Posts Tagged ‘creating’

On Becoming a “We”

February 14, 2011

“The mystery which unites two beings is great; without it the world would not exist.” -The Gospel of Philip, Analogue 40, as translated by Jean-Yves Leloup

I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to get married, to become a “we.” It’s already starting to happen. I am still an “I” and I am also now part of a “we.”

Recently I faced having to make a four-figure repair to my 11-year-old car. Upon hearing the shop’s estimate, I wanted to retreat to my room, shed some financial-worry tears, and figure out – on my own – how I was going to pay for it. But sitting on my couch was the man who loves me, waiting and willing to be there for me. I felt so strongly the urge to turn and leave, to be alone in my fear. Instead, I walked toward him, and he reached out his arms and held me. Then he helped me reason things out so I could make the best decision for me and for us.

I’ve spent many years thinking about “I.” Who am I in a family of five sisters? What’s best for me in my career? How do I take care of myself – mind, body and soul – on a daily basis? There is a tradition in some 12-step programs that reads, “Our common welfare should come first; personal progress for the greatest number depends upon unity.” My understanding is that we all win when we put the “we” first.  My fiancé’s 100-year-old grandpa gave us similar advice for our marriage, based on his 68-year experience of shared life with the one he loved. He said that after we say our vows, everything that affects one will also affect the other. I feel myself becoming more careful.

I’m not losing myself or discounting my own needs, rather I’m gratefully discovering what it is like to hold our union as precious. I feel self-full and a little more selfless at the same time. I’ve also decided to add my beloved’s name to mine after we marry. For me, the symbolism is powerful. “I” and “we.”

There is a mysterious connection growing stronger and more fluid between us. We’re growing a “we” and it is a deliberate and beautiful process. I hope this contemplation and practice of “we” in my relationship will also inform how I am in my family, at work, and in the world.

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Posted in Love and Marriage | 1 Comment »

Hope and Humility

July 26, 2010

  “Hope is a decision.” – Jim Wallis, founder of Sojourners, in a Speaking of Faith interview  

I’ve been thinking about hope and humility. If hope is a decision, I believe humility is as well. I came to this theory in my yoga class. The instigator was chaturanga pose, my nemesis, a reverse push-up in which you slowly lower your body like a plank to a hover a few inches above the floor. I’m not very good at this pose. In fact, I hate it.  

This week I found myself getting angrier and angrier at my teacher each time she asked us to do another one, until, in a moment of grace, the word “humility” came to me. I decided to just accept that the pose is hard for me rather than wish I could do it as well as my classmates.

Letting chaturanga be an intentional exercise in humility is a relief. It helps me let go of my frustration that I’m still doing it on my knees (A.K.A. the “girl” version) after 11 years of practicing. There are a lot of things I wish I were good at, but I’m not. The expectation that I even need to be is what I’m letting go. Anne Lamott writes in her book Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life:

“Perfection is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people… It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.”

I know that cramped feeling. I know insanity. In fact, it creeps up on me any time I disappoint a friend, compare my arm strength to that of my fellow yoginis, or am embarrassed that I need others’ talents to balance out my shortcomings.

Humility is a welcome alternative. Thank you, chaturanga, for teaching me this lesson. I’m not a big fan of the phrase “lighten up,” as it is often delivered in a condescending tone, but indeed, when I decide that it’s OK to be less than perfect, I lighten up. 

In a common Sun Salutation yoga sequence, one moves from chaturanga to upward-facing dog pose, described in Yoga Journal as “an invigorating backbend that opens the chest and shoulders.” If chaturanga feels like humility, then upward dog feels like hope. From one to the other in one breath. Bowing my heart to God; opening my heart to God.

With intention, I move from accepting my place in the order of things to using my gifts to create something new. Over and over again.

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What Our Hearts Know

April 26, 2010

Like many people wanting a mate, I’ve made lists upon lists of attributes I desired in a partner. I created collages envisioning what he would look like, do for a living, drive (I admit my shallowness), wear (ditto), read and be. Mental constructs of my ideal guy. My visualization seemed to “work” – many times, the descriptions I outlined came to be. Years ago, I even met one of the men I had cut out of a magazine and pasted into a collage. Yet often what looked good on the outside was missing something crucial on the inside. 
 
Several editions into my collage, a wise friend gave me great advice. “Create a collage about how you want your life to feel, rather than look, with or without a man.” I took her advice. That collage led me to move home to Virginia from San Francisco, and it lives on my wall today. When faced with decisions, I go to it as a reference point for my heart. It contains images that represent feelings of home, centeredness, sexiness, inspiration, fullness, love, joy, friendship, strength and devotion. 
 
Yesterday, I felt all of that combined, as I snuggled against my man on a rainy Saturday, after a great yoga class and fun pedicure conversation with a good friend. Looking out my window at bright green trees, here was the feeling I’d been walking toward for a long, long time: pure, open-hearted contentment.
 
You see, I think I’ve become reasonably whole (with much earthly and heavenly assistance). During the years of wanting, and not experiencing, a relationship of length and depth, I practiced cultivating a sense of joy and contentment within myself (sometimes kicking and screaming along the way). If I wanted to live a full life – no matter what – I had no other choice. 
 
It is upon that foundation of love for myself, my winding path, and God, that I now find myself experiencing love for and from someone else.
 
There is a line from an Eva Cassidy song that describes the mechanism by which I recognize this relationship as deeply good: ‘Cause I know you by heart. Sure, my guy is amazing on paper; he’s handsome, smart, funny, directed, strong, kind, does good in the world, and all sorts of other things that have appeared on my lists. However, it is the feeling in my heart when I am with him that is startlingly different from the past.
 
I feel authentic, happy, seen, honored, adored, admiring, in love, and grateful. My breath is deep and full in my belly; my body is completely relaxed; and a mighty flower opens in the center of my heart. I believe this is how God intends for me to feel.
 
Last night, looking at my boyfriend while he studied for exams, I heard the words of a favorite Clay Walker song: 
 
All I know is what I see when I look at you.
And all I see is what I’m feeling down inside.
And all I’m feeling is the feeling that I finally got it right.
 
I finally learned that it is the feeling – not the list – that makes something right.
 
What is your heart telling you? I’d love to know.

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Posted in Coaching | 4 Comments »

The Energy Between Us

April 18, 2010

A young woman recently told me she believes God is the energy between two people. Such wisdom and awareness! I appreciated the reminder that I must take responsibility for the energy I give to another.  
 
It isn’t easy. I quite regularly catch myself holding back or feeling competitive when interacting with someone new, as if the person across from me must prove herself trustworthy, before I will “love my neighbor as myself.”
 
The instruction, “So glorify God in your body,” (1 Corinthians 6:20) helps me in my quest to remain open-hearted in my interactions. When I allow God to course through my whole being – heart, mind, strength, and soul – I am much more able to extend “God-like” energy to others.
 
The yogi Paramahansa Yogananda writes in his mind-opening book, The Yoga of Jesus, “When one actually perceives the Divine Presence in his own soul, he is inspired with love for his neighbor – Jew and Christian, Muslim and Hindu – in the consciousness that one’s true Self and the Selves of all others are equally soul-reflections of the one infinitely lovable God.” (pg. 99)
 
Can I recognize God in another? Would I even try to see God in my enemy? What kind of energy would I create with her if I did? I find it hard enough to be conscious about my energy with those I love – to love them as completely as I would like to love myself. Therein lies the problem. If I love myself conditionally, I will love others the same way. Similarly, the judgment I feel toward others often reflects hostility within me toward myself.
 
In interpreting the gospel writer John’s account of Jesus speaking to a Samaritan woman (which a Jewish man at the time would not have done), contemplative priest Cynthia Bourgeault illustrates beautifully what can happen when two people recognize each other as Divine:
 
“Something he sees in her gives him the confidence to be so nakedly vulnerable; and something she sees in him gives her the confidence to follow his lead, to go higher and higher and deeper and deeper in herself, knowing far beyond what she could know from ordinary knowingness, knowing fully in the immediacy of her own heart. This quality of awareness is not something that comes from outside the moment. Rather, it grows up in the moment itself through the quality and energy of the heart connection.” (The Wisdom Jesus, pg. 11)
 
May we all give to each other and experience that kind of God energy.

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Posted in Coaching, Inspiration, Women's Circle | 2 Comments »

The Year of Love!

December 6, 2009

When my sister and her husband were starting to create their family, she declared to him, “This is going to be the year of sex!” (It worked!)

So, on my 41st birthday, I’m declaring that the year ahead is going to be the year of LOVE! And since love always works (even in those mysterious ways that we don’t quite understand at the time), I know it’s going to be a super-powered, super-fun, super-fabulous year!

I commit to you today that I will make good on my declaration by: contributing love to my community by sharing what I have… discovering and creating love through my work in myriad forms… loving my body and taking care of my heart… expressing selfless love for and experiencing fabulous love with a man (whoever he may be!)… and channeling love to my family and friends through prayer, encouragement, laughter and acceptance.

In yoga this morning, my teacher Kyra read a poignant story* about Mother Teresa’s choice to start serving the West and her reasoning that while we may not be starving for actual bread on any comparable level to the people of Calcutta or Bombay, we are starving for the spiritual food of love.

When she received the Nobel Prize, Mother Teresa was asked, “What can we do to promote world peace?” She answered, “Go home and love your family.”

So, today, this little missive will be shorter than usual because a) love – generating it within yourself and sharing it with others – is all you need, and b) I have to go get a birthday pedicure (lovin’ my toes!)

xo for your own coming year!

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Posted in Coaching, Inspiration, Women's Circle | 1 Comment »

On doubt, faith and creating your future

September 14, 2009

This morning’s Daily Dharma from Tricycle: The Buddhist Review read, “We don’t have to let go, we simply have to not hold on.” (Joseph Goldstein, “Empty Phenomena Rolling On,” Tricycle, Winter 1993) 
 
This practice is not new to me or likely to most of you; however, it has never been nor has it yet become my strong suit. When I want something or love someone, I tend to hold on for dear life. The only thing that has ever helped me to gracefully (rather than reluctantly) loosen my grip is my belief that when I place whatever I deem dear in the care of a power greater than myself, the issue will be resolved for the highest good of all involved. That, really, is what I want most.
 
Easier said than done! Especially when one really isn’t exactly sure just what that “something greater” is!
 
I’m reading the memoir Faith Under Fire about Army Chaplain Roger Benimoff’s  counseling of soldiers during his two tours of duty in Iraq, his wrestling with God about the carnage and heartbreak of war, and his reintegration with home life and family as a changed man. Talk about grappling with trust in something greater.
 
In this area of knowing, feeling, surrendering to and co-creating with a higher power, I am a fan of the expression, “There lives more faith in honest doubt, believe me, than in all the creeds.” (Alfred Lord Tennyson) I doubt sometimes and I ask for help anyway. For me, it’s better than feeling stuck out on the ledge by myself.
 
Tomorrow, Floricane’s John Sarvay and I begin facilitating a two-day workshop, NextSteps, to help people in life and career transition determine what they most deeply wish to create for their future and who they’ll need to become to generate it.
 
A number of teachers talk about this process as “co-creation.“ It has indeed been my experience that after we make the decision to follow that small voice inside of us, create a magnificently detailed vision and strategy, and prepare our body, mind and heart to live this future, then… we must turn our brilliant plan over to a power greater than ourselves for editing, for alignment, for infusion of spirit, and for ongoing assistance.
 
Our job is to remain flexible, surrender our strong hold on how it must turn out, and trust (with honest, struggling doubt) in the perhaps slightly altered direction in which we are lead.
 
That, I believe, is how we’ll create a future that serves our own and the greater good.

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Posted in Coaching, Workshops | Leave a Comment »

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