Lost In Translation

A sign of wisdom is not believing everything you think. A sign of emotional intelligence is not internalizing everything you feel. Thoughts and emotions are possibilities to entertain, not certainties to take for granted. Question them before you accept them.

~ Adam Grant

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Have you ever had the experience of listening to another person, usually someone close to you, and hearing one thing only to find out that they were saying something completely different?

Me too.

All.

The.

Time.

It’s like we have a private internal app that converts what someone else says into a different language entirely. A language that we are so familiar with that we don’t think to question it. We simply believe that what we heard is what they meant to say. They meant to judge us, criticize us, correct us, or hurt our feelings, and then we respond accordingly by reacting, defending, retreating, or any number of personal protective mechanisms. At that point, their internal translation app (because we all have one) kicks into gear and converts our response into their internal language. In other words, no pun intended, a lot can get lost in translation.

It’s a crazy, self-perpetuated, vicious cycle that can only be stopped when we are willing to consider that what we heard isn’t necessarily what they said, and then have the courage to go find out.

Photo: Pexels.com

You Could

Strapping on my snow shoes outside of Timberline Lodge to head out on my own, I was musing on where to go. Tom, busy getting his skis on to spend a few hours on the slopes, said, You could climb to Silcox Hut.

What?

Silcox Hut is a small rustic lodge nestled into the flanks of Mt. Hood. It sits at about 7000 ft, and to get there from the Lodge means trekking straight uphill for little over a mile while gaining 1000 ft of elevation in the process.

Tom headed for the chair lift, and I headed for the official, mostly flat, snow shoe trail, not intending to head up the steep slope that would get me to Silcox Hut.

The thing is though, I’ve always wanted to see it up close and personal.

After a few steps on the trail, I let me gaze settle on the roof line of the hut way, way, way up the hill, which is when it began to sink in.

I could climb to Silcox Hut.

I could climb to Silcox Hut.

I could climb to Silcox Hut.

With that thought, I set out to do something I’d wanted to do for a long, long time, discovering a few key things along the way:

Make a decision. The first step to accomplishing that long-held desire was to decide to go there. I even said it out loud to no one but me, and maybe God. “I am going to climb to Silcox Hut.” When we give voice to something we could do, we are one giant step closer to actually doing it.

Set milestones. There were trail markers all the way up the slope. Looking up the mountain, I’d pick one as my next resting spot. Sometimes I’d go farther, but I never stopped before at least reaching my next goal. Breaking things up into pieces keeps us moving in the right direction.

Take note of how far you’ve come. Every time I stopped to rest, my gaze would naturally go to how much farther I had to go, and how much steeper the slope seemed to be getting with every step. It made all the difference to look back over my shoulder and take in the distance I had already covered. The antidote to giving up is to remember how far we’ve come.

Linger at the top. Rather than turn around and head back down, I lingered at the top, soaking in the feeling of accomplishment, and the way my lungs and muscles felt for having worked hard on my behalf. The pleasure derived from doing something we set out to do stays with us, reminding us to keep going, even when the going gets tough.

Is there something you’ve long wanted to do?

Well.

You could.

Silcox Hut: Mt. Hood

The Backstory

Lately I’ve been catching myself making assumptions about other people. Looking through the lens of how I see the world, I make my mind up about how they see the world, and proceed accordingly. I’m realizing that I’m missing something important: the backstory

According to wikipedia, the backstory as a literary device provides the background leading up to the present plot. In acting is is the behind the scenes history of a character to help the actor better understand the role they are playing.

Every one of us has a backstory. Experiences that shape who we are today. Personal histories that influence what we believe, what we value, and how we behave.

Before jumping to conclusions about one another, let’s remember that there is always a backstory. And until we know what it is, we don’t have the whole story.

Photo: Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas on Pexels

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Drinking Our Own Kool-Aid

According to some research, over 80% of our thoughts are negative, and most of those thoughts are on a continuous loop, returning to us again and again. The problem with our negative thoughts and stories is that we believe them, and the more we listen to these habitual stories, the more familiar, and in an odd way, comforting, they can become.

They are our stories, and we are sticking to them.

But.

Do we have to?

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: No, but it’s hard work giving them up.

If you’re like me, you are familiar with the stories that hold you captive, and recognizing them is our first step to letting them go. We need to cut ourselves a little slack if it takes some time to develop new ones, and we might need some professional help along the way. If so, let’s get it. It will be some of the best money we’ve ever spent.

Believing our stories that have been with us for God-knows-how-long is a little like drinking our own Kool-Aid. We don’t stop to consider that there might be better ways to quench our inner thirst.

Photo by Magda Ehlers from Pexels

Surrender

There comes a point when we have to let go of how we want it to be, and surrender to how it is. Not in a giving up sort of way, but a giving in to the truth as it stands right now. When we surrender, we stop pushing against what we face and work with it instead, we cease fighting against what we don’t want and begin moving toward what we do.

Get Moving

“We do not think ourselves into new ways of living, we live ourselves into new ways of thinking.” ~ Richard Rohr

“You probably aren’t going to be able to think yourself out of this one Molly.”

Good words offered to me by a good friend during a recent conversation as I sat out on my front porch in the waning light in Washington, while he was on the other end of the phone in the waning light of southern California.

It is easy for me to get too involved with my own feelings for my own good, not to mention the good of everyone around me. I try and think my way to the other side of whatever it is, and, there is a time for sitting with our emotions in order to understand what they are telling us. But then it’s time to get moving, whether we feel like it or not, which, for the record, we probably won’t.

I’m not talking about running away from our emotions. They are, as the 13th century Persian poet, Rumi, reminds us in his poem, The Guesthouse, “…sent to us as a guide from beyond”. However, we all know that any guest can overstay their welcome.

Sitting too long has been referred to as the new smoking, and has been linked to all kinds of health risks. The same goes for sinking into the easy chair of our emotions. The longer we sit and think about them, the harder it is to get up.

In both cases, the key to our wellbeing is to get moving.

(With gratitude to DB)

Photo: invisiblepower on pexels.com

What's Love Got To Do With It?

Valentine’s Day can be rough.

It has become a commercially driven day to express our love for that “special someone” in just the right way.

But what if we don’t have a special someone? What if we have lost them in the myriad of painful ways that mean we are no longer able to share our lives with those we’ve loved? Under those circumstances, Valentine’s Day becomes a reminder of what we’ve lost.

But what if we are happily single? What if we are content sharing our heart with no one but ourselves? Under those circumstances Valentine’s Day can cause us to doubt our choice to go it alone as we field questions from total strangers about how we are going to celebrate a day in which being single seems like a problem.

But what if we don’t feel lovable? What if we have lost sight of our inherent worth simply because we are citizens of the planet, created in the image of the power behind it all, and sent here to love the world within our reach? Under those circumstances, Valentine’s Day becomes a reminder of how far we’ve drifted from our source and our soul.

But what if we don’t feel particularly dazzled by the one we love? What if we have found ourselves in one of those rough patches when it is glaringly obvious that love is as much, if not more of, a choice than a feeling? Under those circumstances Valentine’s Day becomes a reminder that love is far more complicated and much grittier than simple sayings on greeting cards and candy hearts.

Whenever money gets involved with love, it gets tricky. By some estimates consumers will spend in excess of $27 billion. That’s a lot of candy hearts.

So, what’s love got to do with it anyway?

When it comes to Valentine’s Day, who knows.

When it comes to life?

Everything.

Photo: pexels.com

On The Road Again

The early weeks in a new year are often a time of introspection and reflection as we allow the dust of the previous year to settle, and our vision and roadmap for the new one to begin to emerge.

It is time well spent.

On one condition.

Insight is cheap unless we take action on what we’ve discovered during the days of turning our gaze inward. That deeper understanding of who we are and what we care about is meant to energize our lives out in the world. It doesn’t even matter if we don’t yet have a crystal clear vision for the road ahead. It is time to start taking action, trusting that we’ll gain the clarity we need through the process of moving forward.

Do you remember those toy cars that had an internal mechanism called a pullback motor? The more you pulled the car backwards, the more the energy built up until when you released the car, it shot forward.

We are seven weeks into this new year. It’s time to stop pulling our cars backward, let them go, and hang on for the ride.

(With gratitude to Dane Anthony for reminding me about these tiny cars)

Photo: PRR on pexels.com

Blast From The Past

In 2006 one of my daughters was a 20-year-old college student, living in a 300 sq. ft. apartment in Missoula, Montana. One day shortly after one of those Family Weekends where we parents make endless runs to Target, fold piles of laundry, and scream our hearts out at football games, she wrote me a lovely card to thank me for the time, the meals out, and whatever we brought home from Target to make her space feel cozy.

She addressed it, sealed it, and stuck it in a drawer somewhere.

This last weekend she unearthed that un-mailed card when she and her husband cleaned out their garage. Today over coffee, my now 34-year-old daughter and I opened that card. It was filled with wonderful words of love and appreciation, and two checks written to pay me back for something or other. It had found its way me at long last, and, in perfect timing.

Sometimes a blast from the past is exactly what we need for the here and now.

( And no, I’m not going to cash those checks.)

Test Results

I had some blood drawn the other day at the request of one of my doctors to check in on the levels of a few key hormones. The test results are in and once my doc has had a chance to review them, we will discuss whether we need to make any tweaks int treatment in the name of staying healthy and energized.

Lately I’ve noticed too much fluctuation in mood and outlook to ignore, which has me wondering if there are some key components that have dropped below optimal levels. I know what the vital ingredients are to keep me healthy and engaged with life, and after a quick review of my essential elements, it is clear that a few are in need of tweaking.

When things don’t seem quite right, it’s time to test our levels of that which keeps us at our best.

Photo: Chokniti Khongchum on pixels.com