How many times have you witnessed the sun setting?
Now that I live near the California coast, that number has gone from "zero" to "so many times I've lost count".
I never get tired of it, even though it's usually so cold at the ocean that I'm not completely relaxed as I'm watching. I'm usually huddled under blankets, or in a car, woefully underdressed for the plummeting temperatures.
Last night, though, we were blessed with "Indian summer" weather and a warm enough evening at the coast that we didn't even need to wear our jackets. I had nowhere to be, nothing to do, except to behold the sun folding in, the waves ever-present in their rolling motion against the smooth sandy beach, and the earth turning away from the sun's reach, notch by notch.
I managed to catch the very last 52 seconds of the sunset on video. Watching the playback, I saw a perfect soundtrack and image to accompany this affirmation (which I am practicing to replace one of my habitual thoughts, "There will never be enough."):
"I am complete, as I am, in this very moment."
Saying this out loud, or even reading it silently to yourself for the duration of the video, can be a powerful practice in shifting energy and attention. Notice the rhythm of the waves, and the silent power of the sun as it gradually disappears below the horizon.
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I went to my first Monday Night NFL Football game this week. It was a very exciting opportunity to experience such a central piece of American pop culture, especially since I grew up in the Midwest in a football-watching family. My mom actually started getting interested in football as a result of wanting to feel included in her male coworkers' lunchtime conversations at the suburban Catholic hospital where she worked. For her studious dedication as a fan, she was rewarded with a Chicago Bears Super Bowl win in 1985 (Chicago 46, New England Patriots 10).
That was the last year I remember caring about football. This apathy continued for me throughout high school, college, and even in medical school at University of Michigan, where football is the closest thing to religion in the town. It did not earn me any popularity points at any of the schools I attended, since sports is the quasi-religion at most schools, athletes acting as demi-gods, and loyal fans as humble worshippers.
So, in my state of Being Open To Life, and Saying Yes, I went into Candlestick Park on Monday with an open heart and an open mind. What I noticed rushing in to all that open space were profanities. Adults yelling at other adults just because of the colors of the jerseys and hats they chose to wear. Adults telling other adults to "Go *%@& yourself!" in broad daylight, as if it were a completely acceptable and justifiable thing to do.
All in good fun, you might say.
Well, the loudness and general license to yell whatever-came-to-mind at whomever-happened-to-be-walking-by continued inside the stadium. In my state of openness, I felt very vulnerable, like I had stumbled into a warzone that I never meant to participate in.
I observed my own judgments come up, I felt my own discomfort at being around all the vicarious violence, and then I smiled at humanity. I noticed that throughout human history, every culture has had a means for its people to feel "at one" with something larger than themselves. Humans have an innate longing to gather, and to feel understood, and to express a group energy.
I looked around the bowl-shaped stadium and recalled my visit to the Coliseum in Rome. I watched the players dressed in helmets, body armor, and uniforms, and recalled a time when Roman citizens gathered by the tens of thousands to watch human gladiators battle ravenous animals, fighting to the death.
I also imagined tribal or indigenous island cultures creating ceremonies and rituals involving costume, dance, chanting, drumming, and roasting of animals for food. I noted how we "modern" civilizations tend to look at "primitive" cultures in a distanced, academic way, as if to say, "Aren't we lucky we've advanced beyond THAT?"
And right there, sitting in the stands of Candlestick Park, I felt a kind of oneness with humanity. I won't say that I got to a total state of equanimity, especially as I witnessed what I assumed were otherwise civilized adults arguing about the merits of standing versus sitting, a verbal altercation which ended in one of the men saying, you guessed it, "Why don't you go *%&^ yourself!"
But I did manage to find a Buddha-like source of joy in my heart to laugh, instead of cry, when the young man next to me, perhaps in his 20s, responded to the injury of the opposing team's player with the comment, "Yeah! Get him a stretcher! Take him off the field for the rest of the season! And amputate his leg while you're at it!"
I laughed not because I appreciated his comment. I laughed not because I joined in his disdain and free-flow remarks about another person just because he was wearing the jersey of the opposing team.
I laughed because I was observing yet another aspect of humanity.
We are one in our longing to feel a sense of belonging to something larger than ourselves. I looked around and saw the colored jerseys, hats, seat cushions, and beer containers as modern-day versions of tribal costumes. I listened to the roars and rants from the crowd and heard them as modern-day chants and battle cries. I saw the entire Candlestick Park as the modern-day expression of what has united us throughout time as human beings and produced grandiose structures like cathedrals, temples, arenas, theaters, and even town squares -- our need to feel oneness with SOMETHING.
What I was really seeing around me was vicarious passion. As a society, we need fans as much as we need the players on the field. Just like musicians need listeners. It became clear to me as I was sitting in the stands that I am here to find my own playing field, and not to remain a fan.
So the question I was left with, since I was not converted into any more of a football fan after this than I was going in, was, "Where do I find my feeling of oneness? How do I experience the release that these football fans experience by gathering here?"
I have a sneaky suspicion that when I fully admit all the ways in which I connect with this place - the place where I truly feel my own oneness with a spirit larger than myself - I will have found my power and unique medicine to heal and serve the world in my lifetime.
Where do you feel your oneness?Where do you experience your own passionate expression? Observe yourself and you might find clues toward the life you were meant to live.
I had the pleasure and honor of being Rusty King's guest #3 on the Remarkable Young Women Series of King's Connections, on channel KMVT-15 in Mountain View.
I met Rusty at a Mountain View Chamber of Commerce event, and we immediately connected on the subject of being musicians. Rusty is an award-winning songwriter and drummer, in addition to hosting his own show on KMVT-15.
Thanks to Rusty's thorough research, in this half-hour interview we talk about my entire life, from my childhood in Libertyville, Illinois, through the launch of Chinese Melodrama just a few months ago. Watching it is like taking the "heroine's journey" all over again. It reminds me how this past year of my life, 2010, has been such a rapid whirlwind in some respects, while at the same time being some of the most spacious time I've ever experienced.
Rusty and I discuss education, success, parental expectations, music, creativity, failure, and the necessity of following your own heart. Enjoy!
"Truth is living, and therefore, changing." - Bruce Lee
I read that the other day and it shifted my thinking. It hit me like the ring of truth. Could it really be that simple? That living is simply changing? I recalled that the first piece of information that drew me into the field of life coaching was Martha Beck's Change Cycle. It was simple, yet no one had ever presented life as a cycle of change - meaning a continuous circular flow, not a straight line pointing in one direction.
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I also loved the image of caterpillar turning into butterfly. I had read Trina Paulus' little yellow book, Hope For the Flowers, many times over the past fifteen years, and it always resonated with me as the truth. That within each of us, when we are born, is the potential to transform, to fly, to be beautiful. That it also takes a single act of courage on each person's part, at some point in their caterpillar life, in order to make that transformation possible. Here's an excerpt, paraphrased from Trina Paulus' book:
"How does one become a butterfly?" asked the caterpillar.
"You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."
"You mean to die?" asked the caterpillar.
"Yes and No...Life is changed, not taken away. Isn't that different from those who die without ever becoming butterflies?"
So isn't it interesting that our minds resist change.
Our bodies crave change and movement, but our minds crave solidity. Changing my mind used to be something I considered almost a crime. I stood by commitments with such fierce resolve that I could override most of the signals sent by my body. This made me great at staying up for 36 hours straight on call in the hospital, sitting in a desk for as long as it took to crank out a spreadsheet that satisfied my bosses in the financial world, and doing whatever it took to produce what I considered "perfection" in my violin students.
It did not, however, serve me well in bringing me happiness in my life, or a sense of peace in my heart. It did not help me notice the small things, acknowledge myself for tiny gains, or cut other people any slack when it came to honoring their differences or shortcomings.
The ability to adapt and change, to die many deaths within one lifetime, to flow with the current of our highest self and deepest truth, is simple, yet requires practice in order to become habit.
Today I am thankful for being more familiar with my own internal feelings of peace, joy and freedom than I was even a few months ago. Every day I grow in this capacity to recognize and rest in these feelings in my body. They are part of me now, and they have been waiting for me patiently my whole life. It was just up to me to learn how to access them.
So, ask yourself this: Have you changed your mind lately?
I tried a brand new hike last week, and it reminded me of my path of trying new modes of expression lately.
I continue to observe that whenever we test the boundaries in our minds, and take actions that are outside our current comfort zones, there is the excitement of discovery and the strength of learning that come along with it.
In this case, I first had to take the new path, not knowing what was in store for me. Would it be sunny or shady? Hilly or flat? How long would I be walking? Whom would I meet along the way?
What I discovered later on in the hike was such a gift of rejuvenation and restoration that I felt a much deeper sense of gratitude for having taken the path of Not Knowing. Turns out, what I didn't know was much better than anything I could have planned out myself!
Enjoy these two video clips from my hike, and see what I discovered along the way...
Here's a first installment on what I feel will become a BIG topic of focus on this blog and in my work.
Did you learn to celebrate failure as a child?
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Ever notice that when toddlers are just learning to walk, the adults in their lives are THRILLED to see them bobble around, lose their balance, and fall down? The adults clap their hands, and shriek with delight when these little ones take even one fraction of what looks like might be a first step.
When you were learning to walk, the adults in your life kept doing this, and you kept falling down, over and over again, until one day you took that first step, and then a second step, and then another... Once you became an "expert" walker, it was no longer cause for celebration to see you take a step. After awhile, adults started warning you about the "dangers" of falling down, when only several months earlier, the very same action had been enough to cause your parents to reach for their cameras or call the grandparents.
And so it is that we learned how to learn and grow.
Too often when we're trying to go in a new direction - toward uncharted territory, as we create something new - we find ourselves surrounded by the kind of people who want to remind us of the dangers of falling down, of the myriad chain of bad events that could follow a nasty fall, and urge us to bask with them in the illusion of safety, watching the world with fearful eyes.
What I've found is that creativity and spiritual growth require a return to that process we went through when we were first learning to walk. We need to be gentle with ourselves, recognize that it will take many attempts, follow our instincts and desires leading us in a new direction, and surround ourselves with the kinds of people who will be there with eyes riveted as we keep trying, failing, and trying again until we succeed. People who, when we look up after our inevitable falls ("failures"), will gasp, smile, clap their hands, and say, "That's it! You're doing it! Now do it again!"
Why celebrate failure?
Skills for dealing with failure - like emotional resilience, self-trust, self-compassion, kindness, joy - are like muscles that need to be exercised. If you never go toward the possibility of failure, you never get to practice these skills.
If you don't remember the last time you faced the possibility of failure, you probably don't remember the last time you took a real risk. Instead of equating failure with doom, start training your brain to equate failure with being on the path of creativity and learning.
Get used to it. If you become comfortable with the discomfort of failure - and the only way to do this is to actually go through many small failures, over and over again - you'll have a key piece in the process of getting what you want. Holding a vision is one half of the equation, and being willing to fail repeatedly and progressively on your way towards the vision is the other half.
OK, so HOW do you begin to celebrate failure?
Gather the support and encouragement you need. Let go of spending time with people who complain or send you messages reinforcing a fear of failure. You may be surprised to find out that some of your closest friends, coworkers, and family members may be reinforcing this fear of failure. If you are truly committed to moving in a new direction, you'll need to look closely at what you are really gaining from these types of interactions. And you may decide it's time to let them go. Find a community of people who are learning, growing, and embracing their own failures on the way to their larger visions of themselves.
Dream big...then take the SMALLEST possible step NOW. My guess is you don't have a problem dreaming big. If you're at all like me, you have such big goals that you get overwhelmed by the very next step you need to take, which is always right now, and is usually a much smaller step than you've imagined it to be. Define the smallest possible next step toward your dream, and then make it even smaller. Then DO IT. Be willing to fail...because you've surrounded yourself with those kinds of people who will smile, applaud, and encourage you to get up and do it again and again until you succeed. Right?
Acknowledge yourself. Yes, CELEBRATE your failure! Know that when you celebrate yourself in any way, you are acknowledging your process. Learning to practice kindness, gentleness, compassion, and love of your SELF is essential to creating the kinds of relationships, finances, health, and inner peace that you are longing for. So start small and start now.