A Sense of Belonging
Cody and his volleyball 1/22/15
When I first moved to the coast in September, 2012, I had no idea that it would be so hard to meet people. In fact, if I had known how difficult it would be to live someplace where I didn’t know anyone, I don’t know if I would have had the courage to move.
The first month I was here I was thrilled to discover a monthly kirtan group. I attended three times but the music was a westernized version of the Sanskrit chants I was used to, and the people weren’t very welcoming. I joined an over-50 singles meet-up group, but they were more interested in drinking than real conversation. I ventured further south to a different spiritual and again, did not connect with the energy of the community.
Friends said it would take a few years to really meet people, especially since I didn’t have co-workers. I was miserable. I spent a lot of time at home, crying, talking to Marika, and wondering if I was going to be alone forever.
But I kept trying. I found a yoga studio I liked and started seeing the same faces every Monday afternoon. Once, I even saw someone from class at the local supermarket, and that was a kick.
But I didn’t know anyone well enough to call them up and do something.
Each time I left CA and each time I came back it was different. That first time I returned, I was greeted by the regulars at Paradise Park who remembered me from my first visit. And now, two years later I have become one of those regulars. I have my designated spot, #60, and I have friends here.
Judi, who lives in one of the mobile homes in the park, has been a friend since my first time here when I was parked in the spot across from her. We chatted and hugged every time we saw each other and she loaned me her sewing machine when I was making prayer flags.
Judi is also the one who got me volunteering at the weekly food bank down the street. Judi has lived in the area for more than twenty years and knows everybody. She introduced me to the owners at Taco Temple and now I’m recognized there too. We’ve gone out for lunch, walked the labyrinth by the bay and, when Marika is here, Judi joins us for Marika’s famous homemade crab cakes. Next month, while Judi is house-sitting for a client, Marika and Mabel will even be staying at her house.
I’m friends with several other folks in the park now too. There is hugging and joking and several folks offer Cody a dog cookie when we walk by.
And I have several friends from yoga and other places that I get together with regularly for a meal or a walk and maybe even a game of Bingo next week.
The other evening as Cody and I were walking home from our sunset beach time, I saw Susie, a woman who lives in town and also volunteers at the food bank. She was walking up the bridge toward us, on her way to catch the last of the sunset over the bluffs.
She asked me about my day and I had some fun things to share. We talked about her former life as a hospice social worker and her dog Daisy, who has some spinal issues. She petted Cody and admired his coat and both of his eyes.
And when we were getting ready to part, I thanked her and said that this was one more great thing that happened today. She started to minimize the compliment and then I explained that, to see someone I know, that I like, that I want to talk with, in my own neighborhood makes me feel like I belong here, that I am part of the community. And she understood how important that is. We hugged as the sky lit up in a palette of pinks and oranges, then Cody and I walked home, hearts full of love.
Ask and Let Go: A Lesson From Apples
The Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival happened this past weekend. Once a year people from all over the country come to see the amazing variety of birds in the area.
I’m the Hospitality Chairperson for the Festival and my job is to feed the attendees. We host an opening reception with food and wine on opening night. We provide fruit and breakfast snacks as well as coffee throughout the 4-day festival in the Hospitality Room. I also invite the local restaurants and hotels to offer specials for our attendees.
The day before the Festival, Marlys, the Board Chairperson and I picked up all of the food at Costco, then stopped at the local supermarket to pick up the produce they were donating.
In my conversation with the manager, I had explained that we have about 500 people over the 4 days and that we provide bananas and apples for the early-birders. She said she’d take care of it and have something ready for us to pick up.
Marlys and I were standing in the produce section, waiting for the manager to bring out the fruit. “I have no idea what we’re getting,” I said. “But I’m sure it will be fine.” Marlys was folding the corner of the shopping list back and forth, her eyes fixed on the swinging doors at the back of the produce section. She looked at me. “Have you always been this calm?”
“Not at all.”
I invited her to take a deep breath with me. She inhaled with her shoulders and her whole body lifted, as if she hadn’t taken a breath in hours.
“Breathing is the number one thing to do to calm down,” I said, slowly breathing again, “all the way into your belly.”
She took another breath and smiled.
“Whatever he brings out will be great,” I said. “And we can always buy more.”
“You’re right,” she said.
So often we fret about a situation before it has even happened. We get caught in a spiral of what if it doesn’t, what if I can’t, what if……
Instead of staying stuck in that anxious, worry zone, can you explore the actual questions you are asking?
What IF there aren’t enough apples?
Maybe you’ll hear those familiar voices in your head saying: “we won’t have enough, people will get mad, I will have failed….”
But what if you put those thoughts aside and came up with some Action Steps to answer the question:
If there aren’t enough apples we could:
Serve them sliced
Buy more apples
Make do with what we have
And breathe.
The key is, once you have a back up plan, LET GO OF THE WORRY. It serves no purpose except to drain you, stress you and keep you from feeling calm.
The manager returned with a bushel box of Washington apples and another box overflowing with bananas, more than enough to feed our birders. In fact, we had almost a dozen apples leftover at the end of the event.
So the next time you find yourself in a moment of worry, breathe, consider your options and let go. And trust that everything will work out.
The Magic is Unfolding
“In a Whisper” by Andrew Ars
I used to think that, in order to work with clients, I had to live in a big city and work one-on-one. I used to think I couldn’t be an author because I loathed the idea that I would have to fly city to city for book tours. I used to think I couldn’t drive across the country without a traveling partner. For more than a year after I lost my dog Laddy, I didn’t think I’d ever get another one.
These limiting beliefs kept me stuck. They prevented me from doing what I love.
As I recognized and challenged and, ultimately let go of these beliefs, I opened up to other ways, and new possibilities appeared.
And now, I have published my first book and my new-to-me 7 year old dog Cody and I are going on a solo Road Tour in my motorhome, at my own pace, in great comfort.
Never in my wildest dreams….
Sure I have moments when I wonder how I’m going to pull this off, and how will I be able to pay back my father’s gracious loan, but I keep coming back to my why, and I know that this is my path. I know that I am on some amazing adventure, that this is so obviously a metaphoric Heroine’s Journey, that I’m going to learn so much about myself. And meet amazing people. That I can’t NOT do this.
I’m already learning so much. That I can do this alone. That it’s up to me to find fun things to see along the way and then make it happen. That I can ask for help, for financial support, for encouragement and planning tips. That just because I’m doing all the driving doesn’t mean I’m doing this alone.
So I am deep into the planning of the Heart Sparks Road Tour. I realized that being in the hot, muggy South in the middle of the summer would be miserable for me. So I’m shifting the dates, leaving Phoenix the second week of April with the intention of being in Asheville, NC, my furthest point east, by mid-May. I’ll start back west via Alabama, before it gets too warm. I’m not scheduled back here in Paradise until September, so I’m not yet sure where I’ll be in July and August. After logging all of those miles, I’m not sure how much more I’ll want to drive, but I know I won’t be anywhere where it’s warmer than 80°.
Here’s the route so far. If you’re within 200 miles, let me know…maybe we can get together for a Heart Sparks Party or collaborate on a workshop or ???? And if you know of a place besides a bookstore, where I could talk about the book and How to Give Up a Good Life For a Great Life, let me know……
And, if you’re ready to create your own great new life, I’m gathering a new group of Virtual Living Room Ladies. Email me for details!
The Power of a Word, reprinted from Heart Sparks, the book
Every year I choose a single word as a compass, a guide, a solid reminder of what I want to manifest for myself. The word serves as a touchstone for me as I make choices through the year. I post the word in my bathroom and acknowledge it daily, asking myself “how can I be that today?”
The first year I chose the word BE. Because I was always planning, dreaming and imagining the future, I was rarely present where I was.
BE-ing was very uncomfortable.
It made me slow down and experience where I was, not where I wanted to be NEXT. It made me sit still and feel my emotions. I began a yoga practice and discovered that the simple act of breathing can calm me and bring me back to the here and now.
The next year my word was VULNERABILITY. I wanted to let go of control and open to things that I didn’t have the answers to. I was ready to feel what was uncomfortable and go even deeper.
I had so many opportunities during that year to practice this: with relationships, how I traveled, choosing to apply for a job that I didn’t get. And I had emergency open heart surgery. Talk about vulnerability and letting go of control. It was the most amazing gift of an experience to be in that space of pure vulnerability and realize how much I was loved and supported.
The following year I chose ASK as a reminder that, even though I had fully recovered, I didn’t have to do everything all by myself. I learned to ask for support, money, ideas, companionship.
More important, I learned that it’s not about having the answers but being able to ask bigger questions and opening to the silence that is larger than me for deep and true inspiration.
One year my word was INTEGRAYTION, intentionally spelled with the word gray in it because I wanted to let go of my extreme black and white thinking and live more in the grays. And I wanted to find ways to meld my two seemingly opposite work worlds together more, to let go of my all-or-nothing way of being.
A friend gifted me a beautiful necklace with the word stamped in silver and it was a lovely expression of further integrating my work with my personal life.
The last two years my word has been EXPANSION. I want more space in my life. I want to show up bigger, both inside of myself and how I connect in the world. I want to open myself beyond what I already know and do well, to what else might be possible.
Expansion is all about breathing deeper and living at the edge of what is familiar and comfortable. And moving into that opened space with courage and intention and faith.
Of course I had many opportunities to do this last year: with my back and my grief and finally writing and publishing Heart Sparks. And, scary as each activity has been, when I come back to my word, I see how saying YES completely supports my desire for expansion every time.
This year is all about adventure and newness and courage and connections, but I hadn’t been able to narrow my intention down to a single word. And then Reverend Tinker Donnelly of Heartworks, where I now attend most Sunday Spiritual Gatherings, offered the idea of life being an expedition, a pilgrimage, a PASSAGE.
She created a wonderful acronym to reminds us what we need on any passage:
P= Preparedness: Equipping ourselves with appropriate “gear and tools” for the journey. Consistent and regular spiritual practices.
A= Adaptability: Accommodating the road and/or changing direction when conditions prompt doing so. Willingness to move beyond the parameters of personal agendas and expectations.
S= Spontaneity: Capitalizing on what is present and exercising resourcefulness. Confidence and creativity applied to the needs of the moment.
S= Single-mindedness: Trusting the direction of our inner compass. Setting course according to the ‘true north’ of our innate sense of purpose and values.
A= Availability: Maintaining receptivity and openness to all that is on our path. Authentically revealing and discovering Spiritual Truth, without defense or pretense.
G= Gratitude: Loving the journey. Appreciating the experience of each precious increment of unfolding Good and consciously recognizing the gifts of every experience.
E = Enthusiasm: Demonstrating energized creativity. En Theos – Living an inspired existence!
I love how each of these words can support me as I venture into this new year, ready to experience things I’ve never felt or done before, ready for this unfolding PASSAGE.
What’s your word for this year?
You may come up with several. Take some time to discern the one that will best help you do and be this thing you are wanting.
How can using this word help you live a life you love?
Consider choosing a word that makes you uncomfortable, that will most clearly align you with who and what you are wanting to become.
I’d love for you to share your word with us by clicking on the Comments below. By naming it and claiming it, you really OWN it!
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Happy End of the Year From the Beach
It’s the last Saturday of the year and it is such a blessing to be here. It’s cold and crisp, and then the sun rises over the hills and everything warms up. The hills all around me are bursting with so much green from the big rains we’ve had and the beach sand has shifted from the very high tides.
Cody and I walk on the beach at least once every day, sometimes twice if we can time it with the tides. At high tide there is very little walkable sand. These pictures were taken yesterday at low tide on our beach. It is officially Estero Bay, at the north the end of the six miles of sandy coastline that connects Morro Bay to Cayucos. Most of the time Cody and I are the only ones here.
I’ve seen warblers hopping on the sea kelp and a kingfisher regularly perches on the rocks above the surf. There are lots of shorebirds and gulls and vultures and a variety of hawks that sit on the telephone poles along the street just above the beach. And the red winged blackbirds have returned. I’m enjoying these last few days of the year in amazement and appreciation for where I am and for all of the love and support from YOU that has brought me here.
I will be here through February and then I’m heading to Phoenix for 2 months before embarking on the upcoming Heart Sparks Road Tour that will take me all the way east Asheville, North Carolina, a few hundred miles at a time. I hope to connect with many of you in person along the way!
Wishing you a most beautiful new year, filled with love and light and joy!
From my very great-full heart to yours,
The I Of a Hurricane – Finding Calm In a Storm
So many people I talk with say they are living in a world of overwhelm. They have so much going on, so many things on their to do lists that they don’t know where to begin.
Their lives are happening all around them and they have resigned themselves to the idea that this is just how life is going to be.
But really, we get to choose.
Imagine a hurricane. There is wind, and noise, and chaos. Anything and everything is flying and blowing all around and, no matter how hard you try, there is nothing you can do.
And yet, in the center of that crazy storm it is calm, quiet, still. This is the eye of the hurricane.
Life is often like a hurricane. So many things are happening all around us, we can’t hold on, we can’t keep up. We can barely run for cover.
But if we breathe into the eye, the I, of our lives, we can find calm. We can find peace. We can experience stillness.
When we come back to our own center, we are suddenly grounded, stable, quieted, even if the whole world is flying all around us.
Coming into the I is as simple as breathing.
When we focus on our breathing, we immediately detach from everything OUTSIDE of ourselves and connect INSIDE with our own life force, our breath.
Following our breath in and out is calming. Centering. When we focus on our breath, we aren’t thinking about carpools and deadlines and the piles of dog hair that need to be swept.
When we connect with our breath we aren’t thinking at all. We are simply breathing.
I know it sounds too simple. But try it.
The next time your world feels crazy like a hurricane, close your eyes and just notice your breath.
Follow your breath in.
Visualize it filling your lungs, your diaphragm, your belly.
Breathe deeply, slowly, consciously.
Then release with that same conscious awareness.
Stay connected with the rhythm of your breathing for several wonderful minutes.
And when you return to the outside world, notice how different you feel.
I guarantee you, the more often you do this, the more you will find that calm in the eye of the storm.
My new book Heart Sparks: 7 Practice For Loving Your Life is all about helping you claim more time for you and the things that really matter.
Available through amazon or order a signed copy directly from me!
Unwinding: The End of the Year
As we enter the last month of the year, there is a tendency to rush forward, to make plans for next year, to set new goals, vision new dreams. But there are still 28 days left of this year to savor, unwind, and reflect on this past year.
These last weeks can be a time to celebrate where you are, what you’ve done, who you are becoming. It can be a time to grieve what you have lost, what you were ready to let go of and leave behind. It can be a time to feel and notice and say thank you for all that has happened, and all that is.
As I look back, I am so grateful to be back at the beach, after a year of not knowing. How two months in Arizona became eight, including the dreaded summer. And how I used that time being flat on my back to lean into the pain of sciatica and learn so much from it, to grieve some very old losses, and to finally write and publish my first book. And how I have opened my heart in new ways and am learning how to connect with and create new kinds of community.
In October 2013, at Patti Digh’s Life is a Verb Camp, I wrote “I want: to find and connect with tribe people where I live, to be able to look at Laddy’s pictures without it hurting so much, to write and publish and tour and workshop my new book, to feel more joy, more engagement in daily life.”
And now, a full year later, it is all happening. I am connecting with new communities, I have opened my heart to a new dog and, next year, I’ll be on that Heart Sparks Book Tour.
A big voice in me is saying, “Hey, when are you going to start booking the Heart Sparks Road Tour, contacting colleagues, planning the route?” And another voice answers, “In time, in time.”
For now I am lingering in the bitter and the sweetness of this past year, really embracing all I’ve been and felt and done to get where I am today. Sure, I’m having fun playing with the Road Tour vision, but I’m not getting obsessed. I’m engaging and letting go. Saying Yes and stepping back to see what happens.
It’s like casting your fishing line out into the water, then sitting back, relaxed, but with your eye on the bobber, ready to reel it in when you feel a tug. My fishing pole is baited and ready, and now I am resting back, soaking it all in, eye on the bobber, saying thank you.
When Gratitude Becomes Gladitude
reprinted from my book, Heart Sparks: 7 Practices For Loving Your Life
People will tell you that, if you’re feeling sad, depressed, hopeless, the best thing to do is make a gratitude list. To find simple things that you are grateful for, to shift your attention to what you do have, to what is working in your life.
But often, when we are in this dark place, it’s hard to conjure a list. And when we do, the things we come up with seem too simple and silly. Like a roof over our heads, a perfect cup of coffee, that our phone didn’t fall in the toilet.
We make these lists, but we don’t often feel great waves of gratitude. And that’s OK. Because just thinking about some positive things in your life will create a shift. Because suddenly you are aware that not everything in your world is horrible.
Eventually you’ll be able to really feel the simple joys of saying thank you. You’ll realize that having a roof over your head keeps you dry and cool and comfortable. That when you enjoy a perfect cup of coffee, nothing else has your attention. And when you think about how inconvenienced you might have been if your phone had gotten wet, well, this is when gratitude becomes gladitude.
Gladitude is saying ‘thank you’ from a deeper place in your heart. Like you really mean it. Because you do.
HEART SPARKS
I invite you to start a gratitude list. Every day, find a scrap of paper and write down something you are grateful for in that moment. Then throw the paper away.
This is not about keeping a gratitude journal or finding the right notebook to write in. This is about the gratitude itself, which is why I encourage you use scraps of whatever paper you have lying around. Once you write your gratitude and acknowledge it, you no longer need to keep the paper.
Do this every day this week, at the same time every day so that it becomes a ritual. You may even want to continue the practice beyond just a week.
Getting To Know You
As I am typing, Cody, my new-to-me dog is sleeping in his bed under the dinette as if it’s been his bed for all of his seven years. Truth is, we haven’t even known each other a whole week yet. But already, we’re very comfortable with each other.
He knows how to sit, stay and sit pretty on his hind legs. But he does not know how to walk on a leash. He wanders, sometimes crosses in front of me, and he pulls. All 63 solid pounds of him, yanking me faster than I can move, jolting my back and making me very cranky.
I did the stop and wait thing every time he pulled, but I couldn’t stay with it, and it hurt my back.
And then I got all freaked out that I’d never be able to walk with him.
I cried. I pulled him. And then I calmed down and realized he just needs some training. And that, because he is so well behaved about everything else, this was just a surprise. But it’s handle-able. He just needs traiing. And practice.
And then Marika reminded me to use Laddy’s Halti, a head collar that snugs up around the dog’s snout when he pulls. I had tried it the first night, but Cody managed to slip out of it, and then I forgot about it.
So yesterday morning I sized it better on his snout, put it on and we went for a walk around the park. And it worked. No more jerking me around.
Of course he still pulls, but we are learning.
And that’s what I keep reminding myself. It’s only been six days. Six. Days!
I have to let go of the ridiculous expectation that we should be good at it Now. Today.
It’s such a blessing that we are already good at so many other things together. We walked down to the beach last night for our first off-leash play time. There were a few too many people and dogs at the quiet end of the cove, so we did some training in the open field first. I walked straight and left and right and around, fast and slow, encouraging him when he was in the right position, both of us enjoying the fun of the game.
And then we went down to the beach. It was an hour before low tide and the furthest rocks were already exposed and there was so much beach to explore. He sniffed and peed on the big rocks and tracked smells in the sand. After we passed the last family heading back toward the pier, I unhooked his leash from the Halti. He picked up his pace, still smelling, tail wagging.
And then he found a perfect stick. He tossed it in the air, landing it at my feet and I said, out loud, Yes, Laddy would have loved this one too. And then I threw it. He bounded after it and brought it right back and dropped it at my feet, tail wagging so fast that it was a blur in the picture I took.
We played for a long time, me tossing, him retrieving, with breaks in between where he flopped down into the sand to gnaw on his prize, tail wagging the whole time.
On the walk back home we were both tired pups, and he walked right there next to me, like he’d been doing it all of his life.
He slept through the night and this morning he was limping more than his usual tender footedness, and he really didn’t want to go very far. He peed, ate breakfast and then got back into his bed and slept till noon. I figured he needed to poop, so I leashed him up and he was walking fine.
So we went down to the beach for high tide. Most of the cove section of beach was underwater and the low surf was creeping higher, right where we were playing with a thick stub of a eucalyptus branch that Cody found.
I threw the stick in the sand, but moved myself closer to the water so that, when he brought it back, we were both standing where the next good roll would wet our feet. He watched the water coming close and when the cold hit his paws, he startled and rushed out of the water. I followed him, petting him with lots of good dog’s, then walked to the water’s edge again. He followed, watched, felt the wave up to his ankles, and this time, he trotted toward the water before turning back around.
I’m sure he would have played like that for hours, but I didn’t want to overdue it if his paw was still hurting. So we walked in the wet sand at our own paces, then I leashed him up for the walk home.
And now he is asleep under the table, quiet and still, his front left paw twitching in his dreams.
The Gifts of Vulnerability
I was brainstorming a new idea: a Heart Sparks Mastermind for next year…7 women, 7 months, exploring the 7 Practices For Loving Your Life. One component of the group dynamic will be partnering with another person, and that took me to questions I’d ask them about what they might need in a partner, (accountability, sharing, inspiration….) and, what about partnering they might be resisting.
And then, BOOM, I was asking MYSELF the same questions about relationships in my personal life. And I realize how much I resist vulnerability, because the last few times I have opened my heart, I got hurt. Hard.
I took out some paper and I asked, What happens when you are vulnerable? and I wrote, “you get hurt, you learn things about yourself, your heart tells the truth. And that can be a good thing too. It doesn’t always have to be hurt-full. Trust that!”
And so on my beach walk that morning I finally walked to the right, to the end of the beach where Laddy and I always walked. I could hear his big barking bouncing off the rocks, begging me to find him a stick. It made my heart ache. And, of course, I cried.
When I shared the story with my neighbor Phyllis, while her slobbery old chocolate lab named Breyer was allowing me some great dog rubs, she said, How wonderful! And I thought, Yeh, I guess it is also wonderful that I can still go right there to remembering so clearly how much fun we had.
The fact that my heart hurts just means I’m feeling something. It’s not good, it’s not bad, I’m just feeling…. and that is what being vulnerable is.
Being vulnerable is about letting go of the fear of what you might feel and opening up to just feeling it. Being vulnerable is connecting. It’s being willing to give and receive love.
This past weekend I went to my first Sunday Spiritual Service. I got there early, met the very friendly Reverend, and helped some women put out the after-service food.
The actual service was lovely. We began with a Namasté song, walking around the group, singing into each other’s eyes. There was laughing and storytelling, more singing and a standing silent meditation. And afterwards, I spoke with several people, including a woman who I knew from Facebook. I even signed up to attend a workshop after the service next week where we will be making Blessing Sticks.
I was so warmly and genuinely welcomed into the community that I was reminded that I can enjoy many different kinds of connections and relationships. That one person cannot possibly fill all of my needs. And that showing up with an opened heart makes me cry, and sometimes that can feel really good.
On the way home I stopped at the Humane Society, just to look, to see what it’s like to go there. I almost didn’t, for selfishness, but then I thought, even if it’s just to give these dogs a little human interaction, it will be for good.
Of course I cried. For me, for Laddy for all the dogs that were there.
I engaged with a few and asked about Bon Bon, a small white shepherd mix with a happy pink tongue. The volunteer said she is overprotective and aggressive and doesn’t do well sharing the owner’s attention with other people or other dogs.
And that was fine, because I wasn’t ready to take anyone home that day, anyway. But I went, and I opened up that place in my heart and I didn’t die from sadness. In fact, the tenderness might be a little less bitter and a little more sweet.
This morning, I walked again along the rocky end of the beach. I picked up a perfect stick-throwing stick to use for my Blessing Stick next week. Laddy would have loved to have me throw it so he could run and get it, then flop down in the sand and gnaw the bark off it.
UPDATE!!
You never know when you’re gonna be ready, until you are!
If you’re interested in learning more about the 2015 Heart Sparks Mastermind, drop me an email!
