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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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Why take care of ourselves?

Recently a friend reminded me to take care of myself, that it was vitally important to take great care of myself. I quickly finished her sentence with:

“… or I’ll have nothing to give!”

My wise friend IMMEDIATELY jumped on me with:

“No!“

And I started laughing as I heard the message in me at the same time. She continued:

“Take care of yourself because you’re worth it!”

Yes, when I practice awesome self care:

  • I usually have a lot to give
  • I am happier, healthier and delightful to be around
  • I usually want to be in service, to give, to do for others

Yet, the message here is: “To be in service isn’t why we should do awesome self-care”. We do it because we deserve to be treated that way, because we are valuable, lovable, living creatures. Do you know this for yourself?

Do you know that you are enough just because you are?
Do you know that you are deserving just because you are?
What would be different if you did?

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What Can’t You Be With?

What do you have trouble being with? What doors have you closed in fear and what treasures are buried within?

Imagine your childhood excitement if you were taken to a large mansion. So much to discover and and so many places to explore. You can’t wait! And in each one you enter, there are closets and patios, dressers – amazing options! You linger. You play. Eventually, you move on, knowing you can and will return.

Now, bring your adult to this same experience. Room #1, Victorian style, yuck. Room #2 reminds you of your first marriage … With each judgment, each fear, each opinion, you close the door to another option. The mansion shrinks.

It is the same in our emotional mansion.

As we cease to embrace, cease to allow, laughter or fear, deep love or anger, we have closed another door in the mansion of our emotional space. The breadth, the range of life that we permit has shrunk.

Where do you live now? 

Sometimes, perhaps, you live in a cave. Other times, a cozy cabin with no neighbors. Rarely in that castle of many rooms and endless possibility.

How can you begin to reclaim the rooms of your emotional mansion? First, by acknowledging and accepting that by choice you have closed the door. No one makes us. We, ourselves, respond – or react – even if in old patterns. We can choose – pause – notice – own that the closed door in front of us was a choice we made. Now ask yourself, if I opened the door:

  • What do I expect to experience?
  • What do I least expect?
  • What else is possible?
  • What other life experience is available if I embrace this emotion?
  • How will my life be different once I reconnect with this part of me?
  • What am I missing out on by keeping the door closed?

If I rewrote the script that closed the door, if my life depended on incorporating this emotion, this experience, this personality, what initial steps could I take? What support do I need?

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  -Anais Nin

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How … can I be here now?

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In our busy, active, full lives, often we find ourselves not only going non-stop but juggling multiple responsibilities at the same time. Picture yourself talking on the phone while emptying the dishwasher and gesturing to your child that you want him to get busy with his homework. Or maybe your attempt at getting it all done resembles eating while standing up and between each bite you are folding laundry and watching TV. Sound familiar? Moreover, the idea that you could do “just this” seems both wasteful and impossible!

If any of this sounds like you, and if just maybe you’d like to try something different, read on. I cannot begin to explain the value you will receive by practicing the art of “be here now”, fully present to “just this”, energetically focused on one thing. That is for you to discover! Here are a few ways to begin your journey toward that discovery. With any of them, especially if you find yourself resistant, experiment in short segments – one meal, 10 minutes, 5 breaths.

  • Single-task. If you are eating, eat, taste each bite. Folding laundry, fold. Notice the colors and texture of the fabric.
  • Breathe. Just stop what you are doing, close your eyes, and take in five deep breaths.
  • Gift your attention. With your next conversation, stop thinking. Give your full attention to the person who is speaking to you. Give the gift of deep listening and rapt attention. Hear what they are saying and sense the deeper meaning underneath. Give without judgment and without planning what you’ll say in response. Be curious and maybe ask questions. Most importantly, give the gift of your 100% presence.
  • Channel your thoughts. If your mind is the busy body that multi-tasks, try focusing on just one thought, one idea, one affirmation or encouraging message and repeat it over and over:  I am here now. I am fully invested in making this project a success. I am grateful.

What do you discover with “just this”?
What is the impact of your practice?
What is possible if you expand “just this”?

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Decisions

“Making a decision is only the beginning of things. When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision.” Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

I read that quote today and it reminded me of my recent decision about space. Actually, it gets me excited! When I think about space in my schedule, I vision ease, flow, presence. Yet I have made this decision before and found myself on the shoreline rather than in the current.

What does it really mean to make a decision?
What commitment does decision require?
What is mine to do once I’ve made the dive?

And perhaps it would be good to ask:

Is this really what I want?

Here’s what I know … and questions to open to more knowing! I know that *decision* is a message to the Universe to show us limitless possibility and invite us to receive its support. I know that the current is strong and mighty. I know that some of what will appear in that current will challenge my decision! I will be required over and over to recommit.

And I know, that if my decision is only half-hearted, then this current, Universal flow, will knock me off my feet and take me out of the game.

What happened to me recently? Well, I made a decision for space in my life and I made another decision to expand my connections with people. Hmm…. Two decisions which conflict in any given moment, yes? The Universe responded to both with limitless possibility. I, however, acted with a HUGE YES to connections and practiced only a half-hearted YES to space. Did I have another choice?

Yes. Both decisions were important to me. And I know that I can’t have connections without space. Balance is VITAL and it comes with practicing “No, not now … later” and scheduling space.

Intentional decisions require intentional follow-through. And intentional decisions require deep intention in the making. Is this really what I want? Am I prepared to follow-through with deep, committed action?

What about you?

What decisions have you made half-heartedly?
Which will you commit to 100%?
What does that look like?
The current is ready – are you?