The Sophia Project has moved!!!
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New plans and a wee apology…
Last week, for the first time since I started writing this blog in January, I did something I’m not entirely proud of.
I blew it off. Totally. Didn’t write a darn thing.
See, I was in New Mexico on a retreat. And I had a head cold that really took away my energy. And I had limited internet access. And I’m sorry I took off so completely without notice.
But I know in my heart that I chose not to write last week because I needed not to write. When I started this blog almost a year ago, it felt like the greatest work of my life. Inspiring, fun, enlivening.
These past few weeks I’ve felt a bit like I was “phoning it in”. So the break was quietly welcome, as I moved away from my keyboard for a while and simply observed life instead of needing to record it.
A few days ago, high up on a mesa in northern New Mexico, I had a flash of awareness that it’s time to change this blog. I am ready to make it something new, something different.
So this will be my last original blog posting at this web address. On Monday, Nov. 1, my blog will move to its new domain name, with a new format. I’m still working out the details, but I’m excited about what’s coming, and I think it will serve all of us in meaningful ways.
In the meantime, I want to share a poem with you, sent to me by my new (and already dear) friend Sandy Phocas. It mirrors well my life right now, and my hopes for this blog as it continues to grow and evolve.
Sometimes
if you move carefully
through the forest
breathing
like the ones
in the old stories
who could cross
a shimmering bed of dry leaves
without a sound,
you come
to a place
whose only task
is to trouble you
with tiny
but frightening requests
conceived out of nowhere
but in this place
beginning to lead everywhere.
Requests to stop what
you are doing right now,
and
to stop what you
are becoming
while you do it,
questions
that can make
or unmake
a life,
questions
that have patiently
waited for you,
questions
that have no right
to go away.
by David Whyte
How to Control a Life Skid (and avoid a crash…)
Throughout our lives, most of us experience crises, typically painful turning points where we must choose to leave our past behind and strike out in a new direction.
The mid-life crisis is rife with cliches: the balding man with a faux tan, a red sportscar, and 25-year old girlfriend, for example.
And often our crises feel like head-on collisions, pile-ups on the interstate of life from which we stagger, stunned, wounded, and alone.
I’m here to propose that perhaps it doesn’t have to be so dramatic.
See, I believe that crises, or crashes, occur when we go through life unconsciously. When we put our spirits on automatic pilot, and fail to check in with ourselves on a regular basis to make sure we are truly living the life we want.
Unconscious living can look a million different ways: an unfulfilling marriage, a monotonous job, isolation and loneliness, or too much TV watching. These patterns of behavior creep into our daily lives like fog, until one day we look up and realize we can’t see our hands in front of our faces anymore.
The crash comes when we wake up suddenly and want immediate, dramatic change. If we have lived unconsciously, the change we choose will mirror our past, more immature selves: dump the partner and find a new one just like the old one; engage in extravagant consumerism; develop an addiction.
But if we are conscious, if we fully embrace the idea that we choose the circumstances of our lives, then the crash can be avoided altogether.
I propose learning to create a controlled skid. In motorcycle education classes, riders are taught how to handle it when they feel their bikes begin to slide beneath them. Staying calm, centered, and mindful, riders can turn a potentially fatal situation into a manageable one.
By becoming conscious, by developing awareness and appreciation for our feelings, intuitive urges, and bodily wisdom, we receive plenty of information beforehand about dangers just ahead on the road, and we can plan to handle them, rather than crashing headlong into the guardrail at 90 mph.
I say all of this because I am currently engaged in my own life skid. I have no idea what my life or career will look like in one year. I have no idea how all of this will work out. But I have just enough savings to feel secure financially. I have just enough work to keep some structure in my life. I have an amazing community of supportive people around me. I am in control of the structure of this change, so that life can safely upend me and take me in a new direction.
So what do you know about yourself so you can prepare for your own controlled skid? How can you avoid that crashing feeling we all dread? And what can you do today to prepare your spirit for what is next?
Outgrowing “The Box” Part III: How to Know When It’s Time to Go
A few years ago I dated a guy who met most of the items on my “laundry list”. You know the list. We all have one.
In this case, my guy was: tall, kind, responsible, employed, funny. We had decent chemistry and he treated my dog well. There was really no reason not to date him.
Except… when he showed up at my house unannounced, sometimes I didn’t want to answer the door. And when he went out of town I felt secretly relieved. And when he started talking about moving in together, and marriage, I immediately developed tummy pains and wanted to throw up.
Yet for over a year, I allowed my “logical” mind and that stupid laundry list to override the greater intelligence of my heart and body. And it’s not just me. Sadly, in Western cultures, worship of reason has eclipsed our other gifts of intelligence. We tend to ignore emotions or physical symptoms in the process of decision making, or in the evolution of our lives.
Happily this disparity is gradually righting itself. Increasingly in mental and physical health communities, we are coming to understand that “intelligence” actually lives all through us. We carry emotional enzymes throughout our whole bodies, essentially making our entire organism one great, living mind. We know far beyond the reaches of our limited brains.
Christiane Northrup, M.D., author of “Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom” says it this way:
Our bodies are designed to function best when we’re doing [what] feels exactly right to us… Many people have been taught that they can’t have what they want and that a full life of struggle is somehow more honorable than one full of joy… It feels good in our bodies to think about and dwell upon what we want and why. We get excited and are inspired automatically by those thoughts and feelings, which in turn keep us in touch with our inner knowing and spiritual energy. The result is enthusiasm and joy - the feeling of heaven on Earth.
I imagine that as you read the previous quote, you maybe felt excited, skeptical, cheated or sad. The idea that we are supposed to feel good is heart-breakingly radical. But the truth is this: when we live in alignment with our truths, gifts, talents, wants, and needs, our feelings improve and our bodies function optimally.
So what happened when I finally broke up with that guy? Here’s what: I lost 5 points of worry weight. My skin cleared up. I felt a sense of liberation and peace so intense I coasted along in a mood of giddy joy for weeks. And I have never, ever looked back.
Want more proof? Two months ago I moved out of my house in Minnesota and away from full-time employment because my heart and my intuition told me to. I moved into part-time work with no benefits, a radically reduced salary, and a cheap apartment so I could continue not working very much. I moved back to a part of the country I love living in, to be near a wide and deep circle of mentors and friends who support my vision for my life.
Here’s the result: I sleep beautifully at night. I have tons of energy and run or hike nearly every day. My skin has cleared up (again). And I have never been happier in my entire life.
All this in spite of a life decision that made absolutely no sense when viewed through the lens of logic.
So come on over this way, won’t you? What’s your body telling you? What truth do your emotions want you to hear? What completely non-logical urge pulls you out of your comfort zone and into the unknown? And if you’ve got your own story to tell, please do! Share your inspiration with others!
It’s all waiting for you, just on the other side of your hesitation. Take that step. Get yourself out of the box.
Shut Up and Write…. Four words Natalie Goldberg asserts are the anecdote to writer’s block and writer’s blocking.
Natalie writes memoir, but she also writes about writing. My two favorites include her groundbreaking “Writing Down the Bones” and the more recent “Old Friend from Far Away”. Both consist of exercises and essays meant to inspire the writer in all of us from professionals to rank amateurs.
See, I want to be a writer. I’ve said this for about 10 years now. If I’m being totally honest, about 50% of my desire lies in my fantasy of a writer’s lifestyle: lots of coffee, feverish creativity, flexible hours, and pajama bottoms as appropriate “office” attire. My desire to live in comfortable pants fuels a disproportionate percentage of my life goals.
But I also want to be a writer because I simply love to write. This blog fuels that very love. When I write, another part of my personality gets to come out and play. When I write, the veiled privacy gives me free license to express opinions I might otherwise keep in check (see tag entitled “rant”). And when I write I am transcended up and out of my daily list of chores and “to do’s”. Freedom.
OK, so remember two paragraphs ago when I said I’ve wanted to be a writer for about 10 years? I’d say it’s only in the past year or so that I actually began disciplining myself to write most days. Not every day. Most days. Some days or weeks I avoid it altogether. Like me, you might be asking, “Yo, C-dawg (this is my not what my friends actually call me, but in my head I have street cred, so just roll with it), if you want to a be a writer, and you love writing, why don’t you just friggin’ write?”
The simple answer is I don’t know. Writing for me constitutes a form of deep-sea diving. In the morning as my half-pot of coffee percolates, I pace around my computer as though staring into the deep, looking for the perfect place to dive in. Then once the first cup of java has started to hit my veins, I take a deep breath and I jump.
I typically emerge 45 minutes to an hour later, breathing heavily, starved for oxygen. The writing is rarely easy.
I think we all hold inside of us a quiet dream that lies dormant because of the doing it demands. It’s easy to fantasize about an alternate reality, a future yet to be. A few weeks ago I met a student in Minnesota who talked about how much she loves Guatemala, and how envious she is that I get to go there every summer.
“How often do you get down there?” I asked.
“Oh, I’ve never been,” she said. “I’ve just heard a lot about it and I really want to go. I’d like to live there someday.”
Not easily shaken, I asked, “So what’s keeping you from going now? It’s cheap to get there. It’s even in the same time zone as Minnesota, so no jet lag. What gives?”
“Well I’ve planned to go four times, but something has always come up so it didn’t work out.”
I faced her squarely. “You need to buy a ticket. Just buy it. And then the rest of the details will work out because you’ll be committed.”
“Maybe…” she said, trailing off to another topic.
I’m not judging her because I understand all too well what she’s struggling with. We all do it. We have a dream or a wish or a fantasy. We think and we talk and we yearn. But when push comes to shove, something keeps us circling that deep, deep water. We fear the jump into the depths.
I’m a counselor so I can give an educated guess about this student’s hesitation: it’s scary to travel to a developing country alone, especially when you’re only 20 years old. To analyze my own fear proves more difficult. I can’t quite see through my resistance to the other side.
But here’s the lesson if you’re wanting one: Most days I show up. I circle. I dive. I splutter and wring myself out over this keyboard. Most days I resist. And most days I overcome it. It’s taken me 10 years but I’m finally here, doing the thing I’ve claimed to want for so long.
And my hope? If I keep at it, perhaps the resistance will fade into memory.
So let’s turn this bright spotlight on you for a minute.
What’s your dream? What have you talked about for years but not acted on?
And here’s the important part, and I ask you to take it seriously. Right now, grab a pen and a piece of paper…. Now, write one simple thing you can do today to get you started toward fulfilling your dream.
Find a flight. Book a room. Buy a how-to guide. Start a blog. Email that guy and ask him to coffee. Sign up for a guitar lesson. Buy a watercolor set. Take a walk. Think before you speak out of anger. Resist gossip. Get a good night’s sleep. Eat a salad…
In other words, Shut Up And Write.
Years ago, I ended a friendship….
The idea occurred to me as we sat over dinner and she related to me yet another intense fight she was having with her boyfriend, initiated by her irrational jealousy of any contact he had with other women.
As she related the fight to me blow-by-blow I realized three things:
One ~ Since sitting down for dinner, she had yet to ask me how I was doing.
Two ~ I had heard some version of this exact drama at least a quadrillion times over the five years of our friendship.
Three ~ I didn’t like the person sitting before me very much at all.
Two weeks later I called off the friendship, much to her shock and chagrin. In spite of her vivid anger, I felt colossal relief about ending the toxic relationship, and haven’t looked back since.
I realized that in the five years of our acquaintance, I had grown. She hadn’t. And I no longer wanted to be her pseudo-counselor for all her personal problems. I wanted equity in our friendship, and she was unable and unwilling to give it.
My responsibility lay in the fact that I agreed to her standards for far too long. I allowed her to put me into a tiny, uncomfortable box. I squinched myself up in that box until I couldn’t stand it anymore. At which point I stood up, said goodbye, and walked away.
Since then, I’ve become more adept at identifying boxes others would like to put me into… taking on too many tasks at work, changing my values to fit the preference of a man I’m dating, or giving an “A” to a student when a “B” is more appropriate. I know better now. And even when it feels risky, I’m willing to step up and out of whatever box is placed before me and be more my authentic self.
Here’s the Truth for today: You are too big, grand, and wonderful to be put into a box. And as you grow older, wiser, and more authentic, you will find you’ve outgrown the boxes that, in your younger years, felt plenty roomy for you.
So the question is this: What have you outgrown? In what areas of your life do you feel cramped, shut down, cut off, uncomfortable, or edgy? And what purpose does it serve to keep yourself in that too-small space?
I encourage you today to engage in some serious self-examination, so you can identify these areas starving for change, for room, for space and light and air.
Why the Tea Party Doesn’t Bother Me One Bit…
I realize I may alienate some readers with this post. It’s a risk I’m willing to take. I believe strongly that in the face of fear, it is the obligation of folks like me to advocate for faith, love, and peace. And so here I go...
Do you wonder why the world seems to have gone crazy these days?
I watch the histrionic musings of Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh and I want to laugh… not because I do not subscribe to their politics, but because their messages are so absurd, fear-based, and distanced from reality.
“This Tea Party movement scares me,” my wonderful, Southern Democrat mother said a few weeks ago.
But the truth is, the Tea Party is not a movement. I believe it’s a reaction to a movement.
See, the world is changing, rapidly. The old ways are dying out. Concepts like hierarchy and patriarchy are gasping their last breaths. Women refuse to be oppressed, and men refuse to comply with simplistic stereotypes. We are moving into an age of individualism, where we begin to realize that we each have a voice, proper and proud.
People are liberated from the constraints of autocratic gatekeepers through the miracle of the internet. You wanna be a writer? Write. You want to make music? Make it. There’s nothing to stop us from exerting our creativity in the world.
Groups that have been hidden and oppressed are gaining their hard-won civil rights: gay and lesbian men and women are granted the right to marry. A bi-racial man is elected president. Three women sit on the Supreme Court. Hispanic immigrants take to the streets to voice their opinions.
Yes, Bob Dylan, the times they are a-changin’.
And during any period of great change, those who fear it take to the streets also, waving signs with hateful words and clinging tenaciously to the old way of doing things. Tea parties emerge, Glenn Beck has his (brief) day in the spotlight, and violence escalates.
And the louder the opponents to change shout, the nearer the transformation. So in an odd way, it’s a good sign that so much hubbub is emerging now.
But in the entire length of history, love has always won in the end. Think about it. Even after the Holocaust, love won out. My grandfather, among others, arrived to liberate concentration camps. Love won. Loudly. Hell was banished to its rightful place. Love always wins.
So what’s a sane person to do when the world is screaming in indignation about all this change? It’s simple really.
- Don’t fight against anything.
- Instead, fight for something: peace, civil rights, equal access to health care.
- Don’t waste your precious energy defending your position. Simply go out and get to work for what is right.
- Recognize that the screaming change-fearer lives in you, too. What is happening in the outside world is an expression of that which lives in all of us. So soothe the crying beast. Accept that fear exists. And move through the fear into faith.
I’m here to tell you that the world is changing. And I am one who desires to instigate change. It is time for a new order, a new way of being to emerge from the darkness. It’s time for all to have equal rights. It’s time to end poverty. It’s time to recognize that by virtue of being born in the US, we are among the most privileged people in the world. And privilege comes with responsibility to share it.
It is time to recognize that every child is precious. That every woman has worth. That rape and abuse are public health concerns and a means for psychological warfare and they must stop.
It is time to get over the idea that “over there” exists. It doesn’t. We are all right here, all in this thing together. There is no “other”. It is only “us”.
It is time to rise above our ridiculous, petty differences and to evolve into the divine beings we were created to be.
It is time.
It is time.
Flashback: What the 1970′s Can Teach Us About Our Personal Finances & Being a Kid…
One night recently I ate dinner with my lovely friend Julie and her parents who were visiting from out of town. We were sitting on the deck of Julie’s 1930’s house and reminiscing about the 1970’s, when her parents were young adults and Julie and I were little, squirmy kids.
Steeped in nostalgia, we speculated on who had lived and died in Julie’s old house, and remembered our own simpler pasts, when life at least seemed less cluttered.
Today I’m indulging in a bit of a flashback, remembering a past that never existed for me, channeling the 1970’s (and beyond) into my adult life and seeing what sticks. Here’s what I think the 70’s have to teach us about living a good life:
1) Your house shouldn’t sink you. The house I grew up in was small, about 1500 square feet. I lived there with my mom, dad, and older brother. We were often on top of each other, but it was OK, expected. My brother annoyed me with trombone practice and I often fell asleep to the sound of my dad watching sports on TV. How do you know you’re in a family if you can’t hear the others living around you?
My parent’s mortgage payment was about $250 per month. We updated carpet and appliances once they broke or wore out. My parents still have the same couch, chairs, and footstools I played on when I was 10 years old. They’re recovered and stylish, but it’s the same frame underneath the new fabric. They didn’t buy new things simply because of styles or trends, but out of necessity.
Imagine if we got off the McMansion, granite-counter top and stainless-steel appliance train and recognized that there are better ways to spend all that money. Like saving it. Or giving it to a charity. Or taking a trip to Disney World.
2) Credit cards are meant to be paid off each month. Somewhere along the line, credit became a long term loan for depreciable consumer goods, rather than a tool for purchasing necessities when on the road. I’ve certainly bought into this mindset myself, carrying balances for most of the past seven years. But my card is now paid off. And each month, I pay that sucker, no matter how much it hurts. I hold myself accountable for my debts, my spending, and my bad habits. It’s about time, and I promise you, it feels great.
3) It’s OK to get hurt. In the 70’s, kids rode enormous, heavy, steel framed bikes. With no helmets. Jungle gyms were giant metal structures built on pavement with rusty bolts sticking out everywhere. And we ate bologna. A lot.
I have no doubt my mom and dad loved me, but they were willing to send me out into the world at the risk of injury. Because life isn’t going to leave you untouched. In our anti-bacterial, rubber-matted world, I worry kids aren’t getting bruised quite enough, colliding with the hard surface of life, getting up, and realizing that it’s possible to move on and survive the hurt. I’m not advocating lessened safety standards for the vulnerable. But doesn’t it seem we’ve gone a bit overboard?
4) Community doesn’t truly exist on a computer. Now, I love technology. I do. I groove on figuring out website development, podcasting, and the like. So I’m not advocating a return to a pre-internet world.
But come on, do we really need all this crap? I was in the grocery store yesterday and passed no fewer than six people talking on their phones while shopping, totally unaware of me or anything else going on around them. We teach ourselves to be fragmented and distracted with all this multi-tasking. And personally, I hate talking on the phone with people as they drive or do anything else. I can tell they’re not present for the conversation, and if they’re driving, I worry about other people on the road. It’s insanity.
Let’s turn off the phone and start attending to those around us. Like our neighbors. Or the cute woman making eyes at you in the grocery story (umm, that would be me). Or the hot fella just dying to strike up a conversation with you. Life is happening all around us, all the time, and we miss it when we tune out.
5) Three hundred channels is overkill, and remote controls make us fat. I ditched my dish when I moved to NC in favor of a digital antennae. I don’t need 300 options. Frankly, I only watch about 5 of those channels anyway, so what’s the point? Do I really need to watch “The 40-Year Old Virgin” again on TBS? No.
When I was a kid, and I wanted to watch another of the four channels that we received in my house, I’d get up, walk across the dark green shag carpet to the dial on the TV, and change the channel. Ten steps up, ten steps back. A tiny smidge of exercise in an otherwise sedentary activity.
Thanks for sticking with me through this rant. I’m off to don my Shaun Cassidy tee-shirt to watch Happy Days while eating a bowl of Spagettios with Meatballs. And then I might ride my big old heavy bike to my friend’s house to run through the sprinkler all afternoon. So there.
Finding our Way Through the Fog…
Dear friend…
How are you today? Is all well in your world? I wanted to drop you a line to let you know that I miss seeing you, and I hope we can spend sometime together soon. In the meantime, this letter will have to suffice.
I also wanted to let you know I’m doing well. When I decided to quit my job and move back to NC, people kept asking me, “Are you OK?” with concerned expressions on their faces. I could read it in their eyes – they wondered why I was copping out on a great, solid career to move home.
And the answer is yes, I’m doing OK. I’m not clinically depressed. I wasn’t denied tenure. I didn’t get so homesick I couldn’t function.
I moved here for the simple reason that I was called to. We don’t talk about that very often in our modern world, the call. It’s a term reserved for priests and nuns. But I believe most strongly that we each have a calling, a soul destiny, that sometimes whispers and sometimes shouts, demanding our attention through the veil of our busy lives.
All last year I struggled with a feeling of dis-ease. My life in Minnesota just didn’t fit. I felt isolated and lonely, and I slowly suffered a starving death in the absence of the mountains and the ocean. My work was satisfying, but lacked the creativity I need to be truly happy. And after seven years of endless work, I was so very tired.
So I am here, in a community of people who understand and support kooky ideas like “having a calling”.
But I have to be honest. Aside from that, I have very little knowledge of what I’m meant to do here.
See, I’m in this sort of fog. Back in April, when I handed in my resignation, I had all sorts of grand ideas about how I would spend my time. I’d tell people (brag, really) “Oh, I’ve got a book in mind, so I want to commit myself to writing. And I’ll do some private practice…” This response sounded awfully good, both to me and to them. It made me feel important.
But the reality is I don’t know what I want to write. And I don’t know if I want to be a counselor. All I know is I was called to move here and so here I am. In the middle of a fog.
I do think I understand one very important thing I want to share with you: the fog is entirely necessary for me to become the person I’m meant to be in this lifetime. I have to live in it for a while in order to make sense of what comes next.
See, we don’t handle ambivalence, unknowing, and uncertainty well in this culture. Confidence, clarity, assurance – all of these qualities are rewarded in every way possible. Not knowing, or living in the fog, is regarded as a particular form of laziness. We judge people who don’t know where they’re going.
So I want to stay here for a while. I want to come to know this fog intimately. I want to treat it like a relationship, this affair I’m having with the mist. I want to understand what practices and principles must be in place to emerge from this fog with clarity, strength and purpose.
And then I’ll tell you all about it, OK? Because we’re friends. And this is what friends do for each other. We get each other through the shadow times, helping each other emerge into the light.
It occurs to me that if we are to heal this wounded world, we must heal ourselves first. So let’s raise a glass to our own good health.
You and me together, we’ll find our way gracefully into the light.
With love,
Your friend Cyndi.
Holy Shit
Tonight, in lieu of my typical post, I present to you this video montage to summarize my first month of “freedom” from full-time employment.
First, to explain the title (and forgive the profanity if it offends), I have been saying these two words a lot in recent weeks. Because I’m in it. Deep. It’s an AFGE (see previous post) all the way.
I know I come across all confident and such in this blog, but this is some hard stuff I’m sorting through. Abandoning security sounds super-brave, but most days I just want my mom to come along and feed me cookies. You need to know the less-glorious side of the process, too.
It isn’t all easy and skippy and bright and sparkly.
This process of becoming is often shitty. It is also truly holy. And I believe both can exist with equal tension, equal power, equal grace.
So without further ado:
When I decided to quit my job, leave Minnesota, and return to my beloved North Carolina, I was pumped up with the power. It felt beyond liberating to leave a life that wasn’t fulfilling my deepest needs (mountains, family, connection, creativity) to begin a new one that would. It felt a lot like this:
My first month home I spent at my parents’ at the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia. It was beyond lovely to have my mom cook me meals after seven years so far away from home. I felt myself slipping into a coma of comfort, delighting in the lack of effort my days required. I realized how tired I was of standing alone. It felt a lot like this:
So last week, on Wednesday, I moved into my new apartment, about 1/3 the size of my house in Rochester, MN. It’s a decent apartment, affordable and in a great location near downtown. But it’s sort of scruffy. And there is no central A/C. And apparently a mosquito colony lived here before I moved in. I miss my yard and my neighbors….
Egads, I miss security. What would Mel Gibson say? (probably something racist, but I digress…)
So the past few days I’ve felt a lot like this:
And here’s the thing: I know it’s going to be OK. I know I will find my routine, establish my relationships, get my feet underneath me.
But I’m here to tell you that change is not always safe, or swift, or endlessly delightful. It can be hard, and dirty, and frustrating, and slow.
I want you to know this so you have the full picture, the complete story of what it means to step out of what is familiar in the service of a dream.
I’ll keep at it. I hope you will as well. And perhaps the next time we meet, this is how we’ll be feeling:
I’ll show up for it if you will…
Peace to you on your journey.
