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Baseball Part I: The Home Run

If you know a bit about baseball, you know that a home run means you’ve hit that ball out of the park and you score for the team without being challenged as you trot around the bases.

What does it take to hit that home run? Years of physical training and practice, concentration and focus, and a good read on that pitcher. It also takes a lot of:

  • swing and a miss
  • bunting
  • strike outs
  • walks
  • hits resulting in outs
  • base hits
  • getting to first on the other team’s error

In other words, that home run was preceded by many failures, minor successes, and some measure of the misfortune of others. I suspect it is also the result of good coaching and lots of attaboys!

What is your home run?
What effort are you willing to expend to get there?
What are you unwilling to experience along the way?

Stay tuned for Baseball Part II …

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Learn to look inside!

“Whenever I’m in a quandary about the day ahead of me, I seek advice from the ones I trust. I look inside of me.”
from True Advice by Jeanne Loehnis

Life offers us decision points all the time. Daily we have little choices. Sometimes, the decision will have a big impact and it may feel like heavy challenge or amazing opportunity! Often, decisions which feel big weigh heavily and are hard to make. If that is the case for you, here are two thoughts:

First, consider using a variety of perspectives to help you “think outside the box” to discover options. Here are just a few of my favorite perspectives:

  • My Higher Power, God, Spiritual Guide
  • My emotional body
  • Society’s viewpoint
  • Self-compassion
  • Leaving a lighter carbon footprint
  • Playful
  • Seven generations before and hence

Second, practice seeing different perspectives in the little, day-to-day decisions. That way, when the next “big one” comes along, you’ll be in the habit of opening to possibility!

What answer do you find when you look inside?

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The Guilt Attack

I woke to a morning without obligations, places to be, people to connect with – otherwise known as “free time”. Immediately, my heart started pounding, my head filled thoughts of people who could use a phone call, all the “things” that I could “do”. I paused. I chose to listen to this extreme reaction in my body.

What was it trying to tell me?

I heard the answer from my head, “You are being lazy. Get busy. You should feel guilty not taking care of people and tasks that need you.”

And I chose to pause longer, listen more deeply. I found tears in the pause. Tears of compassion, tears reminding me that it is not only okay but vital that we human beings rest, rejuvenate, step away from the action at times.

What about you? Do you ever suffer from an attack of guilt when you stop? For a bit of inspiration around pause, take a look behind the card:

TheCenter4By6

 

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Precious Energy

Precious energy – YOUR energy. What does it feel like these days? How do you allocate it? Spend it? Do you save it for a rainy day (or, in Wisconsin, a blizzard)? Do you believe it is out of your control?

It often feels as if we have just so much life energy at our disposal. Based on our choices, however, we can create and experience MORE – or  LESS – of this energy each and every day. Our actions, beliefs, thoughts and emotions all impact our energy level. Today I ask you to pause and answer these questions for yourself:

How do I want to experience my precious energy today?
What choices will lead me there?

 

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What will you risk?

“Progress always involves risk; you can’t steal second base and keep your foot on first.” Frederick Wilcox

What qualities are present that allow the base runner to reach second? I imagine preparation of mind and body, trust in his or her ability, determination, willingness to fail as much as desire to succeed.

This quote shared another way suggests: You cannot sail across the ocean without losing site of the shore for a very long time. How does the ship captain prepare? He, too, studies, makes many shorter voyages in preparation. He gathers a team around him and ensures the body of his vessel is in great shape. The captain trusts his intuition and is determined to do anything to succeed. And, the voyage may fail as did the famous Titanic.

Both “left home” in order to risk landing on the other side.

What voyage are you facing?
What has you tied to first base?
What will you risk?
What if you fail?