Gratitude

Hello Tuesday, the fifth Tuesday in quarantine time. Today I want to take time for gratitude. There are so many people doing wonderful things right now. I’m grateful for Governor Andy Beshear who is leading Kentucky with grace, compassion, transparency, and scientific knowledge. I am grateful for Mayor Linda Gorton, who is leading Lexington with grace, compassion, transparency. I am grateful for our mail carrier who shows up every day. I’m grateful he’s wearing gloves and a mask to protect himself. I am grateful for all of the doctors, nurses, technicians, and all health care personnel working on the front lines of this pandemic.

 

I am grateful for my wife braving the grocery store. I am grateful for our neighborhood and our wonderful neighbors. I am grateful for the trees blooming, the birds singing. I am grateful for Gertie the groundhog who lives in a burrow atop a drainage ditch in Addison Park. We chat every day when I walk the dog. I am grateful for being alive, for the ability to write, for breathing easily, for my health, my mental faculties. I am grateful for the clean water coming out of my taps, grateful for electricity, heat and air conditioning. I am grateful for the man who mows our lawn. I am grateful for our housekeeper, especially now that she is staying healthy at home and we are cleaning the house!

 

I am grateful for zoom and for the way it lets me stay in touch with friends and allows me to continue working. I am grateful for cooking, for good TV, for engaging novels, for good non-fiction. I am grateful for this day.

 

What are you grateful for today?

You Can Make a Difference

Hello. It’s the third Friday in Quarantine time. Life in my neighborhood seems relatively normal. Looking out the window I see trees budding out, the redbuds blooming, a robin building a nest in a cubby in our eaves, wrens hopping through bushes, flashes of cardinals in the brush.

Out walking the dog, I realize things are not normal. There is almost no traffic noise coming from Versailles Rd. There are no children waiting for the school bus, there are more cars than normal for this time of day in driveways or on the street. I don’t see another human being the entire hour I am out with Grail.

Life has changed. It will never go back to being what it was. There is before and there will be an after, but for now we are in liminal space; betwixt and between.

Some reading this will have lost their jobs and will be struggling. Some reading this will still have their jobs. If you are fortunate to have a job, and you have the means, now is the time to give back to your community. There are many ways we can support each other right now. Donate money to a local food bank, most of which are seeing greatly increased demand. If you have PPE you are not using, donate it to your local fire department or hospital. Even 10 masks will help. If you hoarded supplies, consider sharing them with people who can’t afford to buy them. If you’re sitting on 100 containers of hand sanitizer you won’t be able to use it before it expires, why not share the wealth? If you are generally healthy and able to go to the grocery store, why not offer to shop for someone who is vulnerable? If you are handy and have a sewing machine you can sew masks for people.

Remember, we will get through this and we will get through this together. Now is also the time to look at your priorities. So, you can’t get a hair cut, get your hair colored, get manicures or pedicures, get waxed, get botox injections, or temporary fillers. Take some time to get curious about your beliefs around beauty and what is acceptable to you. Look in the mirror and begin loving yourself for who you are as you are without adornment.

Find three things to be grateful for today and tell three people how much they mean to you.

You Are the Most Beloved

Hello Friday. Here in Lexington, it’s alternating between rain and sun. The wind is blowing, the streets are eerily quiet, life has slowed down. The forsythia bushes in the back yard are in full bloom, the bushes along the creek are leafing out, the buds on the trees are swelling, the birds are singing their springtime songs. Life goes on all around us.

 

If you are at home due to a 14 day quarantine, mandatory social distancing or a shelter in place order take time to notice spring happening all around you. It’s easy to become so panicked that you fail to notice anything. Stop, breathe, look around, notice something you can see, something you can hear, something you can smell, something you can feel. Come into this present moment. Come back to your breath. If you are allowed to go outside, get outside, even if it’s just for a few moments. Look at the sky, the trees, at flowers blooming.

 

Today, think of five things you’re grateful for. Today, send notes of appreciation via e-mail to five people. Today find a way to turn off the news for a while and watch or read something that takes you to another place. This is a marathon, rest where you can, continue at a slow and steady pace; there is no need to sprint.

 

Let’s all take care of each other. What if we treated this as if everyone on the planet was our most beloved? It would be easy then to help keep others safe. The truth is everyone on the planet is the most beloved to someone.

A Marathon

Good morning Tuesday. As we remain in uncharted territory, hold on to your compass. Take a moment today to think about your compass. What guides you in times of trouble? What practices do you have that help you when you feel squirrly, scared, sad, mad? Who do you turn to for support and love?

Today take time to reach out to those who might be isolated, scared, sad. We might not be able to congregate, but we can connect by phone, video, social media, e-mail, snail mail.

Exercise your thinking-about-othe- people muscles today. It’s easy to become numbed by statistics about the numbers of people who have the virus and by the numbers of people who have died. Remeber those numbers represent real, flesh and blood people. People with siblings, parents, children, close and distant relatives, friends, lovers, neighbors, co-workers. People grieving loved ones who have died. People rejoicing over loved ones who have recovered. People, real people.

We are in this together. Viruses, contrary to what some people are saying, do not have a nationality. They are equal opportunity organisms, and they are proof that we all inter-are, because viruses require a host to reproduce and survive. Viruses have been around a very long time. A 2016 article in Cell Magazine indicates that between 40 and 80 percent of the human genome is the result of “archaic viral invasion.” So, don’t demonize the virus. It just is, it’s doing its virus thing. As humans we don’t like what it does to us, but that doesn’t make the virus evil, foreign, an illusion or any of the other things people are calling this virus. It just is.

Instead of focusing on where the virus came from, focus on how you can respond. How can you respond with love today? How can you think about and help others today? How can you help yourself today? How can you prepare and take precautions without panicking? This will not be over in days or weeks, we are in for some long term changes in how we live our lives. This is a marathon, not a sprint, pace yourselves accordingly. And, remember, love, love, love one another. We are all in this together and together we will make it through.

Gratitude, It’s Not What You Think

Gratitude. It’s all the rage. A quick Google search for the term returned 152,000,000 results. You can take gratitude workshops, buy gratitude journals, participate in gratitude challenges, read scholarly articles on how gratitude rewires the brain. It’s magic! Be grateful and you’ll soon be popular, rich, sexy, all your troubles will vanish.

 

Well, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but gratitude is not a panacea. Gratitude for its own sake, can be powerful. The problem is many people adopt a gratitude practice with the hope of getting something out of it and that is not gratitude it’s bartering. They create elaborate gratitude lists made up of, not things for which they are actually grateful, but things they think they should be grateful for, or things they hope to have that they will be grateful for if they get.

 

True gratitude is acceptance and appreciation of what actually is without expecting anything from it. Look around you right now. Find five things, real things for which you are grateful. Concrete things. Here are some right around me. I am grateful for the cup of coffee next to me and for the way coffee makes me feel alive. I am grateful for the beautiful mug the coffee is in and for the potter who crafted it. I am grateful for the sounds of birds filtering through my window. I am grateful for the changing leaves I see through that same window. I am grateful I have a computer on which to type these words. That took me thirty seconds to write and I mean every one of them.

 

Here’s the thing, a true gratitude practice can change your life, because it shifts your focus from what is wrong with you or the world to what is working right now. So often in life we work from a deficit model; figure out what’s not working and change it. It can be much more powerful to work from an asset model; figure out what is working and expand on it. This can help shift your focus to what is possible rather than what is wrong and open wide the vistas of your mind. Try it!

Be Grateful

Rule # 6: Be grateful. All the time. Find something every day for which you are grateful. Make it real, don’t be grateful for things that haven’t happened yet, be grateful for what is, right now.

 

About three years ago, Soni and I started a daily gratitude practice. Just before going to sleep, we each say what we’re grateful that day. Even if I’ve had a bad day I find I have a lot for which I am grateful. Being grateful isn’t spiritual whitewashing, it’s not saying everything is good, when it’s not. It’s simply a way of reminding yourself that life is never just one thing. It’s never just sadness, depression, grief, happiness, joy, anger. Mostly it’s a mix of two or more of these.

 

Being grateful doesn’t necessarily mean you’re happy either. You don’t have to be happy to be grateful, you just have to be honest. The challenge for many people is that when they feel happy, they worry it won’t last and when they feel sad, angry or depressed, they feel pressure to feel differently, because our culture has little tolerance for any emotion other than happiness. Perhaps, today you’re grateful for being sad, or for grieving someone, because it’s a reminder of how deep your love is. Be you, be grateful.

 

What are you grateful for today?

Be Kind

Rule #5: Be kind. Be kind, all the time, even if you don’t think someone deserves your kindness. A lack of kindness stems from feeling superior, righteous, self-entitled, priveleged. There is no excuse for being rude, even if someone is rude to you.

 

A couple of years ago I was flying home from San Francisco. As often happens at SFO there was a flight delay due to heavy fog. In addition, there was bad weather affecting Atlanta, our destination. A delay of thirty minutes turned into a delay of three hours and it meant many folks would miss their connections. People lined up at the service counter to try changing their flights.

 

I watched as person after person yelled at the counter people. Here are some of the things I heard people say: “YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND I HAVE TO GET HOME.” “JESUS, ARE YOU PEOPLE STUPID, I HAVE A RIGHT TO MY FLIGHT HOME.” “YOU STUPID COW, DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO WORK A COMPUTER, FIND ME A FUCKING FLIGHT.” Through it all the counter crew stayed calm; they never yelled. Over and over they simply said there was nothing they could do about the weather, and that as soon as it was safe to fly we would board the plane.

 

I was about the 80th person in line. When it was my turn at the counter I said, “Thanks so much for all your hard work trying to rebook flights. I so appreciate you.” The woman I was speaking to, got tears in her eyes and smiled at me. “Thanks,” she said. I asked her about rebooking and she told me not to worry, that my connecting flight in Atlanta would be as delayed as this flight and I would make it. No fuss, no muss, no need for anger or upset. I got the same results as people who were nasty.

 

Here’s the thing, being rude doesn’t get you anywhere. It doesn’t get you better service, doesn’t make people respect you, doesn’t make you seem strong. It just makes you seem like a jerk. The bottom line is that rudeness is incredibly narcissistic; it says no one matters as much as I do. Do you like it when someone is rude to you? No? Than don’t do it to anyone else. Be kind. Always.

The Basics

Life shows up every day, just the way it will. The only choice we have is how we respond to life. No incantation, prayer, fast, purge, pill or plea can change the behavior of others. People will go on being just exactly who they are and you will go on being exactly who you are, that’s the way the world works. If you don’t like the way you are in the world there are concrete things you can do to change that. The problem we often get into is that we don’t like the way we are in the world and we try to change other people, because we can’t face looking at ourselves.

 

The only way to growth is honesty. I know, I sound like a broken record, but the truth is this is the biggest problem people have, being honest with themselves. Some of the people I have met who are the least capable of being honest with themselves are the ones who have done the most “spiritual” or “growth” work. They can spout phrases, tell you what all the best teachers say, give you fifty different methods for dealing with any issue in your life, but fail to notice that they’re in the same place they were before they started, because all of their telling you how to fix your life is a projection of what’s not working in theirs.

 

When I studied Tae Kwon Do, we were reminded all the time that you can never study the basics enough. Every night we drilled on kicks, punches, throws, doing basic moves over and over. This is like life. Practicde the basics every day. Be honest, be vulnerable, tell the truth of your experience, don’t try to change anyone else, sit with the uncomfortable feelings, be aware of others, be kind, be compassionate, be forgiving, offer others the grace and mercy you want for yourselves. Oh, and brush your teeth and wear clean underwear!

A Saturday Lament

For Saturday morning, a lament.

July and lightning bugs are giving way to cicadas. Caterpillars are munching milkweed leaves, tomatoes are ripening on the vine, green peppers are growing, green beans are blossoming. Summer is truly here. The high green of early June has deepened, the birds quieter mid-day, noisier in the morning and evening.

Without any help from humans, the seasons progress. But it is human hands and minds changing the nature of seasons, human ingenuity causing the climate to change, bringing with it record heat, stronger storms, drought and flood. A few days ago the air temperature in northern California was so high, mussels boiled in their shells and died. Climate is changing so rapidly, Wright whales are dying in droves and it may be too late to stop their extinction. When will we wake up? When will you wake up? When will I wake up?

When we live as if we are the only ones who matter, the world suffers. When we live as if only others matter, we suffer. In the middle is a path of caring and compassion, a path that allows for leaving only a small footprint, but a lasting legacy; a path that allows for the ideas of others to flourish with love and grace and allows for forgivness and gratitude. Walking this path means always being mindful of those to come.

Today be mindful of what you do. Your actions are your message to the world and your legacy.

You are Amazing, yes you!

Almost a year ago, I attended a retreat and part of the work in that retreat was to create vision and mission statements for our work. In my work as a licensed spiritual coach, I often see people who believe they are broken, flawed, that they can’t figure out the secret to happiness and fulfillment. As a coach I provide a safe space for people to do their own work.

 

In this past year I have become even more convinced my vision statement is right for me. It’s what I strive to do daily. Although many times I fail miserably, I hold it as my standard. My vision: “I see a world in which people joyously express who they are, without apology, and where each person is accepted for who they are, as they are.”

 

Along with a vision statement we created mission statements, statements about how we put our vision into practice. I realized my mission statement was a little too airy-fairy for me and I’ve changed it slightly. Here it is: “I provide spiritual guidance and practical tools for people to let go of their old stories, so that their own brilliance shines and they live fullout as who they are, right now.” This is my passion and what wakes me up each day.

 

Last night I had the honor of attending the Lexington Fairness Hall of Fame Awards Social and to see how the world is changed by people who hold fast to a vision. Four brilliant women were inducted, all of whom have held to the vision of a world in which each person is valued for who they are, Carol Taylor-Shim, Reinette Jones, Susan Lamb and Pat Gerhard. If you don’t know who they are, look them up. I hope to be able to do a small portion of what they’ve done. Each of us, in our own way, can do something to make the world better.

 

Today, let someone else know they are amazing, fabulous, gifted beyond measure. Look someone in the eyes, really see them and say don’t you know how wonderful you are?