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Posts tagged ‘Change’

Sep 13

Start Close In

“What do you think is the biggest waste of time?”
“Comparing yourself to others,” said the mole.”
― Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse

Start Close In by David Whyte

“Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third,
start with the first thing close in,
the step you don’t want to take.
Start with the ground you know, the pale ground beneath your feet,
your own way of starting the conversation.
Start with your own question, give up on other people’s questions,
don’t let them smother something simple.
To find another’s voice, follow your own voice,
wait until that voice becomes a private ear listening to another.
Start right now take a small step you can call your own
don’t follow someone else’s heroics,
be humble and focused,
start close in,
don’t mistake that other for your own.”

Turn down the volume.
The noise and clanging.
Others’ expectations, assumptions, opinions, fear.
Start close in.
Comparison and counting.
People pleasing and over functioning.
Should, must, have to, expectations, rules.
Start close in.
A firm pause, stillness, hard stop.
Wide space, margins.
To hear your own voice, soft whisper, home.
Start close in.
To cut your own path, one small step at a time.
Listen, foster, be gentle.
Kindness, grace, love.
Start close in.
Then go back out anew.

“Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.”― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Jul 16

1 Comment

From Stasis to Transformation

“I’m very concerned that our society is much more concerned with information than wonder, in noise rather than silence. How do we encourage reflection? … Oh my, this is a noisy world.” – Mister Rogers

“Every day in every way we are gently, and sometimes not so gently, being guided in the direction of our inherent truth. Every experience is walking us home to ourselves.”― Shayne Traviss, Your Vivid Life

When I want to …

Put up walls and call them boundaries, knock them down;
Stay hunkered down in the nest, push me out and remind me I have wings;
Bounce from one thing to the next scattered from demands of others, tune out the noise and make music;
Return to old narratives, assumptions and judgments because they prove me right, prove me wrong, show me love and kindness;
Get comfortable in the containment of the chrysalis, wiggle enough to break the pod into a beautiful butterfly;
From stasis to transformation;
Our call and calling;
Change, connect, grow;
The path of walking home to ourselves and the world.

“Stop, be still for a moment, drop your shoulders, close your eyes and take a long deep breath.”― Shayne Traviss, Your Vivid Life

Jul 9

First Step, Repeat

“The distance is nothing; it’s only the first step that is difficult.” — Marquise du Deffand

“I just want to say three things. One, never, ever give up. Two, you’re never too old to chase your dreams. And three, it looks like a solitary sport, but it takes a team.” – Diana Nyad

Yesterday, three decades into my career in nonprofit management, I launched my own business after five months of planning and doing the work to arrive to this day. I am so grateful for family and friends who have encouraged and challenged me along the way. And for not listening to those who say, “you’re too old” or “it’s too late,” often woven in our own thoughts and limiting beliefs.

Life leads us down paths we didn’t expect. Twists, turns, delays, detours, losses and wins. A soft whisper, a pull, seeds planted within. Calling each of us to try new things, to keep growing, to stay in the game, to bloom. Try, dig in, stumble, get up and keep going. Never ever give up, never too old, and it takes a team but ultimately you need to take the leap when the plane door opens. Pack your shoot well and leap.

To new adventures, helping others and having fun along the way. KP Connections is up and running.

“Try not to become a person of success, but rather try to become a person of value.” – Albert Einstein

Jul 8

Divergence. Convergence. Emergence.

“All experience is an enrichment rather than an impoverishment.”― Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings

“It is our inward journey that leads us through time – forward or back, seldom in a straight line, most often spiraling. Each of us is moving, changing, with respect to others. As we discover, we remember; remembering, we discover; and most intensely do we experience this when our separate journeys converge. Our living experience at those meeting points is one of the charged dramatic fields of fiction. ”― Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings

Time.
Timing.
Before and after.
Thresholds.
Bridges.
To new beginnings.
Not only new chapters.
But new books.
The roads that lead here.
The twists, the turns.
To new beginnings.
Never, ever too old to begin again.
Do the work.
Take the leap.
Never, ever settle for being “done.”
To new beginnings.
Divergence. Convergence. Emergence.

“The events in our lives happen in a sequence in time, but in their significance to ourselves they find their own order, a timetable not necessarily–perhaps not possibly–chronological. The time as we know it subjectively is often the chronology that stories and novels follow: it is the continuous thread of revelation.”― Eudora Welty, One Writer’s Beginnings

Apr 19

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In the Layers

“When you look back on a lifetime and think of what has been given to the world by your presence, your fugitive presence, inevitably you think of your art, whatever it may be, as the gift you have made to the world in acknowledgment of the gift you have been given, which is the life itself… That work is not an expression of the desire for praise or recognition, or prizes, but the deepest manifestation of your gratitude for the gift of life.”― Stanley Kunitz

The Layers by Stanley Kunitz, The Collected Poems

“I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.”

Word spilling to the next.
Sentence by sentence.
Day to day.
Writing life in ordinary days, the story unfolds.
Not done.
Transformation in drips to waves.
Keep writing your story.
Fresh eyes, open heart, beautiful soul.
Live the layers.

Mar 15

Wisdom in Motion

“Knowledge strengthened by uncertainty is the heart of superior performance under fire and the key to creating a new standard of expertise – questioning – open, adaptive for volatile time. Uncertainty is wisdom in motion.” – Maggie Jackson

Curiosity.
Inquiry.
Exploration.
Questions.
Seeking.
Tending.
Patterns.
Connections.
Discovery.
Emergence.
May you not know enough to keep asking, learning, growing.
Adaptive and enthusiastic in unknowing and unfolding.
Wisdom in motion.

“When the stakes are high, those who do not know gain the cognitive advantage.” – Maggie Jackson

Mar 5

Growing Wings

“Despite the strength of their wings most never leave the cages they’ve created.”― Jason Versey, A Walk with Prudence

“There are two prerequisites to growing wings: the first is to feel encircled and the second is to believe that you can break the circle.”― Fatima Mernissi

Sometimes the author.
Sometimes being written.
Sometimes blank page.
Paths and thresholds, not of our choosing.
And we stagnate or pass through, cross over.
Insist less on control and certainty.
More emphasis on attunement and embracing.
A sharpening and honing of senses.
To awaken to what already is present and possible.
Look closer.
You have wings.
Use them.
Take flight.
From whatever ground you stand on.

“Endings come and go, but closure is a luxury. It often takes time if we ever get it at all, and it rarely looks like what we think.” – Emily P. Freeman

Feb 19

Till the Soil

“Untilled ground, however rich, will bring forth thistles and thorns; so also the mind of man.”― St. Teresa of Avila

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.”― Ralph Waldo Emerson

Opinions, assumptions, judgments, wounds, control, unforgiveness, the past, worry.
Heavy weights to carry.
Rich soil beneath our feet becomes concrete.
Stuck in old ways, patterns, people pleasing, approval seeking.
Put it down.
Again and again.
All that is not yours to carry.
Lighten the load.
Deep breath.
Be kind to yourself.
View broadens.
Soil tilled.
Blooms ready to break ground.
Color, freshness, beauty in changing self, not circumstances.
Open heart, light spirit.
Till the soil of your mind.
Watch what blooms.

“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” – Raymond Lindquist

Jan 12

The Gift of Listening

“Look for happiness under your own roof.”― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“…good listeners have a humble perspective. Humility in listening means that we let go of preconceived opinions, we let go of the need to be right, we let go of our own insecurities, and we let go of the need to appear wise, good or spiritual. In short, we let go of ourselves in order to be present to the other. This is a high calling and a commitment we will need to return to again and again.”― Alice Fryling, Seeking God Together

The gift of listening.
Really listening not merely waiting to respond.
To be right.
To pronounce your opinions and return to your corner of the ring.
Asking, asking again and waiting.
Allowing space and silence for understanding to unravel through conversation, connection.
An exchange, a dance.
Life is rich and meaningful in relationships.
In moving from self, self-absorption, ego into engaging with the souls among us longing to be seen, heard, and accepted.
There is happiness, not perfection, under our own roof.
Start with empathy, kindness, compassion.
To really understand the heart of another, and of self as well.
The task of today, of a lifetime.

“We do know that no one gets wise enough to really understand the heart of another, though it is the task of our life to try.”― Louise Erdrich, The Bingo Palace

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

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