Principle Vs Practice

“Dallas Willard says we always live what we believe, we just don’t always live what we profess we believe.”

From The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman

Authenticity matters to me, and I believe that being true to who we are and what we believe is our calling. We do that by connecting who we are with how we live. In my work as a speaker, writer, and coach, that is what I endeavor to help others do, and in my own life that is what I strive to do as well. It’s good work. It is also, however, hard work. Very hard work.

You would think that a dog wouldn’t be able to assist us in learning to be true to who we are and what we believe, but once again, Gracie-the-chocolate-labradoodle has proven her Yoda-like ability to uncover our blind spots and areas still in need of work. In helping her become her best and truest curly haired, four legged girl, we wanted to teach her good canine etiquette when walking across any kind of threshold. Bottom line? The human always goes first. Always. This isn’t just about teaching her good manners, it is also about keeping us two-legged types safe. Whether walking through a doorway or gate, getting out of a car or going down the stairs, if she bolts ahead, the human in the equation is at risk. Think broken hip, twisted ankle, sprained knee, dislocated shoulder, or concussion. We have concrete floors in our home, and just one fall could change the course of someone’s health history, so we committed to being consistent in how we approached any threshold. If she got ahead of us, back she would come, and we’d try it again.

We’ve decided that I’m the Alpha of the pack, which means that I do the majority of the training, and this particular issue has always been front and center on my radar screen. It didn’t, however, always seem to be front and center for Tom, as he would often not notice when she would barge ahead of him down the stairs or through a door. When I (less than gently) pointed this out to him, he replied that he agreed with the idea in principle, but didn’t always remember (aka choose) to put it into practice. The thing is, Gracie’s a dog, and as smart as she is, principles don’t matter to her. The only way she knows who we are (the ones in charge) and what we believe (the human always goes first) is by what we practice. 

I’ve promised Tom that I will only throw him under the bus if I am willing to crawl under there with him. Front and center on Tom’s radar screen is the commitment to the principle of not letting food spoil. In practice that means always putting ice in the cooler when bringing groceries home from the store, and always putting the food out on the counter back in the refrigerator promptly. He not only preaches it (gently), he practices it. Me? I think it’s a great idea, and I agree with it in principle, but don’t always remember (aka choose) to put it into practice, but like Gracie, the leftover pork loin or package of chicken thighs don’t care about the principle, only the practice.

In truth, we humans are no different. Whether as parents, partners, politicians, pastors, colleagues, managers,  or friends, people know who we are and what we believe not by what we profess, but only by what we practice.

One of the principles Tom and I share is that we are one another’s priorities, and so, he is being diligent to go ahead of Gracie, and I am being diligent to keep our food from spoiling. In other words, we’re practicing putting our money where our bark is.

In Sickness And In Health

My stars have been lucky when it comes to avoiding most of the contagious bugs that seem to catch others, which makes it easy to take my good health for granted. It’s been a good three or four years since I’ve come down with anything, but as I write this, a nasty summer cold is having its way with me.

When my daughters were growing up I came to love it when one or the other stayed home sick. I’d make chicken soup and butter crackers (saltines heated in the oven and slathered with butter), pull out popsicles from the freezer and play any or all of our three favorite sick-day movies— I Love Trouble, The Never Ending Story, and The Princess Bride. What I loved about those days wasn’t that the girls were sick, but the invitation to step out of ordinary time, away from doing and into being.

There’s nothing fun about being sick, but tending to someone who is gives us a chance to forget about ourselves and focus on the needs of someone else, which, I have to say, can be a very healthy thing to do.

When I’m sick, my first thought is always to power through, to keep on keeping on, and maybe feel just a tiny bit sorry for myself. This morning, a couple of days into this thing, I remembered those sick days. It’s too hot for chicken soup, but butter crackers and pop-circles are sounding pretty good, and I’ve got a few more episodes of Season 8 of Suits to finish up. Being under the weather issued an invitation to step out of ordinary time, away from doing and into being.

There’s nothing fun about being sick, but when we are, tending to ourselves gives us a chance to let go of the needs of others, and focus on our own, which, I have to say, can be a very healthy thing to do.

The Plague Upon Our House

Sometimes things happen over which we have no control. Okay, when it comes right down to it, most things are not under our control. A couple of things that are? The mindset we choose, and our response to what life brings our way.

A few weeks ago, life delivered right to our doorstep an example of just how little control we have, in the form of millions if not billions of grasshoppers. I’m talking a plague of locusts of biblical proportions.

Before they arrived, the field out in front of our home was a beautiful array of greens, golds, and reds. Today, it is a pale memory of what it was, and fading fast at that. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

Before they arrived, our lawn, while not ever a thing of beauty, was at least green and easy on the eyes. Today it is turning into a mini dustbowl right before our eyes. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

Before they arrived, we loved taking a walk down our road any time of the day. Today, we are relegated to first thing in the morning or after the sun starts to set. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

Thankfully, these swarming hoards don’t come through our valley every year, but this year they have, and we will most likely have to live with them for a few more weeks. And there’s nothing we can do about it. In the meantime, we are reading up on grasshopper mitigation efforts that we might implement in the future, enjoying our walks when we can, and relishing our early morning coffee before the little devils wake up and our evening glass of wine after they’ve turned in for the night. Anything else would eat away at our spirits like the grasshoppers are eating away the grass.

As the Dali Lama reminds us…

“If a problem is fixable, if a situation is such that you can do something about it, then there is no need to worry. If it's not fixable, then there is no help in worrying. There is no benefit in worrying whatsoever.”

An Invitation To Integration

Recently on a getaway with friends, we spent several hours at the Earth Sanctuary on Whidbey Island, which by the way, is worth a ferry ride just to experience this sacred space. I’ve always been drawn to labyrinths, and the one at the Earth Sanctuary is beautiful in its simplicity, the path formed by vibrant vegetation on either side of the stones leading to the center.

Photo from Trip Advisor

Slowly making my way to the heart of the lush green maze, I lingered as I usually do, before making my way back out.  About to rejoin our little group, I realized that I was pulled to walk it again, this time taking something in to leave as had other pilgrims to this same path before me. Head down, I looked for something that struck the right chord, and found it in a small triad of leaves, all connected to a singular stem which nourished them all, life flowing from one to the other.

For a while now I’ve been trying to reconcile the three leaves of my own life — myself, my relationships, and my work. It often feels as if each is in competition for my time and energy and that tending to one means taking away from the other two. All three areas matter to me. Doing the internal work to become more whole, and caring well for myself matters. Connecting deeply with and supporting those I love matters. Touching the world within my reach with my work matters. How can I choose one over the other without feeling like I’m letting myself, other people, and my work down?

Looking at those three small leaves, a new thought began to emerge. What if they are all the same? What if tending to one informs and enlivens the other two? What if there is no difference? What if I trust that the stem that nourishes my triad of leaves will guide my choices, knowing that it is all one life?

There is something about the process of following a labyrinth path, knowing that the way in is also the way out, knowing that in truth, there is only one way, and it leads us to the center, and then invites us back out again. My three leaves, like the labyrinth, are an invitation to integration, and the realization that mine, like yours, is all one life.

(Gratitude to DA for helping me see the invitation to integration.)

Loose Ends

I hate loose ends. Those tiny bits of this and that waiting to be finished and checked off the list. While there may always be a few threads here and there, right now it feels like life is nothing but frayed edges. Nothing earth shattering, just small things that need to be taken care of, and until they are, it will be hard to get traction on other things. Like a dog circling around and around and around trying to find a place to lie down, I’ve been circling around these things for days now, and it’s starting to wear on me, which in all likelihood means that I’m starting to wear on others too.

Well, not any more.

I’m getting up from my desk now, pad and pen in hand, and making a list room-by-room of the loose ends waiting to be tied off. I’ll be back shortly and let you see what I found

By the end of the weekend, these will be done. Just having them out of my head and down on paper, things are looking up.

Maybe you have some loose ends waiting to be tied up this weekend too. Think how good it will feel when they are.

The Freedom To Choose

“ I am not what happened to me,

I am what I choose to become.”

Carl Jung

Crossing The Bridge

In my work I help people find their way forward, and always toward a more authentic and wholehearted life. This never happens without encountering some difficult terrain along the way. In order to become more of who we are meant to be, there are choices to make, challenges to overcome, courageous conversations to have, and new skills to practice.

Sometimes getting from where we are now to where we want to go seems so far away, that getting there feels next to impossible. The decisions to be made are too daunting, the unknown too scary, the obstacles too big, the conversations too intimidating, and the new skills so far outside our comfort zone that we can’t imagine ever mastering them.

When encountering this space with someone, whether that be a client, a friend, a family member, or myself for that matter, I always try to explore the reality of the perception that the distance to be covered is simply too great. There are times when the bridge from here to there is so long that it appears to drop off of the horizon. However, there are other times when the distance is very short, but the bridge to get there is over a canyon that is so deep and dark, that we can’t see the bottom. We can only hear the raging river far below. In my experience, these canyons have been eroded over long periods of time by the turbulent waters of our old stories, obsolete beliefs, and tightly held fears. If we never cross the bridge, we’ll never find out what life could be like on the other side.

Long distances and deep canyons are both daunting. But if we want to move toward wholeness, and the people we are meant to be, there is only one way to do that. Whether a bridge too far or a canyon too deep, our only choice is to keep going.

Money Laundering

What is it about money?

Money is a means of exchange for goods and services, and in and of itself is sort of innocuous. Yet it is often anything but. It’s hard to talk about, drives wedges in relationships, ends friendships, destroys businesses, and can quickly become so contentious that it rips families apart.

A few weeks ago, at the end of a wonderful lunch with friends, our server brought the check. We hadn’t really talked through how we would spilt the check, and so there was that familiar moment of awkward silence, until one friend said it like it was. Why is money so hard? That broke the silence as we all laughed and acknowledged what she’d said. We figured it out, paid the bill, and all was well.

Today, after a fantastic family gathering last weekend, where everyone pitched in to share in the cost of food, it was time to settle up. A couple of us had done the shopping and everyone else slipped me their cash contribution throughout the course of the weekend. I put it all in the white vase in my closet to be counted up later, or at least I thought I did. Adding it up, I was $50 short. I checked every pocket I could think of, looked inside the book I’m reading, my lingerie drawer, and under the cushion of the chair in my closet where I throw my clothes when I’m in a hurry (or tired, or lazy for that matter). Still short fifty bucks, since I was the one who’d lost it, I’d be the one to eat it.

Oh well.

Such is life with money sometimes.

And then…I remembered to check the washing machine, and sure enough, Alexander Hamilton and Andrew Jackson have never been so clean.

How we manage money with others can damage relationships if we aren’t careful. Doing it right and keeping things clean when it comes to money and other people isn’t always easy, but it’s actually pretty simple. Talk about it up front, seek mutual understanding, come to agreement, follow through on your commitments, and circle back if something doesn’t seem right.

Money is a big deal, but not the real deal, and while it may not grow on trees, it never hurts to check the washing machine.

When To Put It Off

There are days to do certain things, and days not to. 

Today is a do-not sort of day when it comes to resolving a current issue on my iMac. Not that I haven’t tried, but on the phone in conversation, yet again, with Apple Support, I could feel my skin start to itch and my face getting hot. It wasn’t that the person on the other end of the phone wasn’t trying to provide good service. They were. It was just that everything they asked me to try either didn’t work, I didn’t understand how to do what they were asking, or, because of our less than speedy internet service, the file they requested wouldn’t download, upload, reload or whatever-the-hell-load. 

While I have a decent number of gifts and areas of competency and expertise, technological anything is not, as they say, in my wheelhouse. Give me a relationship issue, an interpersonal communication breakdown, a roadblock to finding your true and most authentic self, or spotting wildlife, and I’m your girl. Have an issue involving technical anything, and you might as well be talking to a stump. A very frustrated stump.

The longer I stayed on the phone today, the shorter my fuse became. Due to the fact that Apple needs some real-time data in order to resolve this issue, that data needs to be collected and uploaded for their engineering team to get to the root of the problem. Due to the fact that the beautiful little valley where we live doesn’t provide us with access to the powerful internet service necessary to get them what they need, a root canal is starting to sound easier to handle. And so, I’m not going to try to handle it any more. At least not today. Tomorrow, after a good night of sleep and a workout at the gym, I’ll probably be ready to give it another go.

Timing can be everything, and attempting to do something at the wrong time rarely turns out right. Whether it be having a courageous conversation, updating a resume, creating a budget, starting therapy, seeking forgiveness, developing a new habit, ending a relationship, or resolving a frickin technical issue, doing it when we have the right mindset and emotional capacity to take it on can make all the difference.

Or…..

As my new rendition of the old saying goes…

Always put off till tomorrow what shouldn’t be done today. 

Photo by picjumbo.com from Pexels

The Good Stuff

The truth of the matter is that we want to share life with people who bring out the best in us. They are the ones who believe in us, encourage us to show up fully, shine lights into our blind spots, and see in us what we can’t see for ourselves.

Some further and rather inconvenient truth about the matter, is that the only people who bring out the best in us are also those who see the worst in us. When we fail—sometimes miserably—in front of each other, it is a chance to practice staying in when it would be easier to step out, moving toward each other rather than away, and staying in the conversation rather than shutting down. Even when it’s hard. Especially when it’s hard.

Some even further truth of the matter is that it’s hard stuff, this becoming our best selves, and we can’t do it alone. Find your people, stick together, call each other out, and cheer each other on, because while it may be the hard stuff, it’s all the good stuff.

With deep gratitude to all who help me be my best self…you know who you are.