Posts Categorized: Confusion to Clarity

Resistance and the “Here 2 There” Trail

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Remembering

Trail sign

(This is the second of a five-part navigational series on the nature of “resistance,” exploring its challenges and hidden gifts).

There’s a trail in the ancient forest near our summer cabin. It’s a tiny footpath with a story that many years ago the trail was laid by lovers who beat the path from the top of the hill to the bottom, breathlessly rushing into each other’s arms.

Unless you know where to look, you’d never even see the markers. They’re burned into a slice of cedar and hung precariously on a branch. Here 2 reads the one at the top of the trail; There is on the other end. Both signs sport arrows. Coming across them in the woods I always feel like Alice in Wonderland and I fully expect the Mad Hatter to show up around the next bend, pointing in four other directions and cautioning me that which way you go “depends upon where you want to get to.” Read More>>

Resistance is Not Futile

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Identity, Radical Kindness, Surrendering

Yoga on the Clock

I procrastinate. Often. It’s a habit.  When I’m about to do something that requires a stretch, I immediately develop a bad case of Got to Do This! I tell myself that something else, anything else, is more important.  That I simply must react to what’s in front of me, that thing that in the moment seems to be screaming my name.

Then I tell myself that it’ll only take a minute. Just this phone call. That email. If there’s nothing else pressing,  there’s Facebook. Or the kitchen cupboards with the hope that I’ll find something with sugar tucked away behind that “safe” zone of good choices.

But, it turns out, no zone is safe when I’m in the self-distraction mode. There’s ALWAYS some little job to do, some little text to write, some habit of looking outside myself that will give me the instant gratification of Doing Something. Read More>>

Fall Winnowing: Psyche’s Task & Yours

in Confusion to Clarity, Fall, Noticing, Power of Connection, Radical Kindness, Wordlessness

Winnowing

I’ve spent the last three days in personal retreat with someone who requested time in the old growth to deepen into her soul’s path. Our focus was to listen, to write, to inquire and to listen some more. There was a deep sharing of stories that define us, as we kept ears tuned for how calling shows up in her life. It was a time to harvest what has been and allow inspiration to emerge, to allow her to to move into the next steps of her life’s work.

This is the power of harvest. The power of autumn. This season has more and more meaning for me each year. In the autumn of life, I meet the turning of the leaves, the falling away, with recognition and curiosity. We know each other, autumn and I. This is time to harvest and preserve what is beautiful and useful and to leave the rest behind.

Hardening of the Categories & Other Hazards of Thinking

in Body or Aging, Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Surrendering

Cement blocks

By luck of genetics, I’m apparently prone to hardening of the arteries. The idea of this bothers me somewhat, but since I’m without diagnosis or symptom, I tend to put this out of my mind, or (more precisely) into the foggy category called  “possible futures.” Then I go back to what’s in front of me, or the next “possible futures” category, whichever is first.

There’s another condition that concerns me more right now and seems to cause more damage in the aging process: Hardening of the Categories.   Read More>>

Facing the Problem of Premature Transcendence

in Confusion to Clarity, Noticing, Surrendering

Mountaintop with cellphone

My mantra when faced with discomfort much of my life has been Beam me up, Scotty! Being born into my particular family automatically put me on the PhD track at Denial University. So I got lots of early practice at simply ignoring reality or working overtime to make lemonade of lemons. I made so much lemonade I could’ve worked my way through college on the proceeds, if Life Sweetener were a sellable product. Read More>>

Poop and Spring Breakthrough

in Confusion to Clarity, Remembering, Spring

thawing snow on grassy field

A few years ago I was lucky enough to be in Anchorage during Spring Breakup, when the thawing of all those feet of snow brings a whiff of hope and possibility. Along with a whiff of something else: the dog poop that has accumulated during the winter sometimes permeates the spring breezes.

It’s like that, isn’t it?

There’s the fragrance of freedom as we melt old painful patterns to meet life as it is. And there’s some smelly stuff, too.

Restoration from the Place of Unknowing

in Confusion to Clarity, Surrendering, Wordlessness

“There’s freedom in hitting bottom. In seeing you won’t be able to save your daughter, her spouse, his parents, or your career, relief in admitting you reached the place of great unknowing. This is where restoration can begin, because when you’re still in the state of trying to fix the unfixable, everything bad is engaged: the chatter of your mind, the tension of your physiology, all the trunks and wheel-ons you carry from the past. It’s exhausting.”  ~ Ann Lamott, Help Thanks Wow: The Three Essential Prayers

Last year contained a series of surprises and physical injuries, which are still healing and nearly healed, assuming there aren’t any setbacks. I was hit head-on. Two months later my daughter was rear-ended by a drunk driver. My mother and brother were hospitalized far away shortly afterward and it was my job to get on a plane and take care of matters. I could go on and on about the heroic tasks required of me.

This is how Fixer and Rescuer identities got the toe-hold once again. Then a strangle-hold. What began as an innocent response to urgent and real needs turned into a (false) belief that I COULD fix whatever is broken. For everybody. Now. Or (better yet) yesterday.

Epiphanies Come Right On Time

in Confusion to Clarity, Noticing, Power of Connection, Winter

“Epiphanies come right on time, not too early or too late.” ~ Byron Katie, 2013

Epiphany is today. Jan. 6th. It’s a holiday that has long been my favorite time to clear out the clutter of the past and stay in the present. A holy day where the future hasn’t happened yet. A happy new moment where I invite insight and clarity to emerge.

Impulse or Guidance? Start with Reality

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Noticing

Living a Summoned Life begins where right where you are, with the reality all around you. Right in the smack dab middle of it. In the cluttered bedroom, the sounds of the barking dog, the gray dawn, the body or the mind that needs to stretch.

That’s where current reality squats, waiting for you to answer its summons. The trouble is that often our listening focus is elsewhere.