Posts Categorized: Radical Kindness

“Return to Home Base!”

in Radical Kindness

How do you return to home base in your world? It never occurred to me to ask myself this question until last week. Playing laser tag.  Seriously.

I’ve spent the last month away from the wet winter of my homeland here in Oregon. I decided to leave the travel blogging to others and to simply absorb the colores and sabores (colors and flavors) of the small colonial city I just visited.  I walked and simply marveled at beauty, color, and hospitality. My heart expanded when I noticed each kindness, from taxi drivers to expatriates.

The first day I was home a friend had a laser tag birthday party.   I have a general policy of trying anything that doesn’t have obvious addictive properties at least once.  So I went.  I can’t say that I ever mastered the strategies that others seemed to automatically grok, like who to avoid and who to hit.   But I heard one phrase again and again: Return to Home Base! In the game, this signal indicates that you’ve taken all the allowable hits or used up your stored power. Every time I heard the little box on my belly telling me to return to home base,  I kept thinking that there was nothing I’d rather do.  I started loving the simplicity of this game.  You give others your power and get depleted.  Then you hear a voice that tells you to return to Home Base.  Such simplicity.

So once the party was over I followed the directions.  I returned to my base for some serious re-charging.  It’s taken a little longer than in laser tag,  where a laser beam magically lights up your center.  But I notice that it’s the ultimate kindness I’m extending to myself to slow it down, gaze at the wall. Sleep. Return to yoga classes, walk in the mist, pet the dog.  Home. Home base.

Pulling English Ivy on Inauguration Eve

in Radical Kindness

(A poem for the Occasion)

I took direction from the Universe and the Internet

Clicked here and there and found a team to join

and just like the new President

I spent my morning in service
Making the world a better place,
removing one creeping root at a time.

Call me a radical. I went to the root of the problem
Foreign terrorists of the plant variety.
Prying , pulling and yanking at
Ivy roots strangling tender native plants,
their tentacles wrapped around small trees
robbing them of their constitutional rights.

Radical Service: Uprooting

in Radical Kindness

As I move into this year of Radical Kindness, I’ve been thinking about roots.  It turns out the origin, or “root” word for radical is “root.”  Gotta love it!  So I’ve been working with images of watering my own roots and engaging my clients in noticing when they’re nurturing their own roots so that they can serve others effectively.

So it’s ironic that I’m honoring National Service Day by helping a team pull up some roots. English ivy is so well-suited to the Oregon climate that it has invaded natural areas for years.  Its tough and widespread root system takes away nutrition from the more fragile native species.  The best way to get rid of it for good, short of serious nuking, is to pull like crazy. It’s an enormous job in some areas, a worthy project for local service.

This work is so like the work I do every day as I work with clients.  Every thought, such as “I’m not good enough,” has an enormous root system, supporting a whole world of other thoughts: “And this means I can’t be happy, get a job, be a good dad, take care of myself.”  On and on.

I love finding the roots and uprooting them with some really good questions.  There’s such freedom for newer, kinder thoughts when they have space to grow. So today as I pull, I’ll be imagining some of my old core beliefs coming up, too.  And in my mind I’ll be clearing a place for all of the people I care about.

Do your own mind a service today. Begin a list of any thoughts that you notice would keep you from being at peace. Find the root systems and begin unearth the root beliefs. Allow yourself the Radical Kindness that would clear the soil for fragile and kind new thoughts.

Aha! Moments and Epiphany

in Radical Kindness

From the first day of the holiday season, even as I’m savoring the feasting, singing and celebratory chaos, my favorite holiday moment beckons.  I’m not of the religious persuasion that celebrates Epiphany at the end of the Advent season, so I stumbled on it by chance.  For a number of years I noticed that the season wasn’t really over for me until a few days after New Year’s Day.  Once tree was down, the last stale cookies were eaten, the kids were back at school, I dropped back into my own life with a sigh of relief.

This was the time to recap the holidays and decide what might work better in the future.  This was the time to imagine possibilities for next year. I began to notice how many insights would come as I sat with my journal and tea, waiting for resolutions to emerge from detritus of Christmas past.  As it turns out, year after year this magical day was nearly always about Jan. 5th or 6th.  Curious, I looked up the date on a liturgical calendar and discovered that it’s a celebration of the Three Wise Men, the Persian travelers who showed up to acknowledge the divinity of the Christ child in human form.

Following from that origin, the word Epiphany is about an Aha! on any level, a sudden realization or comprehension of the essence of something.  Aha! I thought.  No wonder I had discovered clarity over the years, had recognized my own essential direction every year about this time.  It was a time honored tradition! So for the last ten years I’ve entered the Epiphany date in my calendar along with some extra private time for contemplation. I invite all my friends and clients to do the same.  Sit. Be still. And listen for direction. My wish for you on this, my favorite holiday.

Snow Day and Time In

in Radical Kindness

Snow Day!  The Winter Fantasy of teachers and students alike. Today a highly advertised and long-anticipated Winter Storm hit. Where I live, this happens once, maybe twice, a year. Instead of heavy investing in snow-clearing devices, we try to avoid driving altogether, fearful for the frightened and inexperienced drivers creeping here and there.  Most of us just stay at home.

I no longer work or have children in the schools, but I awake from hibernation dreams with anticipation. Every year I’m more and more likely to override the seasonal imperative to shop. When I’m not singing holiday music in a choir, I’m writing, reading, dreaming.  But today…I have company. It’s like we all have a Time Out of the frenzy. A time In. To watch the wintery winds, drink cocoa, savor the season.  A Time In.

And I wonder. Will this spread?  When was the last time you had a Time In? No matter what the culture tells us, our bodies know it’s time. Time to be still, to dream hibernation dreams and listen to the still small voice.  We can choose to make this time, even if it’s just for a day. It’s time for a Time In.

My Not-So Silent Night and How I Recovered

in Radical Kindness

Red Queen Yelling

Years ago, when my children were small, I set a modest goal of celebrating the return of light as it is practiced by most of the people of the world. My thought was that Winter Holiday was a chance to give my children an appreciation for global diversity at the same time they honored their own religious heritage. By Christmas Eve, what they had gained was a deep respect for Mother in Meltdown. Read More>>

To Gratefulness Leaves and Life as It Is

in Radical Kindness

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I live far away from my blood kin, so we  created a new extended family right where we are. The same eight adults and eight children have celebrated Thanksgiving and other holidays for over twenty years together. We’re larger now that most of the kids have partners and some have babies. We’re pretty much like any other blood kin of aunts, uncles, cousins and great-grandparents, complete with both beloved and annoying traits. On a holiday these are often one and the same. Read More>>

2015 Visualization

in Radical Kindness

Ever since Election Day, I’ve noticed my mind’s been a carnival or an amusement park. There’s the roller coaster, with emotional highs (mostly) and lows (some), based on my beliefs about whether the best candidate won or whether the ballot measure is just. Then there’s the spinner,  which mixes the news up with my opinions about it, twirls it around and around until my brain is dizzy. And then there’s the House of Fear, which replays scenes from past elections and leaders, re-playing all the scariest images of political assassinations from my youth.

Yesterday a friend forwarded me a soothing email suggestion. It puts my mind at ease and helps me find a seat on the bench, watching all the amusements from a peaceful distance.  I have no idea who the author is, but I’m grateful, and it’s simply too good not to share with you.

The year is 2015.  You glance at the television one morning and see Obama having another of his many press conferences.  He has now been in office for almost 8 years. Read More>>