True North

There are such things as magnetic moments. Times when we sense an inner pull, an invitation to step more fully into our lives, calling us to our own true north, that unique, authentic, wholehearted life that is ours, and only ours, to live. 

Magnetic moments ask us to step over the threshold of uncertainty and fear, cross over the border of the familiar and the comfortable, and venture into the unknown. Marking both the ending of what has been, and the beginning of what could be, it is the threshold that bridges the gap. Sometimes that threshold sits beneath a door that opens inward, drawing us deeper into self-knowledge and awareness. This usually requires that we find the courage to look into our shadows, those parts of ourselves that we prefer to ignore or keep hidden, or those issues and relationships that call for our attention, but are painful, or scary to look at. Other times we are invited to venture further out, beyond the boundaries we’ve come to count on. Taking risks, embarking on new work, making important changes, practicing new ways of being in the world.

In case, like me, you didn’t know this, there is a difference between magnetic north and true north. A compass automatically points to magnetic north, which shifts over time, while true north does not change. In order to find true north a compass must be adjusted. Magnetic moments are an alert to adjust our inner compass. In the world of auto-correct, adjustments happen automatically on our devices, but not so in our own lives. Recognizing that magnetic pull, we adjust our inner compass to make sure it is aligned with who we are and what we care about. This adjustment doesn’t keep us safe…It keeps us true.

Magnetic moments are game changers, and the choice is always ours to step over that threshold.

Or not.

Either way the game changes.

This first day of the new year is a chance to adjust our inner compass, allowing it to help us make any necessary course corrections so as to step boldly towards true north. The life that is ours, and only ours, to live. This adjustment won’t keep us safe…it will keep us true.

First light of the first day of a new year.

Working For Hope

“Don’t wait for good things to happen to you. If you go out and make some good things happen, you will fill the world with hope, you will fill yourself with hope.”

~ Barack Obama

Hope is not static.

It is a noun that names a state of expectancy and anticipation, and, it is a verb that describes an active expectation and anticipation for a treasured outcome. Hope is a two-step process.

Step one is gaining clarity on a treasured outcome. The more clear the desired outcome, the stronger the state of expectancy and anticipation as we wait for our hopes to be fulfilled.

Do you want to write a book? Create a more fulfilling life? Stand on a stage and move an audience? Make a ton of money? Help heal the earth? Climb a mountain?

Step one only gets us so far.

Step two is doing something about attaining what we hope for.

Books get written by those who write. A fulfilling life might mean letting go of what and who no longer fit, in order to fit in what and who just might. The stage door opens for those with a compelling message. People will pay big money for what they deem valuable. The smallest right actions helps to restore the planet. Summiting a mountain starts with summiting a hill.

Sometimes hope looks like waiting and working your ass off all at the same time.

Broken Records

Sometimes I know that I sound like a broken record, but then I guess there are some things that are worth repeating. My dad was a broken record.

Remember who you are and what you stand for.

If I heard that once, I heard it several thousand times. And so did everyone else who knew and loved him, and some who didn’t know him and if they did, they probably wouldn’t have loved him. I got tired of hearing it, and there were times I wanted to throw the nearest sharp object at him for saying it. But you know what? It stuck, and those words spoken to me, over me, and around me, have gone a long way toward helping me to become a better version of myself. There are things for which I’ve thrown my dad under the bus, but these words are not one of them. I will alway be on board the bus with him on this one. 

Recently I’ve begun to hear my own broken record. Like my dad’s words, mine are short, not-so-sweet, and to the point.

Do the work.

Simply stated, it means choosing over and over and over again, to do the hard work of becoming your best, most authentic and wholehearted self.

Do the work. 

It means uncovering our wounds (we all have them) and doing what it takes to heal them, and turn them into scars. It means sitting with our pain, anger, grief, and all of the other shadow emotions, and learning from them rather than running from them. It means asking ourselves what we are currently carrying with us that needs to be dealt with and left behind, so as to move into whatever is next with more love, compassion, freedom, and peace. It means admitting when we are wrong, and making amends. It means learning how to apologize and mean it not justify it. It means having the hard conversations and doing the deep listening. Again, and again, and again.

Do the work. 

It means figuring out what makes us tick, and what triggers us. It means taking ownership for everything in our lives. Every. Single. Thing. Not that we are responsible for everything that has happened to us, or for the wrongs committed to us by others, but that we are responsible for what we do with what we’ve got.  

Do the work.

It means finding the professional help to support our efforts. At the risk of sounding like another broken record, we all need professional help to become our best selves. Every. Single. One. Of. Us. Depending on the circumstances, that might mean a therapist, psychiatrist, coach or spiritual director, or some combination thereof.  

I’ve been heartened recently by examples of those doing their work, and heartbroken by examples of others who are not. When we do the work every one around us benefits, and when we don’t, everyone around us pays. Which is why, later today, I am grateful to be meeting with my spiritual director. I know I’m better when I do, and it’s better for everyone around me too. 

Some things are worth repeating. 

Let’s do the work. 

Eyes Wide Shut

"Never be so focused on what you're looking for that you overlook the thing you actually find."

~Ann Patchett

For the last 10 years, my husband Tom has commuted from our home to his office in Vancouver, Washington. Leaving home on Monday morning, we had the exact same routine every week. He’d pack his bag the night before, get up early, shower, get dressed, have one cup of coffee, eat breakfast while we played one game of Backgammon, load up the car, take a travel mug of coffee, and head down our road. The routine was so familiar we could almost do it with our eyes shut.

From door to door that commute is exactly 88 miles, driven on the same stretch of road, along the same stretch of the Columbia River, in the same car. If it wasn’t so dangerous, he could almost do it with his eyes shut.

One day last year however, he almost drove off the road, and it wasn’t because he was sleepy or on auto-pilot. Quite the opposite, he was wide awake with his eyes wide open. Which is what allowed him to see this…

UNTOUCHED photo: Tom Pierson

On auto-pilot, we might get where we are going, but completely miss the trip.

(For more inspiration about coming upon the unexpected, visit a recent post by David Berry complete with sound effects.)

What If It Didn’t Have To Look Like That?

 “Find that far inward symmetry to                                                                                

all outward appearances, apprentice

 yourself to yourself, begin to welcome back

all you sent away, be a new annunciation,

make yourself a door through which

to be hospitable, even to the stranger in you.”

David Whyte 

One of my greatest needs is for time and space to myself, by myself, and for myself. It is the water that quenches my thirsty soul, and the food that feeds my hungry heart. And, it is what helps me not to be a total, selfish...well, you know what I mean.

But what if it didn’t have to look like that? 

In my perfect little world, time and space to myself, for myself, and by myself, means whole days at a time with no one else around. It means the chance to chart my own course, bide my own time, and march to the beat of my own drum. When I’ve had one or two of those days in a given week, I can be a pretty nice girl to be around. When I haven’t? Well, not so much.   

But what if it didn’t have to look like that? 

These past two plus weeks in Germany and Denmark, by my calculation, I’ve had a total of one hour to myself, for myself, and by myself. The good news? There were days when I never had to apologize to Tom. The other news? On some days I did. More than once. 

But what if it didn’t have to look like that? 

Maybe it doesn’t.  

Maybe generosity and grace are almost always within reach.

Maybe being good company is almost always an option.

Maybe setting aside my needs is almost always a possibility.

With time and space to myself, for myself, and by myself, I can almost always choose to extend generosity and grace, be good company, and set aside my own needs. Without that time and space to, for, and by myself. Well, not so much.

But what if it didn’t have to look like that? 

Maybe it doesn’t. 

This morning, we enjoyed another lovely breakfast in a little nook off the kitchen and in the shadow of the village church. For the past week our host, Birthe, has extended generosity and grace, been good company, and set aside her own needs. For us. For me.

After breakast, I offered to do the dishes so that Tom and Birthe could go into her delightful sitting room and wander through old pictures and letters from his time here years ago.

In case it’s not completely obvious, this was not an entirely altruistic offer. 

We all have our own unique ways of keeping our best selves in tact. The one that can extend generosity and grace, be good company, and set our own needs aside. Understanding what it takes for that person to show up in the morning, ready for another day, is important information. Cultivating the practices that attend to those needs is our individual and necessary work.

But.

When life takes a temporary turn that makes tending to those needs, in just the way we like, difficult, if not impossible, it’s easy to ignore the better angels of our nature, who are always at the ready, and capitulate instead to their evil twins, who also seem to be always at the ready. 

But what if it didn’t have to look like that?

Actually, it doesn’t.

Fashion Statement

“Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who’s wearing it.”  ~Yves Sait Laurent

“I love your style!”

If I had a dollar for every time someone has sidled up to me with those exact words, I would have an unlimited clothing budget. While I love it when people compliment my style, it kind of cracks me up. I’ve been rocking the same style for years, which means that I am never in style with the latest look.

But I am apparently in style with my self. Somehow the way I put myself together on the outside matches the way I’m put together on the inside. 

I think that is what we are all after, after all. To be clothed in our true self. Lots of years ago, I went to a business lunch clothed in anything but. I was on a road trip with my sister, and she was coming with me to meet the literary agent for Letters to Our Daughters. As I was about to get dressed for the meeting, my sister suggested that I might want to borrow something of hers instead. While I knew then (as I do now) that she always has my best interest at heart, when it comes to fashion, she and I couldn’t be more different.

In a word, her style is fancy.

Mine is not. 

Ignoring my inner fashion editor I slipped on her clothes, and slipped out of myself. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more uncomfortable in my own skin, covered as it was in someone else’s cloth, and I couldn’t finish my overpriced salad fast enough. 

Lesson learned.  

When it comes to fashioning a wardrobe, or fashioning a life, remember the the words of Oscar Wilde...”Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

PS... if you want to see who I might have been, if I’d lived in a galaxy far, far away....http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Maz_Kanata

Fashion Statement

“Over the years I have learned that what is important in a dress is the woman who’s wearing it.”  ~Yves Sait Laurent

“I love your style!”

If I had a dollar for every time someone has sidled up to me with those exact words, I would have an unlimited clothing budget. While I love it when people compliment my style, it kind of cracks me up. I’ve been rocking the same style for years, which means that I am never in style with the latest look.

But I am apparently in style with my self. Somehow the way I put myself together on the outside matches the way I’m put together on the inside. 

I think that is what we are all after, after all. To be clothed in our true self. Lots of years ago, I went to a business lunch clothed in anything but. I was on a road trip with my sister, and she was coming with me to meet the literary agent for Letters to Our Daughters. As I was about to get dressed for the meeting, my sister suggested that I might want to borrow something of hers instead. While I knew then (as I do now) that she always has my best interest at heart, when it comes to fashion, she and I couldn’t be more different.

In a word, her style is fancy.

Mine is not. 

Ignoring my inner fashion editor I slipped on her clothes, and slipped out of myself. I’m not sure I’ve ever felt more uncomfortable in my own skin, covered as it was in someone else’s cloth, and I couldn’t finish my overpriced salad fast enough. 

Lesson learned.  

When it comes to fashioning a wardrobe, or fashioning a life, remember the the words of Oscar Wilde...”Be yourself; everyone else is already taken.”

PS... if you want to see who I might have been, if I’d lived in a galaxy far, far away....http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Maz_Kanata

More Than A Thousand Words

Do you ever feel like this?

Yeah. Me too. 

The Thread

For months and months my writing had a clear, specific focus to it, as I worked to complete the manuscript for BLUSH: Women & Wine . Daily, and with purpose, I would head to my desk, sit down, and allow the message to find its way onto the page. Some days the writing was harder than others, yet slowly but surely, the thread that wanted to run from beginning to end began to shimmer and weave the words forward into my long imagined book. The thread, I explained to those who wondered, wasn't about the fact that I had long used my nightly wine ritual as a way to distance myself from pain, stress, and uncomfortable emotions and issues. Nor was it about my commitment to changing an unhealthy pattern. The thread ran, and runs, deeper than understanding and changing a habitual coping mechanism. My thread, the one I have attempted (with varying degrees of success) to hold on to over the years, is made of the these three deeply held strands of belief:

1. We are all created in the image of God.
2. We are all called to live as authentically and whole-heartedly as we are able.
3. We are all here to love, help, and heal the world that is within our reach.

Anything that gets in the way of our ability to hold onto our thread is deserving of our full attention. Wine was getting in my way. Thankfully, now it isn't. 

However.

After the book was published, my thread sort of disappeared. Life became about promoting the book, creating buzz, garnering more attention, and increasing sales.

Not. My. Thread. 

In my efforts to promote the book, I forgot about my purpose. When I most needed to remember it, the following piece, written by my good and wise friend David Berry, showed up in my in-box. His words led me back to my thread. My purpose. Which is to help people live authentic, whole-hearted lives, in order that they might better love, help, and heal the world that is within their reach.

I'm feeling the silkiness of the thread in my hand again, and my commitment to hang on to it is renewed. I know it will lead me to the next right steps. As it always does. I'll keep you posted.

Until then, I invite you to pour a glass of your favorite wine, savor David's words, and hang on to your thread.

You Have To Explain About the Thread

JULY 10, 2017DAVID BERRY

“The Way It Is”

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

– William Stafford –

I was captivated this week by the most recent episode of the podcast, This American Life. Specifically, a segment featuring the magicians Penn and Teller describing their process of developing a new trick. Teller, the conspicuously silent partner, has fallen in love with the idea of recreating a classic floating ball and hoop routine. Penn is less enthusiastic, as in not at all. As Teller works and works to make the trick worthy of their show by the standard they have agreed to over 40 years of collaboration he falls short time and again.

A breakthrough comes when they agree that the way to make the trick compelling to both themselves and their audience is to let the audience in on it from the very beginning. The trick begins with Penn’s announcement: “The next trick is done with just a piece of thread.”  And off goes Teller, beautifully and brilliantly manipulating a ball with nothing more than a piece of thread.

What Penn and Teller understood and acted upon – after years of work on one specific illusion – is what William Stafford implores us to do in the poem above: “You have to explain about the thread.” 

I am often in a position to do exactly that. In the classroom or at a speaking engagement I am frequently asked about my own thread. Why do I do what I do? How did I get started? What are the steps I took from there to here? I always respond in the same way, that I knew exactly what I was supposed to do with my life when I was 17 years old. A bright red thread emerged through my experiences in musical performance and student leadership. I was intuitively aware that the abilities developed and practiced in those early settings were the strengths I would call on throughout my adult life. I held onto the thread through the first few years of college but lost it completely once I had to marry my intuitive sense of it to the harshly practical world of “knowing what you want to do with your life.” I didn’t know how to manifest my nascent understanding of my thread into a next step. And I was too afraid to explain about the thread. I wasn’t willing to say, “This is my thread. I don’t know much about it but I do know a few important things, not least of which is that it’s mine. Will you please help me figure out where it leads?”

Instead, I let it slip away. As it turns out, it did not let go of me. We played peekaboo on occasion, a flirtation here and there, but it took over 10 years and an extraordinary confluence (aka, the thread working hard behind the scenes) of people and events to land me in front of a classroom of aspirational leaders. The specifics of that first class are hazy because my memory is dominated by the aliveness I felt at having my hands on the thread once again.

Most recently, my thread has led me to the college classroom and the opportunity to teach and mentor undergraduate students. The thread has a solid sense of humor. It says, “You struggled to claim me as your own. Others struggle, too. Here is your chance to help a few people struggle a little less, to find the thread a little earlier, and to gain the confidence and declare their commitment to hang on.”

There is no “magic.” There is finding your thread and there is holding onto your thread because “while you hold it you can’t get lost.” There is demonstrating to all who cannot see it that what looks like magic is just your commitment to trust where it will lead. Sometimes, like Teller performing for a full house, we hang on with artistry and elegance. Sometimes, like Teller in the early days of practice, we hang on in spite of our fumbling because our curiosity compels us to learn where it wants to go.  And sometimes we don’t hang on at all. But it is there, waiting to dispel the illusion that we can find our way without it.

What is your thread? Where is it leading?
Who have you explained it to? Who have you asked for help?
What makes it hard to hang on?
Is there someone whose thread confuses you?
Will you listen to them explain about the thread?

For further reading, here’s another reflection on “The Way It Is” by Parker Palmer.

DAVID BERRY is the author of “A More Daring Life: Finding Voice at the Crossroads of Change” and the founder of RULE13 Learning. He speaks and writes about the complexity of leading in a changing world.

 

The Dash That Connects Our Dots

This was first posted on December 5, 2015. In light of the current state of our world, it seems that the dash that connects our dots is more important than ever. Time to connect our dots in ways that heal, restore, touch the world for the good of all. Because we are all in this together. 

We have a tradition at our church.  After the sermon, called a Reflection by our community (which I think is a totally better name for it), those of us in the pews have a chance to give our two-cents worth, which often is as valuable as the message itself.  Recently there was a reflection about the importance of a hyphen, that punctuation mark defined as “the sign that connects two words”.  We were challenged to think about the connection and meaning conveyed in that small little mark. Afterwards as a few of us reflected on the Reflection, one person shared that the first thing he thought about was a childhood memory of visiting a nearby cemetery.  He would wander through the headstones, most of which gave a birth year, followed by the year of death, connected by not a hyphen, but a dash.  To be more specific, it is the En dash, as opposed to the Em dash, that is used to indicate spans or differentiation. (To read more about the dash — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dash) That dash served to represent all the years between the beginning and end of a life.  He commented that those two dates on the headstones were in many ways the least significant, as all of the living of the person buried there was to be found in that tiny dash. Made up of every step, every thought, every word, every pain, every relationship, every breath, every…. everything of that person’s life, the beginning and the ending are but dots on either side of the lifeline that connects the first breath to the last.  An entire life is contained in that dash. 

It’s all about the dash.

Over the years, I’ve reviewed more than my share of resumes. Potential candidates for hire or promotion list their experience, starting with the most recent, and identified with the starting and end dates of that position.  A long expanse of time does not automatically equate to depth of experience or expertise. What did you learn?  What did you contribute? How have you grown? Tell me about the dash.  Nor does a short experience suggest a lack of lasting impact.  During his short time in office, prior to his assassination, John F. Kennedy’s presidency was marked by history making events and issues including the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, the establishment of the Peace Corps and the Cuban Missile Crisis.  Length of experience always counts for something.  That something is contained in the dash.  

 It’s all about the dash.

In the biblical story of creation contained between Genesis verse 1, which was the beginning of it all, and verse 31, when God saw that it was good, a lot happened in the time spanned between the those two verses.  From an endless void to a world teeming with life, whether you believe that took seven days or billions of years, that heavenly dash contains a hell of a lot.  The story is found in the dash. 

It’s all about the dash.

In the past three years we have planned as many weddings for our daughters.  The first two were beautiful, the one still in the planning stages will be so as well.  A wedding is an important event, and marks a deep commitment being made between two people.  The wedding is only the beginning.  The marriage is what happens from the moment vows are made to all of the rest of the moments when the vows are kept. Or not. The quality of the life built together by two people isn’t found in an evening of ritual and celebration, no matter how well planned, extravagant or beautiful.  A marriage is found in the dash.

It’s all about the dash.

Time is a gift.  One of our most valuable resources, it can be sliced and diced in so many ways.  Every day is a new choice, a multitude of choices about what will happen in the moments in front of us. Our life is found in our dash, as It is what connects our dots that tell the story of who we are, what we do and how we do it.  

I was born October 12, 1953.  So far, my dash, which measures about 1/16 of an inch in my favorite font, American Typewriter, contains 63 years, 3 months and 24 days.

Molly Davis

1953 - 

It’s all about the dash. 

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