No Longer Yours

As we descended from High Camp, a beautiful alpine meadow on the NW flanks of Mt. Adams, we passed by a large cairn, built rock-by-rock by hikers on that trail. It isn’t unusual for us to find cairns along the trail, but it isn’t often that I stop to contribute a rock of my own.

Today, I did.

It just seemed like the right cairn, on the right trail, on the right day. Picking up a squarish black rock, about the size of a book, I held it for a moment, considering what it represented. Setting it softly down on top we moved on down our trail, knowing that we had just left behind what is no longer ours to do.

As you continue on the trail that is yours to travel, what might you leave behind that is no longer yours to do?

The Garage Day 5

On this 5th day of the garage cleaning project, new space continues to emerge.

Whether talking about our time, our tasks, our minds, or our souls, uncluttered space makes room for us to breathe.

This is what came out of the garage…

This is what is going back in…

The thing with unoccupied space is that it has a tendency to get filled up again.

As it turns out, cleaning the garage isn’t the beginning of the end.

It’s really just the end of the beginning.

The Garage

So we have this garage. It’s a big, beautiful, well-built garage. It was specifically built to have room for two cars, ample storage space, a garbage and recycling station, a workshop to die for, and an upstairs bunkhouse for overflow guests, complete with a full bathroom, and mini-kitchen. It was planned for all of those, has room for all of those, but has none of those, because there isn’t room for any of those. It is filled to the brim with, well, we’re not sure what, but we’re about to find out.

Tomorrow is the first day of Garage Resurrection Week. We’ve set aside the time specifically and intentionally to rid it of any and everything that isn’t needed, wanted, or has past its usefulness, so that we can bring back to life the purpose for which it was built.

A garage is such a metaphor for life. A garage becomes filled with things that get in the way of why it was built in the first place, and a life gets filled with things that get in the way of why we are here in the first place.

It boils down to this…What to keep? What to toss? What to pass on?

Wish us luck.

Whose Side Of The Fence?

Whenever we are in a relationship, there are times when there is work that needs to be done, and that work falls into three categories: yours, mine, and ours. A healthier order would be mine, yours, and ours, because when looking at the health and dynamics of our relationships, it’s best to start within.

Good questions to ask ourselves might be:

How have I contributed to the current state of this marriage/partnership/family dynamic/professional relationship/friendship/whatevership?

What am I doing to build or undermine trust and respect?

What do I need to communicate to the other person?

Do I need to seek forgiveness?

Have I clearly stated my needs?

Do I need to seek professional help to find my way to a healthier me?

What is mine to do?

What is on my side of the fence?

Starting there is always a win/win deal. No matter what the outcome of our own work, when done with curiosity, humility, courage, and integrity, we come out the side more fully formed as the person we are meant to be.

All that being said, not everything falls on our side of the fence. It is up to others to show up too, and hopefully they will. Sometimes that means doing their own work, and other times it means that we swing our gates open wide and inhabit the field of relationship building together.

Lighten Up

It’s finally here. The last day of the year.

This is the day for one last glance over our shoulder, taking note of what we’ve accomplished and experienced, how we’ve grown and what we’ve discovered, what we’ve contributed and what we’ve been given.

This is also the day to leave behind what we don’t want to carry with us into 2019. We get so used to carrying what we carry that we just drag it along with us, never counting the cost.

Let’s not do that.

The new year is beckons, and there’s no room for excess baggage.