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Risk

I read this recently:

When a conflict arises between the need to belong and the need to grow, we have to make a choice.  We must either sacrifice a part of ourselves to maintain our belonging, or we must risk the approval and support of the group by growing.

The inner journey often finds us face-to-face with our deep truth. Choosing personal truth can feel hard as it often means letting go of something else. That something else served us for awhile. It may still serve us in some ways. Yet, in order to cross the next “hurdle” or leap ahead into our future, we need to be willing to release what no longer fits.

What choice are you facing?
What are you hanging onto?
What are you sacrificing in order to hang on?
What risk must you consider?

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My Invitation To You …

Talking with a dear friend and colleague recently about the challenge of choosing “what to do” from all the options available, I found myself saying things like: “Be with each activity. Does this one really light you up? Does it bring out the best in you? What would it be like to let it go?”  

And then it hit me! I love writing to you here and in the Tidbits of Wisdom blog from a space of pure openness and joy. I know that you receive guidance, inspiration, and confirmation of your path. I also know that many of you are wise enough to alter deeply your daily habits over the summer by taking a break from email and blog reading, by taking vacations, by simply watching the sun set over and over and over!

Taking a break, a sabbatical, a vacation is important. Getting out of routine and listening in different ways to Life renews us, heals, provides joy and inspiration of another sort. What I want for you and for me this summer is to experience freedom to choose alternatives, freedom to listen to our own inner nudgings, freedom to experience Life with our whole being – body, mind, emotion, spirit – whatever that means to each one of us. Yesterday, for me, that meant floating down the river on an inner tube with another dear friend and treasuring the sunlight and clouds, the sounds of the birds and the thunder, the conversation and the shared silence.

My commitment to Jeanne for the next two months is to take a sabbatical from blogging and to follow the nudgings for more time in nature, more deep noticing and mindfulness in each relationship, more allowing Life to unfold before me and less planning and projecting, less writing about life and more living the moments in this life. I will write to you each month here … but I will not intentionally create new blog posts in Tidbits of Wisdom. For those of you who will miss them, might I suggest:

  • Try writing your own wisdom! Yes – I mean that! If you had nothing to read but wanted inspiration, what would inspire you? Write it down and listen. Get yourself a new “summer journal” and begin your writing journey.
  • Use Inspiration Cards to guide your personal exploration and writing – order a set of cards for yourself and your friends so you can be with the cards AND away from the Internet
  • Check out old posts which you can choose by category or date
  • Check out some of my favorite books which you’ll find HERE
  • Check out my book, What’s Alive In Me Now? Time for the journey of your life!
  • Spend time with people connecting deeply. Consider the Women’s Circle as one option.

More than anything, I invite you to treasure life this summer and take great care of you!

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Space

As I write, life has again been full – all self-induced full. And truly, it was all good! However, I arrived at today knowing that I need space, breathing space, unstructured time, ease, day-dreaming time, slow time and time to be aware – simply aware of “this” and “this”.

How did this happen – again?

I have been here before so many times – knowing that my spirit desires time and space, letting be and rest. Lessons I am aware of today include:

  • while I planned space between activities, I forgot to plan follow-up time from those activities which ended up consuming my space
  • I neglected to honor the fact that my spirit desires full-out,energetic presence with others which means that fewer meetings, lunches, connections are what honors both me and my relationships
  • my ego, the human that feels good that you want to be with me needs to be tempered with Thank you … then a spirit-inspired choice that might be “No, not now” or “No, this isn’t for me” or “Absolutely and I’ll make real space for you”

Today I commit to you that I will:

  • pause and breathe
  • block out time in the week ahead for space
  • practice the kind of choosing that includes “No, not now” and “No, this isn’t for me” in addition to “Of Course!”

What about you?

What does your schedule look like?
What would space feel like?
What bold action (or non-action) will honor YOU?

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Be here now …

hummingbird

Not a new idea … certainly not. Yet, most of us need reminding. Me? I need to be reminded every day – multiple times per day!

This is the only moment we have.
This moment.
This breath.
Now.

Be here. Be with the task in front of you, the person you are with. Be here.

Does this mean we don’t plan for the future?

No. Visioning the future and making plans is definitely part of co-creating our lives! Co-creating, however, requires that we release the tight grip on those plans and live fully the current moment.

Why? 

Have you noticed how quickly things change? The weather can go from sunshine to lightning in an instant – totally transforming the landscape and, if you are wise, the round of golf you thought you would play today! Think about technology – how our children don’t even know what a cassette tape or typewriter of rotary phone is! By the time the future arrives, our choices about how to be in that future moment may have changed so dramatically that any plans we set in motion last year, last month, even last week may be irrelevant or even unwise.

The only moment we have to live is this one. And this one. And this one. If we spend each moment planning for tomorrow, we just might miss our lives. As I’ve been writing this with the thought of you reading it “in the future”, I have paused frequently to look up. And in those pauses, I’ve witnessed several hummingbird visits to the feeder. Each visit lasts only seconds. Without the pauses, I would have missed so much!

Today, consider adding a bit of balance to your day. Set aside some time for planning, considering what you’d like to do, where you’d like to go, what lies ahead. Then, return to now. Breathe into the moment you are living now, the task you are doing now. Balance action and forward movement with pausing to listen, to become aware of what is happening in and around you now. Notice what shows up when your mind takes a break.

What magic is revealed in your pauses?
What is really here NOW?

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There Are No Sacred Cows

Kuhl

I want to share with you a simple tool that came to me this morning and brought me tremendous freedom. I woke after a fitful night of sleep to a day filled with appointments. My mind raced with thoughts like:

Should I cancel that one?
I can’t possibly skip that!
There’s just too much.
Blah, blah, blah.

Somehow, I managed to pause long enough for a breath deep enough to hear a whisper from my heart:

There are no sacred cows, Jeanne

In that instant, I knew that I could choose. Any of the five appointments in this day could be cancelled or rescheduled or happen without my attendance. Yes, all of them! I am not indispensable. I can let go, trust that others will understand, take care of Jeanne.

What happened? I decided to release one option in tomorrow and move one option from today into that slot. I agreed to decide later if I would do my usual noon exercise. Then I moved into the day. Most importantly, I moved into it free, light, at choice, able and willing to BE in each remaining activity 100%.

What are you holding as a sacred cow?
What can you release in order to come fully present now?