s head. He probably said some version of that almost twenty years ago and I didn’t quite understand it. But I do now and that is a miracle!

The Best Intentions

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“You are a living magnet. What you attract in life is harmony with your dominant thoughts.” – Brian Tracy

I wrote a post about Mother’s Day and in the following days, I was a more joyful parent. It reminds me that my dad told me the same thing about his 40 years as a Presbyterian pastor – if he wrote a sermon about being a better husband, he was more attentive in the weeks following. It’s no surprise that our actions follow our intention. But what surprises me is that knowing that, I don’t set my intentions more carefully.

So I adjusted my early morning routine to include them: stretch, read, meditate and set my intentions. They aren’t complicated: Be present. See everything as a miracle. Practice gratitude. Listen.

And then productivity gets in the way. Somewhere between getting one kid here and the other one’s lunch packed, sitting down at my desk to work on another thing while constantly getting distracted by emails that come in, then back to picking one kid up, answering the doorbell, chatting with a friend that I happen to run into, I don’t think of them at all. The lofty ideals of the day get lost among the myriad of details.

But instead of feeling bad for that, I notice that intentions are like the piece of paper that I write my to-do list on. They aren’t something to check off my list, they are what I’m writing on. They weave together to create a space for whatever it is I choose to do for the day. And if I lose that piece of paper, I can start with a fresh one for the next day!

Making Friends in Online Kindergarten

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“Those who bring sunshine to the lives of others cannot keep it from themselves.” – J. M. Barrie

When I took my daughter to her five-year-old check-up this past fall, the doctor asked how online Kindergarten was going and she answered, “It’s stressful.” And it was! In this year of virtual Kindergarten, my daughter colored on her iPad with a crayon, learned a great deal, and much to my amazement, also made friends.

I’m so grateful to Seattle’s Child Magazine for publishing my essay on making friends in online Kindergarten.

Perspective | A beautiful kindergarten friendship blossoms through a screen

Enjoy This Time

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“Time has a wonderful way of showing us what matters.” – Margaret Peters

I recently ran into a neighbor whose kids are age 12 and 14 while out walking. As we chatted about the trials of pandemic parenting , the topic of the parenting advice that I’ve heard so often: “enjoy this time, it goes so fast” came up. She confessed that she had recently had said to her mom in tears, “Did I enjoy it enough?”

Of all the advice that I’ve been given throughout my parenting journey so far, that theme of enjoying kids while they are really young has been the most prevalent which makes me think its important. But it’s also the most puzzling because it’s often said so wistfully as if there is a little residual regret. Which makes me think it’s wisdom that’s hard to follow. That makes a lot of sense to me, because while I love being a parent, I’ve found difficult to enjoy this time of early childhood, if we are talking about the Oxford Dictionary definition of to luxuriate, revel or bask in.

At first it’s hard to enjoy because of the sleep deprivation that comes with an infant. And now that I’ve seemed to have gotten past that phase with both kids, I’d say it’s hard because it’s both incredibly busy and repetitive. There are big emotions that cannot yet be regulated and a lot of missed communication with little people just learning to talk. It’s a lot of work.

Of course, parenting is also incredibly rewarding. The amount of change to witness is stunning. These little people are growing and learning at a lightning speed. They want and need so much attention but it’s all absorbed and exhibited pretty quickly in their growth. Reading together, singing together, playing with the farm set out in the backyard, there is so much simple sweetness. The problems my kids have at age 1 ½ and 5 ½ are small and they are solvable.

Trying to understand this hard to follow wisdom, I think of my former hobby of mountain climbing. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed myself while on a mountain. It is a big and hard thing to take on. I’ve felt the same doubt with climbing that I think is being communicated with the parenting advice – did I take in enough of the experience while I was up there?

Here’s what I’ve realized. That climbing mountains and raising young kids have a lot in common. There is a lot of tough endurance involved.  It’s easier if you are in good health but it’s never easy. There are some moments where you are so tired that all the obstacles appear too great and you feel that you can’t keep going. And it all becomes worthwhile if about once an hour, you take a break and raise your head to look at the view.

My neighbor told me that her mom replied to her tearful query, “The fact that you’re crying shows that you did.” Which sounds so wise to me as well. We do our best as we go through it, enjoy it as much as we can and give ourselves some grace for the moments we didn’t.

Believing In Myself

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“Success is going from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.” – Winston Churchill

After five years of trying to get something published in a traditional magazine or newspaper and sending out 99 query letters, I finally received a “yes” yesterday. You know what I find harder than writing? Believing in myself. Believing that I have something worth saying. Because sending out 99 query letters has very little to do with writing and everything to do with believing in myself or at the very least believing that it is something I am called to do. If you do the math of 99 letters over five years, it becomes clear it is something that I do periodically. I have a full-time job and I also have 2 young children, one of whom was born in the middle of those five years. My attention has wandered, my internal urgency to get this done has flickered, my discipline to research editors and publications has waxed and waned. In the course of those five years, I’ve gotten a couple of maybes and other nibbles and surviving those when they didn’t work out might have been the most difficult of all.

Writing started for me about 8 years ago when I had the inspiration to record my dad’s story. My wonderful father was so good at supporting other people that it was hard to get him to talk about himself. He was 78 years old at the time and in great health so there was no urgency but I got him to sit down with me most Saturdays so that I could ask questions and record his stories. It was so fun and it brought a new intimacy to our relationship. Then about a year into my project, he went out for a neighborhood bike ride one day, hit a car and died. It felt as if the grief for this amazing man was taking up so much room in my heart that there wasn’t enough space for my lungs to breathe. So I started writing out his story as a way to process how much I loved him. I listened to those recordings and was so comforted by his voice and so grateful that I had them. I got a writing coach and the first thing I said to her was, “Listen, I am not a writer but…” She still teases me about that.

In the last few months when I have been blogging regularly, I realize it has given me the opportunity to practice believing that my stories are worthwhile. The regular act of clicking “publish” is building a muscle of submission, both to the faith that it’s safe to put my words out into the world and to the acceptance that I am called to keep writing.

That is what has ultimately led me to be able to submit 99 query letters — knowing that I am compelled to do this by something bigger than myself. Understanding that to be true means it isn’t just belief in myself but belief that the Universe can speak through my words when I bow to that ultimate power. Even saying that sounds far too grandiose for my sense of what I write and have to say. I don’t believe that me, as a person, has anything to unique to add to all the words in the world. However, I have come to see that it is all a work in progress by a force bigger than myself and what I have to do is listen and believe.