WORDS

     Words carry energy, and as such, they are powerful. How do we use them? Do we create misery with them? Inspire fear? Promote hope? Are our words choppy and frantic, or expansive? Do we feel "ok" or "exceptionally well" ? There's a difference. We can rise or sink by our words, and raise others up or tear them down in the same way.

I bring awareness to the way the words I use affect the way I feel, and use better words in order to feel better.

THE POWER OF ACTING AS IF

     "Acting as if" is a useful and transformative way of acting. Even if we feel lousy and tired, even if our hearts are heavy with family drama or financial fears, we can still act "as if" we feel good. We can be chipper and upbeat without being fake. Acting as if is not a way to wear a mask. It's a way to feel better.
     When hard things are happening in our lives, which hard things do, we can stay hopeful and willing to find solutions. We can act as if we have the faith that things will work out, even if we feel scared. By doing this, our energy shifts within, and suddenly, somehow, we discover that we actually do have the faith, or feel cheerful. or whatever it is. Without a doubt, there is something to be said for the benefits of keeping our chin up.

Even if I'm not feeling positive, I act as if I am, and the result is a mysterious transformation within me from darkness to light.

THINKING WE KNOW

     We all seem to think that we know what someone is going to say before they say it, that we understand directions before they are completely given, and that warnings apply to everyone else but not to us. There is a certain restlessness in this, and arrogance.
    Let's stop jumping the gun. Let's be better listeners and better learners and stop thinking we're experts when we're beginners. Let's stop pretending we know all about it when we don't really know anything at all.

I stop second guessing people and wait to hear what they actually have to say.

MOTHERING

     I always used to think that once my children were grown-up, that they would stop needing so much from me, so much love and patience and guidance, so much mothering. But as the stakes in life rise, so do the dramas and pitfalls and traps. I find my parental role more demanding now than it has ever been.
     For all of the adulthood and maturity and physical size, in some ways, my children are as baffled by life and people and the way things work as they were at age three. The challenges are bigger, and the cost of error and misunderstanding, but the perplexity is the same. Why? How? These are their questions still.
     And I am here, perplexed myself by certain things, but mother earth and grounding rod to them nonetheless, and carrier of lost dreams, and restorer of hope. I welcome them home with open arms and a heart full of love. I listen and comfort and send them back out into the world again with a backpack of courage and a gentle push.

When they are lost, I do not punish my children with threats and guilt. I love them and restore them and help them find their way home.    

ALL IN GOOD TIME

     Everything is accomplished in its own way and its own time. Even an abandoned project is its own kind of completed event. We wonder how we will ever get everything done that we have to do and we act with a kind of frenzied intensity doing it. We lose our sense of humor and our ability to go with the flow. We become a force field of focus and tunnel vision, and to anyone who comes near, the message is, "I'm on a mission. Don't mess with me." And maybe sometimes in life, this kind of effort is useful, and even necessary, but more often than not, it seems like an over-dramatization. If we're keeping it real, then life doesn't really require that we be so extreme.

I perform the duties of the day with joy and a minimum amount of drama.

POINT OF SURRENDER

     We can carry ourselves only so far on any path. There always comes a point of surrender and letting go. We can only do so much, and beyond that, we must invite grace to our aid. We must dedicate our lives and our work to something bigger than our own petty ends or we will perish by the limitations of our own grasp.

I give what I have to give. That is my responsibility. How it is received is a matter beyond my control.

GUILT AND PERFECTION

     If I'm honest about guilt, it's actually a form of resentment towards myself. It's a re-living over and over of a perceived error or wrong-doing. It's a repetition of voices from my past that told me I don't measure up. Guilt is a kind of negative self-indulgence, a false humility... that I are so bad, so wrong, and so imperfect.
     Let's stop chewing on the stale bread of yesterday and let it go. Let's live in this moment and this day, where we have endless opportunities to make a fresh start.

I needn't carry guilt for being less than perfect. I am a work in progress. Less than perfect is exactly what I am supposed to be.