Archive for the ‘Martha’s journey’ Category

I can’t express how much it mattered the other day when the visitor to  my home shared how excited he was about buying his copy of  ”Why Not?”. My tome had reached yet another person who was ready and eager to  entertain its questions and illustrations.  Through this visitor’s excitement and appreciation, I was able to notice, yet once again,  that what I cared about and contributed had  mattered.  It made my day.

When you  give your gifts, simply because you have to, because it is yours to do, and they land in the lap  of someone who is really ready and eager to  receive them and make use of them, it is a very special moment.  Not only  is it one of the moments that makes life worth living. It’s one of  those moments that we really need to notice––each of us.   Because it’s a clue to each of us who aspires to live in flow doing our thing, the thing that we love, the thing that we do  better and more uniquely than others.  In these moments, we get to experience that our gifts really are useful in the scheme of things.  And if we really take time to  receive the moment,  it leads to a deeper awareness and self appreciation and awareness of what our own gifts really are.

Pay attention to these moments. Savor them. They happen more often than we acknowledge.  They are either affirmations of what you already know about yourself, or reminders of  what you may have forgotten, or clues to what you are seeking to discover.

And Yes!  Do buy the book.

What do you do when you get discouraged?  Or mildly depressed? Or seem to lose energy and desire for the things you have always done easily?  When you find yourself avoiding easy next step tasks?  I’ve just been through a period like that. And while I am definitely no doctor nor therapist, I believe even the healthy high performers  go into a “dip” or a “funk” on occasion.  What to do?   The serendipity all of this was the fact that my “dip” coincided with that of a friend.  Which can be wonderfully illuminating as you begin to focus more attention on the reality of it  and strategize how to dance through it.

Here are a few thoughts for any who might find themselves in that situation:

1A.  What’s going on?  What’s the reason I don’t want to do x, y, z?  Make a huge list, include everything that pops into your mind. Let them  percolate.  Making the list lets your body know, that you really do seek an answer and one will eventually emerge as resonating with truth.  My friend and I, hard working types, usually don’t stop to ask what’s going on and we try to power through.  Yet, finding the real energy stopper, allows you to deal with the real issue, which often, once identified, only takes moments, and provides incredible relief.

1B.  Deal with the possibility of that imagined undesireable result. For her, she was fearful that doing her list of tasks would result in a situation that she didn’t want.  Good reason!  That allows her to ponder how to alleviate what she was worried about,  anticipate the undesireable and make preparations to handle it.  All of a sudden, her list became doable, even with some enthusiasm.

2. Another strategy is to check yourself out medically or with an alternative practitioner.  In my particular case, I found that I was missing something in my brain chemistry, and a few proscribed supplements were able to right my customary emotional balance rather quickly.

3. A third strategy is to really inquire about, and honor, what else  is going on in your life.  In my friend’s case, a colleague had recently received a serious diagnosis, her partner’s new boss was making things difficult and painful at work as opposed to the many joyful years he had enjoyed at the office, her mom had just passed, and many of her own work contracts (income) had been put on hold due to mergers occurring in client organizations.  Let’s be honest.  Through no fault of her own, she was suffering a huge number of losses, with the attendant need to grieve and pick up the pieces of her life.  This happens to all of us…not usually all at once…but it happens.  To think there is no impact on one’s energy is simply ignoring the reality of being human. Love yourself through this.  Give yourself space and permission to do less. Deal actively with what you have lost in terms of acknowledgment and grief.

4.  A fourth strategy is to seek help.  Actually when we are in the midst of stuff, it’s hard to see what is going on. Often an objective outsider  in a session or two, can help you make sense of what’s going on right now.  That knowledge is usually a tremendous relief.

Certainly this list is not exhaustive.  Many, many more ideas can be found on Gretchen Rubin’s Happiness Project website and blog, talking with friends, and spending time in conversation with yourself.  I encourage you to explore the strategies that exist, and invent your own. Doing what you love, is not all wine and roses, and it is worth moving beyond whatever blocks and barriers appear.  Discouragement is part of life.  Dance with it and see if the music changes.

” ‘It’s impossible’, said Pride.  ’It’s risky’, said Experience.  ’It’s pointless’, said Reason. ‘Give it a try’, whispered the Heart’. ”  ~Unknown

Sometimes something comes to you to which nothing needs to be added. In this case this quote appeared in my inbox, from a friend, who found it on Facebook, and posted it to his blog.  Thank you, Tom.  I’m listening, and invite any readers struggling whether to do more of what they love, to do so also.

I was inspired recently by a young man (23) who was sharing with me his career choices and the conversation migrated into the career choices of his family members.  Being very hands-on mechanically gifted, he himself  chose the family business–plumbing, but he also certified himself in other trades.  His father’s passion was art (his hobby taking apart cars and and putting them back together), but he engaged the mechanical gifts of his avocation  in order to support the family and started a plumbing business upon marriage. (According to the son, his father is the best plumber he ever worked with and before joining the business, he worked with many.)  His mother is an ice hockey fanatic still playing at 52, competing and coaching as an avocation, and she sparked and nurtured the love of hockey in all her children.   “We’re all so different,” said Eric. His younger  brother (21) is a “genius in computers, creating websites for stars in the music industry, and matters of the mind–his passions being opera and philosophy, but he doesn’t know how to check his tires for air. We both disappointed our parents by not choosing college.”

Another younger brother  (18) is into music–but a different kind than what we are most familiar with.  ”I personally don’t get it,”  he added.

An older sister is an esthetician, who is now planning to go  to  school for funeral work.  I forget what the other sister has chosen.

What struck me was that without naming themselves as such, they probably qualify as a “do what you love family”. Everyone doing something different. Inspired and united by their parent’s choices, these independent young people are equally supported in following their own paths, in some cases, rather quirky paths.

I suggest in the Why Not book (Chapter 8) that one’s heritage and models in life probably influence our career path choices more than we are aware, for good or for ill.  And that it would be good to take a look at your influences.  Given this just encountered  powerful example of a supportive environment in which to grow up, I am compelled to reinforce my suggestion for those wanting to make changes to really review the influences of their past.

Is your heritage for doing what you love one that supports exercising courage, heart, risk, experimentation?

Or, is your heritage one that was dominated by fear, necessity for security, or punishment for straying from the parental advice?

Any heritage can be unthinkingly followed, unthinkingly rebelled against, or thoughtfully reviewed and utilized to illuminate your present behaviors in relation to opportunities .  If your heritage is less supportive of your dreams, how can you find the support you need for the ideas you have?  Or, how can you borrow someone else’s model and use it for your own?

Today, I took time to look at an online subscription I had requested from Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project.  The daily missives had been filling my mailbox for months, and I had filed them. I took the time to read the most recent, which, like all the others, is full of many links to past blogs, interesting ideas, short and wise videos she has created like, The Secrets to Adulthood. She clearly has fun collecting and creating what makes life work and what makes her happy, for the inspiration of the rest of us. I enjoyed meandering and wandering, selecting link after link until I got to one of her favorite bloggers,  a dental practice manager.  I initially thought:  “This is an unexpected link!”

But what struck me about this blogger is how she has seemed to combine, in an unusual way, her technical skill in dental hygiene, her obvious passion for leadership and team building, and her apparent love of writing.  She’s a model for members of our “why not? crowd” who are often stymied by the question,  “I like to do  x, y, and z.  How can I possibly make a meaningful living from them?

Well, she apparently figured it out.  Dental hygiene, which would have been enough for many as “the career”, was for her only “the context.” In this context she could exercise her love of creating a customer-oriented office culture in which everyone could grow and improve and appreciate the contributions of others, as well as her interests in sharing her experiences with the wider world.

Kudos to her!  And thanks for the inspiration it gives to the rest of us to identify, honor, experiment with, and exercise, our unique combinations of skills, interests and passions in a “context” of our choosing.  The possibilities, therefore,  are endless.

P.S. Don’t forget to stop and “take time” to wander a bit.  You might be surprised at what you find!

Thank you, Tom.

Topics for blog posts come to me serendipitously.  I’d been kind of wondering from where the next inspiration would come.  And here it is in my mailbox. This morning.

My friend Tom has been seriously ill for a year and fortunately is on a path to recovery.  As I really do understand, illness has it’s gifts, among them the gaining of wise perspectives  about life.  In today’s journal entry (the journal being a wonderful version of an updating blog he writes for those who care about him),  he pondered the arrival of Spring.  As lovely as it is, is it enough to bring “happiness?”

His challenge over this long year has been to maintain his equilibrium, his happiness, despite the ups and downs of his illness. His conclusion: nothing external can bring  happiness, although it certainly can contribute to the pleasure of the day.  Today he distilled one piece of wisdom gleaned over the year:

Happiness is consistently getting your own needs met. How?  Spend some serious time figuring out what you really want.  Then don’t be afraid to say that you want it.

This may sound familiar to many readers of this blog and  I’m happy to present a different voice saying it.  Clarity and courage will take us practically anywhere we want to go.  

Thanks again, Tom.

As I just returned from a 3 week meditation retreat, I am in slow-mode, primarily because the one who returned is not the one who left. I am feeling a bit raw, a bit vulnerable, a bit uncertain, a bit discombobulated, a bit not who I used to be, a bit curious about what will be happening.  Why do I reveal and write this?

Because those of you who are contemplating making changes in your lives and doing more of what you love may find yourselves entering this very space. You are letting go of what you used to think, what you used to do,  in order to create something new for yourselves.  Deep intentions to change, and the courage to jump into some of those changes as experiments can be transforming. The process of transforming means we are moving from what felt comfortable and normal, albeit no longer desireable, to a new state, and it is not yet where we feel comfortable, not yet the terrain we know.

So personally, at this moment,  I am compelled to stop doing, take stock, rest, and integrate.  I got my instructions from the internet in a serendipitous encounter:  ”Do Nothing!” was the message.  The only problem is that doing nothing has been one of my lifelong challenges.  So, all I can say is there are  no accidents. I get to be invited again to learn what is not so easy for me and what is critically necessary. I get to take a time out.

It occurs to me that those of you who are trying to create new lives with some urgency, are not the shy ones, not the tentative ones.  You are the ones who want to experiment, learn, grow, get it done, do it right.  Maybe you, too, could use a little do nothing time, to allow the wisdom of your body to instruct you as to your next moves in life.  Maybe you could use a little sitting by the window time, sitting under a tree time, a little “honoring of the wonder that is you” time.

I offer you the experiment that came into my life via the website, www.donothingfor2minutes.com. Someone is taking our needs seriously. Someone knows that the answers we seek do not come into our busyness as much as they await our creation of space, our courage to pause in our doing, so that we can welcome our being. Someone knows that this habit is one of those practices which is fundamental to crafting the changes that matter to us.

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new.

But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful.

~ Alan Cohen

How do you get to do what you love? To make it simple, let’s get it down to two basic steps!  Even though it’s never quite that simple, two steps gives us a framework for starting. First GET CLEAR….about what you are good at, what gives you pleasure, how you do “you” when nobody’s looking. As stated in an earlier post, it’s important to at least focus on the questions embedded in that requirement and to ask others to help you answer them:  Who am I?  What am I good at? What is my unique contribution to situations in which I find myself?  What gives me pleasure during my days?   Don’t be afraid to get help as you try to answer those questions.

Next GET MOVING…when you know what you love and are good at, in what ways can you do a bit more of it?  Where can you eliminate what doesn’t give you pleasure?  How can you locate people who seem to be doing some of the things you like to do, and arrange to talk to them? Who might be a coach or a mentor and how can you arrange time with them?    I like to consider getting into action as the phase of low risk experiments.  Do something, and learn something, and try something else. The universe rewards specific actions which are expressions of your intention and there is help available to  get you moving.

Of course, either of the two basic steps which involve contemplating something new for your life can be daunting.  You’ll hear the little voices…”I can’t, I don’t have time, I’ll never be able to support myself. Why would they want to talk to me?  I’m not good at anything!”  And so, perhaps one important way to GET MOVING is to install the voices of choice which will at least provide some internal support for options you’d like to pursue.

Right now,  I am setting up three playgrounds for writing about things that matter to me.  These are my  three blog sites. The topics definitely overlap. So from time to time, I’ll cross reference to earlier posts, and current posts on other sites for your benefit and my ease.  I’ll be continuing to illuminate the two basic steps in a variety of ways as it occurs to me to do so, and as your questions reach me. Enjoy the journey!  I do believe that you CAN be doing more of what you love in your life!

Today, I looked at the site and realized my last post was February 13, over two weeks ago.  ”Yes,” I thought. ” It’s time to write and I have nothing to say.” Just as I was about to write about honoring the moments of nothingness, silence and space, I looked at some responses to posts I had received and not read – to my very first post and my latest.  They were gifts.

It occurred to me that the gift of appreciation is so easy to give and it can mean so much  (thank you Doug and Mary). Ease with genuine appreciation and desire to connect,  can even be labeled a talent, a uniqueness of who you are in the world, perhaps something you have never thought to notice and appreciate about yourself.

I applaud the emergence of this site as a little community where we can say what we feel and share the reflections which may have been stimulated by whatever post.

For me, I noticed that being willing to be with my nothingness, without any pressure, led to something. Led to receiving what others had written for me.  Led to allowing myself to be touched.  And I didn’t have to do anything – but notice how good it felt.

I believe the greatest gift
I can conceive of having from anyone
is to be seen, heard, understood
and touched by them.

The greatest gift I can give
is to see, hear, understand
and touch another person.

When this is done,
I feel contact has been made.

~ Virginia Satir

Building on the notion of  heroism, let’s not forget about the courage it takes to step out and do what you love, offer your gifts, and make your contribution.  My colleague Matthew Goldfarb is one who is showing us how.  Stepping away from his corporate cubicle just over a year ago, he took being a renegade literally.  A very experienced copywriter, and having worked for a number of the big companies, he was tired of figuring out how to sell products that are, well, just products we probably don’t need. So he hung out his shingle, Corporate Renegade Copy, and started serving and supporting  heart centered entrepreneurs who live to make people’s lives better, healthier and happier.

I was so moved by the feature article in his recent newsletter ,  that I am compelled to share it.   In that article, Watered Down Copy,  he encourages those of us in heart centered businesses, and by extension everyone,  to really not mince words about our enthusiasms and our brilliant gifts, to not play “small.”  The message is right for the times, and for my readers.  So thanks for putting that “good copy” out there, Matthew!  This heart centered, senior solo practitioner is already taking it to heart.

Something definitely changes when we finally summon the courage to risk telling the truth about who we are and who we are not.                                                        ~Angeles Arrien