Word Of The Day: REPLENISHED

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on a word of the day drawn from a list created at the beginning of January. Each word was chosen to serve as a guide to inspire and inform my steps through 2020. If you are just joining me now and want to look in on earlier posts on this topic, you will find links to each at the end.

REPLENISHED

To be replenished is to be refilled, to replace what has been used up, to be restored after having exhausted our inner resources. I know what replenished feels like, and as I discovered recently, what it does not.

One night not too long ago I found myself on the closet floor in tears, being spooned by Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle who refused to leave my side. I had hit the wall. It wasn’t a choice. I had used up all I had, and there simply wasn’t any more to give.

I spent the better part of the next day napping, and woke up the following morning no longer flattened against the wall. It would have been easy to just pick up life where I’d left off, thinking that I'd refilled my tank. That I was replenished.

I wasn’t.

Functional? Yes.

Replenished? No.

About that time my husband came down with the real-meal-deal flu, and was down for the long count. Basically sequestered for a week, it was no fun for him. He felt so lousy. For me however, those days under house arrest were a gift. His time to recover became mine to be replenished. To replace what had been used up.

Yesterday I wrote about being in rhythm with our lives. Being replenished is part of that rhythm. We are meant to give ourselves away, to go out into the world and return back home, to empty out and to fill back up. I know what my replenishment essentials are, and my guess is that you do too. It would be nice if we didn’t have to find ourselves on the closet floor in tears in order to remember what they are. Although being spooned by a chocolate labradoodle is pretty pretty great.

Photo: Aaron Burden on Pexels

Photo: Aaron Burden on Pexels

Word Of The Day: TRUSTING 2.0

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on a word of the day drawn from a list created at the beginning of January. Each word was chosen to serve as a guide to inspire and inform my steps through 2020. If you are just joining me now and want to look in on earlier posts on this topic, you will find links to each at the end.

TRUSTING

To trust is to put one’s trust in, have faith in, have every confidence in, believe in, pin one’s hope on, something or someone. It is a choice made in the here and now, without knowing what will happen in the there and then. Trusting is an act of faith.

This is what trusting looks like.

When I was twelve years old my parents, sister and I took a trip to Mexico. We spent a few days in Puerta Vallarta, but the real prize was a week in the then—and kind of still—undiscovered tiny village of Yelapa. At that time there was only one small “hotel”, a tiny village on the nearby cliffs, and the only way to get there was by boat. Prior to our trip, and trusting in the recommendation of a family member, my dad made arrangements with Andres, a well known commercial fisherman, to ferry us from the pier in Puerta Vallarta to Yelapa. We had no reason to believe that those arrangements would do anything but work out as promised.

Once in Puerta Vallarta, Dad attempted to contact Andreas to finalize the details of our trip, only to discover that Andreas had left a few days earlier on a fishing trip and wasn’t expected back anytime soon. Just because we trust something to work out is no guarantee that it will, but just because something doesn’t isn’t a reason to stop trusting. Not one to give up on a much anticipated adventure easily, the next day Dad and my sister Margie (who spoke more Spanish than the rest of us combined) headed down to the fishing pier to see if there might be someone who would be willing to transport us to Yelapa. That’s where they met El Pedio, who would be happy, he said, to transport us to Yelapa.

El Pedio was a fisherman too, but not of the fancy, commercial, well-known sort like Andreas. He fished from a small wooden vessel he built himself that looked more akin to a canoe than a commercial fishing boat, and in which we, along with our luggage, would ride on the two hour trip. (Today it takes less than 30 minutes by water taxi.)

El Pedio’s boat sat so low, we were able to dip our hands in the clear blue water, as hand on the tiller he pointed out sea creatures, and motoring close enough to a manta-ray that we could see every detail as it slowly sank deeper below the surface.

Eventually we rounded the low rocky shoreline, entered a small quiet cove, and caught our first glimpse of Yelapa. We unloaded our luggage on the beach and waved goodbye to El Pedio who had agreed to return 7 days later to pick us up for the return trip. Watching him until he disappeared from view, our only option was to trust in the word of a small, quiet fisherman.

For a week we slept in grass huts at the Hotel Lagunitas, woke up to the sound of a fire fueled by coconut shells to heat water for our showers, swam in the warm waters, made friends with the locals from the village who also provided much of the fresh seafood we ate at almost every meal, and tried to imagine all of the wildlife that called the jungle behind the village home.

Seven days later we stood on the beach, our luggage ready and waiting for the trip that would eventually take us back home. More than 50 years later I can still remember the moment when that small wooden vessel, more akin to a canoe than a commercial fishing boat rounded the rocky point. As it turned out, El Pedio, who was anything but a fancy, commercial, well-known fisherman, was a man upon whom one could pin one’s twelve year old hopes.

That’s what trusting looks like.

Photo from the Hotel Lagunitas website

Photo from the Hotel Lagunitas website

Word Of The Day: TRUSTING

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on a word of the day drawn from a list created at the beginning of January. Each word was chosen to serve as a guide to inspire and inform my steps through 2020. If you are just joining me now and want to look in on earlier posts on this topic, you will find links to each at the end.

TRUSTING

An adjective that describes one who has a belief in the honesty and sincerity of others, and in the underlying goodness of the world. Trusting is how we arrive on the planet, confident that we will be seen, loved and cared for. But somewhere along the way, through our encounters with disappointment, heartache, loss, and sometimes overt trauma, our trust can give way to wariness and fear, suspicion and cynicism. Not the way I want to live.

To be trusting is a commitment to both curiosity and caution. Curiosity leads to the discovery of new insights and information, helping us make more enlightened and knowledgable choices. Caution implies a willingness to be attentive and alert to the reality around us, leading to better decisions and more meaningful actions.

To be trusting is to look beyond the immediacy of life and put it into the context of the bigger picture. It is to remember that we have internal and external resources upon which to call to meet what life brings our way.

To be trusting is not the same as being naive, which is blind faith without thought. Rather it is a commitment to live with eyes wide open, embrace what is true, and bring the best of what we have to the life that is ours, and trusting that it will be enough.

Photo: Pexels

Photo: Pexels

Word Of The Day: ENERGIZED

Over the next few weeks I will be focusing on a word of the day drawn from a list created at the beginning of the month. Each word was chosen to serve as a guide to inspire and inform my steps through 2020. If you are just joining me now and want to look in on earlier posts on this topic, you will find links to each at the end.

ENERGIZED

When I sat down to write about this word, I didn’t expect to be writing about a rabbit, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the Energizer Bunny. That cool, pink, sunglass sporting, flipflop wearing, drum beating hare is, “…According to the 2017 Madison Avenue Hall of Fame Poll, the most iconic mascot…" around. Who knew? On further thought however, it makes total sense. That smiling pink bunny just keeps going, and going, and going, no matter what. It seems to have a consistent source of energy for whatever life brings. Who wouldn’t want that?

While the bunny may run on batteries, I do not.

I need physical energy to fuel this body, the only one I have. Giving it what it needs is the least I can do to repay it all the ways in which it has loved and supported me through the last 66 years. To keep up my mojo means, at the very least, making it a priority to feed and water it well, move it often, and give it a rest for at least 7, and hopefully 8 hours a night.

I need emotional energy to live with an open heart. A heart that fuels me to love fearlessly, engage with others authentically, and encounter the truth in myself and the world around me with courage and compassion. To keep my emotional tank topped off means cultivating relationships that are life-giving, reading the work of writers that invite me over the threshold of my current emotional maturity, and a dogged determination to keep doing the inner work necessary to live into my true and best self.

I need mental energy to stay present and sharp with every passing year. If I’m to live a life of purpose and meaning to the end, the only viable choice is to continue to stretch and challenge my brain even when it tires me out. it. Especially when it tires me out, as that means I am moving into new territory just waiting to be explored. Stoking my intellectual fires comes through paying attention to what sparks my curiosity, plugging into learning communities, and finding and connecting with others who are up for the same challenge.

And.

I need spiritual energy to stay connected to my core beliefs, of which there are three. We are all created in the image of that which created us. We are all called to live authentic, wholehearted lives. We are all called to love, help, and heal the world that is within our reach. If that doesn’t require spiritual energy, I don’t know what does. Spiritual fuel comes from gathering with my faith community, steeping in spiritual wisdom wherever I find it, and daily spiritual practices that remind me that it isn’t all about me.

In order to keep going, and going, and going, means knowing, and doing, what it takes to power the life we have.

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Word Of The Day: ALIVE 2.0

ALIVE

While alive can mean simply not being dead, when it comes to crafting a meaningful life, that’s not saying much. Lungs can continue to fill and hearts can go on beating long after a soul has moved on to wherever souls move on. In the same way, we can continue existing on the planet without truly being alive.

To be alive is to be alert to the all that life brings our way. It isn’t always easy or comfortable, but then I don’t think it is meant to be. To be alive is to actively engage with the truth, no matter how painful, scary, or inconvenient. We can even feel at our most alive when we have survived a challenge we weren’t sure we could manage—like crossing the finish line of a marathon, after a last chemo treatment, holding our newborn after hours of labor, or finally confronting our hidden fears and wounds for the first time.

To be alive is to be aware. It is to be interested in the world around us, and to continue to expand and grow even as our bodies diminish. To be alive means to follow the breadcrumb trail of our curiosity over the next rise in the trail, and the next and the next and the next. To be alive is to never cease exploring, wondering, and searching.

To be alive is to be teeming with whatever it is that enlivens us to the point that we can’t contain it. It is to be filled to overflowing with the certainty that our lives matter, despite any evidence to the contrary. So certain that we can’t help but show up for our life and say yes to its invitation. Over, and over, and over, until it’s all over.

(If you are just joining me now on the trail that is 2020, and the list of words that will travel with me to inspire and inform my steps, you can check out earlier posts on this topic below.)

Word of the Day: ALIVE

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Word Of The Day: ALIVE

When I came up with the list of words on which to hang my 2020 hat and turned it into a word cloud, I noticed that three of the words appeared larger than any of the others.

ALIVE

ENERGIZED

TRUSTING

As it turns out, it’s because those were the only three words that appeared on my list twice. Apparently they are meant to be especially useful this year as I continue to put my daily efforts into crafting a meaningful life. Which, for the record, is why I suspect we are all here in the first place.

Over the next few weeks I’ll focus on a word of the day drawn from that list, taking a deeper dive into what it means, and how it can inform, influence, and inspire me in meaningful and purposeful ways.

ALIVE

Not only did alive show up twice, it was also the first word that appeared on my list. That can’t be an accident. Finding myself in my mid-sixties it is clear that I’ve crested the hill that is my life. Death is closer than my arrival on the planet, and I find myself making friends with that truth. Not in a fearful, wringing-my-hands-sort of way, or a morbid, oh-well sort of way, but in a living, breathing, get-off-your-ass-and-show-up-sort of way.

To be alive is a daily practice, a discipline, a choice. Or as Andy and Redd succinctly remind us in The Shawshank Redemption - …get busy living or get busy dying…

Alive means knowing what and who bring me to life, and spending my time and energy doing those things and in relationship with those people.

Alive means choosing that which sustains, nourishes, and energizes me, rather than settling for what doesn’t.

Alive means finding that when all is said and done, I will drag myself over my finish line having spent every ounce of myself in the service of crafting a meaningful life, loving, helping, and healing the world that is within my reach, and reflecting as best I can, the image of the creative power that is behind it all.

Simply put, I want to be fully alive until I’m totally not.

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Only Two Days In

Last year felt like it lived me instead of the other way around. Like the year grabbed me by the hand, took off at full tilt, and never let go. On the doorstep of 2020 I had one recurring thought.

I don’t want the year to get away from me.

I found myself saying it over and over again.

I don’t want the year to get away from me.

I don’t want the year to get away from me.

Did I mention that I don’t want the year to get away from me?

In preparation for the year two-thousand and twenty, I’ve spent a bit of time mulling over how to develop a rhythm that, like our breath and our beating hearts, makes time and space for inhaling and exhaling, for emptying out and filling up. I’ve reminded myself of what and who matter, starting close in and moving out from there. I’ve recommitted myself to the habits and practices necessary to live fully engaged in the year ahead so that I am better able to generously offer what I can, and graciously bow out of what I can’t.

Only two days into the new year, I can already see how easily we fall into familiar habit patterns and ways of responding to what life brings our way. With only two days under my belt, I can see how the year can grab us by the hand, take off at full tilt, and before we know it, year end fireworks are going off and the ball is about to drop in Time Square.

Let’s not let that happen.

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Putting It Into Words

It feels good for 2019 to be in the rearview mirror. At least it does to me, and so it seems, to most of the people I know. Yes, there were many moments of joy, causes for celebration, and plenty of love and grace to go around, but there was just something about last year that called upon us to dig deeper than we sometimes thought we could.

It was a year that left us ready to begin again.

There is no doubt that this new year will once again call upon us to dig deep, to endure, and to show up, again, and again, and again. Rather than a list of things to do better, I find myself searching for the words with which to travel through this year.

Words that will serve as touchstones for my choices big and small, day in and day out.

Words that describe who I want to be and how I want to show up in the world.

Words like this…

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Is This The ______________ That I Want?


Tom and I had been married about eight years when he spent a couple of weeks teaching at a remote retreat center in the North Cascades, while I stayed home minding the fort. During those two weeks it became clear to me that there was no question that I wanted to be married to Tom. However, that wasn’t the real question. The real question was—Is the marriage we have the one that I want?

It wasn’t.

Those aren’t thoughts one can keep to oneself if one wants things to change.

After he returned we were out running errands one day, and stopped at a Starbucks. I can still see the table where we were sitting out on the sidewalk. I’m sure he was expecting just a nice catch-up visit, so when I quietly told him I wanted to talk about our marriage, a deer in the headlights about sums up his initial reaction. Thankfully, unlike a deer he didn’t disappear into the woods, but leaned forward, and leaned in. That conversation, over lattes, on a sidewalk outside of Starbucks is the conversation that changed the trajectory of our marriage.

Together we began to give voice to what was working, and what was not. We needed plenty of help along the way from therapists who could help us navigate all of the issues that could derail us if we let them. After 25 years together, we still hit brick walls and have to talk about scary things. On any given day, we work hard to bring the best of what we have to each other, with varying degrees of success, but always with the commitment of building the kind of relationship and life we want. Our conversation over coffee that started all those years ago is one that we will probably be having for the rest of our lives. At least it should be if we want to keep building the marriage we want.

The changes in our marriage all started with a hard question, as most hard changes do, and, it is a hard question that can help any of us get to the heart of any matter that matters to us.

Is this the…relationship, parenting approach, community, fitness level, body, friendship, career path, communication pattern, story emotional health, financial reality, team culture, family dynamic, belief system, outcome, home-life, fill-in-your-own-blank…that I want?

If the answer is yes, then we keep on keeping on.

If the answer is no, maybe today is the day to figure out what it is we do want and how to go about getting it.

Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels

Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels