Tag: Lifestyle

Photos of the Week: August 19

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“Recognize what is simple. Keep what is essential.” – Lao Tzu

Mini Cooper is figuring out his world.

Mr. D has perfected the pose to ward off unwanted puppy attention. I told him he doesn’t need to scowl when he does it, but it’s quite the look! His pose reminds me of this sunflower in the community pea patch.

Whether it be Mr. D’s scowl, or the fact that Mini Cooper gained 4 pounds in a week so he won’t be mini for long, the squirrels coming into the yard to eat plums will likely not be doing that for too much longer!

Tricks for having fun in a heat wave.

But it wasn’t too hot to play.

The heart and the sign of the week.

The Wisdom of Dogs

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“Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.” – Orhan Pamuk

When my beloved dog, Biscuit, was alive he was one of the wisest creatures I knew. That is a bold claim to make about a golden retriever who loved people so much that when his favorite ones came over he’d start running at one end of the house, and then end up sliding the last ten feet before gently slamming into them. Not really the image of wisdom that is tip of mind when the word is uttered, but I just think of that as part of his charm.

Because his wisdom showed up in other ways. Loving people being one of them. Also the ability to be excited about life wherever it took him, even if he wasn’t in the driver seat, and he embodied the Carl Jung quote, “Please remember, it is who you are that heals, not what you know.”

I’d put signs on him and take pictures and while it seemed like I was the one doing the work, I swear it was just some observational connection to what he was telling me.

I say goodnight to dear departed Biscuit on my way to bed every night. I go into the living room, pick my way past the toys on the floor in the darkened room lit only by the street lights outside, to touch the cherry wood box that holds his ashes, and simply say “hi” or “love you” or a sentence about my day.

On the night before we were to pick up the new puppy, Cooper, I delivered the news to Biscuit and to my great surprise, he answered back. I know, it sounds like a Peanuts cartoon, but I swear the thought just came into my head, “Okay, you’ve gotten a new dog sooner than you’ve found new love.”

Yikes! In the six and a half years he’s been gone, that has never happened before. Of course, the effect was much more impactful since that’s the case. If I thought I’d been talking to my dead dog for all these years, I wouldn’t have much listened.

So what was Biscuit teaching me in this instance?

My observation about life is that life follows our intention, even for things like love that aren’t in our control. It reminds me of a podcast with Mark Petruska where he explained being a master manifester – really picturing what we want, clearly setting the intention, and then participating in the way things fall in place.

I think dear Biscuit was pointing out that my intentions have been ambivalent where romantic love is concerned. I haven’t spent much energy on it, and every time I try to imagine it in the life that I have now, I waver a bit.

When I went back to talk to him the next night, he was silent so I can only guess he’s said as much as he’s willing on that subject. Like all the wise ones, he knows not to talk too much and let the listener fill in their own blanks. Okay, my wonderful dog, I’ve hear you.

Speaking of podcasts, and listening, Vicki and I are doing a two part series about what we’ve learned so far about starting a podcast. This first part is about what we’ve learned about trying from doing a podcast: Episode 31: Trying Podcasting Part 1 with Vicki and Wynne. Check it out if you’re interested!

Silence

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This is something I published on 1/5/22. Heads up – you may have already read this.

Yesterday, the first full day that both of my kids were back at school, I just sat in my empty house in silence. No tv or music, my cell phone turned to vibrate, computer off. Just the hum of the refrigerator and the sound of the rain on the window. It felt like a whole day’s worth of restoration and calm although I only sat like that for about 15 minutes.

I was under the influence of a great On Being podcast I listened to: Silence and the Presence of Everything. In it, Krista Tippet was interviewing acoustic ecologist and silence activist Gordon Hempton. He had so many powerful things to say about the experience of silence. To recap a few:

  • Our ears are always working. The reason alarm clocks are effective is because while our brain sleeps, our ears never do.
  • There are some animal species that are blind – creatures that live deep in caves or in the depths of the ocean. But all higher vertebrates have a sense of hearing. It’s too dangerous to live without. We have eyelids but nothing has ear lids.
  • Research shows that in noisy areas people are less likely to help each other.

He expanded on the last point. When we speak in a quiet place, the listener can hear both our words and our tone. Noisy places are isolating, we aren’t ever sure we are getting all the information that we need from our environment to make our nervous systems know we are safe. Listening enables our sense of security and bolsters a feeling of intimacy. Quiet places like churches and concert halls are where we feel secure, where we can open and be receptive.

A story that I recently read about Evelyn Glennie, a gifted percussionist who is profoundly deaf makes me realize that silence and sound can be equally present for those whose ears do and do not work. Because she works with the vibrations that come with noise, she feels sound in a way that we all do whether or not we’ve developed the awareness.

When my first child was about 6 months old a friend asked me whether having kids was noisy. My answer at the time was “no.” My experience was that there was so much beauty in all the silent moments listening for the sound of my baby waking. Still now, my favorite moments are the quiet ones – hiking in the woods together, the moments we quietly play with Legos when the little one is napping and the times I try to move noiselessly around the house so that I can meditate and write without waking anyone. There is such intimacy when we are listening for each other.

Last summer I was sitting on the porch of a creaky old cabin a block off the beach of Mutiny Bay on Whidbey Island. I’d snuck out of a bed that I was sharing with my daughter for our 2 nights there and through all the rattling doors with a hot cup of tea and sat to meditate. As I sat there, I heard a whale exhale through its blow hole and looked up. I barely caught a glimpse of three whales in the sliver of bay 150 yards away that I could see between the two buildings in front of me. But I heard the distinctly unique sound several more times through the quiet morning air before the whales moved on. It was exhilarating and intimate.

After recently reading Jane Fritz’s post celebrating World Introvert Day, I may be more of an introvert than I previously realized given how much recharge I get from being alone. But quiet is good for us all. Or as Gordon Hempton says, “Quiet is quieting.”

Do you have favorite silent places? Sounds that you can only hear when life is quiet?

I’ve also published a post today on Wise & Shine: Unlikely Learning Mates.

An Adventure

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“Jobs fill your pocket, adventures fill your soul.” – Jaime Lyn Beatty

Last weekend I took my kids to IKEA. I had to borrow my brother’s truck to do it. When the kids and I joined up with our family and friends later that day, and were sitting out on the stern of my brother’s boat to watch the Blue Angels, my sister-in-law commented that she couldn’t believe I took my kids with me. She said she gets stressed just going on her own. My friend, Eric, chimed in with a good-natured smirk, “She thinks of it as an adventure.”

Bahaha (I’ve gotten that laugh in writing from the delightful blogger and Cheryl Oreglia). But hey, he might have a point. I had the itinerary completely mapped, and packed a snack for each break. There were even ropes involved. It might not be a mountain climb, but it had some of the same elements.

I don’t know you all, but there isn’t anything like a project from IKEA to make me feel completely stupid. I say that even though I really love putting things together. But that first page, the one where you have to start assembling, and are looking at a wordless page indicating three or four parts from the dozens strewn around, and six or more screws, bolts, barrels, and dowels from the hundreds? Well, ugh!

Invariably, I do something wrong. Usually right out of the gate. This time it was to put those short wooden dowels in the wrong holes. And because I often get am racing to “completion,” I like to do it systemically, and did it for all the boards on the page. Then to make sure I was extra diligent, I hammered them in. Only to find out on wordless page number two that was wrong.

There was no way I found to get the dowels out, not pulling, or using pliers, or trying to make them cold in case the wood would contract. I had to drill them out. As I sat on the floor of Miss O’s bedroom with sweat running down my face and her loft bed still in pieces around me, I had to face that I was already on the wrong path, and had to go back to step one.

Huh, not entirely unlike a mountain climb after all.

Eric’s remark, even though delivered smirk, might have been right on the mark. It’s reminded me that of the adventures I’ve been on, they have all come with hard moments – and also learning and growth. The other thing they’ve all had, whether I’ve made it to the top or not, laughter, the satisfaction that comes with trying, and joy.

Last weekend I took my kids to IKEA. We got a loft bed with a side of adventure. Not a bad deal….

If you have a moment, please check out my Heart of the Matter blog post today about happiness versus joy: Good Mood of the Soul.

Gratitude Over Fear

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“Dogs have given us their absolute all. We are the center of their universe. We are the focus of their love and faith and trust. They serve us in return for scraps. It is without a doubt the best deal man has ever made.” – Roger Caras

It’s our day to go pick up our new puppy. I’ve found myself feeling tight and nervous, unable to plan out all the things of how this will play out with a puppy and two kids in the mix. So, I’ve indulged my brain by writing out two lists: my fears and my gratitude.

Here are the things I’m afraid of:

I won’t have time to pay attention to my kids

The puppy will be a distraction from my work

That this will be my undoing when I finally find that I’ve pushed it too far and I end up exhausted

That we collectively won’t be good puppy trainers and dog owners

That the puppy will find a box of crayons and a box of Cheez-Its, eat both, and leave rainbow throw up all over the house.

That Mr. D will be displaced as the baby of the family and won’t get some focus, not yet identified, that he needs

That I’ll have to get better at asking for help.
Or that I’ll have to let something else that I personally love go in order to support this bigger collective

I fear Mr. D’s beloved stuffy, Bun Bun, will be torn to shreds.

I won’t be able to train the puppy to understand my morning sacred time

What I’m grateful for:

That we have so much love to give
That the default for my little family is to be willing to try

The excitement that comes with new family members
That my faith and my heart tell me we are ready for this, even when my head forgets.

For the ability of puppies and dogs to love, listen, and lean in.

That I’ve worked out many of my problems in life while walking my dogs.

For the melting way that puppies and dogs look at their owners to show loyalty and trust
That my kids will get to experience that from a young age

The way that dogs can lighten up almost any situation with a wag, a toot, or a yowl.
That my kids will get to experience what a loyal friend is as they maneuver through their own growing friendships.

That being a head of family has taught me that I don’t have to figure out all the details, just set people in the right direction

That tears, anger, and exhaustion lead to opportunities for repair.

That typing out this list has made me feel better.

As I put these down on paper, I find the gratitude is far more substantial on the scale of importance. Funny how big my fear feels until I actually write it down and find it’s really just uncertainty. But I have to give it its moment in the sun, as I did here, in order to fully let it go.

Post-script: I wrote this post before we went to pick up the puppy, Cooper. Then on the way home, Miss O had Cooper in a box on her lap. She was explaining the world to him – this is a car, that is a phone, and overhead we see an airplane. And then I heard her say, “And you are something called my best friend.” I’d already dispelled most of my fears by writing out my gratitude. Whatever remained was blown away by that.

For something almost as sweet and fun as that last comment, check out the latest Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast with the amazing writer and blogger, Cheryl Oreglia: Episode 30: True Grit with Cheryl Oreglio or search (and subscribe!) for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple, Amazon Music, PocketCasts or Spotify.

Sharing Wisdom

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“Resolve to be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant with the weak and wrong. Sometime in your life, you will have been all of these.” – Buddha

This is something I posted on 1/26/2022. Heads up – you may have already read this.

In March of 2001, I trekked to Everest Base Camp with my friends Phil and Sue who were attempting to summit Mt. Everest that year. They had invited a few of their friends to join them on the 30 mile trek in and we’d assembled in Katmandu, Nepal to gather our last few supplies before flying in to the starting point of the trek.

It was on a rickshaw trip around the city, that one of my fellow trekkers that I’d just met, a 59-year-old man told me “Life begins at 40.” Given that I was only 31-years-old at the time, this particular piece of wisdom irked me. Taken literally, it implied that I should just waste the next 9 years.

Over the next few weeks as we were trekking, I found out his back story. He had been married in his early 20’s, had two kids but that marriage had broken down and he was divorced by the time he was in his mid-30’s. It was a contentious divorce and his relationship with his sons suffered.

By the time he was in his 40’s, he’d found success as a business owner, gotten remarried to a woman he adored, and shaped his life to look more or less like the balance of freedom and love he’d always wanted. Hence his statement that life begins at 40.

Why is it so hard to pass wisdom from one human to another? We have to pack it up in a suitcase so that it’s portable and then the recipient needs to have some hooks to hang it on when they unpack it.

In this case, I didn’t think much about the wisdom he’d offered me until I was about to turn 40-years-old. It was a tough time in my life – I’d recently been told of my husband’s infidelities, and I was struggling with the idea of failing at marriage while trying to hold it all together.

While I believe the age was just a coincidence, when I thought back to my fellow trekker’s story, it held a lot of comfort for me. Because it represented an example that life can rebuild itself even better after it’s all fallen apart. The wisdom, when I distilled it for me, was that we can have multiple chapters in our lives that still add up to a glorious story.

Isn’t that why we share our wisdom and stories? So that someone else can take them, draw strength from them when needed and they repackage them in a way that’s meaningful?

On that trip in 2001 to Everest Base Camp, after we’d been trekking for a few days, I woke up one morning a couple of hours before anyone else was up. I was so excited to be in the Himalayas, I decided to hike around to see if I could see Everest in the first light of the day. After about 40 minutes, I finally found a place to sit and watch the sunrise illuminate one of the most distinctive mountains in the world.

When I’d finally hiked back 40 minutes, everyone else was up. One of our guides said, “Does anyone want to get a first look at Everest?” and I joined the group. About a 5 minute walk from our campsite, in the opposite direction I’d gone, was a magnificent view of Everest.

Packaging up this story, I’d pass along this wisdom. “You will take some wrong turns in life, go down the wrong path and expend a lot of extra energy. But even in that case, enjoy the view, laugh about how you got there. Whether you go the short way or whether you go the long way, always look out for the presence of Wonder.”

What’s a piece of wisdom you share?

I’ve posted a related piece about wisdom gleaned during my podcast conversation with playwright and author Jack Canfora in a story about Laurence Olivier on the Wise & Shine blog: Do It Again: The Gift of Having to Repeat Ourselves

(featured photo is mine – a view of Mt. Everest from the Tengboche Monastery. Everest is the one with the snow plume caused by winds from the jet stream.)

Try, Try, and Try Again

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“Courage doesn’t always roar. Sometimes courage is the quiet voice at the end of the day, saying, “I will try again tomorrow.” – Mary Anne Radmacher

I’m sure I’m not the first parent to say that my kids are making me insane. I don’t mean that in a pull-my-hair out kind of way though. I mean it according to the phrase, “insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.”

Because it feels to me that letting my kids do the same thing over and over again, often comes with the different result.

Last week, Mr. D wanted to ride his bike home from pre-school. We couldn’t do it on Monday or Tuesday. But when Wednesday rolled around, I dropped him at school with his bike, that he proudly rolled in to park next to his teacher’s bike, so that we could ride home.

I had Miss O and her friend with me that afternoon so the three of us rode to Mr. D’s school to pick him up. It took us about 10 minutes to get there. Mr. D sagely choose to walk his bike down the hill to the bike path to begin the mile-and-a-half home. Which is a long way on a bike with training wheels, but he, as our leader, bravely started out.

And then 50 yards later stopped and said he couldn’t do it. Uh-oh. We were a long way from home. So I suggested we take a snack break. After a nice snack break in the shade, we were back on the bikes. Mr. D again set off as the leader and this time went about 100 yards before stopping and declaring he couldn’t do it. That time we stopped to look at ants.

In that fashion, we slowly made our way home with a great deal of tension between the two girls who were antsy to race ahead and Mr. D taking breaks. It took us almost an hour-and-a-half.

The next day, Thursday, when we got in the car to take Mr. D to school, he said, “I want to ride my bike home from school.”

Oh boy. I might have rolled my eyes when no one was looking. But here’s the thing – I know he can do it. He’s done it before, just not at the end of the day. So I loaded his bike in the car and dropped him at school. This time when I picked him up, Miss O wasn’t with me and I attached a third wheel seat to the back of my bike so that if he chose not to ride his own, he could sit back there.

For that attempt, he made it about halfway round the lake before he decided to try out the third wheel. I chained his bike to a tree and we rode home that way, even though he’d never wanted to try that “trail-a-bike” before. Then I had to pack up both kids into the car, drive back around the lake to pick up his bike chained to the tree. The result – another hour-and-a-half expedition to pick up Mr. D from school a mile and a half away.

So then Friday rolled around. When we got in the car to take Mr. D to school, he said, “I want to ride my bike home from school.”

This is where the insanity comes in — I said “Okay” and loaded the bike into the car. On the way home, he made it half way round, I chained the bike to the tree and he rode the rest of the way on the third wheel. But it was easier this time and I popped by the tree to pick up his bike when I went to get Thai food after my friend Eric arrived for dinner.

And each time? Well, there were moments of tension but we also had a good time, and had fun trying. My kids constantly remind me that life is insane – in the best way. That the boundaries of what I previously thought I could do are just mental barriers to blow through. That there is joy in trying the same thing over and over again – and getting a different result.

I’ve written a companion piece about kids and joy: Bundle of Whose Joy? on the Heart of the Matter blog. Please pop over there if you have a minute.

Loving Our Differences, or at Least Understanding Them

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“Bless the people who see life through a different window. And those who understand their view.” – unknown

Sometimes the people closest to us see things differently. I’m throwing that out there as my opening line although I suspect that it surprises no one. But it is one of the conundrums that fascinates me.

Here’s an example. My 84-year-old mom and I were recently talking about the information I learned from the Ten Percent Happier podcast, The Science of Longevity with Dr. Peter Attia, a longevity specialist. Specifically, we were talking about exercise and how it really is the wonder “drug” of aging well. I shared with my mom the measures that I wrote about in my Healthspan post: that longevity research has found we should be doing both aerobic and strength training for the best outcomes. For aerobic fitness, VO2 max which measures lung capacity among other things, is the longevity predictor and grip strength is what they use for strength training.

About a month after that conversation, my mom told me that she’d been using a stress ball to increase her hand strength. Then she added she’s been working on lung capacity using the breath device they gave her after she broke her ribs in the ping pong accident when her competitive nature got the best of her common sense.

Huh, I marveled – she’s directly working to improve the two factors we’d discussed. As an aside, let me say that my mom exercises a lot – golf, bike riding, strength training – so these are not the only things she’s doing. But given the information from Dr. Attia, I would have never thought to work specifically on lung capacity and grip strength. Since they are indicators, I took the information to remind me that I should work out more, both aerobically and strength training, figuring that if I did that, it would affect the things they measure. Sort of the indirect method. In fact, as I type this, I realize that I think that it’s kinda cheating to affect the things directly as I worry that I’d miss the point of overall fitness.

Two people and two different reactions to the same information. Not only that, two people from the same family so it’s not like some different cultural bias is at play. It highlights a difference between my mom and I that I’ve often thought of as the forest and the trees. My mom is incredibly detail-oriented and often sees the details I miss.

I recently sent her an adorable picture of Miss O petting a bunny and her response was, “Do you think Miss O minds the hair in her eyes?” I had to go back to look at the picture to see the one wisp of hair out of place. (see featured photo) My reaction was, “Sheesh, Miss O’s hair was pretty tidy that day because usually it’s way worse than that!”

Because I’m a forest person. If most things are flowing towards the end result in a somewhat reasonable fashion, I’m happy. Picking out the details in a day or a project that are a little out of order is not something I’m good at. Really, I don’t really care if something is a little wonky. It would take a lot of energy for me to get worked up about it – so I don’t. To put it succinctly, my mom is a great line editor. I am not. But give me an idea you are working on, and I can contribute a lot of enthusiasm about the big picture.

Here’s where I appreciate aging. I have come to find that the truth of life is not my way or my mom’s way. I think we’re both right. I no longer feel like I have to convince anyone, especially my mom, that she needs to see it my way.

But I still find it absolutely fascinating how differently people see things and that it presents a challenge when communicating, to find a way to speak my truth and feel seen. Often that is much harder to do with my mom because it feels like she gets stuck on the details. That’s where I’m thankful that I’m a big picture person, because I can rest easy knowing she loves me dearly and given her exercise regimen, will probably be around to do so for quite some time!

What to Do With Our Inner Meanness

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“The worst loneliness is to not be comfortable with yourself.” – Mark Twain

This is something I published on 9/7/22. Heads up – you may have already read this.

The other night my seven-year-old was being short-tempered with her younger brother and snippy with me. I asked her not to take out her mood on others and she replied “I don’t know what to do with the meanness!”

Huh. Isn’t that a great question? I was raised in a household that believed “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” Which I think has it about half right – not saying mean things is an admirable goal. But since just stuffing it down is likely not to work long-term, what do you do with the meanness?

Tend the Body

On the night in question, my daughter was both tired and stressed. In fact, I think I can pretty accurately say that if one of my kids is grumpy, there’s about a 90% chance it’s because they are tired, hungry, cold or sick.

And that goes for me too. If I’ve depleted my energy reserves with a hard work out or am tired because I haven’t slept well, I’m much more likely to think, if not say, unkind things.

As my colleague on this blog, Jack Canfora said in his brilliant post on Things I Think I’ve Learned So Far, “There will be things you do and say in an offhand way that will stay with others their entire lives, for better or worse.” So how do we tip the scales so that those things are more often for the better?

Mind the Mind

Dr. Dan Siegel, neuropsychiatrist and author, talks about the structure of our brains. In his terms, fear and anger reside in our downstairs brain, the brain stem and limbic region, whereas thinking, planning and imagining reside in the upstairs brain, the cerebral cortex and its various parts. The more we exercise integration of these two parts by making sound choices, delving into self-understanding, practicing empathy, posing hypothetical moral questions, the better we can apply higher-level control over our instinctive reactions. From The Whole-Brained Child, those are the recommendations of what we can do to help kids integrate the upstairs and downstairs brains but they work equally as well to mold adult brains too.

As Daniel Kahneman notes in his book Thinking Fast and Slow, “People who are cognitively busy are also more likely to make selfish choices, use sexist language, and make superficial judgments in social situations.” Cognitively busy being shorthand for when we tax our brains with concentration, complex computations and choices.  So we need to find a way to give our busy minds a break.

Feed the Soul

For me, giving my mind a break comes from meditation. I call sitting down on my meditation cushion “Irrigating the Irritation” because it so often helps soften where I’m stuck. It delivers me from the petty complaints by introducing a bigger sense of perspective.

This matches the experience reported by brain scientist Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor when she had a stroke that quieted the mental chatter of her mind and opened her up to a sense of deep inner peace and loving compassion. Studies of Tibetan meditators and Franciscan nuns have shown a similar shift of neurological activity for those engaged in prayer and meditation.

From a recent study published by the Oregon State University, they found that meditation can help replenish mental energy in a way similar to sleep. In fact, according to the lead author of the study, Charles Murniek, “As little as 70 minutes a week, or 10 minutes a day, of mindfulness practice may have the same benefits as an extra 44 minutes of sleep a night.”

Of course meditation is hard practice for kids. There are techniques like box breathing and just counting to ten that help in the throes of big emotions but I haven’t gotten my kids to sit for more than five minutes at a time on a meditation cushion. However, I’ve also noticed that just sitting and coloring also brings about some mental rest, both for kids and for me when I do it alongside them.

What to Do with the Meanness

I tell my kids that my job is to keep them healthy, safe and kind. I know the kind part is a stretch because kindness is a choice they’ll have to make. Also because I have my hands full just trying to practice kindness myself. But at the very least, I can help find ways they can manage their meanness and in doing so, help myself to do the same.

I’ve also posted today on the Wise & Shine blog about first sentences that draw us in: Great First Lines. Check it out!

(featured photo from Pexels)

Unstructured Flow

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“To meditate means to go home to yourself. Then you know how to take care of things that are happening inside of you, and you know how to take care of the things that happen around you.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

My kids and I on vacation this week at a beautiful spot on Whidbey Island – one of my favorite places in all the world and only a couple of hours away from home. We’ve rented a place right on the beach and it is stunning. I’m typing this on a crisp summer morning sitting at the picnic table on our patio. It’s an extremely low tide so one of the local herons is fishing in a tide pool 100 yards front of me. The morning is so calm that I can see the shadow of the heron reflected on the water. The boat just beyond it is glinting in the first light.

My 84-year-old mom joined us here for a few nights, my friend Eric is coming for another few nights, and then my kids and I have had a couple nights and days on our own. Given the proximity to Seattle, we’ve had a parade of other visitors – my meditation teacher, Deirdre, came for a few hours, a gang of Eric’s long-distance cycling friends paraded through, and a different friend is coming today.

Now the heron in front of me is chasing a seagull away from its tide pool that it must consider to be its own. I could be anthropomorphizing here but it seems to have lost its focus on its own peaceful pursuit of what it was doing and now has concerned itself with what the seagull is doing instead.

Which is a lovely allegory for how vacation feels to me. Without the regular routines and structure to key off of, it seems like vacation is a constant negotiation of what we all need and want to do. The wide openness of it makes me feel I have to maintain some definition of my own in order not to be swept away in the tide of what everyone else wants, and my own desire to please.

Like the heron, I spent the first part of the week maintaining definition of what’s mine – my sacred time, my bed, my plate, my activities – and that left me feeling like I was playing defense. Then I read this paragraph from Mark Nepo during MY sacred time and it helped me to realize that the key is permeability:

“Another paradox I continually struggle with is how to let others in without becoming them. How to open the door to compassion without the things and people we feel for overpowering us.”

The Book of Awakening by Mark Nepo

For me it has come down to relaxing my boundaries so that I can feel the flow. It’s not guarding my space like the heron, but instead finding the play and playfulness in being with others. Coming closer when we are exploring on the beach, and snuggled up after time in the pool, and then moving away when I need a moment just to expand my senses and take it all in.

Which brings me to the quote from the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh that I used for this post. When I meditate, I almost always find some answer or ease that helps me to navigate life. When everything else is unstructured, as it is here on vacation, or hectic, as it is in regular life, this is the practice that helps me with both. Usually by finding that I can release whatever I’ve dammed up and find that flow and faith in the Universe again and again.

Vicki Atkinson and I talk about meditation and how self-care can make us better humans on this week’s episode of the Sharing the Heart of the Matter podcast. Search (and subscribe!) for Sharing the Heart of the Matter on Apple, Amazon, Spotify or Pocket Casts OR Listen to on Anchor Episode 28: How Self Care Can Make Us Better Humans with Vicki Atkinson

(featured photo is mine – the beautiful beach in front of me)