Grace under fire

Three things that never come back: the spent arrow; the spoken word; the lost opportunity. Willam George Plunkett

The weekend is over. People have come and gone, and in their passing through I have been touched. I have grown. I have learned.

I discover new things about myself every day and this weekend was no exception. It was a colourful weekend!

Givers 1, the first weekend trainees come back to seminar after having gone through the five days of Choices, is about discovering your 'colour'. Based on True Color personality typing, the Givers 1 weekend culminates with a five hour workshop on determining what is each individuals foundational colour type, what are the attributes of that particular colour and how do they manifest themselves, both as strengths and stressors, in our lives.

My first three colours are very close -- Green, Blue, Orange. My Gold is somewhere on the horizon but quite distant from the other three.

There are strengths in each colour, and, as with all things in life, my greatest strength can become my greatest weakness.

I am always scanning, always analyzing. As a strength, that means I can see the 'big picture', discern how it impacts a situation and/or person, and determine creative solutions to minimize any negative impact, to move situations and people from one pole to another, to reach outside of the box to discover alternatives that open up new possibilities.

The weakness is -- I have a natural tendency to be arrogant. I believe I know the 'best' and 'right' way to handle a situation -- even when I am pretending to let you believe you are right!

It was my arrogance that leaped in to trip me up this weekend.

I am Team Captain of this group. Which means, I am responsible to ensure the Coaches are on task, focused and working cooperatively. It also means, I am charged with ensuring any situations that arise are dealt with effectively and speedily.

To be effective as a Team Captain, I require a great deal of Gold -- the organized, planner who is prepared for any circumstance and has all the bases covered.

I can be 'gold'. What I struggle with is grace and ease in Gold. And, because my Green has a tendency to be extremely uncomfortable with new situations where I don't have the information I need to understand what's required, and I don't like to admit when I don't have the answers, I can resort to arrogance when under stress.

Yesterday, we had a situation that required speedy and delicate handling. It ended up being nothing serious, but in its unfolding, it appeared to be 'out of control'. In my uncertainty of how to handle the situation, and the information I had about what was going on, I was abrupt and unkind with another of the coaches.

Someone pointed out my abruptness and I realized it was true. I had been unkind.

Doesn't matter if I was attempting to control the situation or not, I do not like being unkind.

I acknowledged what I'd done to the coach and apologized. She graciously accepted and said, "I was a bit taken aback. Mostly because it was so unlike you. And then I thought, 'Oh, she's just being gold,' and realized, it wasn't about me. You weren't even thinking about me. You were thinking about the situation and trying to keep it under control."

Control. Love it. Hate it.

To be in control means to believe I am powerful enough to control people and situations.

To be out of control means to be reacting without thought to people or the situation.

In my attempt yesterday to control, I was out of control. On either side of the equation, I was acting without grace under fire.

Grace under fire.

The ability to remain loving and kind while holding a space for a situation to unfold without becoming distressed over whatever is transpiring.

It was a big growth day for me yesterday.

In my awkwardness I discovered it's imperative to remain soft and loving without resorting to arrogance to ensure no matter the situation around me, I remain true to my principles, beliefs and values.

I do not like being unkind. I do not want to be unkind. I can be unkind.

In the dissonance between how I want be and how I am living in the moment, is a field of grace. It is on that field I need to stand to balance my strengths and weaknesses in harmony. It is in that field I need to live to ensure I am living my best life yet, being my most loving, gracious and creative self. When I ease myself into grace, I ease up on demanding people conform to my way. I let go of the need people do what I say and live up to my expectations. In grace, I make room for other's to be who they are without fear of being pummeled by my way of thinking.

We are all human, being all we can be when we let go of the expectation that everyone else can see, think, feel, hear and do it our way.

Reality is, in our being human, we cannot see, think, feel, hear or do it any way other than how we perceive the world to be in the moment we are living right now. My response to any situation is always predicated upon my experiences leading up to that moment and how much of the stress I carry with me as residual muck messing up my ability to be flow in the field of grace of my being.

In my awkward handling of the situation yesterday, I could only do my best given my lack of awareness of my tendency to be arrogant and abrupt when under stress.

In my knowing today, I can be aware next time an unexpected situation arises -- and they always do! -- that causes me to slip from my field of grace into the murky waters of not knowing what to do. Next time I go for a swim in the tumultuous seas of uncertainty, I can bring myself back to calm seas by reminding myself, regardless of how much information I do or do not have, I am not powerful enough to control any situation. I am powerful enough to control how I respond. It's my choice to be surrounded by grace, creating harmony, even when the sky appears to be falling down.

When I am exercising grace under fire, I am living up to my highest good, being all that I can be. In my being all that I can be I limit my creation of discord and fall into the harmony of being true to who I am.

My growth this weekend was to realize, when I am 'out of control' I am creating discord. When I let go of control, I allow harmony to rise up and be present, regardless of the situation. It's not being in control that caused me strife, it was my fear that I was out of control that bit me.

The question is: Are you standing in your field of grace, breathing love and harmony into any discord rising up around you? Are you willing to exercise grace under fire by becoming 100% accountable for yourself?

Frosted up.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. Charles H. Spurgeon

This is a Choices weekend -- which means fast sleeps. I'm off and running this morning to coach for the day.

My two daughters, Alexis and Liseanne, have been coaching all week in the main seminar -- I'm in Givers 1 this weekend.

It is the first time they have coached without me and even though I'm not in the room, it is awesome to be around to hear what people have to say about them. You know, a mother's dream come true, everyone thinks your kids are amazing -- and they credit you. :)

When I watch my daughters I am always in awe of their beautiful spirits. They are such an incredible example of how to live your life in the fire of your passions. How to be kind and caring, compassionate and loving while being strong and forthright. They are always doing life for their highest good.

One of the coaches who had been in the room with the girls last night came up to me last night and said, "I am in awe of your daughters. I feel so blessed to have your daughters in my life. They inspire me."

Ahhh, my beating heart was swelling up!

I too am blessed. I too am inspired every day by them. I am rich beyond my wildest dreams.

It is a wonderful thing to know that no matter how painful their journey was, they have had the courage to let go and surrender and fall in love.

Have a wonder filled day. It is snowing here in Calgary. Yup. Snow in June. My flowers are looked a little wilted. They do not appreciate this at all!

Reality is, the snow will pass. While it passes, it is up to me to adjust my attitude to ensure I am not frosted off by its presence.

My choice! It is a beautiful day to be alive.

The question is: Is your attitude frosting up your window? Are you feeling the chill of your disdain for the world around you?

Running through the pain

Beware that you do not lose the substance by grasping at the shadow. Aesop

In the ebb and flow of life, there is always that place where water meets land, land meets water and the sands are stirred.

Yesterday, as I drove to a meeting I was thinking about the turmoil in my life, about the ebb and flow of my emotions, beliefs and behaviours. About the stirring up of my thinking where it washes away the residue of my disbelief that I can have the life of my dreams, right now in this moment, by living up to my highest good and letting go of my fixed belief it has to hurt if it's worth anything in my life.

Several years ago I ran a marathon. Twenty-six miles (plus some odd feet which were apparently added on many years ago to accommodate the finish line passing before the Queen's box). About six weeks before the race, I pulled a hamstring. Ouch! Having spent months training I was determined to complete the run, and I did. My hamstring was not happy. I was. It was a great accomplishment for me. However, the cost was significant, it took several years for my hamstring to heal and my running days were inhibited.

What struck me yesterday as I remembered my determination to complete that race was the fact that to do it, I had to, as they say in runner's circles, 'run through the pain'.

What if, my mind wondered, I am constantly living that belief? Continually running through the pain, looking for 'the wall' every marathon runner inevitably hits somewhere in their career.

What if in my belief there's always a wall to hit, I am limiting myself to a life of pain?

What if I wash away my limiting belief and stir up my thinking to embrace a new belief system? It's not about proving I can run through the pain, it's about running the best race of my life in this moment. There's no 'wall' to hit. No pain to be gained. Just beautiful thin air to move through with ease and grace.

What kind of a difference would that make in my life?

See, I have a belief system that says, "I can do anything." Question is: Do I want to? Must I? Is it necessary. Best. Right?

I can BE committed to DO what it takes to HAVE what I want -- but when the attainment of what I want on this physical plane does not align with my highest good, I am creating pain to run through as I hit the wall of my spirit's resistance to being less than its birthright.

The universe is filled with limitless possibilities. It is eternal bliss.

In my scrambling to make it happen by proving I can run through anything, I have inadvertently put walls up around my inner peace and happiness by causing myself unnecessary pain.

Inner peace and happiness are my birthright. They are eternal states of bliss. It is my struggle to attain them that separates me from living within their flow. Accepting what is in this moment, breathing deeply into my spirit, moving with grace and ease through 'the now', eliminates the need to hit the wall of my resistance to living freely, surrendering my ego and giving into love.

The question is: Are you constantly looking for the wall, running through the pain to find your happiness on the other side? Are you willing to move with grace and ease with the ebb and flow of this moment washing into the next?

What would love do?

Here is the test to find whether your mission on Earth is finished: if you're alive, it isn't. Richard Bach

I had a long conversation with my friend M. yesterday about 'love'. Is it a verb or a noun, he asked.

Hmmm. Good question. And you know how I love questions -- good or bad!

As a Noun, love is described in The Free Dictionary as:

1. A deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward a person, such as that arising from kinship, recognition of attractive qualities, or a sense of underlying oneness.
2. A feeling of intense desire and attraction toward a person with whom one is disposed to make a pair; the emotion of sex and romance.

As the Verb, loved, loving, loves, the definition provided states:

1. To have a deep, tender, ineffable feeling of affection and solicitude toward (a person): We love our parents. I love my friends.
2. To have a feeling of intense desire and attraction toward (a person).

What if it is neither Noun nor Verb. What if it is all noun and verb?

What if love is the answer?

What if....

Love is.
I am.
We are.
One
In love.

My lovely friend C.S. sent me a passage from a book she is reading, Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsh. The 'voice' is God's. He/She is speaking to the author as they engage in a long and loving conversation throughout the book.

“Yea, let all those who have ears to hear listen. For I tell you this: at the critical juncture in all human relationships, there is only one question: WHAT WOULD LOVE DO NOW? No other question is relevant, no other question is meaningful, no other question has any importance to your soul.”

What would love do now?

When I respond to that question to create my highest good, I emit a ripple of goodness that effects the world around me. When I am the best me I can be, when my choices are predicated upon celebrating the best in me, I create the best for me and around me.

When I respond to any situation from a place of selfishness, of worrying about 'what's in it for me', 'how can I protect myself from getting hurt', 'how do I not lose face, back down, back away without giving in', I am not in love, I am fighting love, investing in fear. In my fear, I fight to control the world around me as if I am separate. I am the only one.

I am the only one that matters to me. The only one I can change, live up to, share -- it is my responsibility, and the purpose of my journey, to choose for my highest good in all things. In my choices, I create the highest good around me.

So often in my life I move through each moment thinking of myself as separate from the world around me. I act as if I am a drop of water stopped up inside a bottle cast upon the seas. I maneuver my way through the seas of life, trying desperately to direct its ebb and flow washing over and under and around me. In my misguided belief I am separate, you are separate, we are not connected, I convince myself I am safe within my bottle. That that is the way life flows into freedom.

Truth is, love is all around me. When I remove the cork. I wash out into the sea. The sea washes in to embrace me. I become one with the sea and the sea becomes one with me. As one, what happens to me, happens to others. What I create. Others feel. Let my creation be for the highest good in me.

We are all One.

In love.

The question is: Are you a drop of water or are you part of the great sea of life swimming in love?

Love conquers all

Fill what's empty, empty what's full, and scratch where it itches. (on the secret to a long and happy life.) Wallis Warfield Simpson, Duchess of Windsor

I don't know who makes these days official, but June 3 is, "Love Conquers All" Day -- at least according to an email I received this morning with the above quote. And if it's on the Internet, it must be true, right?

I've often wondered about the idea that 'love conquers all'. Is it true? Just because you say it, does it make it real?

Truth is -- love conquers all.

It is we as human beings doing what we do that complicate it.

A girlfriend mentioned that to me last night when we met for a glass of wine. "Don't complicate things," she told me. "Ask yourself -- What do I want? What am I willing to do to have it? What am I not willing to do? Focus on you. No one else."

And thus, love conquers all.

When I am 'in love', all things are possible. In love, I move with ease and grace through my day.

When I am 'in angst' or 'in fear', all things are possible too -- just not necessarily with the ease and grace of my in love state and not necessarily with an outcome I want to explore.

Therein lies the conundrum. All things are possible. I determine the state of their unfolding in my life. I cannot control their unfolding. Only how I respond to their appearance in my life.

If life is viewed as a continuum, and love is the foundation of everything I do, as I move away from the centrepoint, I become out of balance, walking a delicate line where each footstep must be carefully measured to not tip the scales in one direction or the other.

In the centre, balanced on the solid foundation of love being all that I am and all that there is around me, I do not worry about tipping the scales. I focus on breathing deeply into the moment, feeling the air around me moving against my skin as I move with grace and ease through the moment.

In life, there are events that will trip me up, tip me over, tie me down. In life, love keeps me from falling into the trap of believing, the trip ups, tip overs and tie downs are what matter.

What matters is -- Am I being all I want to be in the moment? Am I creating opportunities for more of what I want to grow in my life?

As I lay in bed this morning, thinking about trigger points and all the stuff going on in my life, I realized that I was feeling overwhelmed by the enormity of some of the tasks at hand. Last night, as C.C. and I were walking with Ellie I commented that some days, the sheer number of wounded people I witness walking through our building, is overwhelming.

I work in a world where lives are continually out of balance, off kilter. I witness people doing things that hurt them. That abuse them. That destroy them.

And I cannot stop them. (Just writing that phrase causes tears to push up against my eyelids. I want to stop them. I know I can't.)

I can only bring my best to bear and hold a space for them to find themselves, where ever they're at. Sometimes, all I can do is hold out a plate of food in the hope that it will nourish their bodies and their souls.

In love, all things are possible.

I have fallen out of love with serving others. At least, from the perspective of doing it without wanting to control the outcome, change their lives.

I am powerless to change someone else's life. Powerless to force them to wake up, to get up, to get going in some other direction.

I have fallen into the trap of believing what I do is futile. That people will continue to destroy themselves -- and nothing I do will change that.

Truth is, people will continue to do things that will destroy them. I can't change what they do. I can change how I struggle with that truth.

I can let go. Surrender and fall in love.

I can move back to the centrepoint of my continuum. Balanced in love, knowing that whatever I'm doing, when I focus on creating more of what I want in my life -- love -- I let go of having to make other lives fit my creation. When I let go of being attached to the outcome, I turn up in love and trust that all will unfold as it's meant to be. My job is to experience the moment -- whereever I'm at. However I'm at in it.

Love conquers all. It's me trying to conquer the world that creates the problem.

The question is: What do you want? Are you willing to surrender and fall in love with where ever you're at to have all that you want in life?

Curing back on myself

Never allow someone to be your priority while allowing yourself to be their option. Unknown

Mark sent me that quote yesterday. It resonates.

So does my friend C.Ss comment to me: Do you ask so many questions because you're scared you're missing something? Some vital piece of information that will make it all make sense?

It goes right up there with Thelma Box's observation: I experience you as a woman who will never find an answer good enough for her.

Questions and answers. Always more questions than I can find answers for. Always more questions waiting to be answered.

But do I wait for the answer? Do I even want the answer?

Or, am I looking for questions to keep me from accepting what I know and feel and experience today?

Good question.

And the circle goes on turning.

This morning, the pain in my thumb has abated. I spoke with my sister yesterday and her sigh over the phone was filled with sadness. "Oh dear. Sounds like arthritis. It happens to me a lot."

Oh dear. She's probably right.

I know there are homeopathic remedies to curb the flow of arthritis. I must dig them out and put them to good use. My good health is my responsibility. Osteo-arthritis is a hereditary disease. It flows in my mother's body with the sharp edges of brittle ice cracking within a glacial crevasse.

What to do with my aching heart? Has emotional arthritis curbed its ability to beat freely? Has emotional arthritis inhibited my ability to breathe?

I breathe.

I see myself standing waiting for an answer. No one can give me my answers. They already exist within me. It's up to me to open up to my own truth -- not look for it in someone else.

The gift I see in C.C. is the mirror of my own fear. His hesitation, withdrawal, ebbing forward and back mirrors my own tentative stance.

I distrust love. I distrust my ability to be safe in love.

Those are my fears. Not his.

In my effort to assuage my fear, I give him lots of opportunity to feel incompetent in love. With my constant questioning of 'why do you do that?', "what is going on?', I limit the opportunity for love to 'go on'. I limit my opportunity to simply be together, 'in love'.

My stuff. My shtick.

Questions and answers.

A lot of questions.

Time to start feeling, living, breathing my answers.

I love.

I am love.

Love is.

A circular journey back into the centre of my being all that is, love.

Curving back on myself I create again and again. Bhagavad Gita

I release my fear and curve back into myself become the exclamation of all that I love. I create that which I want most in life. Love.

The question is: Are you hiding behind the questions avoiding living what you know? Are you willing to uncurl the question mark and become the exclamatory statement of your life lived in love?

When you can do nothing.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. Dale Carnegie

I am always amazed at how one little part of my body can affect the whole. The part that is causing distress is -- my thumb. Hmmm.... perhaps I shouldn't have written about giving up my opposing thumb! Because, it is not happy!

I didn't type this weekend. Had to give my thumb a rest. While only a minor player in the typing game, minor or not, any movement was difficult and any movement of my hand affected the thumb and any movement of the thumb affected the whole and around and around we go.

Like life. Everything is connected to everything. How I do one thing is how I do all things. Who I am in one thing is who I am in all things -- even when I don't want to be, I am being me being me in all things. And sometimes, I am not my best.

Which must be why I am struggling with staying true to who I am, who I want to be in my relationship with C.C. As with all things, nothing stays the same. Every day changes. C.C. mentioned he is struggling with relationship. I become angst ridden.

Relationship for me can be tough. I scurry behind my fears. Barricade myself behind my angst of what if's whenever I feel myself slipping out of control. What if the past is the present. What if there is no straight line to success?

I am not a very patient person. I always want to fix it fast. Fix it now. Let's get going.

Sometimes, doing nothing is the best recourse.

As the Zen Koan asks, "When you can do nothing, what can you do?"

I can get out of fear and leap into courage to be who I am in the moment. I can BE committed to DO what it takes to HAVE what I want in my life.

For me, that doesn't mean, 'having C.C.'. It means living the truth of our relationship where truth and honesty, dignity and respect are the foundation of love.

In my angst of wanting to control what's happening, I barricade myself behind the wall of fear I create when I cannot control the outcome of a situation. Attached to the outcome, I do not see the beauty of a human spirit unfolding and trusting me with their truth. Instead, I see and hear and feel and sense my own fear rising -- my fear that the truth is, I am not good enough. I am not cherished. I am not worthy. I am undeserving.

To love someone means to accept them exactly where they're at. To love someone else, must I first love myself? Or, in loving someone else, do I learn to love myself?

In love, as in life, there are no concrete answers. No definites. The reality is, every day is a gift. It is up to me to treat the present of time with loving care. To love another, I must be true to who I am. Bring the best of me into the relationship. When I am my best, the best is all I can give.

Like my thumb, one small comment has affected the whole. One comment has shifted my perspective away from seeing the beauty of truth unfolding into seeing only my fear of being less than, unworthy and unlovable. Rather than look for the value in where we're at, I'm searching for the negative value in whatever is before my eyes. I am closing myself off from love and locking myself into fear.

Fear is the opportunity to be courageous.

And I am a fearless woman.

And a fearless woman in this situation would say, "I hear you. I see you. I know you. I love you. Thank you for sharing your truth. My truth is, I am committed to being the best me I can be, to bringing the best of me forward, to looking for the best in you. I want the best for me. I want the best for you."

Time to grow up into my fearless woman and be all I'm meant to be -- even with an opposing thumb causing me angst!

The question is: Are you hiding behind a wall of fear, fearful of letting your light shine upon the truth of who you are? Are you holding back the best of you for fear you will not be enough?