Posts Tagged: Noticing

What Does Life Want to Make of You?

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Surrendering

Question

“Before I can tell my life what I want to do with it, I must listen to my life telling me who I am.” Parker Palmer, Letting Your Life Speak.

Since one of my (somewhat) official titles is Master Life Coach, I talk to people pretty often who ask for help making something of their lives. They want an advisor, strategist, and a wrangler to help them get this unwieldy thing called Life back in control. At the very least, they’d like a lasso to round it up a bit. Nothing wrong with that approach, except the fact that Life usually has its own way with us when we’re fighting it. This is the source of abundant stress.

Now . . . A Pause from Self-Improvement

in Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Radical Kindness, Surrendering, Wordlessness

Deer

Who is this one who’s convinced she must improve me?

She tramped through the oxalis on a wet January evening, wondering at the recirculating advice device that seemed to be her brain.

A “retreat of solitude.” That’s the way she had described her coming week in the half- collapsed cabin, hunkering up to a leaky wood stove.

“Alone with my own thoughts” she had said. “Away from the breakneck speed of screens, terrorists, presidential candidates. (Really? Him? Again? She thought. That’s reason enough to hide in the woods for two years, not just a week.)

When Liminal Time Meets Technology

in Confusion to Clarity, Noticing, Radical Kindness, Remembering, Surrendering, Wordlessness

Computer and candles

It’s Epiphany morning. Here’s what I wrote at earliest light, following my purest intentions and my personal tradition of defining Epiphany as a time-out-of-time. Just before a tiny techno glitch grabbed me and shook me by the heels:

I love this liminal time. The time between dark and light. I resist electricity and grope my way by candlelight before meditating each morning.

Major Gratitude for Shelter from the Storm

in Body or Aging, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Power of Connection, Radical Kindness, Remembering

Gratitude For Shelter From Storm Blog

What’s the difference between major surgery and minor surgery? I’m at a special pre-op session led by the hospital physical therapist. I had no idea. Didn’t care. Hospitals aren’t my thing. I just wanted to get this knee replacement over with without breaking stride in my full life. I know. I missed the irony at that moment, but I get it now. I get the punch line to the joke, too. Minor surgery is someone else’s. Major surgery is mine.

Navigating the Sacred Spiral Path

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Radical Kindness

BC Memorial labyrinth By

I’m traveling with my friend Siri, she who is the little sister of Garmin and the daughter of Mapquest, the maker of all directions. Sometimes when I believe her, we go straight from Point A to Point B in the most efficient manner. And sometimes I end up making three left turns when I wanted to go right…or entering a freeway to go to another exit altogether, only to get off and find that I was where I wanted to go just before I got on the freeway in the first place.

Wise in This Lifetime

in Identity, Noticing, Power of Connection, Remembering, Surrendering

Woman With Book By William McGregor Paxton C 1910 Oil On Canvas On Board New Britain Museum Of American Art DSC09470

Last week I made a lovely connection with a young woman by surprise. We were participating in an event where the leader requested my very least favorite group exercise: gazing in the eyes of a stranger.

I realized it would be far easier to drop my opinion and see what happened than to keep my story. As it turned out …(drum roll)…

Slow-Mo Life in Mid-Mo

in Fall, Power of Connection, Remembering, Wordlessness

Landing With Grace

Last week I made a cross-country plane trek to visit my family in Mid-Missouri. It’s nearly impossible for me to make the trip without leaping into high gear. From the details of preparation beforehand to shuffling bags from car to fight to shuttle, by the time I arrive at my mother’s “gracious adult retirement center,” I leave skid marks.

And then I’m there. With my mother and about a hundred other folks in their eighties and nineties. At first it feels like I’m moving underwater or become a character in a slow motion movie. My mind leaps and bucks at being so tethered. It seeks a job.

The Last Blast of Summer (or of Anything)

in Body or Aging, Fall, Noticing, Radical Kindness, Summer, Surrendering

Forest Sun

It’s October. Last week I built fires in the woodstove to take the nip out of the early mornings. And then the last few days, here it is. Indian Summer. Temperatures in the eighties, hawks soaring above in the balmy breeze. The sun offers its light on a slant, making it feel even more stunning and precious.

And how very precious it is, this Last Blast of Summer. Called by different names in as many cultures, humans have long celebrated this brief but intense return of the warmth of the growing season.

A Mind-Clearing Habit

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Remembering, Wordlessness

Pond ripple

I have a habit of throat clearing. It seems there’s often a froggy sensation that simply must be cleared. Until the other day, I’d never thought of the possibility of clearing other parts of the body…or the psyche, at least in any kind of routine way.

An idea came up last week when we co-hosted a couple of amazing musicians. Their names are Gina Sala and Daniel Paul. Both are highly respected for kirtan, a kind of meditative music most people associate with yoga classes. Kirtan is sometimes described as “yoga for the voice.”