Posts Tagged ‘love’

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Anticipating a Lottery Win

October 19, 2009

How many of you think that if you prepare yourself for disappointment, you lessen the potential for being hurt or embarrassed? Well, let me tell you flat out, it is a sucky way to live! I know; I’ve been doing it for years. Preparing for disappointment.

What happens when we do that? In my experience, my heart closes just enough to stay safe (not going to let you in fully if you’re going to leave me tomorrow), my light dims (not going to show you all of me – who knows which part will scare you away… my tenderness? my openness? my power?) and my trust level in any remotely vulnerable situation is one foot in, one foot out (not going to be a fool again; I’ve been here before!)

Sounds welcoming doesn’t it?!? Would you want to be involved with someone like that? Why would the Universe bring in full-on happiness, when fear wouldn’t even let it fully permeate?

Well, I’m here to tell you that I’m done with that! For now on, instead of anticipating disappointment, I’m anticipating a lottery win! As if I have an endless supply of “Ace in the Hole” scratch-off cards and I know for sure that one of them is a winning ticket. It’s just a matter of patience, persistence and belief in the possibility.

When I lived in Colorado, my girlfriend Megan said to me, “When you meet you meet your man, I want you to feel like you’ve won the lottery.”

I’ve kept that little ditty in my back pocket with each new date and each passing relationship. A winning ticket doesn’t mean he has to be perfect (to quote Brad Paisley how boring would that be!), yet he does need to be perfect for me. Our pairing needs to serve his Highest Good, mine and, ideally, the Greater Good. Now, that would be a lottery win!

My heart always knows when there’s no BINGO (sometimes only admitting it to myself after the fact). It could be a B3, an N25 or a G54 that completes my winning card. I don’t know exactly which (that’s the fun of playing!) but I believe it’s just about to be called.

What if we approached all of life anticipating a lottery win? While job searching, baby making, or creating affordable health care for all people (couldn’t resist a little plug!) … What kind of energy would we put into the world? How would others experience us? What kind of possibility would we see right before our very eyes? How much would we be willing to open our hearts?

I’m ready! Are you?

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Come Again

September 4, 2009

I admit, I got a little knocked off center this week. Mary Chapin Carpenter pretty well sums up my experience in these song lines:

“I thought my heart had broken, but it was just a little bruised. I thought love had spoken, guess I was just confused.”

Several years ago, I studied with the incredible Mama Gena, renowned teacher of the “Womanly Arts“. She would often talk about driftwood. That after crossing the big ocean toward our dreams, before we see land, we will see driftwood… evidence that land is just over the horizon. This is a particularly good meditation for me since I tend to get discouraged when I can’t yet see land.

Also quite useful this week was the tenet oft-proposed by the deeply wise “New Feminine Power” teaching team Katherine Woodward Thomas and Claire Zammit that the transformation of our relationship to disappointment is critical to the successful manifestation of our dreams. I’ve been practicing and I can attest that this is a much more loving, grateful and empowered way to experience life.

I can always tell how committed I am to a dream by how many times I will get back up after a fall, how much help I’m willing to ask for, and how resilient my heart remains after another piece of driftwood turns out to not yet be land.

Recently, I participated in a Presence-Based Coaching Course with the masterful Doug Silsbee, PCC. By his calm and strong example, we practiced finding our center, committing to our dream and repeatedly coming back to that grounded place within us no matter what obstacles life presents. This center is proving to be an ever-present internal compass along the rough and tumble road toward what I most yearn to create.

I think the following Rumi poem (discovered in the liner notes of the new Sugarland cd) is an apt invitation to keep going for those of us on the way towards precious dreams.

Come, come, whoever you are.
Wonderer, worshiper, lover of leaving.
It doesn’t matter.
Ours is not a caravan of despair.
Come, even if you have broken your vow
a thousand times.
Come, yet again, come, come.

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Opening to ourselves

September 2, 2009

I’ve spent a lot of time the past few years thinking about and practicing opening my heart. To others, to God, to possibility, within new relationships and old, during life on the upswing or in the middle of a downward spiral. It has required moment-to-moment awareness and perception of whether I am opening or closing.  (and sometimes I am completely clueless to either!)
 
This week one of my teachers asked me, “Is your heart opening to you?” I could tell this was a novel concept by the lump in my throat, tears welling in my eyes and the light bulb going on in my head.
 
Such a profound and necessary gesture. Beginning all the good we want to be and do for others by gently opening to ourselves first. You can try it if you’d like. Simply breathe into the center of your heart and feel it softly, subtly opening, like your favorite flower, to yourself.  The you that only you know.
 
For me, it is palpable and shifts me into a vulnerable place that is beautiful rather than scary. My shoulders relax, my chest exhales, my hips feel more grounded and I let go of efforting. 
 
Recently, the entire New York Times Magazine was dedicated to the empowerment of women and girls and its necessity for a healthy world.  (Thanks to the tireless Nicholas Kristof!!)
 
One Pakistani woman is quoted as saying “A woman should know her limits, and if not, then it is her husband’s right to beat her.” Acknowledging that I am no cultural expert, I will boldly say that this woman could benefit from a little heart opening. Obviously, and likely unconsciously, she doesn’t feel it for herself much less her daughter-in-law.
 
In my opinion, all the empowerment programs and policies on the planet won’t make a real, lasting difference for girls and women until we open to that inward feeling of tenderness towards ourselves. That, I believe, will change the world.

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“Love wins.”

August 17, 2009

“Love wins.” – Tavis Smiley, Television and Radio Host 
 
Does it get any simpler than that? I really should just stop writing here.
 
I tore that bit of wisdom from a Starbucks cup and I keep it on my dashboard as a reminder. Every time the “Check Engine” light goes on in my 10-year old car, I move “Love wins” over and pray it will save me $400.  (It’s worked more times than not!)
 
Here’s another of my favorite love quotations, “Love is everything it’s cracked up to be…it really is worth fighting for, being brave for, risking everything for.” – Erica Jong, O Magazine, 2004 
 
I’ve learned the hard way, as I imagine most of you have as well, that we can’t always have love the way we want it, when we want it. But we can feel love and give love at any time, no matter what is going on. We can risk loving with no guarantees, and ideally no expectations, of anything in return. And it will always be worth it.
 
I yearn to know the love a mother feels for her child. I yearn to create a deeply connected love with my divine life partner (whenever I meet him!) Until then though, what do I do with my heart?

Who and what am I going to love in the meantime? Even after those dreams come true, certainly my capacity to love will grow larger. What then? Where am I going to give all this excess love?! Wherever I can.
 
I practiced tonight. In my hot, sweaty, core yoga class. I chose the posture I hate the most “chaturanga“  – otherwise known as yoga’s torturous version of a push-up – and I loved the hell out of it. I must say… it was easier. 
 
“I do what I love, and I do it with great love.” Alanna Kaivalya, Jivamukti Yoga Instructor  

What can you do with great love? Cook tonight’s dinner? Bring your whole self to your morning run? Respond to your boss’ cranky email? Dare tell someone they matter to you?
 
I’d love to know how it turns out.

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Showing up for Big Mama

July 27, 2009

Who’s Big Mama you ask? On alternate days I call her God, Him, Shakti/Shiva, the Universe, a particularly spectacular sunset, the sweet sounds of a baby, my inner sense, and a whole host of other names.
 
I know how to show up for Big Mama on my yoga mat. I breathe deep in my belly. I practice opening my heart. And there she is inside me, part of me… ahhhh…  together again.
 
Church however is a different beast. After a five year hiatus, I’m finding myself in a bit of a pickle every week. There is nothing I dislike more than taking a shower and wearing anything but my cozy pjs before noon on a Sunday. Does God care if I show up in wrinkled clothes with sleep in my eyes? I don’t think so.
 
I intentionally get up a little early so as to relish in the NYT Style Section with a hot coffee before I run out the door. No shower, but I do at least brush my hair, throw a clip in, add mascara, and mow down the 25mph drivers on Monument to make it there before the ushers really glare at me. (Man, they start on time at this place!)  
 
I don’t believe everything I’m supposed to recite and I don’t understand the meaning of half the readings. I don’t even feel that church is the best place for me to connect to that all powerful force of love in the world – I get self conscious praying around all those people!
 
However, I like the act of showing up. I like ritual. I like people who believe in something enough to devote their lives to it. I like the prayers for peace and social justice. And most of all, I like seeing what makes its way inside me.  
 
Each week is a stretch. A stretch to not judge the people who talk during the sermon (don’t they know that’s the best part?!) A stretch to not feel alone in this big community of old and young. A stretch to ground my life and my work in deeper meaning.

I think, I hope, that’s what God cares about. Not my messy hair.

We don’t talk about God in the Women’s Circle but we do show up. We show up for each other and for ourselves and to discover what’s underneath.

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Showing up for the other 50%

June 21, 2009

I heard this on a video of the Vital Voices’ Global Leadership Awards:

“Women constitute 50% of society, but please, we should not forget that they raised the other 50%.” - Shaika Lubna Al-Qassimi, the first woman Cabinet Minister of the United Arab Emirates
 
After I finished laughing, I realized the huge impact we have on the next generation by who we are as women today. 

On this Father’s Day where we celebrate the good men in our lives, I want to ask, how am I and how are we as women showing up for the other 50%?

What will my nephews know about women from the way I love them and from who I am in their presence and in the world?  What will your colleagues know about women from the way you lead a Board Meeting or manage your staff?

How do we show up for our boyfriends and husbands in love one minute and in a fight over his socks on the floor the next? What will all of those not-quite-right dates remember from the way we said goodbye?

What do I show my father about the woman I’ve become when he still remembers a 6-year-old needing his hug and a 16-year-old needing (but not quite wanting) his loving guidance?

I think it is worth exploring and practicing how we want to show up for this other 50% whom we love, lead, follow, learn from, partner with, raise, give to and send on their way.

For ourselves and for others, this is what we help each other do in the Women’s Circle.

me and my Dad in 1970

My Dad and I in 1970

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“Salutations to that which I am capable of becoming”

April 25, 2009

I would really love to do big things in the world. I want to spread Girls For A Change from Memphis to Harare, Portland to Bogota and Philly to the Swat Valley. I want to heal and prevent horrific injustices towards women around the world. I would love to squash the Taliban (though I admit I’m a bit afraid of getting acid thrown in my face.) I’d love to work for the Nike Foundation or for Obama’s new White House Council on Women and Girls. I want to go around the country and the world listening to the dreams, challenges and solutions that women and girls have for themselves, their families, their communities and their country and I want to help the Administration respond in visionary, change making ways. I want to remind every girl I meet to believe in herself, what she is capable of and how much the world needs her.

 

I’ve heard that our heroes are our heroes because they embody some aspect of ourselves whether we realize it or not. My current heroes include the kind, spiritual and principled President Jimmy Carter and his work with the Carter Center, the kickass, outspoken Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks, wicked smart Rachel Maddow, and the coolest, most transparent First Lady to ever hit the planet! I’m not comparing myself (yet!) to these amazing peeps, however I think there is a theme amongst them – they are all courageous, original and hugely impactful in their own way. I would love to be the same.

 

One of my favorite yoga teachers in Richmond, Karen Hansen of Yoga Wabi Sabi, often ends class with the mantra “Om Namah Shivaya” which loosely translated means, “Salutations to that which I am capable of becoming.” Each week it reminds me that it might just be possible – this inkling and prayer I have of believing I could make an impact on the world for girls and women and thus, for everyone. 

 

And… at the end of each world-saving day, I want to come home. I want to breathe. I want to feel who I am instead of letting my worries or my ego define me. I want to be there for my friends, my sisters, my mom, my man, my children, my God and my self – as Eleanor – stripped of all outer definitions. I want to feel my spirit in my body, to share myself with an open heart and to love with all I have.

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Life is short, Love now

February 12, 2009

My Dad died 2 months ago today. I miss him. I miss the sound of his voice saying, “Hi Honey, it’s Dad.” I miss his hug. I miss playing Scrabble with him. I miss his quiet, humble nature. I really miss being able to give him my love and regret that I didn’t do it more while he was alive. Most days, I think he is just in Charlottesville. Until I remember that he isn’t. Still, I feel his fatherly love reaching me from wherever he is. Love doesn’t end. They say you teach what you need to learn. If there is anything I’ve learned from the excruciatingly tender experience of being with my Dad as he died, it is that life is incredibly short, love now.

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