Open Your Hands

This morning, I read Rumi’s poem called A community of the Spirit.

This line really struck me:

Open your hands,
if you want to be held.

Next, I was struck by this line:

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.

And then, this line:

Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?

We know that one trauma response can be a fierce independence or individualism. This has certainly been true for me. Even when love has been offered to me, I have often been unable to receive it because I didn’t open my hands and I acted like a wolf.

I have certainly had moments of despair about this but I can also have deep compassion for myself. It can be terrifying to give up a trauma response that has saved us in the past. But this particular response no longer serves us and it would be worth our while to learn to open our hands and stop acting like a wolf.

Maybe then, we will find that the door is, indeed, wide open ready for us to walk right through to freedom.

Just Like Me

Twice this week, I’ve run into people
whom I had written off.
I dismissed them because they have
beliefs opposed to my own.

It’s interesting, isn’t it,
how we disregard others in this way?
I’ve certainly been denigrated for
the same offense: Believing differently.

But these people are kind and caring
though perhaps innocently ignorant.
Would it be fairer to say that
I’m innocently ignorant?

Would that be so far from the truth?
Not knowing what I don’t know?
Not seeing what I can’t see?
Limited as I am?

What happened to respectful dialogue and kind disagreement
where we seek to understand?
What loving connections do we
miss in our wholesale dismissals?

I was touched by one man
I ran into this week.
He expressed genuine care for me
which didn’t fit my vilified narrative of him.

I became reflective as I considered his kindness.
While I know part of the story I have of him is true,
it is quite limited in terms of
Who He is Wholly.

We, humans, are messy and nuanced.
Good and bad. Faithful and faithless.
Arrogant and terrified. Just like me,
this man is hypocritical, ignorant, and also Kind.

Just like me, he holds staunchly
to his limited and limiting worldview.
Just like me, he takes a stand for
an obsolete and rigid paradigm.

Just like me, he is at times
enslaved by his beliefs because
Often… it can feel safer
to be enslaved than to be free.

Freedom is vast and unlimited,
leaving us with a feeling of
teetering on the edge of a precipice.
We’ve forgotten that
We Are Meant to Fly.

Perhaps flying in this instance would mean
accepting this man in all his humanness.
Messy and Divine.
In doing so, might I finally, fully learn to accept myself?

Just Like Me

Is Help Really Helpful?

I’m listening to a Tim Ferriss podcast episode with Anne Lamott. The episode is Entitled Taming Your Inner Critic, Finding Grace, and Prayer.

She’s sharing about the time that her son hit rock bottom with addiction. She wanted to help and tried to help. Then she realized:

“I have a disease of good ideas usually for other people. And I believe that my ideas would help them have better lives and at least make me less uncomfortable when I’m around them. And I learned that my help wasn’t helpful and that help is the sunny side of control.”

I love that. Far too often, we believe that we know what’s best for someone else. And we offer our help from that place. This can be terribly disempowering to people. I find it so much more helpful to believe that people have their own answers and that my job is to shine a light on their own answers (IF they want me to) and not give them my answers. My answers won’t work for them. In fact, when I start working with a new client, I always tell them that their wisdom trumps my good ideas.

Of course, when I get terribly uncomfortable or afraid, I forget this. I want to insist on giving MY help and MY answers. I suppose that’s easier than being with my own discomfort and fear.

“Help is the sunny side of control.”

What people really need, and I believe want, is our presence. I know that’s what I want when I’m hurting. Please don’t try to fix me. Be present with me. And I will do my best to not fix you and instead be present with you.

That’s empowering.

Divisiveness, Anger, Grief | What's on the Other Side?

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Divisiveness. It’s crippling. It’s depressing. It’s scary. There is so much divisiveness in the USA right now, as well as many other countries. Where does this divisiveness come from?

It’s tempting to believe that all the divisiveness comes from the external world, but when I pay close attention, I can see that it comes from within me. I can feel how I disown parts of myself that I consider undesirable. The more judgmental of myself I am, the more judgmental of others I become. I see the correlation clearly at times, and at other times, it’s more difficult to see.

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology, describes this disconnect with ourselves as the shadow. He describes the shadow as “the unknown dark side of the personality.” According to Jung, the shadow, “in being instinctive and irrational, is prone to psychological projection, in which a perceived personal inferiority is recognized as a perceived moral deficiency in someone else.”

In other words, what we judge in others can be found within ourselves. Now, I don’t know about you, but that feels a tad confrontative to me. And, yet, in recognizing that I am projecting my divisiveness outwards, I have the opportunity to examine what I reject within me. It’s an opportunity for healing and for inviting all parts of myself to reunite. Only in reuniting, can I be whole. The same is true for this country.

If we truly do want to come together and reunite again, we must heal the divide within ourselves first. Of course, this does not mean that we let just anything go. Of course not. But it does mean that we recognize our own humanness and our own tendency to reject parts of ourselves. We could lovingly invite those parts back into the whole again where they can heal.

I believe that as we heal the divisiveness within ourselves, we’ll be much more capable of helping to heal the divisiveness in our communities, nation, and world.

For more, please listen to this week’s podcast episode.

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RIFFING ON REALNESS

If you want support to deal with divisiveness, anger, and grief, especially with all that’s going on politically, listen to Episode 13 of our Riffing on Realness podcast. I give a vulnerable look at my own internal divisiveness and how that’s affecting me with all the external divisiveness. I believe you will enjoy it and find some real gems that can help you to come back to balance even in the midst of political unrest.

You can find the podcast here on my site or on the major podcast platforms. Here’s a link to our podcast on Apple.

Staying Out of Drama

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It’s a crazy time here in the USA. Drama is swirling all around us. I certainly do feel it. I not only feel the collective drama, I also feel the drama within me. I seem to be bouncing from revved up, angry, irritable, and even a tad frightened to calm, grounded, and hopeful. I admit I’ve been more revved up this week than calm. I feel the storm moving through me and I’m reminded of the great Dr. Maya Angelou’s wise words,

“Every storm runs out of rain.”

Every single storm runs out of rain. Every single one. Right now, I am watching news of a tropical storm that is swirling around in the gulf threatening to strengthen to hurricane force. The spaghetti models are all over the place and are changing daily.

The same is true for the political spaghetti models. Things seem to be all over the place and people all over our nation, and perhaps the world, are in terrible pain.

What can we do? It’s easy to get caught up in trying to predict the future. The problem is that the human brain, according to brain science, is terrible at predicting the future. We’re simply no good at it.

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Over 20 years ago, I went through bankruptcy. I was terrified. I thought my life was over. I felt terrible shame and fear. I imagined all manner of terrible outcomes. The truth ended up being quite different. The bankruptcy propelled me into many new and life-changing adventures. The bankruptcy storm ran out of rain. I learned many valuable lessons and there was no long term harm done.

So, here we are. The political spaghetti models are all over the place. We can get caught up in the fear of an imagined future or we can ground ourselves in the present moment and do what we can in our little spheres of influence. We can collapse or we can root deeply and grow tall.

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There are 300-year-old live oaks in my yard. They have weathered countless hurricanes over the centuries yet they stand strong. Sure, they’ve lost limbs and branches over the centuries but they stand strong, deeply rooted with flexible trunks that bend with the raging winds.

We, too, can root deeply, grow tall, and bend with flexibility, compassion, wisdom, and resilience. We get to choose hate or strong compassion and kindness. I don’t mean a compassion that allows anything. I don’t mean a compassion that doesn’t hold accountable. I mean a compassion that is rooted in the good, the true, and the beautiful. A compassion that sees the humanity in everyone regardless of political affiliation, color, creed, etc. A compassion that owns our own complicity and messiness. A compassion that accepts and seeks to bring to the light our own shadows. A compassion that loves wholly and calls to accountability. A compassion that strengthens and energizes us.

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As Brene Brown says,

“Don’t shrink. Don’t puff up. Stand your ground.”

These words I’m sharing with you today are words I desperately need to hear and heed. I invite us all, in Brene Brown’s words, to have a…

“Strong back. Soft front. Wild heart.”

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RIFFING ON REALNESS

If you want more support to Stay Out of Drama, listen to Episode 12 of our Riffing on Realness podcast. I believe you will enjoy it and find some real gems that can help you to come back to balance even in the midst of political unrest.

You can find the podcast here on my site or on the major podcast platforms. Here’s a link to our podcast on Apple.

Social Media and Stress

Social Media and Disconnection

Research shows that the distraction of social media can cause us to be less empathetic and less compassionate. Mary Helen Immordion-Yang, a researcher, says, “If things are happening too fast, you may not ever fully experience emotions about other people’s psychological states.”

I can see this in myself when I spend too much time on social media. I can be so quick to react! I can get riled up with anger, unable to see the humanity of the person with whom I disagree. I feel completely disconnected with little desire to connect. It concerns me!

In this video, I invite you to slow down and be more intentional about your social media usage so that you can return to more compassion and empathy. The world is in desperate need of both compassion and empathy. Take a listen, then listen to this week’s episode on Riffing on Realness with a deeper dive into social media.

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RIFFING ON REALNESS

Listen to Episode 11 today called Social Media and Stress. I believe you will enjoy it and find some real gems that can help you to come to a greater balance between social media and life.

You can find the podcast here on my site or on the major podcast platforms. Here’s a link to our podcast on Apple.

Navigating the Unknown

Making Room for the Unknown

Pema Chodron says, “Letting there be room for not knowing is the most important thing of all. When there’s a big disappointment, we don’t know if that’s the end of the story. It may just be the beginning of a great adventure. Life is like that. We don’t know anything. We call something bad; we call it good. But really we just don’t know.”

We just don’t know, do we? We think we know how things are going to turn out but we don’t. We can’t know. Brain science tells us that our brains are simply horrible at predicting the future. So, we could just stop. We could make space for not knowing. This will help us to navigate the unknown with more ease and flow. It will help us open to possibilities that we simply can’t see in the moment.

Take listen to this short video and then take a deeper dive in this week’s episode of Riffing on Realness.

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RIFFING ON REALNESS

Listen to Episode 10 today called NAVIGATING THE UNKNOWN. I believe you will enjoy it and find some real gems that can help you to get more rest and experience more ease and flow.

You can find the podcast here on my site or on the major podcast platforms. Here’s a link to our podcast on Apple.

Showing Up Imperfectly

Your Failures Could Be Your Superpower

We live in a culture that would have us deny our mistakes and failures. We live in a culture that has us constantly striving for perfection. It’s exhausting because it’s impossible. When we deny our imperfections, we suffer, we disconnect from ourselves, and we disconnect from others. We are all broken in some way or another, not fundamentally, but we all have cracks. We’ve all made mistakes and experienced failures. It’s how we recognize one another. When we withhold our brokenness from each other, we aren’t able to connect deeply and honestly. We miss out on all that life has to offer us. In todays, video, I invite you to reconnect with yourself more deeply, more honestly. I invite you to accept yourself in all your messy, imperfect glory. As you do so, you will have a much deeper and richer connection to life and to others. It takes courage but I know you’re up for that. There is so much on offer that is available to us as we embrace all of who we were.

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RIFFING ON REALNESS

Listen to Episode 9 today called HOW TO SHOW UP WHEN FEELING BAD. I believe you will enjoy it and find some real gems that can help you to get more rest and experience more ease and flow.

You can find the podcast here on my site or on the major podcast platforms. Here’s a link to our podcast on Apple.