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What will you plant?

Springtime – a time for planting seeds in anticipation of the fall harvest. Perhaps an overused metaphor, but a good one and I’d like to invite you into it with me. What follows can be applied to any dream or goal, intention or vision. For the sake of this moment, call to mind one such vision you hold for the life ahead of you. As you can, imagine it clearly, complete, you – embodying your vision.

Feels good, yes? What? Are your thoughts suggesting it’s impossible – or – too far off to begin? Set them aside. Now is the time to begin.

The fall harvest of your dream requires many baby steps. Before overwhelm sets in, recall also that the seeds which you plant spend a lot of time by themselves, growing, expanding, doing what plants do. Continue reading “What will you plant?”

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It hurts not to show up!

Not to show up to what? And what does it mean “not to show up”? The what that I’m writing about is just about anything that you avoid. You know: the hard conversations, the person you hope doesn’t see you walk by, the challenge that has been knocking on your doorstep that you are pretending not to see. And the not showing up part? Sometimes this can be quite literal: you simply don’t go, don’t participate. Sometimes it’s less so: you have the conversation but you don’t speak your truth, or, you agree to the challenge but then shortcut the task, yourself and your learning every step of the way.

Do you recognize yourself here at all?
Where?

Continue reading “It hurts not to show up!”

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The Morning After …

What morning after am I referring to?

This time, it’s the morning after the vacation or after a day off sick or even Monday morning, the day many return to work after a weekend.

What about it?

Here’s what I noticed yesterday morning (after being away with a friend over the weekend, away from responsibilities at home, away from e-mail that comes whether or not I’m paying attention, away from habits and routines that ground me):

I am unsettled, hurried, feeling behind before I start.
I am afraid of the full day ahead.
I am thinking that I need to shortcut my healthy morning routine.
I am short with my spouse.

Do you ever land in this kind of morning after?

Continue reading “The Morning After …”

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What is your default direction?

When you find yourself emotionally uncomfortable, are you likely to:

  • get busy so you can’t feel it?
  • wallow in it?
  • spew its ugliness on everything and everyone around you?
  • feel it fully and let go?
  • go deeper within and watch it dissipate?

Our emotions are messengers. We notice them physically in our bodies as tightness, the shakes, a knowing in the gut or as a general dis-ease in our mind. Once we sense that an emotion is vying for our attention, we can go three basic directions with it: Continue reading “What is your default direction?”

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Acknowledgments…

You are so courageous!
No I’m not! If you only knew how scared I was!
Your impact was profound. 
Oh no. I just did what I always do.
You lead powerfully and with heart.
I’m not a leader!

Have you ever experienced those kinds of responses to acknowledgments you’ve offered? Have you ever been the one denying another’s experience of you? Think about it. Continue reading “Acknowledgments…”