"There's that feeling you get when you see something that you don't understand..."
"There's that feeling you get when you see something that you don't understand the origin of ... wonderment."The Brooklyn artist Swoon was quoted as saying this in the New York Times and when I read it so many things came together for me.
- Why adults and adolescents love small children.
- Why it can be difficult for us as adults, to be curious in the face of the unknown. The uncertain.
- And why poetry so often appeals to us, especially at the most difficult times in our lives.
I think most of us "smart and savvy" (and maybe a bit world weary) adults do just the opposite of wonderment in the face of what we don't understand. We don't get curious, we don't allow ourselves to be drawn toward the unknown, instead we just shut down and/or armor up. We assume something negative and turn away. What poetry does (think Robin Williams in the Apple commercial) is usher us into a larger world where wonderment is more easily accessible. It helps us make or see things whole, including our own difficulties and our own lives.Of course, I realize there is real danger in the world. My goodness look at the front page of any newspaper around the world. Death and disease are everywhere. On a large scale the world is beautiful and terrifying. All the more reason for us to seize moments of wonderment. But to grab hold of them we most notice them first. Let's start by looking close to home, people we know or situations at work. When a colleague or loved one says something that I don't understand the origin of what do I do? Too often I tell a story, make meaning based on my past experience and the culture I am part of ... but what might happen if instead I go to "wonderment". To wonder and awe as in ..."that makes no sense to me, I wonder what s/he is seeing or experiencing that I am not." Can you sense, that in that moment we are drawn in, we are drawn closer, just like a child to the first doodle bug they see? We all have this capacity. We were born with it. But it gets covered over with our preference or our habits of predict and control. For just today, instead of making meaning, good or bad, in the face of something or someone we don't understand, why not try wonderment, real open hearted interest and curiosity about what we don't know? Let's enter our beginner's mind or "don't know mind" and see what happens.
"Things Happen FOR us, not TO us."
As an event is unfolding we actually have no idea at all WHY it is happening. Of course that won’t stop our minds from making up a story of one sort or another. But as you may have already surmised, thinking “things are happening for me” leads to a very different story and feelings, than than “things are happening to me.” “For me” can lead to Christmas morning feelings, like positive expectancy, curiosity and openness. Things are happening “to me” can lead to self-protection and contraction, feelings and thoughts like suspicion, concern and worry. The emotional intelligence research tells us that what we say only counts for 7% of what people hear when we talk. But how we are feeling and thinking, accounts for the other 93% and shows up in our tone of voice (38%) and our non-verbal behaviors (55%). It follows then that “to me” stories create an energy of contraction and worry that diminishes us and our messages/communication to others. And of course, “for me” stories create a sort of “brainstorm” atmosphere that is fun, joyful and creative allows for the flow of meaning as well as ideas. This is exactly the kind of atmosphere that today’s individuals AND organizations most need to stay competitive and thrive.When we are caught in “to me”, a good exercise to move into “for me” is The Wonders Consultancy “13 things” exercise. Sit down and make a list of 13 reasons that this thing that is happening, is actually a benefit to you in some way. For example, let’s say that you tend to be someone who gets anxious when people you care about distance from you. Maybe you take that personally. Or feel rejected. Or tend to blame or criticize yourself, and create a story you caused their behavior. AND let’s say you have recently decided that you want to change this pattern. Now, two of your friends are incommunicado. One way that is a benefit to you is you get to practice new neurological patterns or calming yourself and not chasing after these two friends. Of trusting that it is not at all about you and at some point you will understand and discover that they had other things pressing on them. Therefore, one reason that friends being incommunicado is a benefit to you, is that you are learning not pursue others! Another reason is you are learning to stay in the moment and not create stories about other people’s intentions. A third reason this is “for you” is that you are getting to learn not to take others behaviors personally. So, I gave you 3, now find another 10! It may well take that much effort to get your strategic mind to let go and trust!
"These are the days of miracle and wonder..." Paul Simon
When I left my homestead of 25 years and moved 6 blocks south to my dream cottage home, a 1928 craftsman bungalow,I envisioned an ache in my heart that would never really leave. I mean my babies grew up here. They only home they ever knew. And we had to say goodbye to it and those memories. A lump in my throat accompanied me as I went through getting the home ready for sale and then packing up to move. I NEVER envisioned, being back at said homestead on retreat while the men who own it now, vacation elsewhere. I thought I would have to say goodbye forever.But today I sit next to a newly re-plastered perfect pool, in a new remodeled home that still structurally holds the best of my "old" homestead. And I am amazed at how wrong I was about what I thought the future with my children's and my home would hold for me/them. AND more importantly I so created unnecessary suffering by getting out ahead into a future that ...never happened! Instead I got to leave a home that was too much for me and move into a new chapter in my life. AND I got visiting privileges. How great is that?!"These are indeed the days of miracle and wonder..." The miracle of shifting your mind and the wonder of opening your heart abound. Had I trusted the future and trusted myself to meet it, I could have saved myself some unnecessary pain and heartache.
- Where do you need to open your heart and trust yourself to meet the future?
- Where are you out ahead of today with a story that diminishes you in large or small ways?
- Where can you make a miracle just by looking at something differently?
The ideal and the real...
Mom's pin-curled hair, now loose and blowing in the March Wisconsin winds as she applies the clothes pins to the wet laundry on the clothes lines strung through the backyard by my father. Four children, I the oldest at 8 years, followed by three more all two years apart. Her life. Her busy and full life. Many fighting for her lap and her attention. "Mama", "Mom", "Mary" ...my mother and many mothers' lives in the 1950s. It was a different time. Another time. Or is it?I watch my young friends, juggle work schedules and a variety of enrichment classes for multiple children. They are having their children closer together, like my parents generation did. And they are having larger families. As I sit on the large patio of the local city golf course looking out ...and back in time...I am struck with the cycles of life.When I was in that jam-packed family and house-holding phase of my own life, I missed time to read, time for me, time for museums, brunches and gallery walks. Now I have much time for all of these things. And I miss the sound of "mom" "momma". I miss being sought after and adored. I miss the fullness. The busyness of it all. Truth be told each phase of life has its exquisite beauties AND the places it falls short. I advise a young client who currently has no romantic love in her life to enjoy this time because when love finds her again her life and time, will no longer be primarily about just her and her own preferences. But do I heed my own advice?Not so much...Do I wake up excited about being the sole person I get to please and care for today? Somedays. Today, this day, I glance back and wish that I understood 20 years ago that to everything there is indeed a season. Such a life-long challenge for this visionary, this midwife of change and possibility, to fully embrace whatever cycle I am in, rather than lean into the next "ideal" vision, I glimpse. For too often that "ideal" arose out of an anxiety or sense of lack. Years back, when covered over in motherhood, I wondered if there would ever be time for me again. Would there be enough? Was I enough? And when I thought that thought I was leaning away from the reality of my life without deeply embracing it for its particular beauties and flaws. So often the inner dialogue then was "I better..." "I need to..." "and I have to..."So now when I hear myself say "I better______" and note an anxiety that time is running out, or that something negative will happen if I don't act now, I breathe and question that thought. Same thing with "I need to______". or "I have to_________." And often I discover that these thoughts have fear-scarcity-lack or some sort of anxiety lurking at their base.For example, today I could say to myself "Nancy you need to appreciate your current state of being single." And if I respond to that inner command it is ultimately a lack-based response. Ditto, if I say "Nancy, while you are still single you better enjoy and make the most of it." But, what happens, if I say to myself, "Nancy, lucky lady, you get the privilege of a low maintenance life with enough time to focus on those things that you set aside during the years you were raising your children"?Shift is what happens. Shift inside of me. Shift to a deep gratitude and a wholehearted embrace of the life I have been given.
The Connection between Art and Vitality
Art isn’t pretty.Art isn’t painting.Art isn’t something you hang on a wall.Art is what we do when we’re truly alive.…But art is who we are and what we do and what we need. Seth GodinOkay, so I have been in a funk. By that I mean not really inspired to blog anything. Yet, somehow still inspired by life. This may sound trite but Michelle Obama's bangs and her and the girls attire on inauguration day are now my wallpaper on facebook, they inspire me. I don't know why but I smile every time I see them. Maybe because the colors are so beautiful and the lines of the clothes, elegant. But I may be making this up. My strategic mind HATES the idea that it can't explain everything. ;-) What I know for sure is the image of them makes me smile. Something else that inspires me: the comings and goings of the chickadees at my bird feeder. AND right now, I am really jazzed by my I brand new elegant red metal dining room table to launch valentine's day week. All of these makes me happy, grateful and young in spirit. Yet, not inspired to blog.When I started this blog I understood that the muse comes and goes. And accepted that, but I didn't expect the fickle girl to disappear for almost 6 weeks! AND I committed to not write because some voice in me said, I had better write something or... In other words I wasn't going to let my strategic mind take the my love of writing and connecting things and turn it into just another thing on my "to do" list. This blog that bears my name would be filled from a place of possibility and abundance. I would write because I get to, not because I have to.Trusting this path was part of my emergence as an artist. Yes, I did say artist. Not because I think my writing is actually worthy of the word art. But because I think how I am in the world is. My definition of art and making art is similar to Seth Godin's. It puts me on an edge. It asks me to begin and not know where I am going. Hmmm, that sounds like motherhood, marriage, most jobs, most projects doesn't it? I think so. Godin says we are all artists. We must make a world we want to inhabit. So ask yourself:What can I make in my world today, given all the things already scheduled and required of me, that would make me come alive in the making? That would give me energy?And of course ... go do that!