living brave
January 13, 2016 § 4 Comments
As I approach exercises in Living Brave, I am reflecting on my core values and those individuals who guard my heart and honor my tenderness with safe havens of trust; beginning with home.
If living wholeheartedly means being vulnerable and present in genuine connectivity, then home is the place where we are invited each morning to show up in love and honor what is important to those most important to us. It is the place we first learn we are worthy regardless of our imperfection because we are loved unconditionally.
It is the place we are first brave.
In considering how I live bravely among my values and relationships in the context of home and family, it was quite simple to identify my intentions. Accountability, Compassion, Gratitude, Integrity, Joy, Learning, Love, Perseverance, Reliability, Respect, Sincerity, Trust.
Words like poetry that promise a sacred appreciation for and responsibility to my blessings. It is much harder to look to the places where my actions have not always aligned with my beliefs; where beautiful words spoke to broken promises.
Over the past few years, I struggled to mother against external expectations. I gauged myself against other’s examples of importance and fell into the danger of comparison. In these moments my children were held to an unfair example and I was bound to an impersonal standard that did not reflect my values.
On these occasions I discounted independence and curiosity for submissive conformity. Thankfully, my children remembered my early lessons and knew they were safe to challenge the contradiction in my expectations.
We do this for one another, offer save havens to fail so that we may try again.
This summer life contrived to offer me a second chance. In the chaos of living between houses, we carried the space of home in one another’s company. Our attention was intentional, like those early newborn days. Love and trust in moments of sleepy, disorientation. The entire world condensed in small moments.
More often now I find myself breathing into the difficult moments; softening against frustration to more purposefully cultivate days guided by a kinder attention.
I am more the mother I first chose to be; tender to those I have been entrusted great dreams and simple needs. I want to know that my children are armed for the world with confidence and kindness, that they move through the unknown certain of their worth and brave in uncertain adventures. That work begins with me.
courage, dear heart
January 12, 2016 § 4 Comments
It is a terrifying experience, to offer others the most vulnerable pieces of intimate uncertainty then walk nakedly among the mundane routine of our day. To move passionately through doubt, genuine in our fear and bold in our wants.
Exquisitely average in our exceptional individuality.
Writing does this, it invites me to dare greatly in the presence of strangers and friends. It centers my consciousness in an act of joy that allows me to unravel my thoughts and emotions around my words. Something greater than I and inseparable from self.
It begs me to be honest in my experiences despite the discomfort of complicated emotions and imperfect wisdom. Among my words I try to be vigilant in my truth and accountable in error so that my footprints align with my words. Sincerity in broken wanderings.
I have no lessons to teach, no neatly ordered steps for success or merchandise to market. My site is unembellished and I have not yet mastered the art of social media. Most days I have only the most humble curiosities and unfinished words. A small audience of family and friends in a larger company of strangers.
Courage, dear heart. – C.S. Lewis
Brené Brown says that courage is “to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.” This month I am re-reading her book Daring Greatly and taking careful notes on lessons in Living Brave. Challenging myself to embrace wholehearted living with greater consciousness and courage.
At the moment I am granting myself permission to claim my writing as a valuable part of my identity; to stop hiding my joy in an ambivalent anonymity that guards against criticism.
sweet spot
January 10, 2016 § 5 Comments
There may be no truer photograph of my personality; my proximity to delight and transparent guilt. Arms in a gesture of surrender, wide eyed eagerness to please. I love this photograph for its unfiltered honesty.
I have refrained from sharing photographs here, partly in a conscious effort to craft images with words, but also to honor a measure of privacy given the intimacy of my musings. This year, I am hoping to engage personal photographs as a part of my One Little Word. To exercise wholeheartedness with a new gesture of trust.
more than a feeling
January 9, 2016 § 3 Comments
This morning a serendipitous question burrowed into my sleepiness, stirring a pleasant awakening. The question was not my own, it comes second hand from another’s sharing and begs an answer to how I want to feel today and what I might do to create that emotion.
What would I choose?
My words came easily with little end to my means. The day stretched broadly before me with endless opportunities to choose my own adventure.
Like chapter books of my childhood, I could turn the page according to my imagination; adjusting my path with choice.
What will I do?
Accountability is a powerful motivator; it speaks in facts without emotion and does not justify excuses. It is a quiet witness to our truth and a mirror to those things we keep to ourselves.
Certainly there are days we cannot create what we choose, moments when fate acts upon us and tears the rug from beneath our feet, but what of the days we can?
role reversal
January 8, 2016 § 2 Comments
It started in a moment of mothering, an emotional unraveling that derailed my intentions. I was reacting to fear, rambling over my worries with too many words, when I recognized my son modeling the very behavior I was forgetting.
He listened patiently, without interruption, as my voice rose; accepted his responsibility without excuse; offered genuine remorse. He also proposed, independently, to rectify the wrong. He had received the difficult message and respectfully assumed the weight of his error.
When there was no anger left in my posture, my son cried and I saw the little boy who always smiled from the truest, most joyful, part of his soul. The toddler who had to climb and explore, to push boundaries and move fearlessly in creativity. The boy with ideas bigger than his years.
The teenager who is not quite ready to grow-up and desperate to be taken seriously.
Then I considered the problem at hand. Something so much smaller than the scale of my reaction and the scope of my son’s day. An incomplete assignment became a lesson in presence.
I was so busy teaching that I almost missed the demonstration of mastery. I forgot the spirit of the little boy whose shoulders are now taller than my own and the character he has not outgrown. We aspire to shape our children for the world we anticipate, but they create a world bigger than our experiences with uncomplicated wisdom.
We are each greater than our mistakes.
friction & fire
January 7, 2016 § 7 Comments
There is a place just outside my comfort zone where resistance challenges my fortitude and creates a burn. Pressure points where my spirit lights with small sparks of passion; attention and energy in action.
I used to think these fires came from something outside myself, kindling in want of chance. I’ve come to wonder if the greater truth is these fires slumber in need of air; if in naming our wants we breathe them into something greater.
When I look back to my most challenging moments, there is a physical-emotional memory to the work of joy.
I remember the tired limbs of long hours juggling multiple jobs in college and the mental exhaustion of dense course materials with a familiar memory of early motherhood. In both experiences I was inexperienced and overwhelmed, my environment and my determination creating a spark that infused dark moments with light.
It was the same passion that informed patience during complicated discoveries and difficult lessons as a parent of children with special needs or loving a spouse with the imperfect experiences of marriage. The work of loving burns through doubt with a simpler certainty.
Smaller, self-imposed challenges create this same energy. An exercise class completely outside my comfort zone, playing artistically or something as simple as a social engagement in an unfamiliar setting all demand a determined discomfort; friction of want.
As I consider living wholeheartedly, I’m thinking of the places in my day where my wants meet resistance and the invitation to struggle. The work of sparking fires in my soul.
one small thing
January 6, 2016 § 2 Comments
January often bears the burden of grand goals, intimate resolutions that too often undermine our mindfulness for the many blessings of our life as is.
Efforts at growth misconstrued into expectations of change; good intentions suffocated by the comfort of familiar routines. This week, drawing further on the subject of mindfulness for what is, I am celebrating small gestures of wholeheartedness.
One small thing, each day; from finishing projects to intentional eating, I am taking greater care with the small pockets of time that are so often lost to restless discontent.
Little love letters to a life in progress.
planning perfect
January 5, 2016 § 5 Comments
Maybe it was my children returning to school from vacation or my son’s impending semester finals, but yesterday I was caught off guard by the memory of my younger self struggling against impossible expectations and an accidental legacy of self-inflicted inadequacy.
I remembered early school days past, scribing my work with plans to intentionally redo my efforts for a performance of perfection. Wanting to reframe my work into something exemplary, postponing completion for the anticipation of something better only to feel overwhelmed by the impossibility of the task I burdened myself with.
I do this still.
I plan to eat with greater consciousness and exercise more consistently in anticipation of reshaping myself to wear a dress hidden dismissively among an unexceptional wardrobe of invisibility. I schedule time with friends to allow time enough to clean up the honesty of my space for the image of the life I plan to live when I am more organized. I procrastinate my dreams for uncertain qualifications.
Then, with predictable consistency, tomorrow arrives dressed as today in yesterday’s intentions. Time is too costly a barter for perfection.
I wish I could whisper in my elementary ear to finish homework the best I could and move on so as not to squander my time on a lost task. That sweet girl grew up assuming her best would inevitably fall short of acceptable. I want her to wear the dress that makes her feel beautiful without first waiting on a different reflection and invite company without worrying her home is not properly tended. I want her to dream out loud and expect struggle even in the pursuit of joy.
Not every effort is beautiful, but lost opportunities supplement dreams with remorse.
Today I’m working on a more forgiving expectation of self that I might unburden my actions of unkind standards.
monday’s child
January 4, 2016 § 5 Comments
Sleepy heads and heavy feet, full hearts and forgotten routines. We’re back to early mornings and long days, heavy backpacks and extra circular commitments.
I struggle against school mornings. Waking my children to herd them through breakfast and dress to catch their bus before the sun has dismissed the evening sky it’s labor.
Already it seems they have begun to outgrow their childhood like ill-fitting clothes that cannot contain the limbs of their dreams. Most mornings I watch them travel the short distance to their bus stop and marvel at how quickly the days pass.
Last night I set my alarm a little earlier, that today I could quickly prepare an unexpected treat. Something simple and warm, playful and sweet to stretch the morning hour.
Monday began with homemade pancakes and new shoes, under dark skies and over snowy sidewalks. Small protests against the cool air and early hour, last-minute objects and extra hugs.
So often we race through the week, eager to chase our responsibilities for play. Today I’m begging stillness in the frenzy of our demands that I don’t hurry the blessings of this day.
trust
January 3, 2016 § 3 Comments
As part of my wholehearted year I am embracing exercises in self; unique opportunities to challenge my assumptions and grow more open to a perspective that encourages accountability with greater understanding.
A perpetual student of curiosity with messy, imperfect efforts at intentional living I am consistently encouraged by the work of Brené Brown who speaks on subjects that intrigue and elude me; inspire and inform greater consciousness. This morning, coffee in hand, I listened as Brené spoke on the subject of trust.
In her lecture, Brené sounds out the significance of trust within the intimacy of our most vulnerable confidants; identifying the ways we trespass trust when we speak unkindly, disingenuously, or share information that is not ours.
I have sacrificed relationships that consumed considerable space in my life for the peace of security when my trust was undermined by this very behavior. Individuals who spoke ill from different sides of a mouth that smiled falsely.
It is a heartache I elude with avoidance, but what of my offerings? It would be easy to shy away from my errors in judgment, so I am looking tenderly today at those places where I may learn from difficult mistakes.
I have broken others’ trust with passive dishonesty; dancing around uncomfortable conversations with polite silence or performing acts of complicity as currency for trust. This year I want to wade into the discomfort of my vulnerability and honor, with integrity, those boundaries that demand respect to preserve trust.
To live wholeheartedly in trust.
