Freedom (or the limits of control)

There is a state of being that we often strive for: being in control. And when we get there, we congratulate one another for reaching this sublime state of order. We’ve got it together. We design perfect plans. We make it happen.

During the holidays, in the cold, damp of winter, with more to do and less daylight to do it in, we often construct elaborate plans with even greater zealousness. There are usually more people involved, so the circle of our control must widen. It is more difficult managing the complexity of other people’s lives, but we plan well, we communicate thoroughly, we are “in control”.

And then something happens. Perhaps something small. Some one changes their mind. Or perhaps the quixotic nature of things presents itself. A flight is cancelled or someone gets snowed in and suddenly all our planning, all our effort and best intentions, come screeching to a halt. It is easy to become disappointed and in this disappoint be reminded of others, of the ways in which people have failed us, life has thwarted us.

But there is another story here. A story about letting go. We can know that we did the best we could to make our desires known, to make something possible. And we can know too that we are not in control. The world and its inhabitants have ways of opening and closing that we can neither predict nor plan are way out of it. But this is good news. What fun would life be for us if we always knew in advance everything that was going to happen?

So take a big, wide, exuberant gulp of air and let go. Take another breath and notice the world around you, the music of the rain, the odd elegance of your thumb, a stranger’s smile. By letting go we allow a sense of ease in our bodies, in our lives, and in our relationships. It is when we are here, in this place of openness, that the world can show up in all its mystery and magic, that the people in our lives are free to be themselves. And they are radiant in that freedom. We all are.

Turning Inward

As the days become shorter and the nights become longer, it seems as if life contracts, the cold and dark directing us back into ourselves. It is an important time for slowing down, turning inward, cultivating self.

In the words of that enigmatic writer, Albert Camus, “In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.” And it is true, in the coldest, darkest moments there is always our internal light. But the light requires cultivation and winter is a great time to nourish the flame.

In the coming months, allow yourself the time to rest, to reflect, to recover. Focus your energy on those things that are most vital to living a life of joy. By buffering your essential light from the frenetic pull of an ever busy life, your flame will strengthen and grow. Come spring, you will be alight in the world.

“Every gardener knows that under the cloak of winter lies a miracle … a seed waiting to sprout, a bulb opening to the light, a bud straining to unfurl. And the anticipation nurtures our dream.”
- Barbara Winkler

Ambivalence

There is something so lovely, so musical about the word ambivalence. It conjures, for me, images of bodies moving fluidly through an aerial landscape, back and forth, swimming in air. But the word is often most often used as a pejorative, as if to feel intensely, oppositionally is somehow strange, possibly, in Freudian terms, sick.

The word derives from the Latin prefix and root: ambi (meaning both) and valentia (meaning strength). But unlike ambidexterity, which is thought to increase one’s strength and ability, ambivalence is more often said to wreck havoc on our lives. And it can be exhausting, holding the positive and negative emotions, balancing the weight of such divergent feelings. But ambivalence is also a highly generative place. It is not unlike the tension between temperatures and particles that birthed the universe.

Ambivalence is an important marker of change, or a place in one’s life where change is called for; it is the resonant blast of a horn.

Whenever you feel the pendulum of ambivalence, know you are in a place of incredible opportunity. What, you ask, is my life calling for now? Let the brilliant galaxy of this new possibility come forth.

We are this essence of

There is a lake within each of us. It is deep and wide, cerulean, emerald, aquamarine in ever shifting hues. This lake, this zaaga’igan, is everything we have been, everything we are becoming. In it rests the rough, shorn boulders of our past and the tree filled islands our future. If we are still long enough, we can feel the expanse of the lake, hear the wind skating across the water’s surface. Everything we need is here; it is the depth and breadth of our sentience.

There are days when we can only venture our toes in the cool water, when we can barely breathe in the rich juniper that surrounds us. Other moments, we dive head first into the depths and swim as if returning to. Yet in all times, there is the lake within us; we can rest here and know we are already everything we are becoming. It is only how we choose to inhabit the stark granite and lush beauty that marks our experience of.

Magical Thinking

There is a part of the mind that is so clever, so articulate and witty, so neatly folded and perfectly pressed, that we often fail to notice the absurdity of the beliefs being expressed. I call this part of the mind Magical Thinking. It is a name that alludes to alchemy, but it is more akin to a confidence scam. For magical thinking takes the visceral truth of our intuition and turns it into self deceit.

Recently I found myself in the terrain of Magical Thinking. I recognized it by its repetition, the story stuck always at the beginning. Somehow all the lessons I had learned, all the things I knew about myself, life, people seemed untrue, without basis. It is from this place that I often make the same mistake, over and over. And this is why Magical Thinking is born of suffering; it is its twin. At some point we learned a necessary but harmful lesson – that the truth can be too awful to face. There are times, early in our life, when this is true. But as adults, when we do not listen to our deepest, truest selves, when we do not face unblinkingly into the moment, we become our own source of betrayal.

So next time you find yourself circling the same problem, idea or decision again and again, the next time you find yourself slipping as if ice beneath your feet, know you are in the land of Magical Thinking. Close your eyes, quiet your mind and ask your heart what it knows to be true. Let this be your guide.

Licking the Wound

Everyday the earth is bleeding millions of gallons of oil. It is terrible to witness her injury, but too there is something powerful in her rage at the violation of such a deep puncturing. Injuries produce a similar hemorrhaging in our bodies, whether they are visible or not. Usually, we rush to stop the blood loss as quickly as possible. But there is also the thrill of making visible our own interiority, a bright red fluidity to our seemingly solid skin.

Blood is the basis of our circulatory system, it is nutrients and oxygen, the cleansing of waste. When we bleed, we can witness our own regeneration. Often we rush to cover our injuries, to bandage them, wrap them, compress them in order to reduce inflammation. But there is something powerful about presencing our injuries in the way that bleeding does, to acknowledge the damage and bare evidence of its healing. Some heal faster than others, but all injuries provide us with important information about what we want for our lives and who we want to be. Pay attention. This is what the earth is asking of us now. Listen to her, to yourselves.

Shifting sky, moving ground…

The sky has been shifting all day, changing from blue to grey, filling with swollen white clouds then darkening to sudden, pounding rain.

It reminds me how much we change throughout the day, the mercurial nature of our emotions. One minute the world is an exquisite gift, the birds sing, a dog runs exuberantly toward the grass, the young girl next door smiles at you with her two front teeth. Then the sky darkens and there is a weight to everything, as if the day itself has sat on your chest.

It is easy to get caught up in these changes, to tell ourselves stories about their permanence. But they are simply the shifting sky, the moving ground, the endless movement that is life. It reminds me of a line from Rilke, “let everything happen to you, beauty and terror…no feeling is final.”

Outside the wind had picked up, sending a white flight of clouds across the sky. To the north the afternoon is darkening. But south, in a crook of perfectly blue sky, the sun is shining hello.

New Beginnings

It is spring now and the hillsides are bursting with color. Even on city streets, there are trees laden with white and pink blossoms. It is the season of new growth, a time for new beginnings.

Every morning there is the joyous song of birds. This is the call to let go of things that weigh you down, that no longer serve you. Letting go is the necessary act to create the space for something new. This letting go can be painful, often we feel as naked as winter trees in this space between what we have been and who we want to become. But nothing can grow if we do not provide the necessary space for it to flourish.

I experienced this truth so profoundly this past year. I was fiercely holding on to things that were dying, things that would eventually drain the life out of me. Not only did I have a tight grip, but I felt a sense of pride about my stubborn loyalty to them. As a friend once said, “the mind is a trickster, it tells you all kind of things.” It wasn’t until I finally let go that life’s immense possibilities were again available to me.

Take a moment to reflect on who you are becoming. What is holding this new self back? What does this self need to blossom and grow? Imagine you are this plant, vibrant with new growth and yet still straining to feed the dead leaves of the old you. Be fearless in trimming away those old attachments and habits. Without this weight, there is nothing that you can’t do.

Answering the Call

Every day is a new call to live our lives as fully as possible. The call is subtle. Sometimes we fail to notice it. More often we fail to answer it. In so doing, we end up following the same worn path, limiting ourselves to the same doors as yesterday, last week, last year. We repeat the familiar. But even in the repetition, we crave something deeper and more meaningful. We long to answer the call to live our lives with passion, love, and a greater sense of fulfillment.

Coaching creates the necessary support to answer the call. It provides an opportunity to envision and sustain the necessary changes to live the life you were born to live.

Behind every door, every thought and action, is a path. Your path, your life, is yours to choose.