How Is Your Heart?

How is your heart?

This has become one of my favorite questions.

In my marriage, our family, and with close friends, it is a way to check in with one another, and there are days that seem to beg the question. Those days when we sense that something is going on in the heart of another, good, bad, or ugly, and the conversation that flows from this gentle invitation leads to deeper understanding.

Recently the answer offered in response to this question shed light on what it means to be fully human.

My heart is full.

We are meant to have full hearts.

A full heart has room, simultaneously, for both joy and sadness.

A full heart has the capacity to hold not only those emotions we welcome, but also those we resist.

A full heart can overflow with both gratitude and grief.

A full heart has space for both love and loss.

How is your heart?

It is a question that opens a door we can’t always open ourselves.

Three Questions

As a new week begins, I want to share three questions I heard this morning in church.

The message was given by Mateo, a high school student, on the topic of climate change. An issue so complex, so overwhelming, and so fraught with powerful emotions from those on all sides, that it can be tempting to find ourselves stuck in an endless cycle of hand wringing. Which, as far as I know, has yet to solve a problem. This young man, however, suggested that there might be a more effective approach to this global issue, that as stewards of the planet, impacts us all. In a quiet voice, confident in his message, he encouraged us to cut climate change down to size by thinking locally. As he shared his own story of coming to grips with the challenges facing our shared planet, he suggested that it might help each of us to ask ourselves the same three simple questions that he asked himself when attempting to wrap his young arms around this global bone of contention.

1. How is climate change affecting me?

2. How is it affecting others?

3. What are we going to do about it?

Simple questions with no easy answers, but in contemplating a worldwide situation in his own neck of the woods, he found it easier to see opportunities to make a difference. And suggested that we might too.

Imagine if each one of us decided to be curious. To honestly assess the impact our changing climate is having right in our own back yard, to consider how it is impacting those in our community, to search for ways to address our common concerns, and then get to work.

Mateo’s words rang true not only in relation to our rising temperatures, but as a template to approach any problem that feels too complex to tackle. From global issues to those within the walls of our own workplaces, schools, and homes, a good place to start is with the same three questions.

1. How is this fill-in-the-blank issue affecting me?

2. How is it affecting others?

3. What are we going to do about it?

Rancho La Puerta - Photo by Tom Pierson

Pitons

According to Wikipedia, a piton is a metal spike that is driven into a crack or seam in the climbing surface with a climbing hammer, and which acts as an anchor to either protect the climber against the consequences of a fall or to assist progress and aid climbing.

I’ve hiked some steep trails and summited a mountain, but never in conditions that required the use of pitons. I hope I never will, however, if I ever am in a situation where a piton will keep me from free falling down a steep rock face or over a precipice, I will be deeply grateful for those metal spikes driven deep into the crack.

A piton must hold fast, allowing the climber to fall only so far.

A piton becomes a marker for progress made.

A piton is the place from which further progress begins.

A mountain face is not the only place where we suddenly find ourselves in need of an anchor to keep us from falling. Every one of us can fall into old habits, and tumble into long-held stories that are no longer true, or perhaps never were. None of us can make it on our own, and we all need those who will serve as our pitons. Those trusted few with whom we scale the mountains and precipitous cliffs to become our most wholehearted and authentic selves.

Onward.

Upward.

Together.

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The Baggage Tag

Every time I pack my suitcase to head out of town, I discover that the baggage tag from my last airplane flight is still attached. From now on, that irrelevant tag is staying behind at the airport, tossed into a trash can, leaving me ready for the next, perhaps as yet unknown, leg of my trip.

It’s not about where we’ve been.

It’s about where we’re going.

AMOUR

My best friend gave me a pair of earrings a few years back, a simple design, embossed with what has to be the single most important word in any language.

I wore them almost every day.

Until I lost one of them.

I looked everywhere, scouring our home, the floor of my car, the post office, the driveway, the General Store, the school, our church, but it was nowhere to be found. It’s been more than three months, and yet still I held out hope, because as we all know, in the end, love will win out.

Today is the first day of spring, and the snow that has surrounded our home for the past couple of months has been melting away with the warming temperatures. Standing out on our deck, my eye caught a glint of gold. There is was.

Love is always waiting for us, even when we can’t see it.

Where The Magic Happens

This morning I received phone calls from several people, each eager with anticipation, and maybe a little trepidation, about where life is calling them. New opportunities are appearing, decisions to be made are looming, and the clock is ticking. Which, to my coach’s mind, means that they are exactly where they are supposed to be. The temptation is almost always to play it safe, fearful as most of us are of failure and being found out. We lose sight of what we have to offer, and focus instead on what we perceive we lack. 

Playing it safe will never bring us closer to the authentic and wholehearted lives we are meant to live. To find our way there we must step over our carefully crafted comfort zones, venture out beyond the boundaries we’ve come to count on, and with the mind of an explorer, step out into the unknown.

At the intersection of our experience, expertise, and knowledge up until now, and the unknown territory of that which we have yet to discover, we find ourselves at our growing edge.

And that my friends, is where the magic happens. 

Bearing Witness

Today I had the privilege of witnessing courage under fire.

Courage means speaking the truth in the face of attack.

Courage means standing our ground when the earth is crumbling beneath our feet.

Courage means standing in the presence of fear without flinching.

Courage means facing our own demons.

Courage means holding ourselves to account.

Courage means risking losing it all in service to saving our soul.

Acts of courage abound, and when one of us is brave, the rest of us might dare to be so too.

Onward.

Upward.

Together.

Permission

There are days when nothing sounds good, and trying to decide what to do feels like an exercise in futility.

Maybe you can relate.

You start one thing, find yourself doing another, and never actually finish anything. Kind of like a dog that turns around and around and around, trying but never finding the right spot to lie down. By the time my head hits the pillow tonight, I’ll be lucky if I’ve actually completed one meaningful task.

I got up with the intention of spending some good creative hours at my desk to prepare for an upcoming speaking gig, and reaching out to some potential agents to help me spread my message to the receptive audience I know is out there. Today isn’t the day to do anything like that. Not if I want to actually accomplish anything worthwhile.

So.

Rather than take it all too seriously, I’m giving myself permission to wander aimlessly, let the dust of a couple of intense weeks settle, finish some laundry, unload the dishwasher, make a good dinner, crawl into bed, and call it good.

The sun will come up again tomorrow.

The Pinecone

Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle is all about the pinecone. When it comes to rewarding her for a job well done, food, toys, and praise don’t even come close. It captivates her attention, narrows her focus, and her body fairly trembles with anticipation when waiting for us to release her to leap for her pinecone. She pounces on it, prances with it, and plays with it until it is nothing but a scattered pile of bits. Lucky for her, and for us, there’s plenty more where the last one came from.

Leveraging her love for the cone is one of our best tools to help her become the happiest and best her she can be. It delights, enraptures, fascinates, and bewitches her, and because of that, she is willing to do the hard work we are asking of her, and her hard work is paying off. She is developing the capacity to be patient as she resists the urge to break from her assigned place. The consistency with which she responds to our commands is growing, and her connection to us as the keepers-of-the-cone is getting stronger every day.

Come to think of it, discovering what captivates our attention, what delights, enraptures, fascinates and bewitches us sounds a lot like Gracie, and is one of our best tools for becoming our happiest and best selves.

Gracie wanted me to tell you, whatever your pinecone, find time every day to pounce on it, prance with it, and play with it . She’d tell you herself, but she’s a little busy right now.

The Conversation

I am convinced that we have access to an innate inner wisdom that stands at the ready to assist us.

This past week I saw this inherent sense in action in the participants in the workshop I had the privilege of leading. Focused on the opportunities that await each of us to engage in important, meaningful, and necessary conversations, when asked if they could identify such an opportunity waiting for them, an interaction where the stakes were high and the emotions probably were too, there wasn’t one shake of the head in the room. It was all nods. To a person, everyone knew of at least one conversation waiting for them, and to a person, everyone knew that they were the one to start it.

We know the conversations waiting for us, even if, and perhaps most especially if, we are reluctant to have them. Call them courageous conversations, crucial conversations, inconvenient conversations, or fill-in-the-blank conversations, we know what they are, and why they are. We just don’t want to have them. We don’t want to have to muster the courage in the midst of our vulnerability. We don’t want to start something without knowing how it will turn out. We don’t want to enter the arena knowing we might need to be stitched back together. We don’t want to give voice to something fragile and important that might go unheard. We don’t want to show up and be the only one at the party. And yet, in spite of all of that, the conversation is still waiting for us.

It continues to be my experience that the more I am willing to engage in the conversations that matter, regardless of how scary, challenging, or difficult they may be, the deeper my connections grow. To others, to my convictions, and, to myself. .

Is there a conversation waiting for you?