repairing the head-heart disconnect

Before we jump in, just a quick reminder that I am not a therapist. There are no credentials behind these musings. I have been greatly impacted by the periodic times in my life when I’ve been in active therapy. I’ve worked closely alongside Licensed Clinical Social Workers. I am also a big believer that everyone would greatly benefit from talking through life’s hard stuff with a licensed professional, if you have the means and privilege to do so. If you’ve found this corner of the metaverse, I’m glad you’re here. I earnestly hope you pick up something helpful or find yourself leaning into life’s unknowns with a bit more ease.  Mostly, I hope you find my ramblings relatable, because knowing we are not alone is such a powerful antidote for fear. And with that, let’s get started.

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As a communications professional, I am trained to deliver clear messages without letting my personal feelings get in the way. Yet, there are several places where this skill is completely unhelpful, like, say, in therapy when, rather than an effective communications tactic, it becomes false protection against vulnerability.

During an appointment a few years back, I was calmly talking through the details of an emotionally turbulent situation. I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just suffice it to say that what happened had broken me wide open. We’re talking fetal position ugly crying, and I was more than ready to stop picking at the wound. That’s what therapy sometimes feels like, right? As if you’ve put on the Band-Aid, then are asked to remove the bandage, talk about how the hurt got there in the first place, put the Band-Aid back on until next session, take it back off, look at the wound a little more deeply, put the bandage back on, come back together, and repeat the process. But then at some point, you realize it’s working. Because, in most cases, we didn’t sufficiently clean the wound before we put the Band-Aid on way back when. So now, it’s taking a little more time to peel back the scar tissue, flood it with oxygen, and heal the hurt at its deepest layer.

So, back to my appointment. There I was talking through the timeline of the thing that had happened that had rattled me to my core with an incredibly incongruous amount of calm and poise. My therapist gently stopped me to point out the splotchy redness creeping up my neck. I immediately felt tears welling up in my eyes. There I was, the dutiful communications director, sharing the timeline and recap like a pro, and preventing any emotional distress from interrupting the flow of my story.

But my therapist wasn’t into it. She wanted me to slow down and dig deeper into the emotions bubbling up from below the surface. I wanted to keep the telling going, not keep stopping to talk about how I felt about it. How was she going to have proper context otherwise? But no… my histamines had to have it their way and come crawling out into the open.

My therapist said, “It makes sense that you’re struggling. Take your time. There’s clearly a disconnect between your head and your heart. Your heart is demanding to be heard by showing up on your neck as a flush response, but your head is looking the other way, laser focused on details and attempting to override your feelings.”

She had located the chink in my armor and cut straight to the truth of my emotional pain, reminding me that the story wasn’t the point. The most important component was me and processing through my feelings about what happened. And for the remainder of the session, she helped guide my head and my heart into reconnection.

Fast forward to today. After a lot of work, it’s gotten a bit easier to catch myself when I’m sliding into a head-heart disconnect before I’ve gone full tilt. I’ve learned that when I’m in integrity with myself, my rational and emotional spheres are in alignment, flowing together like a mighty river. No debris, no fallen trees. Just clear, swift-moving water. Then, inevitably, stuff happens, and if I don’t process and move through it (rather than trying to somersault over it), anxiety comes calling. Within our river analogy, think of anxiety as a beaver – showing up uninvited and collecting as much rubble, sticks and mud as its grubby little paws can hold. Then it begins packing all of that gunk smack dab in the middle of our crystal river. Anxiety isn’t trying to be a pest. It’s actually trying to protect us by creating a calmer space and slowing things down, reshaping the river into a languid pond.

Here’s where things get tricky, though. If left unchecked, the dam gets wider and more tightly packed until it’s watertight. This is when the head gets cut off from the heart. These two parts of us were never meant to be separated. The head cannot survive without the heart, and the heart can’t survive without the head. So, they try to reach around the impasse, eventually flooding the riverbank and eroding the barrier. Anxiety suspects the dam is failing to hold, so it escalates into overwhelm and then panic, desperate to maintain control. Eventually, the river bursts through and leaves a mess behind for the cleanup crew… you.

It’s typically at this point in the story where we can start to look back and see where things went awry. So how can we repair the head-heart disconnect before the dam breaks?

By never letting the dam get built in the first place.

Sure, it’s easier said than done, but there are a few tools I’ve added to my toolbox along the way that help me keep the river flowing.

I’ll get the hardest one out of the way first: Don’t run from the feeling. Don’t numb it or mask it. Instead, get curious about it, call it by name, and see if you can discover what it is trying to teach you.

To pique my curiosity, I imagine I’m meeting this feeling for the first time. I swivel around it and examine it from all angles. That way I can encounter it with a fresh perspective, rather than bringing all of my preconceived notions about the feeling to the table. Zen Buddhists call this technique “Beginner’s Mind”. I sometimes imagine myself as a little kid about Kindergarten age, when I was an actual beginner at just about everything, including the words I was learning to describe it all.

As a writer, I love language, but in this exercise, allowing myself a limited vocabulary can be really effective. You may be surprised (as I was) to learn that there are only six core emotions – happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, and surprise (so creatively and accurately depicted in Pixar’s Inside Out… a must-watch!). Note that “anxious” isn’t on the list. In my experience, anxiety is more like the flashing red lights trying to get me to pay attention to a different emotion I haven’t yet identified.

When I’m trying to identify the emotion I am feeling, I try to limit my internal search terms to this list of six as another way to keep my language “small,” steer clear of the fancy adjectives, and get as close as possible to the feeling itself.

For example, rather than saying, “I feel a harbinger of doom descending upon my soul,” as a beginner, I might say, “I feel afraid.” Or instead of “I feel as if there is a mighty flood rising behind my eyeballs and seeping out of my pores,” as a beginner, I might say, “I feel sad.”

Once I’ve identified the emotion, I then ask where I feel it in my body. This step helps localize the sensation and help keep me grounded in the moment. Maybe I feel it in my chest or my stomach. Maybe in my neck and shoulders. Or my back or head.

Next, I try to assess the physical sensations of the feeling. Is it warm or cold? Tight or trembly? Is it a jumping-out-my-skin feeling or more of an inward crumpling? However it is showing up in that moment, that’s my answer.

Lastly, I try giving the feeling a voice. To again quote my therapist, “If your tears could talk what would they say?” Or that tightness in your chest, what is it trying to tell you? What is the message the sensation is carrying and trying so hard to get me to pay attention to?

So, to recap, my first tip is don’t run from the feeling. The three steps to help stay with it are to identify it, pinpoint where you feel it, and then listen for the message the sensation may be trying to deliver. Even when your feelings feel overblown or out of whack, it helps to remember they exist in service to you, and these three steps are giving them their due (annnnd as a major bonus, quieting the anxiety storm in the process).

My second suggestion is: Remember that chaos is temporary, and you are still yourself amid the storm. When I’m in the throes of anxiety, leaning into it feels completely counterintuitive. My instincts are screaming “Run for your life!” but if I can pause and locate that still, small voice within, the turbulence around me begins to slow. I am a very visual person, so I imagine my innermost self, deep inside my gut, sitting on the floor with her eyes closed, legs crisscrossed, calm and meditative, still and relaxed amid the presence of the Holy Spirit. If you’ve ever been SCUBA diving, you know the surface waves can be going strong, but once you jump in and sink into the depths, calmness awaits. Similarly, when chaos finds you, try go inward and find that sacred stillness inside.

My next suggestion is: Get it out. Different methods are effective for different people, but my personal go-tos are: 1) praying aloud to unburden my heart, 2) journaling my scariest, heaviest stuff as a way to download the weight into pixels on a screen or ink on paper, and 3) talking through it with a professional. If that’s not available to you, share what’s going on with someone who loves you who you trust to listen and hold space. Figuratively, “getting it out” magically works to literally lessen your load.

Two more to go. Next up: Be open to all treatment possibilities. If you are fortunate to have the means to seek therapy, I say go for it. There are lots of options out there. For me, personally, I have had the most success with EFT, short for Emotionally Focused Therapy. I’ve also benefited from CBT (or Cognitive Behavioral Therapy also known as traditional talk therapy). Medication is also on the table. Early in my anxiety journey, I was a major (and I mean major) pharma phobe. I didn’t even want to take ibuprofen for a headache if it wasn’t absolutely necessary. But there came a time when traditional therapy wasn’t fully closing the circle for me. I wanted a higher quality of life, and that meant being open to all the tools of modern medicine. So, at the advice of my doctor, I requested a referral for a psychiatrist and was given a thoughtful prescription. Did I have a panic attack before taking it the first time? Sure did. But… once I pulled on my big-girl britches and got fully on the regimen, it was life-changing. In my case, I wish I had added medication to my toolbox years earlier.

Medication isn’t for everyone, and it certainly needs to be managed by a prescribing physician. There is no shame in needing it. It’s not a shortcoming. It’s a responsible, eyes-wide-open move to regulate a chemical imbalance, much like a diabetic needs insulin. Accepting that reality took me a long time. My sincere hope is that someone out there will see themselves in my story and find a shorter route to wellness.

Okay, last tip: Once you’ve built your toolkit, use the tools. Sounds like a no-brainer, right? But how often do we put off doing the things we know we need to do for ourselves? I am great at pulling out all the tools during the crisis, but once I’m feeling better, I stow them away. I think I no longer need them. I think I’ll be just fine without them. Spoiler Alert: Wrong, wrong, wrong. Learn from my mistakes: The key is finding what works for you and sticking with it regularly to maintain your progress. Feeling great should be a signal to keep going because it’s working! You may need all the tools in the box one day, and just one or two the next. I aim for a daily practice – that way if I get it in a couple of times a week, I can feel good about it. Just keep the toolbox opening and closing as regularly as you can, adding to your box as needed and retiring tools over time that no longer serve you.

A wise woman once told me: “Anxiety is a signal that you have stepped away from your truth.” I love that. Anxiety as a signal. A navigational beacon on life’s waterways. It’s never fun when the sirens start wailing and the lights start flashing, but… if we can pull our fingers out of our ears, open our eyes, and acknowledge anxiety’s presence, we then can relax below the waves to the core emotion demanding our attention, listen for its message, and find our way back to joy.

And with regular maintenance, the words of that old hymn will ring true: “When peace like a river attendeth my soul.” It is well. It is well. It is well.

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friendships

“We have three types of friends in life: friends for a reason, friends for a season, and friends for a lifetime.” This phrase has been attributed to various authors, but I will forever attribute it to my mom, spoken in her kind yet matter-of-fact voice when my tender heart was wounded. The first time I remember her sharing this concept with me, we were sitting on the edge of my childhood bed amid a lot of tears and sniffles, as I realized my world was rapidly changing in ways I never anticipated.

My group of best friends, a circle strengthened since pre-school, was officially splitting up. Not because of any unresolved skirmishes but because of geography. As the end of sixth grade approached, some of us (including me) would start our next chapter at Bragg Middle School, which would then feed us into Gardendale High. The other half were going to North Jefferson Middle School and then on to Mortimer Jordan High School.

Up until that point, it felt like we had been aboard a train of single-file cars gliding toward our futures and then – schwoom! – the track unexpectedly split in two. Some cars turned south to the maroon and gray campus of the GHS Rockets, and others bent north to the blue and silver stomping grounds of the MJHS Blue Devils. Suddenly, the very same people who had helped shape my identity, build my community, and determine how I would move through the world would soon become bitter rivals we would cheer against from opposing sides of the field.

Back in my bedroom, I felt the ground unravel beneath my feet as I came to terms with this new reality. In my heart of hearts, I had trusted we would be friends forever. After all, we had plastered “BFF” on our notebook covers and bedroom bulletin boards. And what about the sets of silver friendship necklaces that, only when placed together, formed a complete heart? What about all the sleepovers and swim days and secret crushes? Finding out that we had been seasonal friends all along made me feel duped, an eleven-year-old sized deception.

I’d like to say to any younger readers out there that this was the worst of it, but the truth is, the stakes only kept getting higher. Take my best friend in high school. She heard every detail of my first period and showed me how to practice my first kiss with a fist. I was by her side through a flood of regret after she lost her virginity and had big questions as a girl raised in the South where promise rings encircled the wedding finger of most of our peers. We went from sharing everything from changing bodies, matching hairstyles, and first hangovers to being strangers in the same college sorority. Then came my longest former friendship with twenty years of military ties, godparent titles, and international travel, culminating in an epically dramatic fallout that still leaves me scratching my head.

Now a year and half after my cross-country move from Florida to New Mexico, I’ve found myself trying to predict which friends will be in my life a year from now, a decade from now, and when (and if I’m lucky enough to become) old and gray. And I’ve been wondering: Is it possible to avoid being blindsided when you find out a friendship you thought was air-tight and non-perishable actually has an expiration date?

In attempting to answer that question, I’ve discovered a few things (some the hard way) worth sharing:

  1. Real friendships come with a push-away-pull-together ebb and flow of constant motion due to the simple fact that no two humans can grow in the same direction all day, every day. But the relationships that last will return from those stretched times with new stories that fuel the next layer of excavation and connection.

  2. Much like romantic relationships, lasting friendships require authentic, sustained effort. That means showing up when we don’t always feel like it. That means staying genuinely curious about each other’s most primitive fears, bravest dreams, and most obscure oddities. That means telling the truth even when it’s hard. That means putting in the time and care required for the friendship to shed its armor and exhale.

  3. Friends for a reason (and a season) are just as necessary to our human experience as friends for a lifetime. We need kindred spirits of all shapes and sizes to get through life’s tough stuff, to share in the mundane, to make the team work, to achieve the big milestones.

  4. Friendships need permission to evolve.  They can be hungry for the minutiae that incessantly streams across the tickers of daily life. They can be crisis caregivers who drop everything and come to each other’s aid when life gets especially hard. They can be adventure partners who share a world view of compassion and curiosity. They can be old friends who connect with random check-ins or door knocks that reaffirm they will continue to show up for each other. They can debate, disagree, and even distance for a while. They can be all of the above or something else entirely.

Maybe the answer to the question above is to learn how to swallow this jagged little pill: If we are fortunate enough to live long enough, friendships will come and go, and even some of our most special ones will fade regardless of our investment. But that doesn’t make them any less worth the risk. Because those rarest of jewels, the friendships we have the good fortune to share in for a lifetime, they are forged and refined by fire, by walking hand in hand, free of judgment, and doing whatever it takes.

At its outset, it’s impossible to determine whether a friendship will be for a reason, a season, or a lifetime. But with that unknown comes beautiful possibilities. Maybe it will be a brief kinship. Maybe it’s the start of a season of meaningful connection. Or maybe, just maybe, it’s the beginning of something lifelong. I am grateful for them all just the same.

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‘failures of kindness’

In the latest episode of one of my new favorite podcasts, The Curiosity Shop, the hosts – Brené Brown and Adam Grant – share their all-time favorite commencement speeches.  Brené quotes from Professor George Saunders’ 2013 convocation speech at Syracuse University. The speech begins with a few humiliating experiences Saunders has survived and could understandably regret but doesn’t. Then he continues:

But here’s something I do regret. In seventh grade, this new kid joined our class. In the interest of confidentiality, her Convocation Speech name will be “Ellen.” Ellen was small, shy. She wore these blue cat’s-eye glasses that, at the time, only old ladies wore. When nervous, which was pretty much always, she had a habit of taking a strand of hair into her mouth and chewing on it.

So, she came to our school and our neighborhood, and was mostly ignored, occasionally teased (“Your hair taste good?” — that sort of thing). I could see this hurt her. I still remember the way she’d look after such an insult: eyes cast down, a little gut-kicked, as if, having just been reminded of her place in things, she was trying, as much as possible, to disappear. After a while she’d drift away, hair strand still in her mouth. At home, I imagined, after school, her mother would say, you know: “How was your day, sweetie?” and she’d say, “Oh, fine.” And her mother would say, “Making any friends?” and she’d go, “Sure, lots.”

Sometimes I’d see her hanging around alone in her front yard, as if afraid to leave it. And then — they moved. That was it. No tragedy, no big final hazing. One day she was there, next day she wasn’t. End of story.

Now, why do I regret that? Why, forty-two years later, am I still thinking about it? Relative to most of the other kids, I was actually pretty nice to her. I never said an unkind word to her. In fact, I sometimes even (mildly) defended her. But still. It bothers me.

So here’s something I know to be true, although it’s a little corny, and I don’t quite know what to do with it: What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness. Those moments when another human being was there, in front of me, suffering, and I responded… sensibly. Reservedly. Mildly.

As I listened, memories of my own “Ellen” story bubbled up. For this retelling, I’ll call him “Sonny.”

In 4th grade, Sonny moved to my hometown, where my friends and I had lived all our lives. Sonny had messy dark hair and rotated through the same handful of t-shirts and thin drawstring shorts that likely came in a plastic pack from one of the big mart stores off Main Street. His high-tops were marred with gray scuffs, and their laces were dirty and ragged from so often being untied. On occasion, when a passing grown-up would ask Sonny to tie his shoes, he would squat down, and those shorts of his would sag, revealing some of his backside. (“Is your daddy a plumber?” another kid would taunt.)

Mrs. Wooten was our teacher that year and had arranged our desks into tidy, alphabetical rows by last name. Sonny’s desk sat at the end of the row closest to the classroom door. I remember being glad for him to have some privacy back there as the new kid and an easy exit for restroom visits and such. What I didn’t consider was how something so insignificant as the first letter of his last name would amplify Sonny’s outsider status, putting him on the edge of the circle the rest of us had been part of since birth.

Now, Sonny didn’t do himself any favors either. Take his watch, for example. He wore one of those Casio calculator watches that had a grid of rubber buttons on its face. Sonny liked to press those buttons in a sequence known only to him and then make an audible bludadadadaDIP! noise with his mouth. Then, he would place his lips close to the watch face and whisper. The stray words we picked up on here and there, mixed with Sonny’s sound effects, gave the impression he thought he was involved in some type of space mission. This was far from cool-kid behavior.

During lesson time or any other part of the day when we were expected to be quiet and attentive, Mrs. Wooten would shush Sonny and ask him to pay attention. Of course, she was responsible for keeping order, minimizing disruption, and teaching us how to behave. But maybe she was also trying to shield Sonny from his own embarrassment and give him a better shot at success. Sonny would try to follow her instructions to sit quietly, but it never lasted. The rest of us were amazed. While we didn’t have the words for it at the time, we knew that repeatedly choosing willful disobedience meant you were either going to be the bully or the bullied.

During weekend sleepovers, my friends and I often played Truth or Dare, an early way to try on vulnerability in a low-risk environment. Sonny tended to come up a lot. (Truth: If Sonny were the last boy on Earth, would you let him kiss you, like on the actual lips?) At some point, I chose Dare. The other girls huddled up to brainstorm my charge: “We dare you to erase Sonny’s picture from your annual!” one of them said. Someone else held out a pencil. (FYI, we call yearbooks “annuals” in the South.)

What was I supposed to do? I didn’t want to do it, honestly, I didn’t. But the next thing I knew, I had pulled my yearbook off the shelf, sat back down on the floor, flipped to Sonny’s page and row, and put that pencil to work. When my vision cleared, Sonny was no longer there. And I knew there was nothing I could do to bring him back.

I don’t remember much else about that night, but I’m confident the game went on, we eventually fell asleep, and then woke up as the good girls once again. The rest of the school year is a series of flashbulb memories, and I don’t know where that yearbook is today. I also don’t know what happened to Sonny or how his life has turned out since. But I do know the choices I made as his fourth-grade classmate were true failures of kindness, and I regret them deeply: what I could have said to him and didn’t, how I could have treated him but chose not to out of fear that I would catch whatever thing made him so different. The worst part is that he probably thought I was one of the nicer ones.

Now, some thirty years later, I wish I could tell Sonny how sorry I am for choosing to laugh rather than be laughed at, for choosing to be liked over being kind. I would leave out the specifics from the sleepover, since those would only absolve my conscience while causing him unnecessary pain. But I would thank him for helping me learn, at an early age, who I didn’t want to be.

Maybe as an apology gift, I could give him an iWatch to remind him he wasn’t all that weird after all. Just a little ahead of his time.

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Please take a moment to like this post, share your thoughts in the comments, or pass these words along to a friend. Relatability is a powerful antidote. I appreciate you!

the world she witnessed

If my grandmother were alive today, she would be celebrating her 100th birthday.

Born June 14, 1926, Evelyn Mae Fitzgerald entered the world before humans had flown into space, before the Civil Rights era, before computers, the Internet, and mobile phones, before commercial jet travel, before television was common in American households, before antibiotics were widely available.

She experienced the Great Depression, the Dust Bowl, the development (and use) of the atomic bomb, and the entire span of World War II before she turned 20.  

As a young adult, she became a mother just as the United Nations was formed, the Cold War began, America’s interstate highway system opened, and rock and roll took over the airways. In her 40s, she watched Martin Luther King, Jr. – a man who shared a middle name with her husband – lead a human awakening that stirred turmoil in her soul as a white Southern lady who also longed to live like Jesus.

She watched the Apollo 11 crew land on the moon and take that “one giant leap for mankind.” She wiped her brow and dabbed her neck as she watched coverage of the Vietnam War and nationwide protests flicker across her living room, now for the first time in color and even more real.

In her late 40s, on March 10, 1973, she watched her husband, David Luther Boozer, walk their daughter, Suzanne Elizabeth, down the aisle toward their new son-in-law, James (“Jim”) Cooper Frazier. At 52, she met her first grandchild and namesake, Evelyn Rose Frazier, and at 57, her second granddaughter, Sarah Katherine Frazier, named after her grandmother, Sarah, and her niece, Katherine.

She felt the unrelenting momentum pushing her to evolve her secretarial work from analog to digital and ultimately decided this was one change she wasn’t going to make. So she poured her talents into her church, where it was still perfectly acceptable to type the weekly bulletins and stack the offering coins into paper deposit rolls – red stripes for pennies, blue for nickels, green for dimes, and orange for quarters.

During her sixth decade, she lost her husband of nearly 50 years and made a new home in Jim and Suzanne’s basement apartment, specially renovated just for her. She hosted friends for card games, walked the carefully placed stepping stones beneath the shade of the backyard pine trees, and loved her two lapdogs in succession – first Sport, then Sparky – most often while sitting in her favorite spot, the swing on her screened-in porch, where she could hear the birds and watch the sunlight trickle through the leaves.

She took an RV road trip to Alaska with her sister, Alma, and brother-in-law, Hugh. She flew to Israel to walk the streets of Jerusalem, Switzerland to see the Alps, and Ireland to kiss the Blarney Stone.

As 24-hour cable news came on the scene and the sounds of dial-up Internet and AOL mail chirped upstairs, she was more comfortable with the pages of Readers’ Digest and reruns of Andy Griffith, Cheers, and M.A.S.H.

She watched with pride as her daughter returned to school to earn her professional certification as a Court Reporter, eventually rising to become president of the Alabama Court Reporters Association. She applauded her son-in-law who turned his unfortunate termination from corporate downsizing into an opportunity to own his own business. As America’s foreign and domestic policy further evolved in the wake of September 11, 2001, she doted on her granddaughters and watched them grow into young women, both meeting their future husbands while attending college, which was a first all its own. She watched her grandson-in-law, Daniel, sign up to serve his country as an Air Force JAG – the first military serviceperson in the family since her husband, David, who served in the Army Air Corps and then the Reserves.

She danced the night away at her youngest granddaughter’s wedding in 2003. Her oldest granddaughter made her a great-grandmother in 2006, when her great-grandson, James David, was born and given a double moniker steeped in meaning. In short succession, James David’s sisters arrived – Emma Katherine, followed by Anderson Elizabeth, and then Finley Evelyn.

She watched Tom Brokaw, Dan Rather, and Katie Couric announce advances in cancer treatment, heart surgery, and organ transplants. She saw letters take a backseat to email. She saw landline telephones become novel and cell phones take charge. She gasped with awe during her first Skype video call, realizing she could speak to her granddaughter, Katherine, in real time, face to face, from five states away. “I never thought I’d live to see the day,” she marveled.

Two months after her 87th birthday, she left a world that had changed at a rate she never could have imagined.

She left us with her light and love.

Happy Birthday, Gran.

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Please take a moment to like this post, share your thoughts in the comments, or pass these words along to a friend. Relatability is a powerful antidote. I appreciate you!

chances

“Chances.” It’s one of those rare words that lives in the past, present, and future, all depending on the context. It can be a future-facing word when used to describe the likelihood that something may happen, as in “Chances are …”

It can be the exact right word for the here and now, as in: “I now have the chance to…”

It can also be a rearview mirror word to express regret, as in: “I had multiple chances to…”

Interesting that my brain wants to frame that last one as failure, ending with something like: “… but I didn’t take them.” Or “but I got distracted and missed out on them.” As if chances by their very liquidy, shifty nature must always be seized, captured, and converted into winnings. But is it so wrong to know you had a chance (or chances) to do something, and instead, you chose to do nothing at all? If not, then why all the guilt?

For the first time in my adult life, I’m unemployed. Well, truthfully, I just launched my own consulting business, but I don’t yet have any clients. There’s a reason for that, but it’s complicated. Just know that, for this week (and maybe a few more), I am getting to choose – for the first time in my adult life – how to spend my time. Being that it’s the first time, as I said, it’s been a bit of an adjustment. Part purgatory, part time warp, part freedom.

Monday was the first day of this new reality, and to be honest, I didn’t know what to do with myself. So I did what I always do when I don’t know where to channel my energy. I cleaned. Like super-duper deep cleaned. Like YouTubing how to use a flathead screwdriver to remove the tricky glass from the shelves so I could wipe away the unidentifiable gunk in the corners, clean. I’m pleased to report that my refrigerator is now sparkling, and there’s not an ounce of expired condiments anywhere in sight. Sure, that chore felt good to do for my home, but by day two, I realized I needed to step away from the rubber gloves.

On Tuesday, I planned the week’s menu, made a grocery list, went to the gym, and put all the groceries away before lunch. Then I took a nap, watched a show, and soaked up that rarest of jewels: unstructured time.

Wednesday began with good intentions to spend the day writing, after a quick trip to the dog park, which turned into what I thought was a sprained paw, which led to a visit to the vet and then a pet emergency clinic, and a prescription for pain meds. (Sigh) I’m thrilled nothing was urgently wrong with my baby girl, but also, I hated she had to endure the stress of “ going to the vet” not once, but twice, and maybe there wasn’t a reason to even take her in the first place? Hindsight, I guess. But I did go to the gym that afternoon, which felt like a big win after the rest of my day had run off the rails.

Thursday, I went to Pottery Barn and picked up a new cover for one of our throw pillows that keeps dropping feathers, and I decided to double the expense and get two. I mean, why not? It’s not like I’m not bringing in income right now… oh wait. Then I found this cute little local luggage store where I bought Daniel’s birthday gift – a real beauty of a carry-on, which I justified the pricetag for due to the lifetime warranty, “suitor” feature, and expandable/compressible functionality. It was definitely the most grown-up purchase I’ve made since my mortgage. What can I say? The fact that there are still mom-and-pop shops selling exclusively luggage and travel accessories delights my heart. It just does. So, if I’m going to spring for sticker shock instead of sensible, let it be there.

For dinner, I made spaghetti with a side salad using only ingredients grown in my garden – butterleaf lettuce and radishes, plus fresh parsley to sprinkle on the spaghetti.  Being able to eat things grown from tiny seed specks, watered every day, and lovingly nurtured into recognizable ingredients was a real treat.

Today is Friday, and I haven’t gotten out of my pajamas. And I watched three episodes of reality TV – probably the first time I’ve ever done that. And I mean, ever. And it wasn’t even good. It’s like I wanted to see the ridiculousness that the rest of the world is so transfixed by, but I just didn’t get it. When it was over, I only felt guilty and that I really wanted the past three hours of my life back.

Then a fear started to creep in: maybe this unemployment shtick is revealing me to be one of those people who think they crave freedom only to discover that they’re their healthiest when they are smack dab in the middle of a structured routine. When I was still working full time, I found myself fantasizing about the possibilities this time would bring: rest, the space to create, the opportunity to rediscover the deepest parts of myself, to cash in on all of the chances being presented to me… Okay, yes, I have a teeny bit of a tendency to romanticize, but I will not apologize for being who I am. (There, I said it.)

So here I am in my pajama-ed state, thinking about the definition of “chances” in hopes that, by knowing its etymology, I may be able to better examine how I’m using my own chances this week. There’s gotta be a scoresheet for this kind of thing somewhere…

Merriam-Webster defines “chance” in six different ways – three of them are similar to my past, present, and future usages above. “Chance” is also defined as “risk,” as in “I’m not taking any chances.” The final usage is “chance” as a synonym for “possibility,” as in the likelihood of an outcome. But isn’t there another component to this connection with possibility, as in the possibilities the chances may be presenting? The chances for something great? The chances for positive change and reinvention?

This week has given me numerous chances to think, reflect, ruminate, and meditate. To choose to do or not to do. To explore newness or stay close to the familiar. To accomplish or to rest. My default mode tends to be questioning whether I’m making the right call with all these either/or choices. But chances are not mathematical certainties. If they were, there would be a lot more winning lottery tickets, yes?

By the same logic, I guess there is no right or wrong way to spend your time when given the opportunity – the chance – to choose. Perhaps the rightness can only be measured in the satisfaction of the choice. Or maybe the satisfaction comes from having the agency to choose, not from the choice itself. Or maybe I’m gravitating to that explanation because it absolves me from having watched three hours of “Love is Blind” today – like when I was a kid on summer break and spent the whole day watching VH1 rather than ticking off my assigned chores before indulging in mindless media.

But I don’t have any assigned chores right now, and that’s a really weird frontier for me. Perhaps that’s what makes it the exact right analogy to run with for a while. Like a permission slip to stop overthinking and just go outside and play. After all, kids don’t first run through thought exercises about their own worthiness. They just take the dang hall pass and relish every minute of being on their own. It’s worth a shot…

Cue the mixtape. I’ll be back by suppertime.

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Please take a moment to like this post, share your thoughts in the comments, or pass these words along to a friend. Relatability is a powerful antidote. Appreciate you!

slow takes

Today’s writing prompt is about slowing down and using silent observations as a guide for where to begin. The chapter’s author, Rachel Schwartzmann, author of Slowing and the multimedia project Slow Stories, suggests setting a five-minute timer and doing nothing but looking and observing what comes up. This is my slow story.

Gratitude.

For the house around me that has become my first single-family home. For the architect who designed the blueprints, long ago sketching marks on a page to represent rooms that would someday hold space for my life to unfurl. For the vision that formed in the architect’s mind for a home, the last of sixteen Daniel and I would walk through on a cold December day, some 25 years later, and instantly know was meant to be ours.

Gratitude.

For the interior designer who thoughtfully selected each material and texture, like the golden lumber beams shouldering our ceiling’s rough-hewn planks, each positioned beautifully at alternating angles that invite you to lie back, relax, and look. For the round smooth sections of adobe walls that soften square corners and invite your hand to reach out and touch.

Gratitude.

For the muscular, yet delicate fingers of the Moroccan weavers who hand-knit the vanilla and indigo rug beneath my feet as I watch Fischer twist on her back, dancing belly up in its soft shag threads.

Gratitude.

For the craftsman who artfully split the cream and copper ledgestones that would one day become my fireplace hearth, and for the nursery gardener who lovingly cared for the foyer fig tree long before she was mine.

This carved out time of slowing and observing sparked gratitude for the endless stories my home holds – the ones I know, the ones yet to be told, and the ones that will ever remain out of reach.

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Please take a moment to like this post, share your thoughts in the comments, or pass these words along to a friend. Relatability is a powerful antidote. Appreciate you!

alchemy

In this new year, I am aiming to be more intentional in my writing practice. Not just in the doing, but in the cultivating. Deliberately getting into the headspace and rhythms and comings and goings that feed my practice. That attract spark and freshness and – most importantly – the desire to move the ideas from head to hand.

I recently started reading The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad. Every chapter is a short essay by a different author, each closing with a journaling prompt thematically connected to the essay. I look forward to this book. I am delighted by this book. It is now an essential part of my morning. The way it helps me mine your memories and connect with the deeper parts of myself. The way it kickstarts my creativity for the day ahead. It is one of the best gifts I have given myself. And when I find something I love, my most earnest desire is to share it with others.

Over the next series of posts, I’ll share a selection of the prompts and what came up for me, in hopes it will call to that thing that also lives in you. The creative connection we humans all share.

“Write about a time when you began doing something daily, be it a creative endeavor, a new course of study, or a form of exercise. What prompted you to start it? What obstacles got in the way? When you felt resistance or missed a day, what called you back? What did you gain from it and how might you apply that knowledge to a new daily creative practice?”

Oh, let me count the ways… the numerous endeavors I have aimed to complete daily: exercise, meditation, sweating, scheduling my tasks, journaling, praying…

I detect a theme: they are all tools I believe I need to regularly sharpen in order to be my best self. Inevitably, I get bogged down in the “have to” of the assignment, which usually comes with a self-imposed and wildly unrealistic goal (“every day at 9:02 a.m.!”). When I inevitably miss a step or get off the schedule because, well, life, I view the entire system as one big failure. The goals, the intention behind them, the structure of the schedule, the method of the reminders, all of it.

And here’s the naked, raw, unfiltered reality: I then translate that failed attempt into believing I am the one who is failing to launch. So I must try something else! Some new calendar pad, or a dry-erase board, or getting up an hour earlier, or fill in the blank. Then, ready, set, go, new structure activated! But then the same outcome over and over and over again.

Through the years, I have gotten better at setting realistic expectations and a manageable list of tasks – accepting there are but 24 hours in a day (sigh) and that I am human with undeniable requirements to subsist that my keyboard and computer screen cannot provide. But, if I’m being honest, I still overdo it from time to time. Believing I can squeeze more into my day. That TODAY will be the day I accomplish the ONE GREAT THING on my to-do list. And then, as with every other time, ending the cycle with a big slice of humble pie and, once again, renewing my mindset. But, honestly, isn’t that the point?

To forgive myself, no matter how many times it’s required. To honor the intention of reinvention and reinvestment in myself. To smile at my child-like enthusiasm for the newness. To reflect on the insights gleaned from each round of the rinse-retool-repeat cycle. To give thanks for the learning in my lifelong pursuit to be… me.

Authentically and wholly me.

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Please take a moment to like this post, share your thoughts in the comments, or pass these words along to a friend. Relatability is a powerful antidote. Appreciate you!

encountering the grand

I saw the Grand Canyon from the ground for the first time yesterday. 

That statement deserves its own paragraph. #iykyk

No words can describe the experience of standing on the rim of such an awe-inspiring phenomenon and witnessing that scale of grandeur in real time. Many have tried to document its size and beauty visually and verbally, but nothing compares to experiencing it in person. I get it now. 

After we arrived to our new home in New Mexico in February, Daniel quickly got about orienting us to the many roadtrip possibilities we now have access to. He was fortunate to experience the Grand Canyon for the first time years ago with a friend, while they were serving together as JAGs in the U.S. Air Force. It means the world to me that Daniel chose to prioritize the Canyon as our first family roadtrip destination for the July 4th holiday weekend so I, too, could share in such a wondrous experience. 

The three of us – Daniel, Fischer, and I – left Thursday after work and headed west for an all in all, four-and-a-half hour drive from Placitas, NM to Flagstaff, AZ. The wide open spaces of the southwest are sometimes visually overwhelming for me when behind the wheel, so Daniel was kind enough to drive the vast part of the journey. The squared-off buttes and jagged cliffs, red rocks and green pastures, rivers and full-length freight trains, and entirely different weather systems on one side of the horizon from the other – so much beauty to take in. As the elevation rose, so did the greenness around us. By the time we arrived in Flagstaff, the landscape was filled with evergreens, and the cooler temperatures had turned the air extra crisp. 

Yesterday morning, July 4, we headed to the Grand Canyon to beat the crowds. We selected Mather’s Point as our first stop. As the sidewalk curved toward the lookout point and the top edge of the canyon came into view, I could see families out on the ledge taking photos and taking it all in. I saw a section of the rim off to the right where no one else had stopped, so I detoured us that way so my first encounter with the Canyon could be mine and mine alone. As we stepped up to the railing, the only word that escaped my lips for a good three minutes, was a whispered ‘wow.’ My eyes scanned left and right, up and down, near and far, then to Daniel’s and Fischer’s faces, and then back through it all again. Sacred – that’s the only way I can describe it. Silence and stillness were the only possible reactions. So we stood there, breathing it in, just the three of us. 

And it was everything. 

I strongly believe that nature is the healing elixir that most powerfully brings us back to ourselves. That quiets the anxieties, soothes the fears, and clarifies perspective. When we have encounters with places and spaces that involuntarily stun and silence the inner noise and flood us with stillness and space to realign and reset.  When awe and gratitude are the only possible responses.  Where our feet of clay directly intersect with the unexplainable wisdom and immeasurable creativity of our God. 

That’s where the healing happens.  

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Please take a moment to like this post, share your thoughts in the comments, or pass these words along to a friend. Relatability is a powerful antidote. Appreciate you!

embracing enchantment

I just returned from the Big Magic Retreat in Cleveland, Georgia with the brilliant writer and one of my all-time favorites, Elizabeth Gilbert. The retreat was a birthday gift from Daniel, and what a gift it turned out to be. I met phenomenal women from all over the country – Hawaii, California, Ohio, Georgia.

We learned new mindfulness practices to help center my intentions for creative work, moved my body in new ways thanks to the African Movement dance class, threaded together beads and string in the ancient japa mala technique, walked and sat in nature amid crisp Fall air, managed to get quiet and still, and reconnected with my inner child thanks to the rustic sleep-away camp setting.

The experience introduced me to a new layer of myself and generously filled my cup. I have begun submitting query letters to potential agents and am anxious/freaked/energized to be able to introduce my debut novel to professionals in the industry.  One of them will be my agent who guides me through the journey of publishing and sharing my work with the world.  What a magical realization! 

The process of pitching my manuscript is thrilling and humbling, filled with equal parts rejection, terror, opportunity, and hope at every turn. Speaking of hope, I hoped this retreat would fuel me with renewed curiosity and confidence to do this “brutiful” thing (to quote Glennon and Amanda Doyle) of putting my work out there for critics to consume. And it did exactly that. 

Now that I’m back home, I have recommitted myself to daily quiet in scripture, blank paper, prayer and meditation. For my meditation this morning, I chose to sit on my patio rug and listen to the Ignatian Saturday Examen prayer, which invites you to reflect on the previous week and the guidance you seek for the week ahead.

Then I transitioned to the Daily Trip meditation led by Jeff Warren. The theme today was about tapping into a state of wonder, imagining that you were born in this moment and experiencing breathing for the first time. What would you notice? What would you see?

I rounded my back and let go of my posture, completely relaxing into my seated position. I imagined being able to see my lungs inflate and deflate in their real, anatomical shapes. Then I imagined them as a single round balloon inflating and deflating inside me. Then, the clearest visual came to me as I sat and breathed.

A butterfly. Its wings displayed an intricate pattern of purple, white, black, and gold. They flapped slowly up and down in rhythm with my breath. All around the butterfly was inky black night, yet the butterfly was lit by brilliant sunlight.

As thoughts and distractions arose, as they inevitably do each time during meditation, I checked back in with the butterfly and found it still perched inside me but keeping its position with some difficulty now.  Its wings were now rippling as if in an unseen wind.  Then, as I recentered my focus on its movement, the wind ceased, and the butterfly’s wings began to gently rise and fall, once again safe and secure to be there and dance. I smiled and opened my eyes.

This meditation was a beautiful reminder that the moments in our lives of pure tranquility are often fleeting and fragile. I am grateful I was able to round my body in stillness this morning and for a moment, observe, reflect, and just be present to beauty. Elizabeth Gilbert calls moments like these “enchantment” – where you find yourself in “the warm, vanilla pudding hum of wonder and well-being” grateful you were there, in that moment, aware and present to the experience.

One of the journaling exercises we did at the retreat was to write a letter from our enchantment, using the prompt: “Dear _____, I am your enchantment, and this is what I want you to know. I love it when…” and then begin each sentence with “I love it when” and see what came up.  

I’ll jump to the end and share that my letter from enchantment ended with “I love that we had this conversation and that we’ll be seeing a lot more of each other from now on.”

… and this morning, see each other we did. 🦋

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Please take a moment to like this post, share your thoughts in the comments, or pass these words along to a friend. Relatability is a powerful antidote. Appreciate you!

‘when breath becomes air’

I just finished reading Paul Kalanithi’s book, When Breath Becomes Air, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer in 2016 and this month’s pick for my book club. The book is a memoir of the last seven years of Paul’s life when the grueling hours of a neurosurgical residency burn intensely on one end, a diagnosis of terminal cancer hungrily devours the other, and beautiful, brutal truths reveal themselves in the quickly diminishing space between. The closing chapter was authored by Paul’s wife, Lucy, as she describes Paul’s final days, burial and the legacy he is leaving behind through his research discoveries in neuroscience, the countless lives changed through his surgical expertise, and now through his story. The final page is a family portrait of Paul and Lucy and their eight-month-old daughter. 

When I closed the finished book, I cried alligator tears produced by actual sobs, thinking about the difficulty of his chosen profession, his triumph of reaching graduation, and his desire to bravely continue practicing as long as he could knowing that he was going to die before his daughter would be old enough to remember him. And the strength and presence of mind of his wife as they faced the weight of their reality together. What a read. I came in from the patio with swollen eyes and craving long squeezes from my guy. 

Later in the morning, Daniel and I went to the beach. He was laying on a blanket getting sun on his back, and I was sitting in one of the reclining chairs watching the gulls feed. I looked to my right and saw a man and a woman walking together. They looked to be in their eighties and had stopped to inspect some shells on the shore. They were holding hands – his left, her right – and in their opposite hands, each held a mask and snorkel signaling they had just wrapped up a morning swim. 

“I want to be those people,” I said to Daniel. He raised his head up. “Which ones?” he asked. “You know the ones,” I said, nodding in their direction. He smiled and rested his head back on his forearms. 

The couple resumed their walk, and as they passed by my chair, I had to speak to them. 

“I love your love!” I said. They smiled, and the man took a few steps my way with his arms stretched out to his sides. I thought he may give me a hug. “What was that?” he asked as he got closer and I remembered their age. I stood up from my chair and walked toward them at the surf. 

“I love your love,” I said a bit slower and louder, and drawing an imaginary heart around them for emphasis. “It’s so obvious that you love each other very much.” 

“Oh, thank you!” he said proudly, with a hint of an English accent, watered down from a lifetime in the states. 

“How long have you been together?” I asked. He looked lovingly at his wife and then said, “Well, we got married in 1958, so that should tell you something.” 

“Wow, that’s beautiful,” I said, watching him again take his wife’s hand. “Enjoy your walk.” They thanked me, smiled and continued on their way. Daniel raised his head up again and watched with me as they walked away. “I knew you were going to have to speak to them,” he said. “Yep,” I replied with tears welling in my eyes. 

Sixty-eight years together, and they are still active and enjoying each other’s company. “That was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen, truly,” I said, my voice breaking a bit. 

It really had been. Thinking about the gift of longevity and that couple’s many years together contrasted with the chasm of loss and what might have been in the book I had just finished reading.

“Think about it…,” I said. “If we are together that long, then it’s a blessing to think we’re not yet even a third of the way through our marriage!” 

“Oh Lord,” Daniel said sarcastically, his voice muffled on his arms. 

I got out of my chair and sat on his bum, stretching out my back along his. 

“Tailbone to tailbone,” I said, rocking side to side and giggling at his groans. 

As I leaned my head back against his and closed my eyes, I gave thanks for silliness after 20 years of marriage and the gift that couple had given me – the hope that this really could be just the beginning. 

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Please take a moment to like this post, share your thoughts in the comments, or pass these words along to a friend. Relatability is a powerful antidote. Appreciate you!