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Are you response-able?

If you are reading this, I am guessing that you are pretty responsible. You care enough to do your part, to help, to serve, to complete the work in front of you. But:

Are you Response-Able?

  • When the unforeseen happens, are you free to respond fully, with 100% of what is in you?
  • When you respond in any situation, are you really there, open to love, give, be present without the rest of life niggling in your brain?
  • When you show up for any task, do you leave everything else behind so that you really are able to respond to what is – not what you think should be or what you presumed would be or what you are willing to be with?

Today, just notice who you are in the activities of your life. Notice where your thoughts and feelings are in the midst. Notice if you are fully aware of all that is around you, tuned in to what is really going on, focused on the person or task in front of you and, therefore, fully able to respond to whatever shows up?

What keeps you from being Response-Able?
What are you willing to release today?

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What is a “great thing”?

Two days ago, I posted:

Do Great Things … With Heart

And I wrote:

Leadership is about taking the action that is needed in the moment, seeing what needs doing and making it happen. Such actions might be small – like listening to a friend who is suffering. Sometimes they are bigger – like taking responsibility to organize the community fundraiser.

Today I want a do-over, or at least a chance to clarify the words “small” and “bigger” from a new perspective. Who can say that “listening to a friend who is suffering” is small … or is smaller than the fundraiser responsibility? Not me.

First, we cannot ever fully know the impact of our actions. The love and compassion received by our friend may travel  far and wide through their actions, down through the generations in their family, through friends and colleagues and strangers who witness and receive of our friend’s expanded compassion. It may travel through our own expansion from having been part of a compassionate human exchange.

Second, what can possibly make compassion small? Humanity is starving for compassion, tenderness, love — for real. Giving and receiving the depth of emotion which is an integral part of the human condition is priceless. So, a single act of compassion … is both great and BIG.

What big, strong, loving, great act is yours to do today?

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For what will you exchange your valuable life energy?

There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique. And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and be lost. Martha Graham

I woke after a restless night and part of me was ready to let that fact color my day. It didn’t take long before I realized that I had choice. I could go with tired, listless, frustrated and scared that I’ll never sleep well again.

Or I could remember that I have been given this day, one more series of moments (and I can’t know how many!) filled with life energy. It is up to me to choose how I will invest this very precious resource. No one else can do that for me. And the energy that is mine to invest in this now moment is forever gone once the moment has passed.

What choices will you make today?
For what will you exchange your valuable life energy?

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Generosity …

Reading from the book, Wherever You Go, There You Are, by Jon Kabat-Zinn:

WhereverYouGoThereYouAre

Such is the power of mindful, selfless generosity. At the deepest level, there is no giver, no gift, and no recipient … only the universe rearranging itself.

This quote struck me at my core. We – all of us – are part of the Universe, part of all that is in the cosmos. We are part of humankind, part of this amazing planet Earth that we call home, part of the evolution of consciousness and matter. We are part – among – connected. We arrived with nothing and we will leave behind all that we have used on the journey. And along the way, haven’t we simply been part of the Universe in constant motion: rearranging, creating, destroying, evolving, learning, growing, holding on, letting go?

What if, along the way in this journey of life, we practiced mindful, selfless generosity from an awareness that all is one? 

Might we approach today with:

How am I to support the Universe today?
What generous rearranging is mine to facilitate?
How am I to lend my life energy to the greater whole?

And since all is one, I must be aware that I am not alone and ask:

How is the Universe rearranging to support me?

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Supporting Characters …

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If life is a stage, then you are the main character in your life experience, yes?  And, if that is true, then you play a supporting role in the lives of many others.

What does this mean?

It means that each one of us has perhaps much greater impact on others than we have dared to imagine. The choices we make day in and day out can support those around us, can have loving impact. They can also be the source for another’s pain or struggle. While we cannot fully control how another receives the impact of our actions, we can and must choose how we act, how we choose to be in our supporting roles.

And we must realize that we are a supporting character on MANY stages! It is easy to see that we support our partners, our children, our colleagues and friends. Yet, there are people we will not ever meet in this lifetime for whom our choices have an indirect impact. Imagine the “friend of a friend of a friend” … how we are with our friend changes how our friend is with their friend, and so on. Perhaps it is the legacy we leave at the office when we retire, the legacy in word and deed and energy, that impacts those who come after us. Maybe it is our loving presence, our smile, in the check-out line that goes home with the tired cashier and becomes a hug for their special little child.

So I wonder:

For whom are you a supporting character?
What gifts and talents do you bring to the role?

If you saw yourself as a supporting character on the world stage,
what would you bring to your role in each and every scene?