The Wonder and Mystery of the "Negatives" in our Lives.

I penned a version of this essay on Mother’s Day 2021.  I invite us to consider the idea of finding our way into appreciating the gifts hidden in our impossible life situations, those things we cannot change, but deeply wish we could.  To shift our gaze and adjust our narrative about our difficulties and treat them as unfolding mysteries that we do not, cannot yet, comprehend but that we trust that one day, we will be able to make whole the fragments and brokenness of our individual lives.

As an example of that I offer you this piece:

“I have been well mothered in my life, but not from my mom.  Instead true mothering came to me via my dad, my siblings, my friends and even from strangers. My own mother had considerable talents and gifts for cooking, for piety, for sewing and constructing things, and for creating order and structure in our daily routine, which was incredibly important with four young children all two years apart. But in addition to those things, another equally important part of raising children is the ability to mirror and align with the the child. To witness them and see them as distinctly separate from you. To see the unique intelligence and the destiny in the making, unfolding in this other human being.   In this endeavor, curiosity and wonder are the coin of the realm. These were not my mother’s gifts.

But within 48 hours of her death, I realized that everything I love most about myself, arguably my very destiny was determined because she lacked the specific gifts not because she had them. Out of the suffering of not being seen, of being often criticized for my otherness was born a deep desire, honed over many decades, to truly see each human with a particular wonder about who their deep intelligence wants them to become.

I write this missive on Mother’s Day 2021 to remind myself and us all that the “ ideal” lives, parents, jobs, friends, partners, bank accounts, etc (you get the point) that we long for are not what will turn us into the lit angels we came here to be. I write this for everyone reading this who finds themselves in conditions not to their liking. I urge us all to consider stepping outside of that complaint and into the ocean of wonder.

Consider this “wondering” question: “If this/these conditions were created to help me give birth to something unique, a gift to me and others, what might that gift, capacity or action(s) be?” Pick one thing in the external world that affects you, that you struggle with, and apply that question to that thing.

Thank goodness that two decades before my mom died, I was finally able to give up the wish she would be different. I realized I was judging her as “less than” and how hurtful that was to her, and to me. I was doing exactly as she had done. Oh the irony! But it wasn’t until her death that I realized her soul gifted me with my destiny in a roundabout way.   Our human personalities both suffered. Neither of us could attain the depth of friendship we both wished for, but we did retain our deep love for each other.

It has taken me this last decade to apprentice myself to her gifts of order and structure. With my random, creative brain, I can only approximate them, because while they were her nature, they are far afield from mine. But as I do this, I find increased empathy for what a challenge my nature may have been for her and how she steadfastly loved me, even though she didn’t often really like me. Even though our relationship felt and was conditional at times, (“mama doesn’t like you when you are sassy”), even at those times I still knew the love was unwavering. I knew she might rail at me for my mistakes, but I also knew she would never not love me. She struggled to like me. AND I always knew that. Even when I was young I would say to dad, “Mamma doesn’t like me but she loves me”. I don’t recall him ever making a response to that. 

It hurts to live with that, and I really suffered when I was younger. When a child believes a parent doesn’t like how they are made, they are in a terrific bind. They need and are attached to the parent and they can’t do a lot about how they are wired. Although they might try. I tried. And in the trying I/we contort ourselves. And in the dissonance of that contortion, I/we have the chance to grow because of that very constriction.  This is really the point I am making.  The “negative” of my mother’s inability to truly like how I was wired hurt me, but the story doesn’t stop there…it also created Me!  

Back to mom and me.   How human of my mom, right?  Don’t we, don’t you struggle to like someone so different from you when you have to do daily life with them, at work, or in your family? I sure do. I don’t understand why the world seems intent on delivering this experience to all of us… intent on giving us someone or something completely immovable to our desires and needs.   The 20th century poet Maria Rainer Rilke who also struggled with a sense of exile from dominant society his entire life wrote:

 “Winning does not tempt that man. This is how he grows, by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings”.

“Winning does not tempt this woman. This is how I grow, by being defeated, decisively, by constantly greater beings.”  Beings such as my mother, whom I could not bend to my will. But also, by conditions that I cannot change but must navigate. Personal health challenges. racism, sexism, homophobia, ableism, all the other ways we separate ourselves and disconnect from each other. They still break my heart as much as when I was little. As they should.  These are the result of a civilization that fosters disconnection rather than connection. Many, if not all of us feel a sense of exile. Maybe from some part of ourselves that we have othered, and therefore banished, or from others, or maybe because we don’t seem to fit the dominant ideal.

 But…another wondering question comes to mind: “How could it be true, that the very conditions or people that we feel imprisoned by or exiled from in our lives, are actually inadvertently helping us give birth to some new capacity that can navigate this reality and evolve us, into an ever more human and humane version of ourselves?”   And what happens when we focus on this new growth within ourselves, instead of our complaints about our current circumstances? 

 I am not suggesting we deny our suffering.  Nor am I suggesting that these negative conditions are made tolerable by what we can wrest from their grip.  They are not.  I would much prefer a lifelong connection and affection going both ways between my mom and me.  Denying the level of impact of our suffering leads to negative psychological and biological costs. BUT I am suggesting we give ourselves something forward moving, (our becoming and our own growth) to focus on instead.   Because really what else can we do that is life giving, in the face of our losses and suffering?

In the words of Rilke,  “…until some distant day, without hardly noticing it, we will live ourselves into an answer.” An understanding or insight will find us, much as mine did 48 hours after mom’s death. Maybe it was a gift from her? I like to think so.  BUT it was also a gift from myself.  Those years of growing and becoming a woman who could love well even in the face of disappointment and disconnection set the table for that insight to find me so that finally both of our hearts were at rest.

Art by: Hilma AF Klint

"Always we hope someone else has the answer, some other place will be better...

“Always we hope
someone else has the answer, some other place will be better,
some other time, it will turn out
… This is it.”     Pema Chodran

Abiding truth.  This.   It recalls T.S. Eliot’s “Hope would be hope for the wrong thing” as he too, calls us to the Waiting.  

the Being Here.

just

just  Here.

Waiting.

It requires the body in full presence.  Anxiety hates waiting. Monkey mind, that chatterbox and ally to the gods of productivity, recoils in the face of Waiting. Of Being just Here.

Waiting.

Here.

just the Waiting.

What might arise in that void of activity?

Monkey mind is pretty sure nothing good will come of this “Waiting” this just “being Here.”

And now we find ourselves deep in the season of Waiting: Advent.  In the Christian tradition, the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas are designed to be a spiritual preparation.   Even more than physical preparation.  The gift giving of this season of the return of Light to the world is an outward manifestation of generosity, particularly the generosity of God.

Black Friday. Cyber Monday. That’s trickier. These are built on scarcity. “Only this day. You must act and buy or you ‘lose’ the  bargain.” That thinking and energy is the opposite of generosity. It is scarcity.

But I digress. Back to Waiting. To just being.

The Pema Chodron poem I opened with indicates a surrender in this “Waiting.” Surrender takes humility and openness. Maybe I am not the best judge of what is best for me in the whole of my life? What is desired now could become a poison to my soul  then.

Yet, how does this willful, German-stubborn woman (me) surrender to what is?  How do I wait in that? Instead of jumping to what could be?

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.
Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought:
So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.  

T.S. Eliot

It is hard indeed not to wish for what we believe we want. For most of us it is a heavy lift to open to, be curious about, and actually embrace the reality we have in this moment rather than the one we “think” we should have or the one that we “believe” will make us happy.

I can think of so many times in my life I was mistaken about what would make me happy. Or what would be best. And even in the times I was right, how much joy did I sacrifice, how much real life did I miss when I chose to give my attention to my preferences for a different and yet to be reality? To what “Could be.” Didn’t this wanting “some other place” or  “some other time” increase dissatisfaction with current reality? And of course it did.

My first baby steps into “the Waiting” and into “Embracing what is” was a daily practice of gratitude, specifically, journaling my gratitudes and sharing them.

The poets call us to surrender to the present moment and…to trust it. To trust reality!  If I trust that I am enough for my life and for what is yet to be, then I can “be here now.”  Just HERE.  Trusting the present moment, my current reality, requires trusting myself. Trusting I am “able” to meet this moment, whether it is to my liking or not.

What helps me do this is to remind myself that preferences, “I want this and not that,” and, “It should be this way and not that way,” belong to the mental constructions of our Ego’s. They are not real. And therefore, they are not necessary. They are simply an idea, my preference. This is why spiritual and religious traditions ask us to surrender to “God’s” will over our own. They, too, know that our will comes from a place within that seeks security over vitality. This part of us seeks safety over experience. The entropy of the known and seemingly predictable over the aliveness of growth and newness.

We humans have the amazing ability to imagine. To imagine new worlds. To imagine and then enact behaviors to reach these possible futures. “What Could be,”  and “What is yet to be” is indeed miraculous. This faculty is what makes us different from animals. We can take a step back, reflect on ourselves and our lives (New Year’s  resolutions) and imagine new futures for ourselves. I love our human capacity for “Could be.” I have made a living for over two decades helping people imagine themselves into new ways of behaving and responding, into new futures, into new ways of understanding and relating to themselves and others.

I am all for “could be.”  AND  I want to invite myself and you to fully be grateful for what is, embracing the yucky parts of “Here” before we start to imagine a different “Could be.”  Embrace the reality we have.  Poet David Whyte suggests in his articulation of conversational leadership/Invitas that we “Come to ground. That we meet the reality we have, not the one we wish we had.” I think the reality we have has its own secret treasures.

Why do this?   For the sake of being able to chart our course forward from a  place of the soul’s revelation. Our soul desires are our true desires.  They are  often very  different than the preferences of our  Ego’s.  They are the ineffable and the abiding.   They reside in that still place within us that Eliot would have us wait in. They are “the dancing.”  Within their sweet embrace we do not hope for the wrong thing. There we do not love the wrong thing.  There, “the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing.”

And there lies the originality that was born in each of us.

May this holy season,  this winter of Waiting bring each of you the peace that  surpasses  all understanding.

Creating adult-adult relationships with your children

I received a very late b'day card ... Reasons I'm happy you were born, it read.  The sender is one of my children.  The 10 reasons written made me weep. I often receive other cards from my other child, post cards from travel destinations, thank you notes, etc. Both of these remarkable human beings treat me as a person separate and not simply their mother. They are 29 and 33 years old.I remember thinking when they were 17 and 21 that they might be two of the most interesting and fine humans I would ever meet (of course I am biased but it was also what I truly believed about them). I also thought I did not want to be stuck forever in the role of only "their mother" and never seen as a human who had passions beyond her children.  Full disclaimer:  that is exactly how I treated my parents, as if they existed only in the role of my mom and my dad. And I didn't want that relationship with my own children. I suspect my parents wanted more with me too.  I wish I had known or paid attention.  Where was my curiosity about the two remarkable humans who loved and raised me?  It was missing.But unlike my parents, I am more demanding. I knew I wanted adult-adult relationships with my children. So when they turned 21 and 17, I began a journey to make sure that was a possibility for us. That journey was treating them like they could teach me things. Of course, I still had things to teach or share with them, but I found I was profoundly interested in the world they inhabited (in spite of my fears about it) and more importantly I was interested in them and how they were navigating said world.Fast Forward: I have ended up creating a bit of a niche in coaching Millennials mid and high level executives.  I really do love them!  AND since they (millennials in general, my children in particular) were little I always had a hunch they knew things...were plugged into something different and I wanted in on that stuff.  Today, I would say this is probably always true. I used to think it was just true about that generation. I was wrong. I find it equally true about the one coming behind them. Those kiddos in Florida from Marjory Stoneman Douglas, I would love to talk to them. I am fascinated by a young woman, Emma Gonzales, still in high school, who held an entire audience on a large stage in Washington DC for 6+ minutes in silence while she simply witnessed her own suffering and that of her peers. Who are these people? I don't know but I want to...  and I hope you do too.  What if each generation that is born, along with it's particular challenges also comes with particular gifts, well suited to help society navigate a particular part of the evolutionary journey toward wholeness?But even if this is not true, what if the secret to experiencing a sense of belonging with anyone and everyone ...is recognizing that this person/generation in front of you has an experience you don't know or maybe you can't even understand BUT you might be able to  share. You could witness his or her story.  You can tell them you "see" them. They are real. Their experience is real.And that my friends is the difference.Those of you who know me, know that I don't miss a chance to "teach" to educate. BUT I also don't miss a chance to ask a "real question". My question, is born of my own genuine curiosity. All I have to remember is to not ask it aggressively so it reads as "justify yourself" but instead reads as real curiosity. So it reads as "wonder." My name is my reminder to Wonder … To Wonder what someone else knows, thinks, feels that I can't imagine.And therein lies the difference between a life of tedium and decline and a life filled with wonder and awe. 

“Every day when I awake I am torn between saving the world and savoring it…”

As we stand at the gateway, a summer stretching out in front of us, this quote is particularly meaningful to me.   Full quote:  "Everyday when I awake, I am torn between saving the world and savoring it.  It makes it hard to plan the day."And that reminds me of another poem by David Whyte What to Remember When Waking where the poet states 

"...What you can plan

is too small

for you to live.

What you can live

wholeheartedly 

will make plans

enough

for the vitality 

hidden in your sleep. ..."

Is there a kind of planning that is more like a conversation with a person?  Where no one leads, you aren't leading and life isn't leading but you are co-creating the dance together?  I believe there is.  Conversational planning may be the secret to 21st century well-being, whether planning your family's summer or your organization's vision and mission for the next 3 to 5 years.Recently, I lost a most dear soul friend.    It reminded me of the futility of a plan that does not include the following:

1. Interruptions
2. The random...things taking a surprise turn (positive and negative).
3. Trust in oneself and life.

The last one is particularly important I think, because I cause myself unnecessary suffering when I get out ahead of "now" and tell myself a story about a possible future that is not here.  But when I am able trust the unknown (unplanned interruptions and the random), what C.G.Jung called God, only then can I stay present and fully available to this moment instead of my story about this moment.  How do I trust the unknown and random?  By trusting that I can meet whatever life is bringing.  I Part of what makes this a bit easier is staying in this moment where I can't truly see if what is happening is actually good or bad, in the long run.  What I can know in this moment is only that I like it or I don't.  I want it or do not.  But I can't actually know how I will feel about it 20 years from now.  You see until our last breath, we are all always in the middle of a long play.  So this "detour" or "setback" might actually be a kind of divine intervention giving me the chance to pause and relook at what I am  doing or where I am heading.  If you don't believe in Divine intervention, no worries, you can still take a pause and ask yourself the question, "How is this potentially a gift to me?"  In other words, use it as Divine intervention giving you the chance to pause and regroup.  Even if it is not!In that pause, you can ask yourself questions, like:

• "Am I all in?"
•  "Do we have anything nagging us that we keep turning away from?"
•  "How is this actually a good thing?  Even though I still don't like it.  

By the way trusting the unknown or trusting Life, doesn't mean I don't get to feel, sad, mad and/or scared.  But if along side those feelings, I can squeeze in a little curiosity and wonder via exploratory questions (like those above), the whole thing opens up again and I can move forward with more confidence and commitment.  Not in outcome.  No one gets to have that.  Confidence and commitment in myself and my direction, come what may.So back to 21st century conversational planning.  What exactly does that mean?  It means planning expecting a partner (Life/the Unknown Future) that will ultimately help you create more than you could have without her.  Planning for interruptions, detours and reversals.  Keeping the end in sight, but holding the "how" and the "when" loosely.  And trust yourself, especially that vitality hidden in your sleep and your dreams. 

Rejection is protection!

What?Rejection is protection! How can that be?  This is a saying in 12-step programs.  When someone rejects you, or your proposal, it is actually a sort of "whew...dodged that bullet!" because even though you wanted "it" or wanted a relationship with this person, your IDEA of what you would actually receive in the bargain was just that:  YOUR IDEA.  Not the reality of what would occur.This is one of the hardest passages of adulthood.  Recognizing that the voice inside our head, the strategic mind that tells us what it thinks is good and bad, is actually not what is wisest in us.  There is another voice, "that small still voice within" that knows more but often scares that strategic mind and so it shuts that voice down.  I have a long time friend, going on 3 decades.  She is a recovering alcoholic.  She told me once that first time she tried a 12 step program it didn't work.  The step (maybe first?) that asks you to surrender to your higher power?  Well, she really believed that "She was her higher power".  And I don't blame her.  First of all she might be the most competent person I know, and I know so many, that this is actually a huge complement.  Second, she grew up where there was no reason to trust any adult around her and every reason to assume she was the only person that was for her.  The only person she could trust and the only person who would protect her, was herself.But when she said it ("I always thought I was my higher power.")  my first thought was "She is just like me."  I too find it easier to trust my idea of what should happen instead of trusting "life" or "God" or even that small still voice deep within me that whispers, maybe it is better this way.  My strategic mind hates that voice.  It doubles down on its list of why things should be the way it thinks they should.For most of us our idea about a job, a marriage, really any endeavor we wish for ourselves never materializes that way.  It is always something different.  Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different.  So silly me, why do I really think I know what is best?  So, picture me raising my right hand and swearing:  "When the "no" comes, on any front, I resolve to recall all the times a "yes" made me unhappy and say "I probably just dodged a bullet, and I don't know why yet."  Care to join me?