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Posts from the ‘Change’ Category

Jan 2

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Joy in the Uprooting


“Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can
begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting.”― Judith Minty

Take the momentum of a new year and run with it.
A marathon, not a sprint.
Small actions daily.
Tweaks and shifts.
Deliberate, imperfect practice.
Disparate notes to music.
Habits formed by repetition.
Trying something new each day.
Contracting and expanding like breathing.
Intention followed by action.
Daily steps, long haul view.
Joy in the uprooting and unfolding.

“Your hand opens and closes, opens and closes. If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralysed. Your deepest presence is in every small contracting and expanding, the two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as birds’ wings.”― Jelaluddin Rumi , The Essential Rumi

Jan 1

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Open Arms to Embrace New

“The world as we have created it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.”― Albert Einstein

“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.”― Leo Tolstoy

We spend a lot of time and energy trying to hide or outrun change.
Or focused on changing circumstances, others, outside things.
Distractions, delays, detours to avoid turning inward, to return home to self.
Reflecting on what we need to change or even just shift a bit for a fresh perspective.
Circumstances, other people, transitions, deaths, health issues take us down paths we wouldn’t choose for ourselves.
But not all is out of our control.
Our outlook, attitude, intentions, thoughts, words, actions.
In our control.
May this first day of this new year open each of us up to newness, light, optimism, kindness, laughter, joy, beauty, generosity, change, transformation.
Change what you can and let the rest go to pick up what matters.
Open arms, mind, heart, spirit.
Happy New Year, Happy New Day.

“Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.”― Rumi

Nov 27

The Unfolding

“Peace is joy at rest. Joy is peace on its feet.”― Anne Lamott

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.”― Gilda Radner

Not knowing and being ok with it.
Making the best of what is.
Finding joy, peace and beauty in roads not chosen.
Trusting the unfolding.
Delicious ambiguity indeed.

“Pay attention to the beauty surrounding you.” – Anne Lamott

Nov 21

Still More to Learn and Apply

“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”― Albert Einstein

“I’ve learned that no matter what happens, or how bad it seems today, life does go on, and it will be better tomorrow. I’ve learned that you can tell a lot about a person by the way he/she handles these three things: a rainy day, lost luggage, and tangled Christmas tree lights. I’ve learned that regardless of your relationship with your parents, you’ll miss them when they’re gone from your life. I’ve learned that making a “living” is not the same thing as making a “life.” I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance. I’ve learned that you shouldn’t go through life with a catcher’s mitt on both hands; you need to be able to throw something back. I’ve learned that whenever I decide something with an open heart, I usually make the right decision. I’ve learned that even when I have pains, I don’t have to be one. I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back. I’ve learned that I still have a lot to learn. I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”― Maya Angelou

May we never be done learning. Ever.
Learning new things, not the same lesson over and over.
Unlearning old things.
Seeing the same in a different way.
Changing, unfolding, opening.
Curious, attentive, enthusiastic.
Make a life.
It’s all happening right now in the midst of this day.
Not in the past.
Not “someday when” circumstances change.
Change is our work.
The outcome is growth.
Learn and love well today.
The dance of transformation.

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.”― Alan Wilson Watts

Oct 3

Mystery Each Day

“…to the soul, the most minute details and the most ordinary activities, carried out with mindfulness and art, have an effect far beyond their apparent insignificance.”― Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and Sacredness in Everyday Life

“The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existence. One cannot help but be in awe when he contemplates the mysteries of eternity, of life, of the marvelous structure of reality. It is enough if one tries merely to comprehend a little of this mystery each day.”― Albert Einstein, “Old Man’s Advice to Youth: ‘Never Lose a Holy Curiosity.'” LIFE Magazine (2 May 1955)

What to do?
Where to go?
Where I’ve been.
Where I’m going.
The past defines and confines too much of the future.
Keeping us captive in old stories and restraints.
Too much focus on the past or the future steals the present.
We unfold, learn, grow in inches and cups.
In ordinary days.
In habits, rituals, small steps, trying new things, practice, curiosity, exploration, repetition, being uncomfortable in the unknowing and still going.
The fertile ground of transformation and becoming.
Do not wait for a detailed map.
No guarantees or warranties in living.
Go out and cut fresh trail each day.
Tripping, getting lost, off balance.
Losing your breath in awe and wonder.
Off the shoreline, into the current and flow of this day.

“Do stuff. Be clenched, curious. Not waiting for inspiration’s shove or society’s kiss on your forehead.”― Susan Sontag

Aug 14

Threshold Moments

“At the threshold moment, when the True Self within is demanding emergence, things can go either way. We can let the crisis thrust us into the heart of transformation or we can regress into our same old patterns.”— Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions

“Yet there’s a third way to have a crisis: the way of waiting. That way means creating a painfully honest and contemplative relationship with one’s own depths, with God in the deep center of one’s soul. People who choose this way aren’t so much after peace of mind or justice as wholeness and transformation. They’re after soulmaking.” — Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions

Thresholds and precipices.
Mountains and valleys.
Waiting and moving.
Mystery and clarity.
The makings of growing from one thing to the next.
Change, transition, transformation.
The circles, cycles, rhythms of living.
Soul molding, shaping and making.
Seeing our true reflection.
Round with pleasure.
Light with laughter, even, especially here.

“In the crisis we need to hang onto God’s little jokes, to those priceless moments when something round with pleasure bounces upon us. We need to hold onto the celebration of becoming, to the bliss that wells up from the deeper places we’re tapping.” — Sue Monk Kidd, When the Heart Waits: Spiritual Direction for Life’s Sacred Questions

Aug 1

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Listen and Leap

“Like billowing clouds,
Like the incessant gurgle of the brook,
The longing of the spirit can never be stilled.”― Hildegard von Bingen

“Dare to declare who you are. It is not far from the shores of silence to the boundaries of speech. The path is not long, but the way is deep. You must not only walk there, you must be prepared to leap.”― St. Hildegard of Bingen

Not long, but deep.
Shores to boundaries.
Not walk, leap.
Inquire, listen, intuit.
Beneath and beyond the noise.
A knowing in the unknowing.
A calling in the wilderness.
Answer, respond, act.
See and cast your own light.

“We cannot live in a world interpreted for us by others. An interpreted world is not a hope. Part of the terror is to take back our listening, to use our own voice, to see our own light.”― Hildegard of Bingen

Jul 11

Shifting and Shaping

“Awareness levels the playing field. We are all humans doing the best we can.”― Sharon Salzberg, Real Love: The Art of Mindful Connection

“And when the work of grieving is done,
The wound of loss will heal
And you will have learned
To wean your eyes
From that gap in the air
And be able to enter the hearth
In your soul where your loved one
Has awaited your return
All the time.”
― John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Things fall apart.
Things come together.
Shifting and shaping.
Trust in the wilderness of unknowing.
Gratefulness in arriving of healing.
Changed and moving forward.
Beginning again, and again.
The rhythm of life.
Renewal, clarity, mystery.
The path we are on together in different places.
Shared journey, some ahead, some behind.
Same and different.
Never alone.

“This is the lesson of age—events pass, things change, trauma fades, good fortune rises, fades, rises again but different.”― Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems

Apr 20

To Begin Again, and Again…

“You can learn new things at any time in your life if you’re willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you.” – Barbara Sher

Today marks the one-year anniversary of starting a new job, changing after 17 years in the same place and a plan of retiring there. A big move later in my career when most would say stay, coast, and settle. You’re too old. Your time is up. Quiet quit.

Not me. I’m not done yet. We settle and stay in places that are stale, over and where we don’t fit and aren’t welcome anymore to avoid change at all costs. Working with a career coach got me out of my own way, challenged old narratives and limiting beliefs. She helped me do the work to uncover what was next and possible. So grateful a friend sent me her way!

This past year I became a beginner again. Exhilarating, daunting and transformational. It has been the best thing that I have done for myself in years. Don’t settle and acquiesce! Take time to reflect and plan, but don’t wait to have everything figured out. Have a direction and move, the road unfolds with action, a step at a time. If and when you make a mistake, then pivot, shift, try something else. Often it is merely a tweak or a shift in attitude. We learn from trying new things and beginning again and again. Life is too short to circle dead-ends. Break trail!

“Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.” – Dylan Thomas

Feb 12

The Lens of the Heart

“We don’t read and write poetry because it’s cute. We read and write poetry because we are members of the human race. And the human race is filled with passion. So medicine, law, business, engineering… these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love… these are what we stay alive for.”― Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

“A great many people think they are thinking when they are merely rearranging their prejudices.”― William James

We are clear on what we are against, murky on what we are for.
It’s easier to criticize than create.
To “other” and “them,” to disregard, disconnect, dismiss.
The world is flat.
God is small.
Being “right” is enough.

May we have the fortitude to question, reframe, rethink and reshape our perspective.
To go beneath the surface of self to the root, to the core.
To see shapes, shadows, nuance, complexity, commonality, diversity, patterns, connection.
Weeding out the old, dry and stale.
Tilling the soil, planting newness, color and hue.
Unknowing, unlearning to expand, invite and open to depth and dimension.
Growth, change, transition, transformation.
Nurturing beauty, understanding, goodness, awe and wonder.
Widen the aperture to let in more light.
See through the lens of your heart.

“Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says, ‘This is the real me,’ and when you have found that attitude, follow it.”― William James

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