In 2013: listen to your Deep Knowing

If you are someone who knows me well, you probably have heard me say for a number of years - 'This is the year I am going to do less.'  'This is the year of saying NO.'  By now, you probably laugh at me and roll your eyes (I hope you roll them in an affectionate way).  

One of my character flaws is to over-commit to various activities and then run around like a maniac and complain that I don't have enough time to enjoy my very full life.  If you haven't read a children's book call Owl At Homeby Arnold Lobel - you should.  It's so funny - it's a series of vignettes about a neurotic owl.  Perhaps my favorite is the one where Owl runs upstairs and downstairs.  'Owl, are you Downstairs? '  he calls to himself?  'No,' he replies to himself, 'I am Upstairs'.  Then he runs Upstairs trying to catch himself.  This happens again and again.  Finally he says, 'I can't be both upstairs and downstairs at the same time.  All I am is exhausted.' 

Maybe you are not an upstairs, downstairs person.  One of my dearest friends says she is a one thing a day person.  Amazing!  But maybe you are a person who would like to make a particular change, but this change seems to not fully happen.  Maybe you make a little progress and  then fall back into 'old ways.'  

Another friend, Laurie, has often been my 'upaguru' (I just learned what this means - it means 'the guru next to you.')  Her life has been full of experiences and relationships and she's been a student of both life and death, having worked in home hospice and bereavement for many years.  She is one of those friends that after every time we have lunch or meet for coffee, I find myself mulling over something she said or some unique perspective she shared and it's as if I'm a better person for having spent time with her.

This Fall she visited me at home and we sat in the kitchen drinking tea - the afternoon sunlight warming us through the windows.  My family and I had recently moved and as I may have mentioned here, this stirred up many things, including the painful aspects of the Upstairs, Downstairs part of me.

As I was talking with Laurie about this, she asked me, "what does your Deep Knowing want you to know?"  Wow.  What a question.  Laurie is so awesome because she asks questions like this and really wants to know the answer.

I pondered her question many times this Fall and early Winter.   The word that kept coming to me was 'Quiet.'  What did it mean?  I kept listening to this place in myself that we'll call Deep Knowing, and what I believe is this - for these several years, I've been saying, 'I'm going to say NO, I'm going to cut back on activities' and what I really needed to do was whittle down to the essence what I need.  When I ask my Deep Knowing what it wants me to know, its this: my Self, my inner core, needs more Quiet time.

That's just my answer.  You have a Deep Knowing too, that may be trying to tell you something.  Does a particular theme keep coming up in your life?  A problem relationship?  Is there a certain change you keep trying to make, but find it so hard and exhausting to make that change?

Maybe it's been difficult because  you have been keeping yourself at the surface of the problem.  Maybe it is time to listen to your own Deep Knowing.  To give yourself the time and space, not just one day, but maybe over several days or weeks.  Or months.  Ask yourself, 'what does my Deep Knowing want me to know?"   Write about it.  Talk with a trusted someone else about it.  I believe you have the wisdom and courage you need inside you.

Dream Bigger

 I have been with many, many people in the last days of their life on earth.  I try to be a comfort to others in their grief.  I believe we honor those who have gone before us by the way we live our lives.  In our love, their legacy is love; in our compassion, they live on in compassion; in the joy and beauty we find in life, we honor their memory and this is one way their spirits continue.  I believe we can do this for people in our family, I also believe we can do this for those we don't know personally, like the children and adults who lost their lives last Friday in Newtown, CT.

I am reading Letter from a Birmingham Jail by Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  In the introduction, by his daughter, Rev. Bernice  King, she says that her father did what was necessary to eliminate the "Triple Evils of Poverty, Racism, and War."  At the end of his letter, Dr. King concludes, "Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all of their scintillating beauty."   Dr. King's words and visions inspire me just as much as his awesome actions in life.

So, this is what I want you to do to transform your sorrow.  I want you to dream bigger.   Dream bigger for yourself, but also dream bigger for this world and all its people.  Don't be embarrassed or sheepish. 

When I was in elementary school, I wanted to be the first woman President of the United States.  My fifth grade teacher told me that women couldn't be President.  This didn't dash my dream, but it shows how life can start muddying up our dreams so we can't see them anymore. 

My dreams have changed since 5th grade.  It feels vulnerable to write my dream, but it is a true one: When I give someone my full attention, I see what is loveable in them.  Sometimes I see what is loveable in them before they see it in themselves.  I dream to shine a light on that loveable thing, so that the person can feel it and see it for themselves.  I dream of a world where each person can feel that loveable part of themselves and interact with the world from a place of love and confidence and not from a place of fear or insecurity.  That is my dream.  It's a big dream. 

You probably have a dream too.  Take some time to think about it today, about how your life honors those who have come before you, about how you may have forgotten that you can clean off  those muddied up dreams or create new ones.  Think about that dream and then dream a little bigger. 

A quote attributed to the Buddha is this:  "In this world, hate never yet dispelled hate.  Only love dispels hate.  This is the law, ancient and inexhaustible."  After grieving, may your dreams be created in love.

anger is a tooth

When I was still in social work school back in 1999, I was tasked by my practicum at Kids In The Middle with teaching a court mandated class on co-parenting for divorcing parents in the city of St. Louis.  My supervisor and friend, Jen taught it with me.  We were about 27 years old and neither of us were married.  Nor had children.  We were not stupid enough to think we knew exactly what we were talking about, but we did think we were kind of awesome considering the circumstances.  I remember walking away from the class thinking,  "I actually think that went pretty well.'  We must have had some really nice, kind people we were speaking too, because I can only imagine what we looked like to our 'students' -  there is no other way to say it - we were young, inexperienced white girls with a good deal of guts, but no street cred at all.

And just like with so much of life, we don't always know where our lessons will come from and which ones will stick with us.  Here's one that continues with me today, 13 years later - it was part of the curriculum - something I was supposed to be teaching on those Tuesday nights so many years ago.  It's so simple, it's almost childlike:

Anger is a tooth with two roots:  sadness and fear. 

If you think about it, almost every time you're angry you can examine the roots of that anger in sadness and fear.  When my kids are bugging the hell out of each other and I finally lose my temper with them, I am sad, wondering if they will ever get along or I am fearful that I will not have a moments peace or I am fearful one of them will get hurt by the other.  When I am mad at the guy who cut me off driving, at root, I am scared I will get hurt or scared that I will be late.  When I have a client who is angry with her father, it may be because she is afraid she will never have the relationship with her father that she longs for.  When I talk with a client who is angry with his wife, it may be because he is really sad that he doesn't know how to ask for his needs to be met. 

I believe it is Thich Nhat Hanh who says that living with anger is like living in Hell.  I don't think all anger is bad - in fact I've written about it before. I've read that anger is like a warning sign, a flashing light that tells us, "Pay attention.  There has been a violation of some kind."  Once we pay attention, I don't think we need to just throw out the anger and tell ourselves that if we're emotionally healthy we just 'get over it.' 

But, I do recommend sitting with the anger for a few minutes before you respond.  Try imagining that tooth.  What are the roots.  Are you sad?  Are you fearful?  If you have time, write down all the parts of that situation that might make you sad or fearful.  I guarantee that when you respond, when you address the violation, you will be addressing it in a more honest way and you will feel better about how you handled that situation.