The Voice of Do

I don't know about everyone else, but some days my "do" list is too long for my liking. Those "dos" become "do-do" and push me up against my day in a frantic and anxious way. It often feels like I am trying to walk through a snow storm with the wind in my face...uphill. Sometimes I add "dos" to my list, or my plate, for all the wrong reasons. I thought I had come out of the storm but the universe hates a vacuum...or I hate the space...and so I am once again trying to re-enter that storm of "do." At least this time I am slowing down a bit to ask some important questions.

I think there have been times I have been "doing" to distraction. It is almost like if I take too much time to simply be with what is already in front of me, to face what I really want to do, to be with any discomfort I might be feeling...well, it is simply too hard. It is far easier to heap up my plate with other "dos" that do not necessarily benefit me or anyone else for that matter. I simply see that there is so much to be done and somewhere in my over sized ego I think I can do it all! Mother Theresa gave us the best advice when she told us that "Not everyone can do great things but everyone can do small things with great love." The action called "doing" is meant to bring about the results we want. It should never be a distraction that takes us away from what is important or the life we must face (must be present with) if we are to live that life well.

Great teachers have encouraged us to be "beings" and not "doings" so that we actually get to taste the sweetness and wholeness of life. Even tragedy and sorrow can, in someways, add to the measure of our days if we are willing to sit with them long enough. I think it is time for me to sit and sort through my "dos." My intention is to make my life count, to add to the measure of my days and to the days of others...especially my family. So for today, I want to unpack my over-sized baggage of "to dos," step out of the snow storm and travel a little lighter. I know for certain my in-basket will never be empty and there is always tomorrow!

The Voice of Vacation

After seeing the movie Bucket List a couple of years ago, I found that I often thought about the things I wanted to do before I died. I don't know if you have given that idea any consideration, but heading up the bucket list of both my husband and myself was a trip to Europe. Like many things in our personal lives, it is our children who always seem to kick us out of our comfort zones and into action. So when our son found himself working on stage in London we booked our trip! Upon arrival I mentioned to him that I didn't want to look like a tourist and embarrass any of us, especially myself! His response was one of the most freeing things he has ever said to me. "But mom, he said, "you ARE a tourist. If you can accept that then its all okay!"

It was a humbling acceptance to freely acknowledge that I was a tourist! It occurred to me that life, generally, is a trip we are all taking. Too often, if we live our lives at all, we find ourselves in the middle of a foreign experience...whether it is an idea, a new job, a relationship...you get the idea!! I struggled to stay in my comfort zones because I was afraid of looking like a complete dope!!I found I was truly freed up once I accepted the fact that I simply did not know anything about traveling abroad. Fortunately, we were in a country that spoke the same language. But, we were nonetheless in a different culture, making transactions with different money, and learning the London tube networks (aka subways). What I have discovered is that if I simply admit to the unknown with child-like naivete then most people are very kind and gracious with my learning curve.It is when I blow the bad breath of false bravado that I meet resistance. Any misled assumption that false bravado brings, in the end, is far more embarrassing than admitting that I am a little lost and uncertain.

Our trip to London taught me a wonderful lesson about my own uncertainties in this vacation life I am on. Sometimes it seems like a working vacation, other times a fun vacation. There have been times I have been in the middle of a personal nightmare as well. As I look back and reflect on those times that were nightmarish, I have to consider the fact that most of my pain came from my fear of making a mistake. Had I been wise enough to acknowledge my uncertainty then I might have made fewer mistakes and better decisions. Our trip to London brought me to a definite conclusion. I am deciding to take myself and my life a little less seriously, knowing that not even the most brilliant minds on the planet know their way ALL of the time! We are, after all is said and done, tourists on this this blue green emerald planet we call home. 

The Voice of Valentines Past

The heart has reasons that reasons cannot know or so says Blaise Pascal. What are your thoughts about love and Valentines Day? Love has so many different voices, so many different accents, that it is hard to imagine that any two are the same. I believe this is so because each of us as individuals are unique and strangers to the world of another. I cannot really know what love means to you any more than you can know for me. We are told that love is patient, and kind, and pliable. Poets have spent their entire lives writing of love; authors have built entire stories, sometimes epic, trying to describe something that has no descriptor.

As a young woman seeking to find my soul mate, my great love, I was truly lost. The ghosts of my Valentines past, my naivete, my idealism, kept me doubting and fearful. Combine that with my life experiences from watching people I love be tormented in love, not to mention my own failings at it, left me frozen with fear that my soul mate would never arrive at my doorstep. So when my mentor and friend suggested I needed to make a list of who and what I thought that person was, what I wanted love to look like with that person, it made sense. Then he gave me the really hard job. Once done he told me to become that list.

As a mature adult, with children and now grandchildren, I only know what I feel. Sometimes when I look at my husband, my children or my grandchildren I find myself diving into a deeper pool of love that almost takes my breath away. But if I have learned anything about love, for me, I have learned I am only really loving when I am in the state of love. And I know I am in this state when I am patient, compassionate, kind, thoughtful, listening to the words of another instead of overlaying my own thoughts and ideas onto them. I know I am in the state of love when I find myself in more innocuous situations like when I drive with more courtesy or give up my place in a grocery line to someone else who has fewer items. When I am in this state, I know I have left the ghosts of Valentine Past behind me. That any opinion I have garnered from my own mistaken perception of love is useless in my life if I am to love at all.

There was a time when I had the fortunate and blessed opportunity to have a very wonderful man sing me love songs. So I close with one of his best sung songs...I wish you shelter from a storm, a cozy fire to keep you warm, I wish you health, but more than wealth, I wish you love. I invite you to shut the door on yesterday and open the present ... there is a wonderful gift waiting for you. Happy Valentines Day.

The Voice of Control

I don't know about you, but the unknown makes me nervous. The "what-ifs" of living in our own skin can accumulate faster than dust in the desert. I spent a good deal of my life trying to insure that things were going the direction I wanted them to go, sometimes forcing events (not to mention people I love) into premature conclusions or decisions. Even when I experienced outcomes I simply did not want, I still insisted on maintaining control over things.

At some point I grew weary of it all. I recognized that my need for control was my own psychosis. It came from personal experience (history), cultural and gender bias, our societal requirements. I also, at some point along the way, realized those things change like the ocean's tide. The image that comes to mind is a big doll house where a child can place everything in just the exact place they want it, being assured that once placed it will not change. But change, like the tides, the seasons, aging, and a thousand other things that I am sure you can think of, is simply part of life. I don't like the word "inevitable" because it makes change seem ominous. Change is simply fact; it is meant to be held gently, much as a tree holds a leaf throughout the seasons. When the leaf has lived out its purpose on the tree, it falls. Nature simply knows. Control is a senseless illusion of humans.

The downside of control is that we, in our efforts to stay safe and static, leave everyone and everything out of our life. We shortchange the wisdom of another, especially our children. We never really get to see the man or woman we love because fear keeps us out of the inevitable change that comes with relationship. I believe that we mistake confidence for control when they are quite opposite...polar opposites in fact. A confidant person does not control, they simply are who they are without the need to make the "other" like them. There is freedom in letting go of control and instead, taking command of ourselves. Change comes. Thinking control will stop change is like thinking you can stop a train with an outstretched arm. If you want to make joy and peace life-long companions, remove the steering wheel you have stuck in the back of life. And then, enjoy the positive change it will bring.