Hear

Friday nights are special in our family because we typically get together with The Langs. Theirs plus ours makes for some crazy laughter and conversation with some food and drink thrown in for good measure. We become one functionally dysfunctional mass of people and the volume is always turned up on hilarity. The standing joke when someone chokes and sputters on food or drink is "are you choking, may I help you, I'm trained in First Aid?" Sometimes we insist, no really may I help you, even when the person is clearly able to cough and clear whatever got lodged temporarily in the throat. This brings me to my point, that I am trained in emotional first aid, as many are. First aid can save a life and so too can emotional first aid, in the moment at least. When asking a conscious person if they need help, there is an inherent understanding that the person being asked is at choice, capable of response, yes, help me or no, I don't want/need/agree to being helped. The question puts both the asker and the respondent in clear positions with one another. This clarity is fantastic in its resolution of what will happen next. What if the asking does not occur? What if I/you, swoop in and attempt to save the day, rescue someone perceived to be needing first aid of the emotional kind and we steal from them the power to choose? In coaching, everyone is considered naturally creative resourceful and whole, capable of asking for what they need for self healing, from the inside out. I am a band aid, a tissue, a shoulder to cry on, I am a stitch that fades in time as wounds mend and scar over. It is the wounded that must take care, love themselves well and seek help when they feel they cannot go it, the painful suffering, alone. This is learned and it first must be taught, to ask respectfully, can I help you? After the asking there comes the wait, the standing guard, the self management to refrain from insisting on rushing in, trusting that the one being asked is able to choose and must not be put upon "for their own good". Ask, wait, listen...hear. 

Spark Plugs

Recently, I was called a spark plug. I looked this term up as a metaphor and read "Spark plugs infuse energy and catalyze forward movement". Holy Junipers, I like this very much. Yes, I am a spark plug, I energetically have the ability to inspire and motivate others in the direction of the claiming of their own power in choice making, liking and then loving themselves and taking ownership for who they are now and who they want to become and live their lives as...as in Who am I and Who do I want people to know me as? It's a rough ride, taking responsibility for who I am, for who you are. Let's be clear, if you are living, you are making choices and the choices have little lives of their own once they are made. Choose to speak and the likelihood of being heard may go up. Choose to be silent and the voice inside of you doesn't go away, it continues talking, perhaps berating you for not speaking, accusing others for not magically listening, telling you that people don't care about you and what you have to say is just not important enough. You get sore throats, choked up as it were, from silencing yourself. The lie may be that you are keeping the peace, or it doesn't matter and worse yet, that people aren't worth talking to because they just don't get you anyway. No one person is more important than another, this is the gift of being human. Claiming, reclaiming, making my choices MY OWN, taking own-er-ship for YOUR OWN life without escape into excuses or blaming others, this is the beginning of empowerment. I know many Spark Plugs, Change Catalysts, Difference Makers, I am in excellent dynamic, energized company...John Doan, this one's for you, thanks for the huge acknowledgement you fellow Spark Plug you!

Crusty Bits

I had a coffee this past summer with a scientist. Her area of study is immunology and as we spoke I caught a fleeting glimpse into this scary world of germs. The people who daily risk life and limb in this bio hazardous world of micro organisms with unseen teeth and claws that threaten life have levels that they travel up, which ultimately can drop them down, as in dead. If it weren't for these heroes in HazMat suits, life as we know it would be less safe and THIS is the understatement of the year. Here's the exciting news. As Meg shared what it is she is working on, I got an amazingly new and jaw dropping perspective. I learned that when you cut an apple and it begins to go brown, it is like a protective scab forming over the opening...this was astounding to me because somewhere in time I had been taught that the brown was a sign of rotting. Of course our skin acts the same way, protecting the juicy insides of us and when we are cut, we bleed and when the body is healthy and reacts just so, it will stop the bleeding, form a scab and keep foreign matter out, protecting the oh so sensitive and sweet insides of me, of you. Broken skin is a visible sign of injury, puncture, wounding...the broken heart shows visible signs of hurt through sad eyes, tears, anger, sickness. The natural inclination is to protect the heart, form a hardened crust around it to keep it safe from further assault and injury. When healing happens, scabs loose their necessity, they dry up and fall off, revealing miraculous healing underneath, new skin that is soft and tender, and yet strong and protective. I have scars, they tell my stories, of injury and healing. The crusty bits around my cuts and wounds fall off quickly and I am new underneath them. Each time I heal I am stronger, more resilient and grateful for the learning. What crusty bites need to fall off of you? This one is for you Meg Haggitt, thanks for the education and delightful conversation. 

Being a Jerk

I listened to and watched a powerful message yesterday about disposition. The messenger was insistent that we are all born with one, a particular brand of me, of you. He used the example of his five grandsons, each one very different, each one displaying natural inclinations toward quiet or excitability, gregariousness or solo retreat...these appear to be opposites and yet, they are not, they are simply descriptors of some predisposition to what is naturally comfortable. During a dog walk, I met a man with a huge black bouvier. We were across the street from one another and the dogs seemed interested in meeting, I had trepidation, my dog can be a jerk sometimes.The man encouraged me to take a chance, have our dogs get to know one another. His dogs name is Teddy, my dogs name is Caesar. The meeting was tentative, Teddy has a sweet and gentle disposition and he appeared to be generous with giving Caesar time and space to get familiar. During this getting to know you phase, Teddy's owner, John, spoke dog psychology to me, telling me it's all about the owner, that dogs react to the fear they pick up from their owners~in other words, if I remained calm and relaxed, my dog would too. Yes yes, me calm and relaxed, ok. My natural disposition leans toward fearlessness, nervousness in the face of meeting new people or being in different environments is rare for me...in other words, my dog has his own way of reacting to people, places, things, and other dogs~I don't usually factor into the equation. The dogs did get along, and John spoke amiably about The Dog Whisperer and to his credit, he did tell me a story about one instance where a little dog introduced into a big dog pack just could not remain there, the dogs disposition was to terrorize the much larger I could eat you in one chomp dogs. This was a bit of foreshadowIng, as you shall see. We continued our walk together for about ten houses and there we met Zoro, a gorgeous black lab. Zoro had submission style splattered himself onto the sidewalk in eager anticipation of meeting two new dogs. This is when John got to see Caesar being a jerk. Ha, I grin as I write this! A snake is a snake is a snake, a dog is a dog is a dog. A snake acts like a snake and dogs act like dogs and HUMANS, we have our human ways too. Oh, the sweet differences though, freedom of will affords us adaptability and choice. After pulling my snarling dog away from sweet and gentle Zoro, John and I continued our walk. He was quite startled and surprised and I could not help myself from saying "you didn't believe me, did you, about Caesar?" I know my dog~he is sweet and gentle, loving and adorable, and sometimes, he can be a jerk, just like ME!

Love Abundant

I am a difference making, I am the only one that speaks to Him, and I am the friendliest of friends of God...these are lyrics from the song Difference Making by the band NEEDTOBREATHE. I am a difference making, this I know is true. I am welcoming and loving, a source of great encouragement and playfull joy. I am a good listerner, a wise Truth teller and a lover of humanity. I am a giver and while this all sounds like a fantastic love fest for me, I have to confess that I am able, or enabled, to be all these things and more because I first received Love Abundant. I am nothing without this Love that flows freely from all around me and I could and have, resisted it many a time, lived unbelief, disbelief in being lovable. I make mistakes and have felt shame and from the shame there has been self beratement and a feeling of unworthiness has hijacked the me that is wonderful and sweet, kind loving and peaceful, pure of heart and mind and wanting only honesty and caring through sharing the Love. Yes, it is better to give than to receive and yet, the receiving must come first, from the One. We are not always taught love by the humans that form and shape us and there appears to be much need of unlearning muddled love, the kind that has strings attached and demands placed on it and conditions that must be met for it to stand on wobbly legs. Love is faithful, enduring and patient. When I'm a mess, and fallen, a bit mangled from my own ineptitude, He says I Love you just the way you are. He has taught that self love is only possible from receiving it first, and this I have~the self love and the receiving of it so that I too, can love another without condition. I show the way, I am NOT the way...but for the Grace of God go I. 

Wellness is a Choice

February 10th 2014 marks the day I recommitted to my own wellness. Self care is a choice and takes conscious effort. This statement seems contrary, that choice requires effort and yet, the Truth of the matter is that thoughts really do become things and so, in order to make wellness mine, I had to do some thinking on the matter, before it became, well...matter. Follow me: I was steadily gaining weight and my eating habits appeared to have a life of their own, they were a personality, a representation of what was going on inside. I was like a race car driver and my exercise and food and or drink consumption had variable speeds. Friday nights were break neck, careless indulgences reminiscent of the thank God it's Friday mentality that was encoded from grade school Monday-Friday indoctrination, with extra calories consumed as a celebratory hey I made it through another week attitude, woo hoo for me extravaganza. Saturday's may or may not have had the seem cut loose feeling and by Sunday, I was looking forward to the clean eating and excercise patterns that go along with the start of a work week. If ANY of this sounds familiar, describes what you have or are experiencing, than you are in good company and as it were, sleepy company. Sleepy physically, because this type of body abuse impacts energy levels and the ability to pay attention and focus, and on a metaphorical level, you have been living as though you have been sleep walking...the evidence is yours to assess. I am not a pattern, I am a living breathing choice able human being imbued with the brilliance of my God. This shell I'm in is my Temple, with the Holy Spirit residing in me as my Guide. I am awake, alert, lively, well and it, the wellness, was and is mine to claim. Being awake means being aware. What is is what YOU have created, not some thing that has HAPPENED to you. If you are reading this, you have your own knowing of what it means to choose. Wellness is a choice. 

Wasps

Be brave, this was the quiet encouragement I heard from my companion as I shifted and dodged wasps during an outdoor lunch. I didn't want to hurt the wasps and I didn't want them to hurt me. I watched as my friend stayed still and gently removed his glasses, a wasp had flown behind a lens and landed on his face, close to his eye. Unperturbed, both he and the wasp seemed to have a rather peaceable close encounter without harm or alarm. Be brave, he said this to me twice, it was a command and I hear the words again as I contemplate their meaning. In the face of risk, in this case of injury via a waspy sting, fear can command reaction, response, his instruction to be brave spoke confidence to my being and a fear not blanket temporarily covered me. The wasps were persistent and so I moved the dessert that attracted them with the hope of redirecting their attention...this, as I write, this is what my wise friend was doing for me, redirecting my attention, commanding me to be brave, twice. It feels like foreshadowing to me, a moment in time captured that I will look back on and recall for the fortification of my soul, be brave, and I shall. For you, Bud Carter, my friendship you do have Obi Wan and I am glad to know you.