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Posts from the ‘Encouragement’ Category

Apr 29

Allow Surprise to Enter

“Each day holds a surprise. But only if we expect it can we see, hear, or feel it when it comes to us. Let’s not be afraid to receive each day’s surprise, whether it comes to us as sorrow or as joy It will open a new place in our hearts, a place where we can welcome new friends and celebrate more fully our shared humanity.” – Henri Nouwen

“Patience doesn’t mean making a pact with the devil of denial, ignoring our emotions and aspirations. It means being wholeheartedly engaged in the process that’s unfolding, rather than ripping open a budding flower or demanding a caterpillar hurry up and get that chrysalis stage over with.” – Sharon Salzberg

Let’s be honest and real. There are not a lot of good surprises right now. Optimism and delight are not natural choices and we can easily forebode joy so as not to be more disappointed than we are right now in this rare and unclear time (again, not using uncertain and unprecedented, see previous posts).

We are being conditioned to prepare for the worst, to hunker down and to operate in survival mode. Not a great way to live a rich whole life. There’s fear, consternation, overwhelm and it’s palpable. I have chosen to not steep in hours of news and to look at our circumstances in an optimistic light, even though I don’t feel it all the time. I also realize that each one of us is in a different place and empathy calls us to both celebrate and mourn in the same breath. To feel joy and to understand that not everyone does so to be present for them to hold their hand through it.

I’ve been a bit weary from the nonstop meetings as many equate activity with innovation, busyness with strategy. Amidst a lot of egos and positioning, I had two wonderful surprises today that provided hope for a more authentic, relevant and real future, not the BS that’s spinning around.

A friend called me to tell me she was checking in on me and that she was planning on doing this daily with her friends. We had a wonderful connection and talked about how we could creatively get through to the other side and thrive. A refreshing, restorative and energizing conversation.

A few minutes later, I heard a knock at the front door and there were flowers on my front steps. A beautiful bouquet with a card thanking me for leading during social quarantine and that I was doing an amazing job. What a kind and thoughtful gift. It was anonymous but I guessed who it was and called to thank her for her generosity and kindness. She is an amazing, talented and brilliant person so a note and flowers from her mean a lot to me. I am grateful for all that she does and should be sending her flowers daily.

So rather than succumbing to the noise, arrogance and predictions of the crowd, choose to create space for surprise. Be deeply grateful for those bright lights in your life who take the time to be authentic, vulnerable and kind. And pass it on.

Apr 28

Yesterday

“A man of courage is also full of faith.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero

“Today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness.” Kalidasa

Since March 20th, I’ve been writing in a journal every morning to capture this rare time (I’m not calling it unprecedented and uncertain – obvious, overused and meaningless). I put the date on each entry and often have to look at my phone to remind me what day it is. It is easy to get lost in these wandering and over-zoomed days.

This morning, I didn’t need to be reminded of what day it was. I knew it. Four years ago, my Dad passed away. I was in a plane coming back from a work trip to Boston and didn’t make it in time. Not one single day has gone by since that I have not missed him. I often want to pick up the phone and have a conversation with him, like I did every day for the past several decades. I think of the conversations that we’d have right now about these days. But I don’t have to go too far to know what he would think or say. He remains in my heart, I hear him in my own phrases and thoughts. He’s a part of my fabric and being. He and my Mom planted, fostered and grew faith, grit and strength in me, my brother and sister. Three solid traits to get through these days. Optimism is too.

So today, I ask each of you to do me one favor. Stop, call your Mom and Dad if they are still here and tell them you love them and repeat daily. Because four years ago last night, I had no idea that the next day would be the last day.

Don’t take time for granted while you are in your “yesterdays,” even in the middle of a damn pandemic. Tomorrows come and sometimes they surprise us with gifts and other times with loss which leaves us grateful for what was and in due time allows us to keep going, never forgetting and always richly blessed.

Apr 27

Bud to Bloom

“Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.” – Hans Christian Andersen

“The smallest flower is a thought, a life answering to some feature of the Great Whole, of whom they have a persistent intuition.” – Honore de Balzac

We are all in different places. Some at bud, some ready to break open and some in full bloom. Each one of us is where we need to be in this moment. No need to compare, compete or contrast. Just be where you are right now and know that bud always leads to bloom. Always.

“Just imagine becoming the way you used to be as a very young child, before you understood the meaning of any word, before opinions took over your mind. The real you is loving, joyful, and free. The real you is just like a flower, just like the wind, just like the ocean, just like the sun.” – Don Miguel Ruiz

“The fact that I can plant a seed and it becomes a flower, share a bit of knowledge and it becomes another’s, smile at someone and receive a smile in return, are to me continual spiritual exercises.” – Leo Buscaglia

 

“The flower has opened, has been in the sun and is unafraid. I’m taking more chances; I’m bold and proud.” – Paula Cole

Apr 26

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Did You Find Joy?

“Find ecstasy in life; the mere sense of living is joy enough.” – Emily Dickinson

“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” – Mary Oliver

What if the one question that you are asked at the end of your days, at the pearly gates of heaven are, “Did you find joy?” What would your answer be? I believe we will each individually be accountable to report out what we did with this “one wild and precious life.”

Can you change the answer now so you can get an “A” at the end of the course of life?

On a 10-mile run today, I ran the red light on the path since no cars were around, not even the sound of cars approaching. A block away from the light, I turned back and watched a biker sit and wait for the red light to turn green with no one around. She was following the rules, even if they don’t make sense anymore. Run the red and keep moving, in hot pursuit of daily joy, new constructs and possibilities when we draw outside the lines.

So as you enter tomorrow, start your day with a simple and complex question – “where will I find joy today?”

When we pursue and find joy, we become joy. A light, an energy source, a beacon, a walking smile, steeped in awe and wonder, ready and willing to be surprised.

So rather than changing the world, our circumstances, or our neighbor who irritates the hell out of us, what if we simply pursued daily joy?

Joy fosters kindness, generosity, forgiveness, curiosity, creativity, empathy, purpose, clarity and ease. Joy found must be shared – it’s the nature of joy. And if each one of us focuses, prepares and answers the one question that we may be asked at the end of our days – “did you find joy?” we may just be fulfilling our purpose and calling.

Start each and every day – “how will l find joy today?” and be ready to answer the question.

“The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun.” – Christopher McCandless

Apr 23

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Keep Your Head Up

As we make our way to transitioning to what’s next in a few weeks, glimpsing through the crack of the locked door, the slow opening, returning but not returning, accepting and leaning into different and ongoing uncertainty, remind yourself that you and we have made it this far and we will continue to do so because we have grit, resolve and rapt awareness of this present moment. If this time right now doesn’t change you/us forever, absolutely nothing will. And the change can and should be for the better after we stabilize what we can, let go of the unnecessary and grasp possibility.

We’ve made it through ongoing uncertainty, home bound, deafening and heartening quiet, plenty of walks and runs, caring for parents and kids, lots of video meetings wearing jeans, meeting our coworkers’ kids, dogs and cats and commuting 10 feet to our office.

The debate continues, a combination of health sciences, political science, positioning and best guesses on how and when. Rushing back or staying put. Or somewhere in between where we find most of life, not on extremes but right in the middle, in duality, balancing contradiction, honing in on clarity.

Our collective whole has been in a master class on empathy, community and authenticity. If we choose to have the learning stick and change us, we will be more grateful, kind, better listeners, compassionate, comfortable in quiet, peaceful, mindful of where we spend our time and with who.

While the commercials ruined and watered down the “we’re in this together” so buy stuff, we really are in this together. And together, we will move through to what’s next on the #otherside.

Carry the lessons of this rare time forward, weave new habits of family game time, long walks with the dogs, rest, hobbies and art, saying hi to strangers. Be more patient and understanding of your fellow fragile, strong, resilient sisters and brothers.

More change will come, which is the only certainty that ever really existed before this turned our world upside down. Look up and watch how the light breaks through the clouds. It will be a long road but together we will navigate this uncharted territory together. Keep your head up!

Apr 22

Signs All Around

“Changing is not just changing the things outside of us. First of all we need the right view that transcends all notions including of being and non-being, creator and creature, mind and spirit. That kind of insight is crucial for transformation and healing.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“Did I offer peace today? Did I bring a smile to someone’s face? Did I say words of healing? Did I let go of my anger and resentment? Did I forgive? Did I love? These are the real questions. I must trust that the little bit of love that I sow now will bear many fruits, here in this world and the life to come.” – Henri Nouwen

A joyful wandering through Como neighborhoods with friends tonight was energizing, inspiring and healing. Suddenly a STOP sign caught our attention – someone wove a yarn stem around the metal and created an urban, timeless flower with an important prompt and call to inaction. Stop, breathe and see the buds and blooms that are present right now in front of our very eyes, not in the past or future, but available in the ordinariness of today.

We need more joy, energy, inspiration and most of all healing. As we move through uncertainty, we need to hold tight to a knowing, a reverence and confidence in healing. The caterpillar always becomes a butterfly. The sun rises, every morning. Wounds heal. Flowers bloom.

See the blooms, feel the healing and recognize the signs. Stop and take notice. Allow healing and light. It always comes.

“Meditation can help us embrace our worries, our fear, our anger; and that is very healing. We let our own natural capacity of healing do the work.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

Apr 21

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Empathy and Optimism

“Rejoice in the things that are present; all else is beyond thee.” – M Michel de Montaigne

“Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.” – Romans 12:15

At the start of a meeting yesterday, each person was asked to share two words that described them in that moment. I listened intently and it was a mix. As I thought about my own words, I chose “empathy and optimism.”

When we are empathetic, we can listen and “weep with those who weep” and by harnessing the power and fuel of optimism, we can simultaneously “rejoice with those who rejoice.” Weeping is real, required and will pass with time. Rejoicing is a way to live, even in the midst of weeping moments.

We are a mix of opposites, contradictions, imperfection, resilience and beautiful music. Pursue awareness – self first so you can see yourself in others and genuinely feel empathy rather than judgment and assumptions. Awareness prompts action and necessary change. As Maya Angelo said, “when you know better, you do better.”

We need to both weep and rejoice, with a bias toward rejoicing and optimism. Life is fragile, strong, short, long and no day returns to repeat so seize today, let go of yesterday and hope for tomorrow.

“To live would be an awfully big adventure.” – Peter Pan

Apr 18

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Seed Planting Time

“Every problem has in it the seeds of its own solution. If you don’t have any problems, you don’t get any seeds.” – Norman Vincent Peale

“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go.” – Martha Washington

The ground has softened, the grass turning green and the temperatures are in the 60s. Winter is bowing out and welcoming spring to the stage, front and center. Seeds ready to be planted. And so are you. What seeds are you planting in your mind, heart and spirit now?

It’s planting time, so start today. Plant seeds of hope, joy, optimism, discovery, gratitude, abundance, laughter, wonder and possibility.

“Each moment is perfect and heaven-sent, in that each moment holds the seeds for growth.” – Suzan-Lori Parks

What seeds are you planting now?

Apr 16

Settle Deep Enough

“It is such a struggle – has always been – for each of us to settle deep enough into the wait, into the weight till we discover that there’s nowhere to go. Perhaps the greatest challenge, once fully awake, is to drop all reaching and simply open like a clam waiting in the deep until life in all its guises floods through the half-closed center that is us.

Then God enters like a brilliant stone falling in a lake, and the past ripples behind us, and the future ripples before us, and we are breathing in eternity.” – Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

When doing comes up short again and again and mere being takes its place, settle deep enough into the waiting, uncover meaning, connection and repose.

If we have learned but one thing, it is the value of a day. Don’t let another day go by without weaving joy, laughter and awe throughout. Breath in eternity.

Apr 15

Sit, Quietly, Rest

“We will be more successful in all our endeavors if we can let go of the habit of running all the time, and take little pauses to relax and re-center ourselves. And we’ll also have a lot more joy in living.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“Every person needs to take one day away.  A day in which one consciously separates the past from the future.  Jobs, family, employers, and friends can exist one day without any one of us, and if our egos permit us to confess, they could exist eternally in our absence.  Each person deserves a day away in which no problems are confronted, no solutions searched for.  Each of us needs to withdraw from the cares which will not withdraw from us.”― Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

We need one large adirondack chair right now. Take a break from nonstop Zoom meetings, the news, from projects, from the urgency and uncertainty of these moments. Book time on your calendar for actual thinking, creativity and reflection – the recipe out of this mess.

Simply rest, relax and ground yourself in ease and no expectations. Release worry, overthinking and predicting. Just laid back and restored to enter tomorrow refreshed and ready for whatever presents itself.

We are bigger and stronger than these circumstances. Stop trying to fill the space and time with more meaningless activity. Listen and enter mere being. Sit, quiet, rest.

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