Posts Tagged: Coming home

Dipping Deeply Into the New Year

in Getting Unstuck, Radical Kindness, Remembering, Winter

It’s pretty darned hard to miss the flashing ads and headlines that remind me, and all of us, that this is the time for resolve, discipline, will power. My own natural desire to get more in touch with my healthy body through diet and exercise at this time of year always finds plenty of support from the culture around me. I don’t mind riding that wave. But anybody at my gym will tell you that the new spurt of activity lasts about six weeks.

What makes it stick is when I dip deeply to discover what’s been in the way of change. I’ve discovered for myself that any resolutions for the new year just don’t take unless I spend some time thinking about where I’ve been, getting my bearings for what’s ahead.

Because the unquestioned past seems to have a way of becoming in the future.

Hitting Refresh

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Remembering

Have you ever wished you’d come equipped with an Auto Refresh button? If I had one, I’d use it today. Where was I before the weekend? Oh, right. There. A place to start on Monday morning. A place to Begin Within. This is the time of year when Things come up. Things to prepare for. Things to complete. Friends and family, too. Their things. All of those things we call life with others, life of community.

I’m one of those people who needs to stop and listen to my own directions before I can go into the world and do my thing.

Simply dropping in to a deeper level of connection with my own needs, wants, and inner promptings can be….well, a little more difficult than hitting Reset. There are days I’d give anything for a little curvy upward arrow that I could click and magically reset my screen, putting me back in the loop of my own deeper thinking/knowing.

Traction

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Winter

I just arrived home from a trip Over the River and Through the Woods to a mountain cabin. The way there was a bit treacherous, but once there the scene was a holiday card in 3D. Heaps of soft snow and stillness. Fine powder drifting aimlessly through the starry night sky. A wood stove to feed and long nights of dreaming.

A much-needed respite from my usual busy life (and mind to match).

On the way back we came face to face with a snow plow and needed to move over perilously close to a ditch. Our wheels began to spin as we struggled to get traction once again.

The very thing that had cleared our way nudged us into a little stuck place.

Tolerating Peace

in Confusion to Clarity, Getting Unstuck, Radical Kindness

I’m learning to tolerate peace. I’m shocked as I see myself writing that, which takes me right out of peace. You see, my identity is so wrapped up in being a Peacemaker that it’s a Giant Step to admit that peace very often in my inner life has often been missing.

I’ve been a Peacenik my entire adult life. My credentials are impeccable. I became an anti-war activist when I discovered the realities of the Vietnam war. I organized an anti-nuke installation using little tree-farming cones to demonstrate insane levels of nuclear warheads in the early 80’s.

Returning Home to My Wise Body

in Noticing, Radical Kindness

I just spent more than a week at the Oregon coast, a place I usually feel instantly at home. Being on the ocean simply returns me to source. It’s a short cut for me.

So when I decided to go there to get started on a book I’ve been wanting to write, I expected a vacation. It was a vacation, all right. I vacated my body and moved right into my head. The mental work of framing my ideas and beginning such a large project had me set up housekeeping in the world of the mind, which happens to be what I was writing about. I got a good start on the book, but I’ve had a series of headaches from the mental strain. Not an accident, I think.

“If you lived in your heart you’d be home now.”

in Noticing, Radical Kindness

This is my newest favorite bumper sticker. It says in so few words what I often take longer to articulate.
I’m in the midst of a radical home remodel now. My home is a haven for me, under normal circumstances, and the intention of the project is to make it MORE of a haven. Or maybe a heaven. But in the meantime….it’s feeling more like a hell, with pounding and sawing while I’m living and seeing clients in the Oasis. They seem to feel it as an oasis from their lives, but I’ve been having some trouble experiencing that.

The Cafe at the End of the Search

in Getting Unstuck, Noticing, Radical Kindness, Surrendering

I’ve spent a whole lot of my life in a search for truth, beauty, goodness, The Way. Much of what has motivated me has been from that deep longing that propels each of us to connect with the sacred in life.

No regrets. But lately I’ve been thinking of calling off the search. Because it feels like peace. (What better reason would there be?) When I’m craving something to eat, drink or do that will fill a hole, I’m usually believing that my current state isn’t okay.

Married to Amazement: Geneen Roth Retreat

in Getting Unstuck, Radical Kindness

“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.”

These lines by poet Mary Oliver were a theme threading through the retreat with Geneen Roth. Although I’d read the poem many times before, it was a qualitatively different experience to sit with the words, to drop into deep amazement. This morning the state that they invoke feels like the biggest “takeaway” from the event.

From a place of amazement I drop into deep curiosity about what my unique body and self are doing here in this life.

From Boil to Simmer: Retreat Re-entry

in Getting Unstuck, Radical Kindness

As most of my friends and clients know, I just attended a retreat with Geneen Roth, author Women, Food, And God, a book enthusiastically embraced by Oprah on her show last Wednesday, resulting in a #1 best-selling listing.
There is much to share.
And I will, right here, in the next few weeks.
I attended because I just knew I was supposed to, that I was ready really find out what I need to know about my relationship with food AND with Sacred Self. I wanted to accelerate my learning by giving time and attention. I wanted to “discover in a short time what might take months or years to learn.” (Geneen’s words)

From Full Sun to Full Moon

in Confusion to Clarity

This last month I disappeared from life as I typically know it to celebrate a big anniversary with my husband across the planet and South a little.  We just returned from Bali, Indonesia, a couple of days ago, and I’m still waiting for all my brain cells to arrive.

I spent Thanksgiving feasting on babek (Balinese duck, which takes 24 hours to prepare) and American-style turkey with Balinese and American friends.  I missed Black Friday, but Saturday was pretty blacked out on planes airports.  This year holiday mania hasn’t seized me yet, and I hope to keep it that way.

I’ll be sharing more about my ongoing involvements in Bali in the coming days, but now I feel compelled to notice this dramatic transition.  From full sun and saturating warmth to full moon and winter chill.

There’s beauty in both. As much as I love summer, the dramatic change from fall to winter nurtures my inner oasis and the longing of my introvert to be finally heard. So moving from vivid color and full sun to the nuanced shadows of full moon reflects perfectly my soul’s longing.

As much as I savored the magic of Bali (and I do mean magic.), it feels right to return to this deepening season of moving within.  More than right.  As the days shorten and the nights lengthen, there is such deep peace in finding the whisperings of inner direction during this season of preparation and longing.

How about you?  What is your longing?  What are your hopes?  This is the season to go deep and discover what you find. Let it incubate or share it with others, right here or elsewhere in your world.