Roads

If you grew up like I did, you have sayings and stories and isms from your family of origin. Both of my parents are no longer living.  I find myself quoting my mother, mostly in love and humor. I didn’t have as much time with my dad. I often heard these two lines while growing up: “you can be the bigger person” and “you can take the high road.” This was usually over some incident, dissatisfaction or hurt. I’m sure Billie learned some version of these herself. 

It’s not bad advice - until it is. It can lead to perfectionist tendencies, to only be a certain way - that that way is the only acceptable way. 

Growing up, when I heard this, I mostly got quiet and had no response. It was its own kind of purgatory because what do you do with that dissatisfaction and hurt? I think I was in my mid-30s when I finally had something to say. 

Although I don’t recall now what was upsetting, while talking with Billie about it, she rolled out the same- old-same-old higher-ground-bigger-person language. 

My anger deepened. I said “Mom! Right now I’m on the low road. I won’t  stay there, but let me be angry! Most days, the middle road is the goal because the only ones who get to stay on the high road are Jesus, Martin Luther King Jr. and Gandhi in their current forms!” 

I’m pretty sure I was loud. 

When I took a breath, Billie said, “Okay.” Once I said all of that out loud, something shifted. Permission was given. Space was held. Release happened. 

Not unlike the moment in Ordinary People when Timothy Hutton tells Judd Hirsch loudly “I feel bad about this! Let me feel bad about it!” He repeats this a few times, and Judd Hirsch finally says, “Okay. I feel about this, too.” Timothy Hutton’s Conrad relaxes. Permission was given. Space was held. Release happened.

Iyanla Vanzant uses a house metaphor for healing while moving from the basement to the attic. It isn’t a linear process. I have attic moments - those spiritual, skin-tingling, grounded times. I also have low road, basement moments where my feelings get to just be. 

If I don’t travel the low road, those feelings get stuffed somewhere and then come out sideways later. I don’t stay there, but, for me, it is part of my healing. In Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott has a great line about a moment in time about another person she says she felt “so much hatred for her in that moment that it would have made Jesus want to drink vodka from the dog bowl.” Within the same page, she moves to compassion for the other person and herself. What a low road moment that is allowed to be followed by grace.

Stevie Wonder’s Higher Ground includes this wisdom: “Gonna keep on trying’ ‘til I reach my highest ground.” Where I live: trying. 

After our mothers died, my childhood friend Gary and I, without planning, gave one another something that belonged to them. Her mother, Lillian, wrote books. Gary found a copy of Portrait of Emma among her things with this inscription for me: “To Jean - Keep Trying!” She signed her full name which made me chuckle. She’s the only Lillian I have known. We wondered aloud what she meant. That message pops in unplanned, and then I get to remember her.

Those main floor, middle road times are good days including all of what a regular day chronicles. This is not the Snow White being dressed by birds while other woodland creatures help set the day version. This is the regular day of doing what we want to do and the stuff we don’t relish. I call this shooting for contentment. 

Try this:

What road are you traveling today? Include a lot of details. 

Describe a low road moment. 

Describe a time where permission was given, space held and release happened.. 

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at fsconsulting2013@gmail.com. 

Thresholds

Thresholds 

When is a time you remember facing a decision where it felt like you were stepping over a threshold, going in a new direction? 

One of the biggest thresholds I have crossed in my lifetime is when I decided to go back to graduate school and become a social worker. I’d been a paralegal for a long time and, at the last employer, I was there 15 years. I learned a lot, benefited from working there and was able to embrace the gratitude of that time. For a while, though, I was really unhappy. Eventually, I became a Guardian ad Litem in Mecklenburg County and worked with two families before I left North Carolina to start school at UGA. That work was so meaningful, and that’s where the road led: wanting my work to feel more meaningful, to matter.

While I am not sure I would recommend all this change at once, it went fine, and it was a lot. I quit a 17 year career, sold my home, and I moved to another state to go back to graduate school. 

I was met with a variety of responses with those decisions. Some cheered me on. Some avoided me, and some openly asked questions like had I lost my mind. One friend told me that when Daniel Boone moved to Tennessee, people thought he would be eaten by bears. When he returned, people thought, well, maybe I’ll move to Tennessee. Maybe. I remember thinking I’m Daniel Boone?

I was too excited to understand the impact of leaving every support system I’d known for a really long time in Charlotte. That didn’t hit me until after I left graduate school and moved to Atlanta.

College had not been my best time where I wasn’t much of a student until mid-way through my junior year.. Going back to graduate school helped me embrace my inner nerd. I was at the top of my class, made a 4.0 the entire time and jumped wholeheartedly into learning. It was redeeming. It has remained one of the best decisions of my life.

Had I not crossed that threshold, I wouldn’t have gotten to do meaningful work at the Winship Cancer Institute, at the Young Survival Coalition and now at Pisgah Legal Services.  

Had I not crossed that threshold I wouldn’t have met Bryan, my husband.

There are smaller thresholds that present themselves whether or not we notice. I wonder what happens when we notice on purpose, when we invite that opportunity to see.

Here are some subtle and important examples. 

Choosing how to respond in a moment where I might feel upset. Choosing to wait in that scenario and go do something else (even if it’s ironing) to take my mind off of it. There is wisdom in that. As I’ve heard said, if it’s a good idea today, it’ll be a good idea in 24 hours.

Another example might be to choose not to share my wisdom in the service of letting others make their own way. Plus, I might be given the opportunity to learn from them.

I’ve moved several times in adulthood. Those have all been thresholds of their own kind. While exciting and worth it, it takes time to build community, to know where you will buy your groceries, who will cut your hair, and the like.

There’s a natural trial and error in that.  I have learned by experience that my expectation for things to happen sooner rather than later results in this: time takes time.

I’m grateful for the thresholds I continue to experience, no matter what size they are, for they teach me.

Try this:

What is a recent threshold you have experienced? How are you feeling about it today?

What is an emotional threshold standing before you? Imagine walking through it, and write about that. Alternatively, imagine not walking through it, and write about that.

What is a threshold you have experienced where your life went into a direction that was unexpected? How did you navigate it?

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you. You can email me at fsconsulting2013@gmail.com. 

Uncontainable

There’s a potter in Athens Georgia whose work includes a symbol. Years ago, while having breakfast at a local bakery, I asked him about it while standing before a table of his wares for sale. I watched his face as he seemed to struggle to define it. He said that the symbol loosely interpreted into uncontainable love. He then said that didn’t fully capture it, that it was bigger than that. Bigger than uncontainable love.

When we still lived on Shady Lane, my room, at Christmas, would be turned over to other relatives who came to stay. This meant that, every other year, I would switch staying either with my sister or with my brother in their rooms upstairs. The anticipation of Christmas day felt uncontainable inside of me. The joy of getting a real tree with daddy; the tree itself being a decoration, presents arranged underneath it, adorning it further. I liked to turn off all the lights except for the tree and sit by it, often lying underneath it, just to look at it. That’s something that hasn’t left me.

When friends and family have shared cuttings or separate plants from their yard to transfer to mine and the garden tells a story, so does the tree. There are ornaments from trips with my husband, from friends throughout my adult life, from my childhood, including hand painted ones by my mother. These likely came from a kit, a box with paint-by-number type instructions, but they were still well done by her and by her hand. So, I feel a connection to her each Christmas. There are other decorations that remind me of childhood Christmases like a marble bust of the Madonna and child which was quite often in our entrance hall surrounded by greenery. When the decorations are unpacked each year, memories come like snapshots. 

These holy days, this time of year, can be energetically charged with memory, with love, with grief (which is just another form of love) and with expectation. Advent and the Winter Solstice lead us to today. A time of reflection, quiet and darkness. I like to look at the shortest day of the year of light as opportunity. The next day, it’s a little lighter; the day after that, a little longer light.

The darkness is not “bad” as Barbara Brown Taylor writes about in Learning to Walk in the Dark. She invites that relationship and being curious about it. Not just a “solar spirituality” but a “lunar” one as well. This feels like a whole picture. A time that can be so rich with detail and event, we’re also given the opportunity to slow down and be quiet. This may feel counter to the hustle of Christmas morning. 

Lately, the uncontainable feeling inside has to do with feeling connected to something greater. My hope for you is that whatever feels present, a story you sit with it, that there is the opportunity to learn to be curious about it. As someone who has been well-versed with filling up every minute of the day with something, I am a continuing student of learning to let go of expectation, of things having to be a certain way in order for it to be right and attempting to make room for what is meant to be. That is a gift.

Try this:

1. Write about an ornament or decoration from childhood 

2. Write about a tradition you have created for yourself in adulthood

3. Write about what “learning to walk in the dark” might mean for you and what initial step you might take

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.

Community

Last month, I saw a New Yorker cartoon - a parody on Frankenstein - with the doctor exclaiming: they said it couldn’t be done! I made a friend as an adult!

Why is it, do you think, that it might be difficult to make friends, new ones, in adulthood? When we were in Paris at the Louvre in October, we saw a sculpture called Love Embracing Friendship. “Cupid has placed his bow and quiver on the ground as, in all innocence, he embraces Friendship, who is not afraid.” Who is not afraid. 

I think about friendships over the course of my life, and it’s like a little slideshow of gratitude. Disclaimer: this is not a complete list.

Countless board games, making the rounds in the neighborhood, pretending to be the Beatles and the Monkeys in the living room, beach trips, camp and hanging out with Gary. 

Learning, for the first time, how to bake with Allyson's mother, Judy, teaching us how to make a pound cake, stirring it by hand, igniting a love of baking for me. 

Roaming their one-of-a-kind home with Lucy, working on summer staff at Kanuga and going to USC together all the while having the connection that our mothers were roommates in college.

Bonding with Harriette after a car wash/cookie sale at the Exxon that still stands across the street from Dreher High School. We donated the leftovers and started a friendship that is one of those that you pick up right where you left off. Harriette is one of my only friends who got to know my dad pretty well before his life was cut short.

Listening to The Pretenders with Anne and going to Group Therapy early rather than late hearing entire albums of Talking Heads and the Rolling Stones played while we made up stories about “The Count.” Road Trips with Anne and Elizabeth.

Standing in line chatting with Reba at South Building, grabbing a breakfast sandwich called the Country Boy before we headed to the state house to work before class.

Betsy J. making me laugh harder than any other human being ever has. Having the party of the decade at that upstairs apartment in Hendersonville when great aunt Angel told us about having a Pounding party. We got a lot of toilet paper, served a lot of draft beer and hosted just about everybody we know in one night,

My extra brothers, Joe and John, and one of the funniest weekends while at Joel’s wedding. The debate between the two of them about wearing an undershirt (in the Kentucky August heat) remains an all time chuckle and the reason we were late. 

Betsy H. whose friendship started with lifeguarding, lunches of frozen pizza at her house and many, many talks around the fire.

Sister Nickie, who early in life, swore I stole her hairbrush (which I may have and then forgot where I put it) became a friend when we were both young adults. There’s nothing like having a friend who is family.

Having fun on days off rather than doing laundry with Brooks; camping at Pearl and creating a special meal just for family with an especially designed menu.

Although only for a brief period of time, Narelle and Cathy, my enduring Australian girlfriends, and an epic snow-filled and partying season in Kitzbühel.

Beth, Joy and Colleen who I got to know when we were (except for Colleen) about to turn 30 and the decade that followed. Lots of bike rides, cooking together, walking in the snow, meeting for coffee, home-buying and growing up some.

Jan and Lynn, whom I would come to know and love at St. Peter’s, and whom I’ve enjoyed cooking with, laughing with, big topic talks and hiking.

Margaret who taught me about smoothies, eating differently, thinking about faith in new ways and the path of self discovery with curiosity.

Early morning walks in the dark with Annie and appreciating her heart so much. 

Mamie, whose friendship started in a formal way, turned into a meaningful one which has included important conversations with shared growing-up experiences.

Jennifer, my big buddy in graduate school, who gave a presentation on social work organizations and corporations using a Fisher-Price playground, solidly sets an example of what it’s like to stand by family and love them even when it’s really hard and who is silly in the most fun way.

Bouggy, who lived with me at a time when I was healing and becoming, and who loved me through all of it, and especially loved my cat Delilah, who liked to sit on her shoes.

Lalah and Carissa, who helped me learn to change my mind and have such creative fun around intention setting.

This year, in 2023, I wrote that I wanted more community in Asheville. This includes me being vulnerable and not being attached to the outcome. There’s been progress, and as long as I keep perfection out of it, contentment is possible. That is in the plus column.

Try this:

Write about a time, as an adult, you “asked someone out” to see if they were a friend? What did that look like? How did it go? 

Write about a time when you were 8 (or 10 or 15 - you pick) and who your friend(s) were. What did you do? Be curious about any specific story that comes.

Write a love letter to the friendships that you have been shaped by, moved by, loved by.

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.

Still

There’s nothing like getting sick that demands one be still. When I tested positive for COVID, the primary care physician told me over a teladoc appointment that she was glad I was getting it now instead of 3 years ago. I am grateful for the medicine available to treat it. Side effects were not surprising and did not last long. This was my first experience with COVID. I think. Maybe I’ve had it and had no symptoms. 

My experience in the last week had me in the bed for 5 days. That felt like a long time, but the body has its own wisdom. 

When I was a child, when I got sick with the flu, a cold or strep throat, I have memories of grape juice and being propped up with pillows and blankets on the den couch. My mother might treat me with pixy sticks and bubble gum from the Little Store or ginger ale depending on symptoms and how long it took to get better.

I can remember soldiering through colds earlier in life and still going to work because I didn’t want to use the leave time for sick days. Not so in the last week. I would think surely I will feel better enough tomorrow to [go to work], [eat something more than saltines], [sit up]...

What happened is that I rested. I was still. There would be no multitasking during that rest other than watching the television version of Howard’s End and a longtime favorite Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson. 

Bryan was an excellent nurse. Friend Margaret outfitted us with an impressive smoothie supply and homeopathic remedy. Armed with ginger ale, saltines, Vitamin Water, Chicken and Stars soup and English muffins, I was well cared for. By Thursday, I returned to work - from home - and watched how my energy slowly returned. I’m not running on all cylinders yet, but progress is being made. I am enjoying smoothies and trusting that, as Julian of Norwich is famous for saying, "All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well."

This past week canceled plans, freed up time and relaxed schedules. Returning to the every day-ness of life happens gradually. I’ve set boundaries so that recovery is the priority. The body is a miracle - especially when I am still and listen to its wisdom.

Try this:

When was the last time you were truly still? Where were you? What was happening?

Have you had COVID? What was your experience like? How did you care for yourself?

What happens when you pause?

I’d love to hear from you. Let me know how it goes.

Back to School

What is it that is so enticing about back to school shopping? When I was a kid, my dad would take me. I don’t think he enjoyed it much, but he was patient with me. I wanted to take my time, walk up and down the aisles, see what the options were.

It wasn’t so much that I wanted a lot of things. It was that I wanted to appreciate them. All the paper. Pens. Pencils. Notebooks. Three ring binders. Page dividers. Pencil holders to clip inside your notebook and zip up. 

Lunchboxes may have been involved. Plus, how many of you (maybe still) are all about that first day of school outfit? 

This time of year, there’s something about how the air changes for fall. The view of the sky is a bit crisper. Bluer. 

There’s something in the feeling of starting again. Returning. The both/and of that. Seeing your friends in a new grade. A new classroom. A new teacher.

Back to school can hold a meaning about learning differently. I might think something I’ve done a certain way is the way it’s done only to find out that that’s not true. 

Back to school can mean returning to learning differently in order to connect, to meet people where they are. Listen.

Listening means I’m going to need to slow down. Wait. Be present.

This Facebook post shared by a friend is brilliant. She encourages parents not to make big plans the first weekend after their children return to school. She likens their summers being like living in a frat house to then returning to the school room where there are rules, timelines, deadlines and expectation. The author encourages parents to go easy on their kids as they may feel exhausted and more emotional while adjusting. 

The idea of not creating more plans for the weekend is to allow for children to rest as they grow accustomed to their new schedule. We can learn from that.

I can be a big talker on a Tuesday of plans I think I want to have on the weekend. I’ve learned to say “I could be talking big, but this feels like a fun idea.” I give myself permission to revisit. Sometimes those plans materialize; sometimes they don’t. It’s okay to change our minds.

Now back to this: that first day of school outfit may already be in your closet. Just waiting for you to notice. You might be curious about how to do that. Check out Annie Mullins and All in the Detail for ideas.

When you think about back to school, what it conjures for you and this time of year as August wanes, what are the thoughts? Your schedule? School supplies? Getting up earlier? Snacks? What you’re going to wear the next day?

Try this:

1. You’re 10 years old. You’re starting school in a week. What was your routine in getting ready for that first day of class? What did you look forward to the most? What excited you? What scared you? 

2. You’re 15 years old. You’re starting school in a week. What was your routine? Did you plan your wardrobe? Did it matter? What excited you? What scared you? 

3. You pick the age. You’re a week away from your first day on a new job. What was on your mind? Were you planning your wardrobe? Thinking about how you would get to work, your route, your options? What excited you? What scared you?

There are no wrong results! If you want a gold star for effort, know that you have it.

I’d love to hear from you. Let me know how it goes.

Camp

When I was in the fourth grade, my friend, Elizabeth Robertson, asked me if I would like to go to Camp Kanuga with her that summer. I said yes. 

Although some home sickness sent in for one or two nights of those two weeks, what began has been the longest, most enduring love affair of my life.

I loved sleeping in a cabin when the night air was cool in June, listening to crickets and snuggling under a wool blanket. Growing up in Columbia where summer hosted the hottest and most humid of days, this was a whole new experience.

Learning to swim more efficiently and precisely happened in That Lake. A cold, dark, deep lake, where everyone lined up  on day one, and the lifeguards would say “all right swim three laps, show us what you got.” That first plunge knocked the breath out of me. My technique was awkward at best. A big goal was to be a Swimmer which had the most privileges. I got Intermediate that session, but the next summer, I would be a Swimmer. We received American Red Cross certificates for our levels of accomplishment. I later would be a lifeguard at the conference center up the road and had countless swims to the dam in open water, early morning before breakfast being the best, the quietest, feeling the most sacred.

The whole camp would circle up each night on the main field, hold hands around a gigantic bonfire and sing Kumbaya. Some may eye-roll at this.  What I will say, though, is it was spiritual and so special, a huge sense of feeling connected and belonging.

Square dances, talent night where counselors helped you dress up and play the parts of other counselors or sing goofy songs. Camping in the woods every other night. I had a big yellow sleeping bag with strawberries on the front. It was designed not at all for camping. If it rained, that thing literally was a wet blanket. Having scrambled eggs and bacon in a cast iron skillet over an open fire in the morning, dirty from having slept on the ground and not caring.

Particularly that first summer, when it was time to go, and we were all signing each other’s buddy boards with heartfelt messages, I couldn’t wait to get back. Leading up to the next summer, my mother would have a serious conversation with me that I don’t remember, but she recalled often. She said I listened very politely to her marketing for another camp, a camp she attended. At the end of her pitch I said, if I can’t go to Kanuga, I don’t want to go anywhere. 

I would go first session for many summers. I would become a Counseling in Training. I would mosey up the road in my 1966 valiant with no AC and no radio to work on Summer Staff. Waitressing family style to conferees and families. The drilling of good manners which were mandatory in the house I grew up in paid off in spades.

I would make some of the best friends I’ve ever known. Some of them are still very much in my life. When May rolls around, where I live in Western North Carolina now, there’s a certain smell in the air and I think camp. It’s time. I then remember rounding the corner and seeing the lake on the left at the conference center thinking I can’t wait to get back in there. I can’t wait to see my friends. I can’t wait to sit beside a campfire and listen to tall tales and sing songs and laugh till my sides hurt.

I’ve served in a lot of roles at Kanuga since that first session. I’ve been a volunteer. I’ve served on the Board of Directors. I’ve helped prepare the organic garden for winter. Each in active service which I would gladly do again for my spiritual touchstone.

Here are some prompts to try:

Write a memory in as vivid detail as you can using the senses of a summer memory as a child.

Write about the first time you had s’mores. If you haven’t had s’mores, stop reading this and immediately find a way to have them. Then write about that.

Write about a time you felt free as a child.

Write about a time from your childhood that became a legacy - where you took a role that you benefited from like being a camper to then being a counselor.

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.

The Last Time

When Noah began rapidly declining in the last few days of his life last week, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. There would be so many  “last times.”

The last time:

• He would step into my lap and rub his face on mine, something he’d done ever since he came home with me at 4 months old.

• He would conquer a sock, the bath mat, a fuzzy ball, a tee shirt, but mainly socks, and yowl down the hallway, a mighty lion with his captured prey receiving high praise and admiration along the way.

• I would feel his warm little back pressed to mine during the night.

• We would hear his incredibly high pitched vocal sounds.

• I would see him trot down the hall for treats.

• He would tilt his face up to mine with expressions of love.

• I would see him curled up on the blanket in our bedroom, on the couch, in my office.

• He would give us long, slow blinks.

• He would lick my face.

• I would know he was so close by.

This is not a complete list. If you have ever loved an animal whom you considered a family member, you know this relationship. 

Noah, in his 17 years, was not “sickly,” but he’d been through some health concerns. At age 13, he had radioactive treatment for his thyroid, and I realized that, after that success, we were on borrowed time. Of course, it’s always been borrowed time. I’ve felt it more acutely in the last couple of months.

The question that kept coming up for me was how much propping up of Noah do we do? For me? Because it felt like it was for me. He had significant arthritis. His extravagant, luxurious silvery-mocha-white coat was smaller, his weight on the scarecrow side. His eyes were mostly closed a lot of the time. When only “juice” from a can of tuna would do, I took him in and braced myself for hearing that it was time only to hear there were options. For a couple of weeks, we employed those.

Noah rallied in a way I hear those on hospice will. He seemed better. He ate like his old self with gusto. He seemed to move easier. It gnawed at me, though, that we were giving him a lot of medicine. We stopped some of it. Even with the “regular” medicine, Noah declined literally and physically. My sweet boy became super wobbly and stayed under the bed. He stopped eating except for a special treat of yogurt off of Bryan’s fingertip.

When Dr. Beth arrived from 4 Paws Farewell, I, being a creature of ritual, had some things in place. I’d emailed the Catholic church around the corner about holy water with an offer to make a donation. The Father there called and told me his 18 year old cat crossed over a year ago, said no donation was necessary and shared all of the options to attend Mass. I thanked him, retrieved the holy water and left a donation. Windows and doors throughout the house were open. A pillar candle had been lit the day before. We stayed near Noah throughout the day. 

Dr. Beth conducted a quality of life assessment and confirmed that Noah was confused and weak among other signs. It helped more than I can say to have a gentle, experienced soul there to help make a decision.

We sang Close to You, read to him, told stories, prayed for him and blessed him with holy water. Dr. Beth gave Noah a sedative, and he instantly relaxed. Ten minutes later, he crossed over. Our other two cats, Basho and Velvet, went to him afterward and bathed him which felt like a sacred rite: washing the body after death. 

Bryan and I later that day drove him over to Angels with Paws to be cremated. Photos, one of our dear former cat sitter’s fun letters, several toys and one of my socks were included as well as a tee shirt I’d worn the night before. These rituals are for me. They felt good and right. 

The house feels weird. We’re all sad and have low energy. Tears come without warning. I keep looking for Noah, my Sugar Bear. He will forever be in our hearts. In my childlike view of Heaven, I know he was greeted by Clare, his first “sister,” Gracie and is in the arms of God. 

The last prayer we said over him is this one:

May the long time sun shine upon you.

May all love surround you.

And may the pure light within you guide your way on.

For journaling, consider writing about one of these:

1. A time when you had to say goodbye to someone you loved.

2. What grief feels like in your body.

3. A tribute to a beloved pet.

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.

Holy Balance Keeping

“To be holy is to keep our balance while the earth moves beneath our feet.” This is plucked from a recent On Being conversation between Krista Tippett and Barbara Brown Taylor. To me, this is reinforcement that life will (sometimes, it feels, impossibly) go on. The sun will rise. The birds will sing. The earth will continue to move. The idea, I think, is to have faith with whatever comes. This is easy to do when things are going well. When things are muddy, murky, uncertain, hard, exasperating - or more succinctly - painful - is when that “keeping our balance” part can go right out the window. If you are someone who feels like you’ve got this down, my hat is off to you. I am not like that. I’m better at it as I’ve grown older. I mostly welcome the opportunity to try to improve myself. Those who are regularly around me have heard me say right after that “I just didn’t realize it would be so painful.”

Conversations over the past nearly 20 years with cancer survivors, caregivers and other clients have included a frenetic undercurrent where they are tap dancing as fast as they can to stay positive. Just stay positive. We are not one thing or another. We are many things, and, in the midst of receiving the news of illness, death, grief of any kind, the last thing any of my clients want to hear is “just stay positive.” Believe me, this sends people packing up their hearts and into isolation. The Cancer Patient reveals this with example after example in a raw, humorous and real way.

How does one bridge the packed-upedness with this keeping balance in a holy way? Not overnight. There’s no quick fix-it available.

Willingness - this is a key ingredient. Being willing does not mean we enter into this faith, this trust without trepidation and perhaps even grumpiness. The first time I ever took part in a 21 day cleanse with Ellen Kittredge, one of the participants, before we even started, who knew she was taking a break from certain foods, making a conscious decision to do so, admitted that all she wanted to do was eat cheeseburgers and drink wine. So many of us on the call identified with that. When we think we will be deprived (even in this conscious choosing!), some part of us goes into let me get all I can before that first day. 

Willingness to what? Be with what is hard. Be with what hurts. Be with what we would rather not face. How do you do that? One step at a time. It is hard to keep balance when we get laid off, have to do another round of chemo, be still with our broken hearts, say out loud what hurts even if we don't fully understand.

Barbara Ehrenreich talked about the difference between positivity and optimism in Bright-sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking Has Undermined America. I continue to be struck with this notion that the difference is that I am not tap dancing with anxiety to stay positive, and I am choosing, when I get up each day, that I will try to see the good in it; I will try to be grateful for all of my life not just the good bits; I will invite grace and compassion because I, for sure, will stumble. Then, I will return and try again. This, I think, is willingness toward holy balance-keeping. It is an opportunity. It is a practice.

In this practice, I choose to remember my father who died 4o years ago today. All of his children are now older than he was when he died. My brother sent an early morning text to my sister and me remembering this anniversary, touching on the long time-ness of it and that he loves us both. I lean into that remembrance, that long time-ness and that love. I remember Daddy in a slide show of sorts. Like that time he had Stoney End at full blast with Barbra Streisand taking the living room by storm on the then-new technology of boom boxes when my mother came in to fuss at one of her children only to laugh out loud.

Journal prompts to try:

How are you keeping balance while the earth moves beneath your feet?

What is your daily practice on how to view each day? If you don’t have one yet, how might you invite that?

What does it feel like to be willing?

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.

The May Yous

When our friends John and Rebecca decided to get married, Ireland was where they tied the knot. John is a friend from Kanuga where my longest, strongest and most important friendships were forged. This is a group that remains in touch, and that is a gift. A big group of us all former summer staff and campers were the hosts, and the party was held at an iconic historic Montford home in Asheville belonging to our friend, Margaret.

It was a gorgeous afternoon going into early evening where the temperature was not too hot or cold. Guests gathered on the wrap around porch, on the lawn and later inside. I created slips of paper that began with “May you…” for the guests to craft wishes, blessings, hopes - you name it - and place them in a box. Our friend, Joe, read them aloud with over-the-top radio announcer skills, and, then, Rebecca and John had a box to tote home, to cherish, and, maybe, to bring down from a shelf for reminiscing.

When I graduated from college, I spent 11 months traveling in Europe with a too heavy backpack and a mammoth sized sleeping bag. Two weeks of that trip were spent hitchhiking in Ireland with friends Cathy and Kay from Australia. We often had rides with mack truck drivers who bought us coffee. There was competition for rides in the afternoons when school let out. Everyone we met was friendly and generous with us, proud of their heritage. The country was magical and beautiful to behold. One woman gave us a ride and took us to her house for tea and homemade Irish brown bread and then invited us to spend the night. We’d spent the day riding bikes along the Dingle Peninsula, so we stayed and helped her husband and her feed all manner of farm animals, something about which we knew nothing. They took us to where we needed to catch a ferry the next day. 

These experiences are gifts and blessings. They are the feel-good kind. There are other types of blessings that we may not be able to appreciate until later, sometimes much later. Unexpected events, changes and shifts that can blindside us and leave us feeling vulnerable, resentful and scared. This can include anything. Our experiences are personal, private and matter regardless of what others may think or feel about them. With time, we can hopefully look back and find nuggets of wisdom and learning in those experiences. As our friend, Earle, says, “time takes time.”

Here are some Irish proverbs to use as journal prompts. Pluck from them the messages that feel applicable today. Know that these, along with any wisdom, is available whenever we want to return to it, find it, connect with it whether for the first time or as we need it along the way.

“May your heart be light and happy, may your smile be big and wide, and may your pockets always have a coin or two inside!”

"A good laugh and a long sleep are the two best cures."

“May the hinges of our friendship never grow rusty!”

“You’ll never plough a field by turning it over in your mind.”

“May neighbors respect you, trouble neglect you, the angels protect you, and Heaven accept you.”

“A little fire that warms is better than a big fire that burns.”

“May your home always be too small to hold all of your friends.”

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.

A Many Splendored Thing

In his dread-locked, leather-clad glory, Lenny Kravitz, in Let Love Rule, tells us:

“Love transcends all space and time

And love can make a little child smile

Can't you see this won't go wrong

But we got to be strong

We can't do it alone”

From transcendence to understanding we can’t do it alone. How do we love? In action? Are we tolerant? Patient? Kind? In the present? Do we cling to the past? Freezing ourselves and others in time? Are we the same person we were at 18? 30? Last year? Yesterday? 

I am lately seeing a meme that, paraphrased, reminds us that we can never fully know what someone else is going through. Brené Brown gives permission to the both/and aspect of how to love others when it is difficult. When we bump into someone else who is hard to be with, deal with, be around, we can try to remember:

“All I know is that my life is better when I assume that people are doing their best. It keeps me out of judgment and lets me focus on what is and not what should or could be.

In this Atlantic article, it may seem odd to bring the words combat and love to the same notion. Here, we are called to combat fear not with calm or courage but with love. The world may seem less threatening and scary when we are in loving contact with others. This isn’t just something that happens. We have to pursue it, like Hafiz’s poem telling us ever since happiness found us, it’s been “running through the streets” trying to find us. This includes pursuing loving ourselves. Are you?

Trying this isn’t about acting like our fear doesn’t exist or pretending we’re not scared. It is about being with our fear and inviting love at the same time.

Love may not look like someone saying I love you. It could look like:

I brought you a glass of water. 

I want to hear what you have to say. 

Here are some homemade cookies. 

Have you read this? It made me think of you. 

Call when you get there. 

Did you pack a coat? 

Let me get the door for you. 

Good morning. 

Good night. 

Or, like this past Saturday, when our friend, Margaret, and I sang the opening to Raindrops Keep Fallin’ on My Head on the sidewalk remembering the iconic Burt Bacharach and his timeless message that what the world needs now is love, sweet love.

Try this:

• Write about a time when your heart was open and you loved unconditionally. Include what unconditionally means to you.

• Write about a time when you felt loved. Include every delicious detail that you can think of. With a sense of wonder; ponder how to invite this feeling again.

• Tell someone you love them. Out loud, face to face if possible. Be with all the feelings that show up and love them all. Be curious about not being attached to the outcome. Write about what happens, particularly inside of you.

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you.

Beginning

In the movie Beginners, Christopher Plummer’s Hal decides to come out of the closet after his wife of many years passes away. He fully embraces his new community, becomes an advocate, falls in love and learns about what to call music with “that beat.” Hal is 75. He is charming, loveable and an example of it’s never too late to begin. Even while facing a cancer diagnosis. Even then; maybe especially then. 

Rilke said “You are not too old, and it is not too late to dive into your increasing depths where life calmly gives out its own secret.”

In the movie Begin Again, an on-the-verge-of-being-washed-up Mark Ruffalo’s Dan finds a new way to collaborate. With a new, young musician, whose commitment to her independence as an artist is ferocious, he follows her lead, and the gifts he is given are remarkable.

Sewn through the messaging is an opportunity. Choices carry risk because they bring change. If your heart calls you to follow it, what would it feel like to take a step in that direction? 

Twenty years ago, after deciding that, if I was going to go back to school, I’d better do it now because 10 years would go by in a blink, it was only 9 months from that thought that I was sitting at a desk in my first class in graduate school. That involved a lot of decisions. I sold my home, left a 17 year career and moved to another state. I was met with a range of responses from “go get ‘em” to “have you lost your mind.” It remains one of the best decisions I have made. My heart called. I followed.

When doubt and fear bubble up struggling for control, ask this question: what if works out? What if I decide to place some faith in that direction?

Try this:

1. Dive into your “increasing depths” and listen. You decide for how long. Write about what is revealed.

2. Ask the constant train of thoughts chugging through your mind to step aside. Ask your heart: what is next? Write about what surfaces.

3. Begin a sentence with This is How it Will Work Out and make a list. Notice how that feels.

Hope-Full

Today is the Winter Solstice. It’s the longest night of the year, meaning the darkest night of the year. What I like about it is that, starting tomorrow, the light lasts a little longer each day. That’s hopeful. Hope-full.

In the movie Rise of the Guardians, Santa asks Jack Frost what his center is. Jack doesn’t know just then. Santa knows what his center is, and it’s wonder. There’s a great scene watching how his imagination has translated into all manner of toys floating around the room where they stand. He often says in the film he knows things to be true because he can feel it in his belly.

The social workers I supervise towards clinical licensure and I discussed this movie for group supervision earlier in the month looking at themes, thinking about what it would be like if any of these characters were our clients. A common thread among the characters is that they have to face and lose something in order to gain something. They all had to be willing to change in some way - even if they didn’t.

In the classic, It’s a Wonderful Life, James Stewart has significant FOMO until he’s been given a chance to see what life would be like had he never been born. He has to lose something in order to gain something. As Clarence (his guardian angel) says, George Bailey has been given a great gift.

Longer light. Change. Willingness. Centeredness. 
Today is a great day to be still at some point. Even if it’s for a short while. Quiet. No devices. 

It’s an opportunity to notice. Even if you sit still for five or 10 minutes, notice. Our thoughts can race; they can ramble; they can make no sense, and they can repeat. This is normal.

In this holiday time of year, consider inviting the separating, the respelling and re-framing of holiday into holy day. It’s a holy time of the year. Sacred.

Try this:

1. Sit still for 10 minutes. Close your eyes if that feels good and right to you. Write about the experience afterwards.

2. Light candles and turn off the lights after dark tonight. Notice how you feel in your body. Notice how your senses respond. Write about it.

3. Set an intention of what is ready to be released and what is ready to come. Write about it.

Let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear from you.

Heart Strings

This time of year can be supercharged with emotion. Expectations to be merry, to find just the right present, to be a consummate host, to have what the commercials sell us to want. What a tremendous amount of pressure!

It can also be a time of year when grief washes to shore like a patient wave. In my work with young adult cancer survivors, they may hear statements that are some version of “are you all done with that now?”  The Cancer Patient on Instagram has example after example of this in an irreverent, humorous and real way. 

When I think about how we can respond from and be in a heart-centered place, here are a few ideas which surfaced. In the movie Funny People, Eric Bana’s character states “underneath anger is hurt but underneath hurt is love.” In the comedian Jake Johannsen’s special This Will Take about An Hour, he describes his grieving process after a breakup from a relationship where he thought he was going to marry the person. He talks about walking around his house “in my underwear, smoking cigarettes and eating chicken pot pies” for a period of time. After more time, he experiences a moment that feels like becoming aware. He puts out his cigarette and asks “where are my pants?” In the song It’s Alright by Big Head Todd and the Monsters, a line offered is “sometimes you gotta think about the things you're gonna love.”

What do these have in common and how is the heart involved? Eric Bana has been ready to go to fisticuffs with Adam Sandler over a woman they both love. He stops and reframes in the moment. The “where are my pants” moment is a sign of healing. This person has shifted to a different place; awareness like waking up has returned. Thinking about what we’re going to love brings in choice - something all three of these share. We have a choice. We can pause. We can wait to react even if the desire to - shall we say - illuminate - another person is quite strong.

Why do this? If we stay angry and want to go fisticuffs, that is a state that ultimately is the most harmful to ourselves. When we’re able to remember the love-under-hurt-under-anger space with love being the center, when we’re able to take a breath and pull on our pants one leg at a time, when we’re able to remember we have choices, we can hope for the best for others and for ourselves. Genuinely.

Try this:

1. Create your own version of The Swivel this holiday season. It is a pro move that takes the conversation in a different direction - one you lead. If you do this, write about how it went and how it felt.

2. Think about the “have to” vs. the “want to” approach to your time. Do you really have to go to the same gatherings as always? Do you want to? Spend time in your journal writing about (1) if you go to those or (2) you choose not to. How does it feel in each scenario? What feels better? Is it possible to take a step in that direction?

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!

Swing Shift

In the quest for work-life balance, messaging arrives that says we must sacrifice something in order to have this or we really can have it all (so we must be doing it wrong). In either scenario, an undercurrent of not-quite-getting-it-right flows. The stories we tell ourselves are ones we consciously or unconsciously follow and believe. They’re just stories, though, and they may not be true. They may not even be ours (meaning they were passed on to us).

In this Medium article, a pendulum swings: “it’s this way” and then “wait, it’s this way.” The author makes changes that are lasting and beneficial taking one of these ways into consideration then shifts when another, more beneficial, way is revealed. The author is ready for changes of one kind and then, five years later, for another kind. He is not the same person five years later. None of us are. This isn’t a linear course. It’s a personal one.

We want certainty. That idea feels good, and so what is known feels safe (even if it’s unhealthy). Change is disruptive even when it’s for a good reason (i.e. if I leave work on time thereby taking care of myself, inviting balance - will I get in trouble? Will others judge me?). 

The stories that we’ve been loyally keeping alive may no longer fit. That might feel scary to consider, and, yet, we have the choice to decide what fits and what is ready to be released. This may feel Too Big. A message might surface that says “but if I do that, who will I be?” The gift: you decide. Just like Glinda tells Dorothy, “you had the power all along.”

Real change happens in small steps rather than an overnight, grand gesture. Lasting change happens because we practice something new that then can become incorporated. We challenge “old tapes” with a question like “is that really true?” When we’re ready and willing, the internal dialogue can shift. A small step is needed to start. Look for one to try (like leaving work on time for just one day). Notice your internal dialogue, what you think will happen and what actually does happen. Notice how you feel.

Journal prompts: 

Make a list of what has “always been” and another of “possibilities and desires.” Place them side by side. Do you see some of the same things on both lists? Are you surprised by what made either list? Is there a bridge you can build (brick by brick) between the two? 

Is it possible to consider the idea of a swing shift where you face both lists and decide what stays and what is ready to go? 

Let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear from you.

Dollar in My Pocket

When I started Education for Ministry (EFM) in Atlanta in 2015, I became a part of a special group comprised of people of all genders, ages and varied and fascinating backgrounds. It is a four year program, and the group rotates year to year. At most of the weekly meetings, the group, based on discussions had, would consider what is called a theological reflection.

I’ll come back to this.

I try but am not always successful in having a dollar in my pocket in case someone needs it. A few of the people in my EFM group shared their opinion that I was “making the problem worse” or perpetuating it. My response was that I did not know that that person was not God. We had some colorful conversations about this. One of them, maybe more, would come to EFM later in time and, in a sort of shy and curmudgeonly way, tell me that they had bought a meal for someone who asked for help. This thrilled my heart.

A woman once came to me as I loaded groceries in the car. She told me that she had not eaten in three days. I said, “let’s go inside, and I’ll buy you something to eat.” The woman turned and walked away. I realized that her hunger was not for food.

Another time, while roaming in Avondale Estates, a man was on the sidewalk yelling. He grew louder the more passersby did not respond. I stopped and said “what’s the matter,” and he said loudly, “I’m hungry!” I said, “okay come in here, and I’ll buy you something to eat.” There was a breakfast place right there where I had been before. A friend’s grown daughter worked there at the time and was there that day. The man started telling me how much money he needed for beer. I told him no one was buying him beer that day. He nodded. We sat at the bar while I noticed collective discomfort from the other patrons. I asked his name. He said his mother called him Charles but then gave a nickname that I now cannot recall. I said, “well, Charles, what would you like to eat?” He ordered and began eating with relish. My only regret is that I did not stay with him until he was finished.

In 2018, my husband and I went to Italy for a glorious two week trip. We started in Rome, dropped our bags at the Airbnb which was still being cleaned and made tracks to get the first installment of many helpings of gelato. While walking to the Pantheon, two women in front of a church rushed towards Bryan and then rushed away. Bryan stopped and told me his wallet had been stolen. (We have heard story after story from friends about this being so common and happening to them).

I stayed in front of the church where the two women still were while Bryan went to find a policeman. 

Two things are noteworthy here. One is that in all the charitable examples I provided above, that spirit of charity was replaced by rage. White hot rage. I was furious at the two women, one of whom had the gall to hold out her hand to me. I held out my hand to her. I was certain that they were responsible. Who knows if that is true.  It makes me think of Anne Lamott in Traveling Mercies stating something along the lines of feeling so much hatred in a moment that it would make “Jesus want to drink vodka out of the dog bowl.”

The other thing was that trying to find the police station felt like an episode of The Three Stooges. We spent hours trying to find it thoroughly jet lagged. When we did, it was pretty anticlimactic.

At the end of the day, it was just money. It was an inconvenience. Really. We were able to call our bank, cancel cards, make them aware and carry on with our trip. I would be lying if I said that I don’t remain wary of Rome. 

When I next went to EFM, I told my beloved group that I was a contradiction. I shared this story. In the theological reflection, the message that surfaced after much discussion and discernment is that we don’t like it when beggars don’t behave the way we want them to. I laughed out loud at myself.  

Who knows what those who steal are experiencing, how scary or threatened their lives may be. My job is to work on forgiveness because resenting what happened or who I think was involved will only hurt me. 

I still try to have a dollar in my pocket.

Journal Prompts to try:

1. Describe a time you felt like a contradiction.

2. Describe a time you held onto resentment and then realized you needed to let it go.

3. What is your idea of charity?

Let me know how it goes. I’d love to hear from you!

Wear the Bikini

It’s mid-August, and you might be thinking summer is almost over! In some places, school has started! I might then say it’s mid-August, and summer isn’t officially over until September 22 when the Fall Equinox begins. Mostly, though, I want you to think about wearing the bikini as metaphor. 

In the photo provided with permission (saucy language included alert) by a lovely and amazing journal workshop participant, the power of the post it note is strong. Like many, Dee, expressed a far-off-someday kind of wish that her body would be in just a right kind of shape and space to wear a bikini. 

This was a couple of years ago while I was facilitating a workshop partnering with Cactus Cancer Society. The focus is about reclaiming oneself and inviting intimacy after a cancer diagnosis and treatment. I have also facilitated a similarly themed workshop through the Therapeutic Writing Institute called the Body Electric for all women. 

When I walked the Camino de Santiago, my friend Jan and I noticed how comfortable Spanish women were in their bodies. They wore whatever they wanted regardless of age. Many had a lovely deep Fuchsia color to their hair - again - all ages. 

During the Body Electric, there were two participants from Spain on opposite coasts, and I remember thinking how lively the conversation will be including different cultures. What I learned, though, is that women learn early and deeply about shame and guilt around their bodies not being a certain way. It’s universal, and it’s insidious. Let’s change that.

What I continue to witness is that theme of once I get to [fill in the blank], I can wear the bikini. Or, maybe you have bought clothes that you have yet to wear because you’re waiting for your body to be in that certain spot. Far off. Someday. Let’s change that.

Wear the bikini on a post it note becomes empowerment, a “Towanda” as in Fried Green Tomatoes. I encouraged Dee that if she wanted to wear the bikini (literally), to go ahead and get the one she loved, wear it, love it, love herself and have fun in the process. To my delight, she did exactly that. Her joy was palpable.

Wear the bikini as metaphor is specific to the individual. It’s about choosing you and moving forward with what is important to you, loving yourself as you are. Now. Today. Like Bridget Jones - “just as she is.”

Journal prompts to try:
1. How can you love yourself right now, in this moment?

2. Whether clothes, a trip, a new friend - what small step can you take in the direction of something you want to do?

Let me know how it goes! I’d love to hear from you.