The Voice of New Beginnings

Today is the end of a 2010. It seems to me that the most focused and determined I am seems to bubble up this time of year. January 31st finds me sitting on the threshold of newness, like a child getting ready to enter Disneyland. It's how I think an artist must feel when looking at a blank canvass, all the potential and possibility for the picture they see in their minds to be translated to this untouched slate.Then this little nagging thought occurred to me: our gym! I know that beginning even tomorrow it will be packed and by February or March things will be back to "business as usual." In talking with a friend today, the biggest question that I am confronting is "who am I taking into 2011 with me?"

I don't know why I lose steam...or for that matter, why anyone does. I am sure it has been studied and thousands of books and periodicals have been written, analyzing this very human trait. People have spent millions of dollars seeking advice, counsel, and personal training to prevent this stalemate. The truth is none of us like to wander too far from our comfort zone. That means CHANGE and oh yes, that means changing our MINDS and then DOING something about it! I have found that my life is like a moving train; once a new direction is decided upon it takes time for momentum to change direction or shift to another track. It's a hard thing to do, to keep that momentum of change alive until the habits of one's life picks up steam, moving us in the direction we really want to go. The saddest thing about NOT going forward is regret. Retrospect is an awful thing, when we look back and realize that we could have made the effort; we could have made the choice.

My New Year's wish for everyone and for myself is to face down with determination our own stubborn resistance. To first CHANGE our minds and then take ACTION to make it happen. If you want better health, I wish for you conscious awareness and exercise! If you want better financial security, I wish for you the right education, job or opportunity! If you want more loving relationships,I wish for you patience, kindness, compassion, and loving honesty so that others will respond and follow your lead! If you wish a deeper connection to something greater than yourself or to a cause, then I wish for you to follow your deepest heart and follow your intuition. Mostly, I wish for you the kind of 2011 that fills your heart and soul with joy and satisfaction, a year that sustains you and makes every day a good day to awaken to! Happy New Year everyone!!!

The Voice of Discontent

We have all heard the voice of discontent, moving in to spoil our peace of mind and appreciation of any given moment. We let it whisper or sometimes scream in our thoughts, echoing a mistaken belief that we have been living with. I had the most wonderful gift in the form of discontent a few weeks ago. It's a silly story really, but one worth repeating because it led me to the notion that even that voice is only trying to point out something that I needed to be grateful for.

Our lawn is large and while I could be out there mowing it, manicuring it, weeding it, we are blessed to have a crew who comes in and regularly cares for it. After mowing, they use a blower. I HATE THE SOUND OF THE BLOWER!  One day I was feeling a little edgier than usual. The constant, grinding...loud...buzz was moving my peace of mind right out the door. Then a little voice said STOP!!! I began to count the blessings of our home. One, we have a home and one I love. Two, we have a yard where our children played and where our grandchildren now play. Three, I didn't have to mow the lawn! Once I opened the gate to a grateful heart, all the other reasons came flooding in. I had a family and children and grandchildren. I have a husband who loves me and whom I love! I had my health! Oh yes, did I mention I didn't have to mow the lawn?? It became apparent to me that my discontent was a whisper reminding me to stop and pay attention to what was right in front of me!

I have realized that many of the things that I feel discontent about is more about my interpretation than it is about what is happening. I have painted myself into plenty of corners, feeling there was no way out, until I realized that I was holding the paintbrush and could simply paint a door on the wall behind me and walk out of it! While my life has not been without challenges, and plenty of them, as I get older I realize that my discontent made many things far worse than they were. Like Scrooge looking back at Christmas Past, I wish I could have listened with a gentler ear to my discontent and what it was trying to tell me. But awareness is everything; so next time it pops its little head in to say hello I am simply going to stop and count my blessings!!!

The Voice of Wishes

Winter brings with it such a time of magic and wishing. As a little girl, I yearned and wished for that first snowfall. To me there was nothing more wondrous than to see those first snowflakes and then to awaken to a blanket of untrodden sheets of white. Making snowmen and sledding down hills was the most fun I remember having as a child. Even though it was cold, I was unburdened with driving and shovels and paying the heating bill. Sometime its just nice to remember being a kid.

As I grew up my wishes became more things that I wanted for myself than for something as sweet and simple as that first snowfall. I am short so I wished to be taller; I wished I was thinner; I wished for my hair to be thicker or my ears to be smaller. My wishes extended into wishing for more, or better, or different. I had a friend once tell me that if wishes were fishes, we would all have nets! As exasperatingly frustrating as it was to hear this, he was right. I am a learning the importance of listening to my secret wishes; they tell me so much about who I am and the direction I am headed. If it's a smart wish (like wanting to be in better shape) that is something I can DO something about. If it is a wish to be taller, well that is just silly and wastes my emotional, mental and physical energy.

I know that great teachers have graced our planet and told us who we are and what we do is unique and more important than what we have or what we look like. It's a challenging task to do that given the media blitz that can carry wishing to a new level, especially this time of year. I have come to this: my wish for you (and for me) is to stop wishing we were taller or smaller or leaner or fatter or richer or different. My wish for all of us is to simply wish that we could appreciate and love who we uniquely are, with all our quirks and shortcomings, but more importantly with all our gifts and talents. Let us not bury those talents under distractions or excuses or habits or senseless wishing that hide them away. Whether you celebrate with a tree or not, may you awaken Christmas morning and may all your wishes come true!

The Voice of the Bullet Train

Our daughter gave us a gift, a little sign with a sweet saying on it..."We do not remember the days, we remember the moments (Pavese). I was looking at it this morning while making breakfast and I realized that the only way to have moments is to be present. But if you are like me...or most people, present moments are more like the whirling scenery from a bullet train. Precious moments speed by us and we hardly know what we have seen. Like spinning around in a circle those precious moments become blurs. Holidays are the worse kind of bullet trains.

Some of my best moments have been when the kids were little. Baking cookies, making ornaments, turning out all the lights before bedtime and looking at the Christmas tree. Children have a way of slowing us down. They remind us that we cannot move quickly through moments. They are still learning and small and thus, are one of our greatest teachers for capturing moment. I remember my kids having fun just looking for four leaf clovers. I don't remember the last time I stopped to do that. Older people cause us to slow down. I remember taking walks with my grandmother and we would never walk quickly. She would stop every once in a while and look at a pine tree or a flower. Older people cannot move quickly either. Years cause bone and sinew to demand our deliberate action. At this point in my life I would prefer to believe it is wisdom that slows us down and not physical limitations.

It seems the bookends of our life teach us more about living than the middle. One one end of the bookend we have the wonderment of firsts; the other end of the bookend offers us the treasure chest of wisdom. It occurred to me this morning, looking at the sign, I still have some middle left. I think I will take the advice of my younger self that has seen the new and my older self that hopefully awaits my arrival, and take their sound advice. Bullet trains are nice, but they take you to the end a lot faster!

The Voice of Magic

 This time of year always takes me back to the earlier days when I was a little more naive and believed in Santa, the Easter Bunny, and all those wonderful imaginary and magical beings. Our mom was magic and she believed in magic up until the day she left this fine planet. I think that the voice of magic is a good voice, it lifts us up and keeps us looking for the better part of ourselves and others. December for me is like a trip to Disneyland. Even though it brings a Mount McKinley size pile of stress, it also ushers in the stardust.

Life has a way of hemming us in and boxing off the magic that exists all around us. I have been fortunate in my life to have some pretty magical things happen to me; experiences that keep reminding me that there is more than what I see or what I think I know. But I lose sight of that and when I do everything takes on a smudgy grayness that hides the good from my life. Regardless of the way you celebrate the holiday season, it is meant to be a reminder that life is renewable. I celebrate Christmas and for me it has a magical voice. It is a reminder that even in the dead of winter I can be renewed and reborn to a better me.

Realists are needed in our world, I suppose. But for me, if I could fly like Santa, I would sprinkle a little bit of magic into everyone's heart. I think it would awaken the dreamer, the passion, the love and kindness that is innate in most of us, if not everyone. Einstein said that imagination if everything. I don't know if you can visit that "nation" if you do not believe in magic. We are hardly the designer but we are, each of us, given a magic wand at birth to create our lives. It's up to us to figure out how to use that magic wand. It does come with instructions if we are silent and conscious enough to take out the instruction books and read them. I wish you magic this season. I wish you a heart so full that you can believe in the possibility of love and endless peace. Valleys are necessary in life but the mountain sits there, just waiting for the wings of magic to carry us to the top. Personally, I just have to remember to move my feet!!!

The Voice of Need

Many years ago I was talking with an acquaintance. She and her husband had visited a third world country, somewhere on an ocean. Her trip had taken place when the weather was warm. Wanting to see the countryside, she and her husband had signed up for a tour of the area. The beauty was spectacular, she had related. In fact it was stunningly, breathtakingly beautiful. As they climbed a mountain road they came upon a small humble home that faced the ocean. Surrounded by the home were plentiful trees bearing fruit. A small garden was outside the home. There was no electricity or running water as far as she could tell. The family greeted the vacationers warmly and as they drove away my friend thought, "How sad, they live in so much poverty."

At the time I heard the story I thought, "They may be one of the richest people on earth." Honestly, I do not know how I would do living without the luxuries of my everyday conveniences. How I would do if I could not jump in my partially hybrid car and drop down to the store to pick up dinner. But I happen to know, for all certainty, that having money does not create peace or happiness. It certainly takes the heat off when we have the basics provided, e.g., food, shelter and clothing. But I happen to know a lot of people who have a lot of money who are not happy. I also know people who are struggling financially who are not happy. I have come to believe that joy and happiness only arrive on our doorstep when we are at peace with our lives. No matter what our lives look like. Accepting what is, being present...all the things I have been taught by people far wiser than I.

I wish for all of you, during this season of "Peace and joy on earth" to stop for a moment and count the many hundreds of blessings in your life. Did you know that it takes over 300 different people to bring that box of macaroni and cheese into your cupboard? Or that there are trees outside of your home waiting for you to really enjoy their beauty? If you passed from this world today, would any of your worries matter? I cannot guarantee it, but probably they would not. I think about that family living on that mountain, engulfed by the beauty of their peace and I stop and give thanks for the thousands and thousands of conveniences that grace my door and my life. May you be peaceful, may you be loving, may you be kind...that is the kind of wealth no one can take from us.

The Voice of Presents

As we enter into this sacred time of year, regardless of your religious orientation, it is a time of family stress and demands that sometimes strip the beauty of this season from our hands. I know that not only myself, but family and friends alike, struggle with the demands of this time of year. More demanding and stressful, however, are the demands that we place on ourselves where our families are concerned. Even if your family experience is filled with joy and love, holidays bring out the "to do" list in a way that is exponentially more intense than other times of the year.

It has taken me a long time to recognize that most of the stress I feel is self-imposed. The stress that plays across my mind is like a relentless ticker tape, fooling me into believing that my perceptions are the only perceptions. It's been the story I tell myself about what is happening that sucks the energy out of my heart and soul at a time when I need all the energy I can gather!! I have been planning our Christmases for almost 40 years (yikes!!!) and regardless of how I stress, how homesick I have been or how much I have missed my kids, every holiday happens regardless of how I stress about it. "This too shall pass" is not just an axiom, it is fact. If I have learned anything about the quality of this time of year, it is dependent upon my personal perception. The sacredness of my life has everything to do with how I show up, mentally and emotionally.

St. Paul wrote in Corinthians that "when I was a child, I spoke and acted as a child but when I became an adult, I gave up childish things." The sacredness of this time of year teaches me that it is a time of endings and the seedlings of new beginnings. It is a time to be present, to be loving and patient...not only with my family who I love more than my life but with the stranger who is stressed and making their way through the freeways and lines of the holiday madness. For all the gifts we shop for, for all the things we think we need or that we buy for someone else, there is no greater gift than the present of our presence! With that thought, we should all put a big bow around our shoulders and show up for our family in ways that matter. I can think of no better gift that I would like to see under my tree!