Real life is just so amazing. Like this… by simply imagining exercising we can get stronger. This is not mumbo jumbo. Legit science has proven this and I’ve shared the links below. Here’s another one… When we take a placebo, even when we know it’s a placebo, the body can have the same chemical reactions as it would to the REAL drug! That is so mysteriously crazy to me. Do we have the ability to heal ourselves if we could figure out how to do it?
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Think Strong.
My happiest times have been when I help someone’s day get better. In those moments when I am self-forgetful and delighting in someone being happy, I am changed.Transformed. Me. Down to my bones. Even the tiniest acts of kindness count. The people I cared about change, I change too, then little ripples flow out and the world changes because we did. Even if I just Served Tea.
One part of life is knowing your limits. Another part of life is testing them. Push your limits and you feel challenged, exhilarated, like you are bursting with life.
Which is why you sign up for the overnight volcano hike even though that big, strong 30 year-old guy said it was the hardest thing he had ever done, “and I’ve done some hard things,” he said. You decide to do it anyway.
So you hike the five hours on the steep, steep, sliding slippery ashen path, way, way up over 13,000 feet where the altitude kicks your butt. It’s hard. Hard. F*^@ing hard. Your lungs almost pop like two overfilled balloons and you think, “when my lungs pop, they will carry me out on a stretcher.” You wonder “how would it feel?” If you’re lungs collapsed or even worse, if you dropped out and had to hike back down and hitch a ride to town all alone. You decide as long as you can take one more step you will not drop out. The whole group is struggling, not just you. On the path ahead a young guy from another group is stopped, blanched white and clammy, doubled over, heaving. He is surrounded by a group helpful people. He has a migraine, he says and a girl from your group digs through her pack and hands pain meds to him. “You don’t look good,” you say, but he doesn’t want to turn back. You wonder how many die here and though you haven’t heard of any, surely some must.
A break comes at a little shed in the jungle just off the path. The guy with the migraine puffs on cigarettes, maybe nicotine will help. “Two more hours”, the guide says and you swear to yourself “S***?! Two more hours!” Until the girl with the pain reliever says, “Only two more hours? That’s great!” You stop with the negative thoughts because she’s a better person. So you keep going, one step at a time, into a jungle of massive canopy trees and past a bird whose relentless call is so compelling it must be seeking it’s mother. You shuffle though a forest of bamboo, past waterfalls of grass careening down slopes and tread along plunging abysses filled with mist. Up, up, always up.
But now you’ve made it to a precipice high above the clouds, to base camp on a dirt and ash ledge carved out of volcano Acatenango. Made it! Your legs are screaming appreciation for the break and your lungs do a happy dance, even though they are gasping from the altitude. White clouds are a puffy floor far below and other clouds are like floating cotton around the neighboring Volcano De Fuego, who is smoking and spewing lava like a mad man. In the morning way before dawn, your group will get up and hike two more hours to the summit to watch the sunrise. Now though, is for resting, setting up tents, building a fire and settling down to watch the sunset which swanks in, turning the clouds around Volcano De Fuego yellow, orange and pink while they flash with bolts of lightening! Turns out, the light show is from rock, ice and ash bits in the smoke plume and when they all collide lightening spews out what is called a Dirty Thunderstorm, the likes of which you have only seen in movies with dinosaurs. You feel wonder, and amazement, and very lucky to be alive.
Dinner emerges from white plastic bags; cheese sandwiches with wonder bread, green apples, cups of ramen noodles and the special camping treat of Guatemala, melted-plastic Hot Chocolate. Every culture has their camping treats. At home it’s S’mores, in India it’s unpeeled bananas roasted under glowing coals, removed and sliced open with chocolate dribbled over, then scooped out steaming with a spoon, but tonight it’s a liter plastic bottle filled with water and chucks of chocolate amazingly heated directly on the fire so that the water boils to melt the chocolate and the bottle a little bit too, so you’re pretty sur some of that melted plastic ended up in your drink. Whatever. You toast to the glory of life with everyone and drink it anyway. Then you sit around the fire, on the ledge of the volcano, watching stars pop onto a thick, rich, dark-blue canvas with volcano De Fuego blasting out white and black puffs. Most in your group are French, but you have become chummy with the Canadian Nate, and a couple from London, Izzy and Oscar. You are the only American. All eleven of your group huddle close to the fire in the cold night, silent, thoughtful, absorbing. After awhile your guide, Juan, sings softly, then with vigor. Sometimes you can catch the chorus and join in. When he is done you say, “Uno mas,” meaning one more, but he says, “No mas.”
Wanting to catch a few winks before the two hour climb to the peak tomorrow, you bundle into the tent and sleeping bag and nestle down between Nate and Izzy. You are glad to be squished in-between for the warmth. Complete strangers hours before, you and your tent-mates are now friends. Nate is traveling after teaching English in Korea and the two of you talk of all the ways you’ve been scammed in your travels, Shifty tuk-tuk drivers, lying men, crafty moms using babies and little kids to beg. Then you move on to scams you’ve only heard about. You tell him about your friend Robert who was sexually harassed by a bunch of women on the streets of Hanoi and when he got done fending them off, his wallet was gone. He tells you about the cute girls in China who ask to practice their English over a cup of tea, only to leave their victims stuck with enormous tea bills. He was hoping a cute girl would try and scam him when he was in China but she never did. Then you both talk about the guy with the migraine on the trail, how white and clammy he looked and how you hope he’s ok. Eventually the two of you quiet down and you wonder how it will feel getting up at 3:30 am and if the flashlight on your phone will be enough and if you will need two hands for the climb because if you do, you will be holding your phone for the flashlight and will it’s screen get scratched because you don’t have a protector on it? Then you think about the amazing sunset, the volcanic lightening, how you feel like Indiana Jones and that ramen noodles never tasted so good. You drift off to sleep.
Sometime in the night you wake to a small explosion and an urgent voice saying “Regarde! Regarde! Regarde!” Tents unzip, heads poke out and there is friend De Fuego putting on a magnificent fire and magma show, shooting lava straight up high through billowing smoke. Then lava flows down it’s sides, red and glowing through a black outer crust and looks for all the world like flowing volcanic crackle cookies. The lava slows and embers glow up at you from far below. At this distance the lava resembles glowing lights of the neighboring town and seems to have settled really close to it too. Wow! You focus and snap a mental photo, the expansive stars showcasing a puffing volcano with flowing lava, the hovering clouds throwing lightening and a bright half-moon showering luminous blessings onto all of it. You breath deep. Amazing life.
3:30 a.m. comes. Up and at um but uh-oh, something’s not right. Your stomach is growling and heavy. You roll over in your sleeping bag and what you ate last night cramps hard. But no, you’ve come this far and by god you are going to see that summit. The hike starts in ankle deep ash-dirt and each tremendously sloggish step sends fine dust-smoke billowing, which you’re pretty sure kills a whole lifetime of not smoking. Your stomach is fighting you the whole way and your first bowel blow out comes half way up the hill. It’s kind of ok, it’s still dark and you retreat, using the darkness for cover. It’s bad but maybe that’s all there is and, feeling a bit better, you get back on the path and return to the labor upward. Dawn trickles in, then the sun pops up over the mountain like a shaken soda, spewing sunlight everywhere. Trees don’t grow at this altitude and the altitude is having it’s way with you too, along with the stomach fits and the hard-ass wading through an ash-dirt sea. Your pack feels heavy. Why did you bring it? No one else did, they just brought little water bottles. What were you thinking? Obviously you’re an idiot. You fall a little behind everyone taking five steps then leaning heavily on your hiking stick to rest. Five more steps, pant, pant, pant. Guide Juan sees you and comes down. No words are exchanged but you give him your pack, he turns his back to you and then you take the hand he offers. He trudges up the hill and you follow, holding his hand, stepping in his steps. With no pack you are able to take 10 steps at a time instead of five, sometimes 15 and you feel encouraged by his help. The two of you crest the summit and are welcomed by a blasting gale of frigid wind. You send up a silent thank you, you’ve made it, and you hug Juan with joy. His look says, “Yes. You did good.” But then your eyes open wide because last night’s dinner wants to see the summit too, right now! “Yo necesito baño!” You yell and he looks startled because this bald summit has no cover for anything like that. You run to Izzy. “Can you help me?” Together you go as far away from the group as possible, then Izzy holds up your cloak for cover and you squat for a big blow out. The cloak flaps in the breeze and is no cover at all but you decide not to care. After this your stomach calms down, thank God, and you turn your attention to the wonder around you. You walk the length of the summit, smoking volcano on your left, black volcanic pit on your right. A wonder.
Too soon Juan calls everyone back to begin the smoke-dusty ash slide to the bottom of the mountain. Some places the dust is so thick you skate down smoothly with no problems but shoes and lungs full of ash, but mostly it’s treacherously hard, slippery and steep. Nate falls roughly, re-injuring a shoulder just healed after months of rehab. S**t! It takes two hours less to descend than ascend the hill, and it would have gone even faster with a sled. Down the slopes, past the water-fall grass and bamboo, into the jungle of big trees, past the calling bird and finally, finally, all are at the bottom, resting under the volcano’s shadow in a green field. Low and behold, who is there also but Migraine Boy, stretched out, face down, sleeping so soundly he looks dead. “Is he dead?” No, there is slight breathing. “Where is his group?” They aren’t around and your crew loads onto the shuttle home with Migraine Boy laying in the field, face down, all alone.
Later that night back in Antigua, you, Nate, Oscar and Izzy meet for dinner at an Israeli-Hippie place, Zoolo. You sit on floor cushions and eat healthy salads and falafel with indie music playing in the background, or sometimes classic rock and occasionally pop-Christian which you think is odd for an Israeli-Hippie joint. You all share stories and dreams and little bits of yourselves that bring laughs, and everyone talks about Migraine Boy, musing over his fate. As if the universe hears you, suddenly there he is! Migraine Boy walks by your table looking completely fit! “We saw you on the hill,” we say, “you look good now!” He chuckles just a bit, and says simply, “I’m glad that’s over.”
One part of life is knowing your limits. Another is pushing them. That’s when you feel the most enlightened, the most amazed, the most alive.
This morning I was cooking oatmeal and saw a tiny black ant move towards the red-hot eye of the stove. Curious, I watched him ramble closer and closer. Surely he would not be so dumb as to venture too near and burn himself to a crisp? Then he hit it, the brick wall of heat. Stopping dead in his little tracks, he turned and ran, or scurried; whatever ants do to get away, he did that in record time.
I do that with grief. Not on the outside, where others see, but on the inside. I don’t want it, I don’t need it. Grief, scorches me with loss and scared sadness. “Stay the hell away and I mean it!” I yell. Then I run as far from it as I can.
But October 8, 2010, some judge clacked his gavel down, putting an end to confusion and struggle and 25 years of marriage. Just like that, we didn’t have to squabble anymore about who was going to walk the dog, take out the trash or who left the gas tank empty, and we didn’t have anyone to come home to, or snuggle with watching movies on Friday night, or give big hugs to after a long days either. It was so strange. I thumped down the long white marble steps of the courthouse in slow motion, step, step, step and when the last step came, I had entered the most intense time of grief in my life, alone, with no running away.
Looking to the future I saw nothing, just a big vacant lot. “Life’s a blank slate,” I’d say, “Just a bunch of question marks.” I had lost more of my identity than I can say. My job was tied to my husband’s job, so when I lost him, I lost my job too. Most of my community was connected to the job and to him, so friend’s awkwardly disappeared. Then, in a couple of years, my last kid went off to college. So see? No job, fading friends, no kids at home, no marriage, no together family. There was so, so much of Nothing.
I might have been terrified at this but I wasn’t feeling much back then. As a matter of fact, I wasn’t feeling anything at all. The numbness added to the terror I knew must be in there, somewhere. I do remember feeling one thing though. I felt like I almost didn’t exist. “That can’t be right.” I tried to imagine Me, to picture who I was, hoping to get a grasp on the situation. I was an empty field of wheat waving in the wind, vulnerable to all storms. I was a shoreless, turbulent ocean without even a tiny boat to give me perspective. I was a massive canvas of white.
That vision made me feel fear. Big fear. Damn, grief feels so much like fear. They say that many people after divorce never reach their prior level of satisfaction and contentment. Would that be me? I might not get over this! Maybe if I grieved it all out, felt just as bad as I needed to for as long as I needed to, maybe after that, I could move on. But I didn’t have time to do all that fearing, or grieving or to really not-exist. I had mouths to feed and bills to pay. So I shut it all down again and became the emotional un-dead, zombie like for two whole years to keep it all going, doing what I had to do to make it for everyone, visiting food banks, taking in roommates and holding it all together. Meanwhile, my soul packed itself down, compressing into a tight black hole, nothing got in, nothing came out. This condition was not sustainable, I knew it, and the bomb ticked away in the back of my head. But what to do? A million people told me what I should do. A million well-meaning friends said things like, “This isn’t the end of the world,” “You are a lot better off,” and after awhile they’d say, “You should be over it by now.” As you might imagine, I found all of these things just so helpful. No. I wasn’t going to stay like this, I wasn’t. So, I made a plan, worked two jobs and saved. I scrounged resources, talked my plan out with my family, and when my last kid went off to college, I left too. I flew to Asia. “I’ll be gone a year,” I said. “I’m going alone,” but no one knew I had grief packed away in my suitcase to be taken out as soon as possible, as soon as I was away from the eyes that cared, and I could be as big of a mess as I wanted and no one would know if I were odd or just mental. Grief and I would have it out because I was sick and tired of it dogging me.
I wasn’t gone one year, but two. It took longer than I thought because I didn’t realized how very good I was at being resourceful and protecting my heart from hurt and surviving. I tried to help grief crack in, really I did. I figured if I put myself into extreme and challenging circumstances, I’d shock myself out of the black hole and into the light. So in Cambodia I lived alone in a hut during the relentless down-pouring of the monsoon. I swear, I’ve never seen anything like those thick waterfall rains dumping from heaven day after mucky day. The rain holed me up, isolated, for weeks. I’d write my heart out on moist, humidity-plumped paper, cook fish and vegetables on a propane burner and watch James Bond movies for desperate distraction. It didn’t work. Then I lived in a refugee camp in Thailand, in another hut, with more storms and soupy red mud to my ankles. Monsoon season is a bitch, I tell you. I slopped around in black rubber boots, sweltering polyester pants and toting a small blue umbrella to swat at swarms of mosquitos carrying malaria and the dreaded dengue fever, the disease that causes you to bleed from your eyes and mouth, and bleed to death if you’re really unlucky. This time I had nowhere to bathe and went for ten whole days without a shower. When I found a mouse in my bed I thought, “This is it! Grief will come now,” and I came close to crying. “Please, please let me cry.” But no, not yet. Where the hell was Grief when I needed it? It went like this, for six months. Six long months.
Then one day, in India, I got a letter from an old friend. “Who are you?” He said. “Your pictures don’t sparkle like they used to. You seem empty.”
Silence. My soul appeared, and it was silent.
Then, I deflated and when that happened, I felt sadness and cried. Finally. Finally. I cried and wept and mourned and cried, for days. I was shocked. And undone. Everything came loose like a car engine flying over huge speed bumps with bolts flying off, springs unraveling, belts popping, years of compression exploding all over the place. It was a great big wonderful, terrible mess; nothing ran the way it should and I remained this unsorted jumble of weeping parts for a long, long time. Some people thought me odd, some people thought me mental, but I wasn’t blank, the canvas wasn’t white, and on the turbulent ocean appeared one small boat.
It’s weird: unless grief cracks you wide open and leaves it’s mark and changes you, it’s never done. Maybe it’s never done anyway, but at least it stops feeling like it’s killing you. Oddly, grief and I kinda became friends when I was finally able to see the deep dark void with more light. It became less ominous and more like a wide open space that can be filled with good things or bad things, as I choose. I was determined to fill the void with things good, true and lovely. So I held the spaces open like a hollow jar yawing in wait. “Fill me, fill me.” I waited, sometimes lonely, dry and trembling. Sometimes a sorry friend, bad job or cruel partner seemed better than none at all, but when I saw what I had done, I poured it out and settled in again.
Gradually, gradually, amazing beauty seeped in. My heart and life match, I do what I love and my friends are ok with messy me and love me enough. The goodness is so very good I could not have imagined. Grief is still around but it’s not so bad, sometimes even beautiful and sometimes even holy. When I feel lonely or sad there is something else underneath too, it’s Hope. Hope for better things.
At this moment, I have a bit of an arrangement with grief, since we know each other and care. Psychologists tell us we prevent losing something much more than we pursue gaining something, even if what we are losing is bad, and what we are gaining is great. That’s really interesting. Why is letting go so hard? In light of this, I’m now practicing separation on purpose, shedding things intentionally, saying “no” to what isn’t best for me. Instead of running away from the heat on little ant legs, I cast myself right on the griddle then stand in the space and save it for the good that will show up. I’m finding this so totally worth it. I’ve learned that in the middle of all that purging, every single shitty time, I come just so close to bailing, calling it quits and going back. But, if I can remember what I’m doing and hold onto the vision with tight white knuckles, I’ll get through. That’s what I know. Those lessons have changed my life.
Do you know what? Before, when I looked back on my marriage, the brokenness of relationship and family and community, it cut me to pieces. Now I can sometimes welcome the good memories with fondness. My ex and I are actually friends, if you can believe it, and I feel connected to so many of you who have been there. I can see the good. That’s how I know I’m doing well, oh so well.
Does falling into the Grand Canyon count as a near death experience? Cause I almost did it. I took a wrong trail and, shouldering a heavy backpack, ended up free-climbing a cliff. When I got to the top, my pack caught a low lying branch of a pine tree and the counter force pushed me backwards. I slid on red rocks, slid, slid, slid to the edge of a 5280 foot drop! Scrambling to not die, I reached out and caught another branch just before plummeting to rocks a mile below. Yikes! It happened in slow motion, I remember it so well. Even now, years later, I close my eyes and can see every second.
Just like I did, many people perceive time more slowly when their life is threatened. Have you ever had a sudden brush with death? Did you feel it? That slow-motion feeling happens at other times too, like when we are in new-love, or when we are kids. Do you remember the endless summers and waiting forever for Christmas break? Why did Christmas take so long to get here and why doesn’t it now? The older we get, the more quickly time flies. Blink! It’s gone.
What if we could slow our life down and stretch it out? What if time still felt as slow as it did when we were kids? Would we live longer, or would life seem longer to us?
This, my friends, is your lucky day. I know how to slow time and I’m about to tell you how.
Unbelievable? Hang with me here. I know about it because I’m a science geek and am familiar with research of neuroscientist David Eagleman and other neuroscientist like him. Here’s the trick:
When our brain processes our hum drum daily routine – getting up at six, having coffee, driving to work on I-25 every single day, punching the clock, getting our work done, fighting traffic to get home, fixing dinner, going to bed – our brain files these happenings away quickly because it’s been there and done that. We don’t think about it much, it’s a habit, our active brain sleeps. But, when we experience something NEW, all the wires and circuits in our head wake up and say, “Wait a minute. We haven’t seen this before.” They begin paying attention to the details of what is happening to us, taking in new data, filing pieces here and there, “Oh, I remember something like this, this works like this, maybe it’s like that.” It takes longer for our brain to sort, file, and learn and when it does that work, time slows way down for us. It feels like time stretches out as we access and remember each moment. Then, when we get back to life as usual, our time line speeds up again. It’s all about perception.
Isn’t that cool?
When we experience new things, time slows down. Life seems longer.
That’s also why time seems to speed up as we age. There are less new things to learn as we gain experience.
I’ve always been a sucker for time-travel movies and the zaniness of quantum physics. But this doesn’t take a time machine, we can do this on our own. We can slow our perceived time by intentionally introducing ourselves to new things.
Today, experimenting with newness, I woke up at 5:30 instead of 6. I ran in the morning instead of the afternoon, then skipped coffee and brewed tea. I took a new route to work listening to country music, same as never. Later I had lunch with a new friend Emily, and after work went to the park, slid down the huge, shiny new adult slide and climbed on the adult spider web. That as so much fun! For dinner I tried spinach quesadillas (yum) and the topic of conversation was something I had never thought about before.
My brain was full. I lived every moment.
Traveling is great for this. Newness rushes in, envelops all the senses and every second is well lived. Life seems long!
Last Christmas the only thing on my list was, “A new experience.” My son Jackson grumped, “A NEW experience? You’re not making this easy on us are you?” But all four kids came through. I went Geo-cashing for the first time, wilderness camping in a new place with a great meal and I did not have to carry a thing! (Amazing!) My daughter gave me another camping trip including eating at a cafe in a cave, and Jackson gave me a night of tagging the town complete with paint and stencils and everything, like Banksy. We haven’t done that yet. I hope “everything” includes bail money.
“I’m making good progress in my life, I’m on a good road, I’m doing all these good things for me… I just always stay on the edge of feeling frazzled, all the time.”
That’s what my coachee said this morning on our coaching call. I know how she feels. Today I sprang out of bed ready to go! But yesterday, I rolled over and threw the covers back over my head. Luckily for me, the rolling back over doesn’t happen much anymore because I’ve found a trick. I know a secret, and I shared it with my friend this morning.
“Do you have a pen and paper?” I asked her. “Draw a line from top to bottom. Then think about yesterday.” “Ok,” she said “Yesterday I fell into bed exhausted. I went to bed at 9:30.”
“Good! This will help. Title the left side of the paper Energy Givers and the right side title it Energy Takers. Now think about every single thing you did yesterday, people you talked to, attitudes you had, things you ate, music you listened to. Pay attention to how each one made you feel. List each thing as a Giver or a Taker. If something is neither one, put it at the bottom of the page as neutral. But focus on the Givers and Takers.”
There was silence as she wrote. Then she explained each one on the list.
“I worked for two hours in the morning, Taker. After that I wrote a proposal for a program with the non-profit I’m volunteering for, Giver…” The list went on until, “And lastly, my husband’s car broke down and I had to go pick him up at nine o’clock at night. Taker! I went home and fell into bed.”
When the list was done, her Taker side was longer than her Giver side. A lot longer! No wonder she fell into bed.
It’s all about paying attention to the energy that flows into us and away from us. Is our life sustainable? If our Taker side is longer day in and day out, we stay tired, get sick more, don’t have the energy we need to do the things we love or for the people we care about. Plus, we feel generally unhappy. If our Giver side is longer we do much better. The great news is, if we list it all out, we can predict how our day will go based on the energy exchange, and rearrange.
“That was yesterday,” I told her. Take a look at today’s list, how does that look?” She listed it all out. “It’s about even today.”
I like to see the Energy Giver side be at least two items longer than the Taker side. If you store up energy, then the draining days won’t hit quite so hard. It’s like storing energy in an internal battery for when you need it. When we list out our days, weeks, months, we can rearrange to include enough Energy Givers, making a satisfying life sustainable.
“How can you rearrange, take away or add so that your Giver list is longer?” I put the question to her and she began to adjust.
What if you can’t change the list?
Another Coachee was an Uber driver, giving him an income while he started another business. He liked the money but driving strangers around was exhausting for him.
My question was “How can you turn this around? How can it become energizing for you?” He thought about it and came up with an idea. Because he loved stories and jokes, he began asking his riders if they had any funny, inspiring or amazing stories or good jokes they could share. Suddenly he began looking forward to a job he had dreaded, and it gave him extra vitality to develop his budding business!
This isn’t rocket science, we just forget to apply it, and then wonder why we are exhausted all the time.
People are the trickiest givers and takers on the list. Some people I love so much leave me completely depleted. That means I have to make sure I spend enough time with people who energize me as well, so that I will have plenty of energy for all.
What takes up your energy? What gives it? Yoga? Reading a book? Hiking?
I have a ready-made Energy Giver list, so I can plug and play on the days I need more. And, when I don’t even have time for that, I have an Emergency Energy Box. It’s a collection of quotes, verses, music, pictures, a candle, bubble bath… each small thing makes me smile, gives me an instant boost.
Energy or lack of it flows into all parts of life. I feel it when I run. If I’m low on sleep, stressed and had a burger for lunch, I can barely make it up that crazy steep hill. But if I’m rested and hydrated, I look at the hill and say, “What hill?”
There’s one more thing, I hear this all the time…
“I feel selfish if I take time for myself.”
“I don’t have time to do it, the demands are too great.”
“I feel guilty if I take time from others.”
To this I say one word.
Really?
The whole point is to have an abundance of energy for those around you, to do the things you care about, that are important to you, to meet life’s demands more efficiently, effectively, and tackle them with delight! It’s to live so that you can look at the steep hills and say, “what hill?”
When each of my four kids were born I witnessed, in those first hours, tiny hints of what their beautiful little personalities would be. Jesse, wide eyed from the very first minute, took in all the world with curious vigor and still does. Amy-Caroline hardly cried at all, a trait of toughness that prepared her for three older brothers. As they’ve grown, I’ve taught them to listen for the tune of their hearts, to live it, to sing it. I say, “The best you can be for the world is when you are singing the song of YOUR heart, not anyone else’s, yours.”
They’ve taken me seriously, and their hearts have led them are all over the globe. I tell myself this is good. They do cool things and contribute to the world. I miss them though. Which is why, after Christmas, my journalist son Jared and I plopped his suitcase into the car and drove the short 12 hours to Washington D.C. where he caught a flight back to his home in Myanmar, a country literally on the other side of the earth. From me. The other side. The fact that we were driving 12 hours to catch a flight was entirely my fault. I set it up that way because he only had two short weeks home for Christmas and I was claiming 12 hours of that all to myself. Twelve precious hours in the car.
We got there in a blink. It took forever for me to get back.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not in one place too long myself, but every time I take one of them to the airport that mother hen thing of clucking all the chicks back into the nest kicks in. I want to get teary and tell them to come home soon. I mean, how can you stay connected half a world away? But I know, too much of this sentimental mother stuff is pure selfish chicken shit. Why would I want to make them feel bad when they leave? Especially when I’ve taught them to do exactly what they are doing? Be yourself, follow God and your heart, live with passion. So, I bite my tongue and send them off with a smile.
Amazingly, here is what I’ve found. Being happy for them attracts them like magnets. They feel supported, encouraged, and like they have a fellow runner in the race. If I cut the apron strings, they don’t need to and I don’t find them running away.
Where does all this happiness and super connection get me? Well, in Jared’s case it may just get me grandchildren that live literally half way across the world. He doesn’t have kids yet. He’s not even thinking about it! But, you see where my mind goes. Oh dear. Still, I’d rather be as tight as two magnets with him living his passions while I cheer him on, than wrestling him back with my apron strings. I want him to give the world the bright, magnificent gift of himself.
This whole principal, the encouraging people to live out their passions, it works not only with kids but everyone. When we find the unique beat of those we care about and say “Hey, I see it!” and join in, and dance with them, it turns amazing pretty quickly because everyone shines most when dancing to their own music.
Most importantly, though, it goes for ourselves. Whose beat, desires, passions are you living by? Are they yours? Are you humming your tune? If not, what’s blocking it?
Anyway, I wasn’t 100 percent great when I dropped Jared off in D.C. I let a little chicken shit slip out in a pout and said, “I’m going to be happy because you are happy, but I want to be sad.” He chuckled and said, “O.K.”
But do you know what happened? He got back to Myanmar, got back to his life and his job and his darling girlfriend, but when a couple of hard things happened to him guess who he called? 😉
I have a new group of heroes. I’ve never met any of them, I don’t know what they look like, what they do, or much of anything about them except this one thing: they are Streak Runners. I call them Streakers but happily or sadly, depending on how you look at it, they do keep their clothes on. All six hundred on the Streak Runner list have had a running streak of at least a mile, every day, for a whole year. Some have more. Some have MUCH more like 10 year streaks, which is running 3650 days IN A ROW. Isn’t that wild? Some have run for 20 years each and every time the sun has come up, some 30 years, and Jon Sutherland from California and Jim Pearson from Washington have run over 45 years. Every. Single. Day. I am so amazed. I heard one Streaker on the radio saying that he had broken his nose once but checked out of the hospital against doctor’s orders to keep his streak going. Now, that’s just crazy.
I’ve decided to be a Streak Runner. I’m on day number 25. I’ve tried this before but on day 81 I got home from work in a late night snowstorm and instead of running, I sat by the fire with a glass of wine. Nope. I don’t regret that wine one bit. But, I’m giving Steak Running another go.
Out of my current 25 miles, I’ve probably run 15 more than I would have if not trying for a streak. The fact that it’s only a mile helps. I don’t care how tired I am, or how busy. One mile? Ok, one mile I can do, even if I have to drag myself out to do it. “What? It’s raining and dark? Ugh.” But I really want that streak.
Some friends of mine decided to run a mile because none of them ever had. They were out of shape and overweight but they wanted it bad. Everyone ran at their own slow pace and, low and behold, they did it! It took them a whole month and much patient work, but they ran a mile! There were hugs and tears all around, that day. They said doing something they thought was impossible helped them believe in themselves and believe that other dreams just might be possible.
That single mile changed their whole lives.
The first part of doing anything is believing that maybe, just maybe, we can do it. That means we put our fears and doubts behind, shut our ears to anyone telling us there is “no way,” and we imagine ourselves actually doing it. Sadly, most dreams die right here. But, if you can imagine and believe the tiniest bit, you’re on your way. The second part is figuring out exactly how it’s going to happen and here we can get stuck again, especially if our dream is very large and far away. Staring up at towering projects paralyses us; we can’t get started and probably never will. Our dreams are out of our reach.
But there is hope.
Small tasks are much easer to do than big ones and that leads us to the solution.
Simplify.
Break all that big down into tiny steps. Conquer the intimidation with tiny points of progress. I call them tiny lights. I find tiny lights of progress by asking this: What is one thing I CAN do that will move me forward? What is a simple step, a tiny light of progress I can accomplish this week, this day, this hour?
Simple is good. Simple is doable. Complete one simple task at a time, then watch them stack up. Twenty tiny lights will brighten a path. One hundred tiny lights and, guess what? You’re there.
Are you writing a book? “This week I will write seven pages.” Need more sales? “Today I will make twenty calls.” You don’t know how? “What ways can I learn this?” Want a running streak? “Every day I will run a single mile.”
Simplifying makes life easy to love. Love the process, love the achievement, love making something happen. Love the rush of participating instead of observing.
“One bulb at a time. There was no other way to do it. No shortcuts—simply loving the slow process of planting. Loving the work as it unfolded. Loving an achievement that grew slowly and bloomed for only three weeks each year.”
~Jaroldeen Asplund Edwards
I figure I can dream my dream forever, or I can do it. The only difference between me and the other guy who has already succeeded, is action. That’s it. Unless I break some bones, I’d rather fail miserably than never have tried. Never having tried is a regret waiting to happen.
But what if I fail? Do I regret my failures? Let me tell you, failure hurts. Oh man it hurts. But this I know from all my failures – if given enough time, failure leads to something wild and beautiful. When that dream dies, space frees up for other bigger dreams that I actually CAN do because of how I failed before. Ha. Wild. Beautiful.
So now my dream is to be Streak Runner. 340 days to go. No, wait. One day to go.
Check out the Streak Runners at http://www.runeveryday.com.
If you want to join me with my running streak (or walking streak), do it with me! Shoot me an e-mail at leanne@lightfootcoaching.com.
Blessings to you,
~LeAnne