Kindling

"The problem with the world is we all think our goals are too lofty."  She throws this thought out there in the midst of a conversation about finding your passion.  We’re talking about a young person we both know; thrilled to discover this normally introspective, quiet, seemingly lost soul is suddenly and uncharacteristically shouting from the rooftops what he wants his future to look like.  His goal appears ambitious; prompting a caring adult in his life to ponder whether this desire to achieve what looks to be unachievable isn’t setting him up for disappointment.

And so I find it interesting when she paints such a broad brush across the globe, but I wonder myself how many dreams are dead on arrival, and I know what prompted someone somewhere to say “Doubt kills more dreams than failure ever will.”

Passion-finding is hard work.  It’s not so much about trying to figure out what it is you love, it’s figuring out where what you love fits in the structure of today’s society.  It’s pinpointing in this vast universe the audience looking to receive what you have to give. And in the case of gainful employment, it’s unearthing those willing to compensate you, at least enough to support the standard of living you desire. How many budding artists have been derailed with the words “no one will ever pay you for that”?  How many of us plug away at lackluster jobs by day for a bankroll, not realizing what really fuels us is the midnight oil our passions drive us to burn?

Those around us who want to help often steer us down the well-traveled road of certainty, and in the process unknowingly and inadvertently shame our dreams into silence; their automatic responses programmed to direct us to the safe and easy path where we won’t be hurt, rather than encourage the risk taking that comes with embarking on a trail not yet forged, an outcome unproven.  Who says we all should prioritize money, choosing fields guaranteed to bring in a good buck?  Who has the right to advise us to abandon our unique talents because the places to employ them aren’t readily apparent or exceedingly abundant?  Maybe the perfect job description is waiting to be written by the courageous individual who fits it?

Dreams in their nascence universally strike a match of hopeful doubt. As supporters, we are the bellows breathing life into these sparks.  It’s our job to notice the telltale signs of the fire within:  Eyes light up, lips form broad smiles, speech races.  It is effervescence unleashed, laced with diminutive shyness asking the silent question “Can I really do this?”  What if we listened raptly, nodded profusely, “Yes, you can!”

A passion revealed is a flame flickering furiously in a howling wind. We have the power to lovingly cup our hands around it with thoughtful questions, or to blow it out swiftly with dismissive judgment. Dreams are extinguished when they’re met with scorn, criticism or caution.  When we find the courage to talk about what’s closest to our hearts and souls, what’s risky, the last thing we need is to be acidulated with words on why it can’t happen.

I subscribe to the notion that we all instinctively know without a doubt where we want to be spending our time in life, we’re just afraid to speak a dream absent of all the steps we need to take to make it come true, uncertain our uncertainty will be met with affirmation.  But no one figures it out alone.  This is exactly why we need to stoke another’s passion when we see its glimmer on our path.

What if every single person out there was wholeheartedly encouraged to recklessly pursue her or his lofty dream?  Imagine the possibilities.  Imagine how life could be transformed by each individual bestowing his or her best and true self on the world. What part do you want to play helping another set the world on fire?

Abeyant

I don’t know why, but I’ve decided I like these sunny, bitterly cold mornings; “sunny” being the operative word.  Something about the brightness of the day, putting a sparkle on the snow makes me want to get up and moving despite the bone chilling cold.  Everything seems warmer with the solar glow.

For me, these frigid winter months are a marathon of creativity in the mad rush to submit my contribution to The Sketchbook Project and the annual scrapbook weekend preserving photographs in the pages of the never-ending chronicles of my children’s lives. I use this time trapped indoors to purge my closets and basement, in hopes of traveling a little lighter through the next year.

Kristin Armstrong writes a great piece about winter and honoring our desire to hibernate.  She speaks of the seasons, how this one is a time to mulch all we’ve experienced in the previous year, and live under its cover, making ourselves rich with the fuel we need to bloom spectacularly in the spring. This makes me wonder why so few of us allow ourselves such a complete rebirth.

It’s customary in our world to take some time off around the holidays to partake in revelry, ring in the New Year with some champagne and a checklist of resolutions, leaping into January, engines roaring, to start fresh.  We can’t get the holidays in the rearview mirror fast enough; Christmas tree at the curb about two seconds after the last note of Auld Lang Syne leaves our lips. What happened to the time to rest and rejuvenate?

Isn’t the New Year the perfect time, especially in these cold climates, to pull over at a cozy roadside inn, consult the map and make sure we’re heading in the right direction?  With Mother Nature begging us to stay inside, why wouldn’t we use the time to confirm we’re still excited about the destination we’re moving toward, and chart a course taking us by all the sites we’d like to see?

In a world where rewards come to those who possess a lead foot, easing up on the gas pedal is often frowned upon.  The goal of the pit stop is to be as quick as possible, not to spend time pondering whether we should jump out of the car.

Hibernation is misunderstood, and therefore we can question whether our pause, especially if we’ve lost interest in the road we’re on, is just laziness or craziness preventing us from moving forward. We doubt ourselves, and maybe since we’re literally under the covers, we ask ourselves if we’re hiding something, if the path of our dreams is so divergent from how the world knows us to be today, we don’t dare tread upon it.

 

But this is exactly what hibernation is for:  Time for solitude and self-reflection; time to be straightforward and honest about who we are and who we want to be, time to cultivate a safe place where we can look bravely within, decide if we’re ready to speak our dreams out loud and take a step in the direction of our true selves.

I believe our dreams are stowed inside of us, waiting for the moment we are ready to make them happen. What’s stopping you?

Brim

She’s looking over the contents of the closet spilling out of my studio/office space into the hallway.  She’s skeptical at best, despite my earnest gushing over the transformation poised to take place:  A post-Christmas Elf(a) descending on my house in the form of The Container Store’s installer ready to deploy their famous closet organizing system.  It doesn’t seem possible these stacks, boxes and bins of ephemera, the tools of unfettered creativity; the physical evidence of ruthless, vigilant record-keeping and memory-preserving could be contained within shelves, trays and drawers even the most efficient closet planner designs.

 

She’s right, of course.  My life spills over.  And I couldn’t be more grateful.  I’m writing this on the last day of the year, which is almost always a time for caesura.  I’m taking a few moments to celebrate what’s been beautiful, magical and rewarding about the past 364 days, but more importantly to get clear on what I aspire to going forward.

 

I want to live peacefully in the unsolvable.  I greet many mornings with a clenched jaw, a foggy head struggling to grasp the remnants of a dream that has me studying a perpetual puzzle.  The answer I work so hard to find dissolves into the question of why I’m even searching.  This, I’ve come to believe, is where I need to accede.  Some challenges are not mine to solve no matter how hard I try.  As my yoga instructor says, we come to class to learn how to be comfortable in the uncomfortable.  For 2015 I want to accept what I cannot change, and release myself to just be.

I want to listen better. Not more, but better. I want the quality to improve.  I want to become so attuned I hear the screams in another’s silence. This is a skill few ever master because its range is infinite; we’re constantly reminded we can always be better.  For me it’s about removing my own filter so I can really grasp what another is saying.  It needs to be more about forensics and less about foreshadowing. In 2015 I’ll strive to form my lips around questions when I want nothing more than to blurt out an answer.

I want to be a reckless forgiver.  When I’m presented with forgiveness as the definition of love, it’s a concept I turn over many times in my mind.   As I apply it to a myriad of situations I decide not only to back this theory, but to be an opinion leader.  Whether we’re talking about loving others or loving ourselves, without the ability to release the missteps, misgivings, and mistakes inherent in all of us it’s virtually impossible. Applied quite sparingly in the past (especially for myself), in 2015 I want to use forgiveness liberally.

These are boxes remaining forever unchecked, work that is never quite done.  But if I’m successful my life will continue to spill out all over the place, organized closet or not.  What a beautiful mess.

Papillon

“I’m not writing it down to remember it later; I’m writing it down to remember it now.”

My shredder gets a workout when I decide to peruse the volumes of journals I’ve amassed over the past seven years.  I begin writing during heartbreaking times, on the counsel of a dear friend who insists chronicling my trials and tribulations will allow the future, happy me she has no doubt will burst from the cocoon to look back in vindication at proof things do in fact change. That I julienne through buzzing blades more than 900 pages which poured from my pen horrifies another friend.  How, she asks, can I not save these words for posterity?

My justification is a fair one.  The most prominent theme in these raw, unabridged works, by far, is one of intense, chimerical longing.  While there are epiphanies here and there, plenty of sage passages, my writing is steeped in make believe, conjecture I embellish, foolishly believing I can will open spaces in my heart, not understanding my head isn’t yet ready to make room.

We all go through intense periods of living where we feel broken beyond belief. Our hearts, souls, body parts are stomped on, shattered, splintered in a million pieces.  We can’t fathom how we’ll ever heal. In our brokenness we close ourselves off from others, convinced we’re unworthy.  When love, even at its most humble, comes knocking at the door we can’t accept it.  Like the most famous inn known to mankind, we turn love away; we’re certain there’s no room.

 

The brokenness within us stands ready to condemn, threatens to consume us.  When we’re feeling bad about ourselves, embarrassed about a disingenuous act, flaw or a weakness, our first instinct is to hold back, to hide, to shut out those who love us because we feel shame, we’re undeserving.  But if we can allow ourselves to sit in the vulnerability of this seemingly unbearable brokenness, to accept our inherent imperfections with as much grace as those around us do, we magically create the room that’s needed to invite love in.

 

There is writing serving a very personal purpose in the moment and there is writing meant to record the voice of a generation. The work done in the cocoon isn’t meant for public consumption, but the butterfly can’t find her wings without it.

The heart is enduring, resilient, capacious.  It’s our minds barring entry, standing in the way of bringing into our lives what and who we most want, and inhibiting the courage we need to accept the fullness of who we are in order to become all we are meant to be.

What I’ve learned is all writing is transformational. When we make room we find the words the world can’t help but hear.

Love arrives in a stable

absent of tinsel and light

To deliver a message

on a glorious night

The brokenness within us

ever poised to consume

Yet this gift is bestowed

on all who make room 

Spate

My lashes raise the curtain to a dazzling composition, a masterful and magical palette of color; the morning sun as she rises spotlighting each player on the stage, illuminating to gleaming transparency each blushing blade.

It’s my favorite weather for running:  Cool, crisp, with a touch of damp; mottled pavement not quite toweled off from last night’s shower.  Pulling over my head an extra-long sleeved shirt, anchoring my thumbs in its loopholes, I lace my shoes; I head outdoors.

 

Abundant rainfall flushes exceptionally brilliant hues across each leaf in layered complexity, branches teeming, overly ripe and pregnant, anxious to drop their bounty.

Matted foliage dots the ground courtesy of a free float from the boughs above, releasing upon the rustling of my footfalls an unmistakably nuanced scent announcing the onset of sweet decay.

Who knew my neighborhood is fraught with such exquisite and explosive beauty? 

Yours is, too. Autumn’s swan song is now playing a limited engagement just outside your door, courtesy of Mother Nature. Make time to take it in while you can.

Druthers

“Everything is a choice.”  I read these words upon opening my eyes to the morning light and decide I’ll apply this line of thinking to the planned and unplanned events of the day, to prove (or disprove) this hypothesis. Can absolutely everything be a choice?

It is a choice to throw off the covers in the morning and step out into the mist for a pre-dawn run. It’s a choice to fire up my computer and begin my conference calls at 7:30 AM, to slip out for a cup of coffee when my meeting unexpectedly ends early.  It’s a choice to share my opinion on the business challenge at hand, or to remain silent, deferring to others.  It’s a choice to pay my bills, to work hard at yoga, to drink a green smoothie when I’d rather have a hamburger.

We can trick ourselves into believing we don’t have choices.  Going to work, for example, can seem like one such instance.  A job can feel like an obligation, not because we’re physically chained to the desk, but because the repercussions of not working are too harsh to bear; the alternatives so loathsome we wouldn’t ever consider them. Who would pay for our next great pair of shoes?  How would we keep our homes?  Put food on the table?  While it might not seem so obvious, we’re making a choice to go to the office.

 

My ah-ha moment lightened several years ago at a time when I was frustrated at my lack of upward movement in my job.  To hear me describe it back then there were “no opportunities”, and I had “no choice” but to stay in my existing role.  Upon further examination (many months later, unfortunately), I realized my own misguided perspective colored my thinking. I was making pointed choices to be present and available to raise my children which took me out of the running for many positions requiring travel or relocation.  I understood then and there I felt trapped, not because there was nothing out there for me, but because my personal choices about family were so firmly fixed and non-negotiable, I couldn’t see how I was adversely impacting my professional ambition.

Many choices can be looked at objectively, consequences weighed and decisions made independent of others.  Complication sets in when we consider the expectations another may have of us or worse yet, we presume expectations where none exist at all. We put ourselves in positions where we feel like we can’t say no.  This is how we end up purchasing a $25 bag of Cub Scout caramel corn we don’t need, or sitting through an all-day baby shower in a dreary banquet hall on one of the few remaining glorious autumn days.  In these cases we move away from choices that reflect our own truth, creating imaginary obligations we’re torn, even resentful, about fulfilling.

Time is a precious and finite commodity.  Our choices around how we spend the 525,600 minutes we’re granted each year of life play a part in whether we are stressed or relaxed, harried or calm, sad or happy. We’re not always going to love all of our choices, but knowing they are ours to make is empowering.

There are things we don’t get a say in, like whether the sun shines or it rains, what might come out of a manager’s mouth at the next one-on-one meeting, or what kind of mood a significant other arrives home in after a long day at the office.  But we do get to choose how we receive these situations.

I’ve been away from this blog for some time.  And, yes, I’ve missed it.  It would be easy to say I just don’t have the time.  But the truth is I am prioritizing differently, putting other happy activities in my life ahead of this one.  It’s a choice that may disappoint those who look forward to reading, a choice I revisit at times to make sure I'm still good with it.  But I know it’s my choice.  I'm happy to own it.

Whisht

Appreciation can be hard to come by directly as many of us rave about the great qualities of others when they’re not around to hear it, so I know I’m privileged when I find myself a party to her comments on my leadership.  Of all the attributes she chooses to highlight I’m struck by her summation:  “And she does it all so quietly.”

I think about what these words mean exactly.  Taken out of context they can be misunderstood; can seem like maybe the individual lacks assertiveness, can’t find the courage to speak up or speak her mind.  Much has been written about aspiring women leaders and how they need to find their voices to be successful in this dog-eat-dog corporate world.  If I were my younger and less experienced self I might worry I fall into this category.

We’re conditioned to believe we need to be vocal first responders, that to be heard we need to say our message loudly, repeatedly and to as many people as possible.  Pay for performance and promotion systems can skew towards rewarding those who are best at publicly taking credit for success and unabashedly advertising their achievements and accomplishments. We learn to hold our ideas close to the chest, hesitant to share until they are fully baked for fear a bad idea might mar our reputation or a good one might be hijacked by another to call his own. We become prisoners of our self-promotion, our people don’t want to work for us, our organizations never move beyond the status quo.

There are a myriad of ways to be influential in this world, to drive results, to drive change.  Quiet leaders know that new ideas incubate until they’re brought to life when the timing is right.  They often see the vision far out into the future, but can patiently hold on to it themselves until the rest of the organization is in a position to accept it.  Quiet leaders are methodical, putting the building blocks in place behind the scenes so when the world catches on, they are poised to move forward.

 

Quiet leadership is not about the need to find your voice; it’s about how you choose to use your voice.

Quiet leaders create a following one individual relationship at a time, trusting their reputations to be built through the good experience each person they touch relays to another. They know collaborating on the journey leads to the best solution. Quiet leaders cite the results in terms spotlighting the organization rather than themselves. They acknowledge and applaud the group that gets them there.

Quiet leadership is not for everyone.  There is nothing that says this approach is the only one, nor that it is better than any other.  It’s not an approach that brings sweeping accolades or lightening –speed ascension in an organization.  But for some of us, as much as we think we want to shine, we feel most like our true selves just left of the limelight.  It’s the quiet that allows us to function at our best.  And most importantly it brings to us those individuals we most want to partner with to change the world.