Category: growth

commitment · community · growth

Bird by Bird

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I’ve registered for a homeownership course given by the city, the one required for anyone applying to “below market rate” housing.  I also went to the open house for that 1-bedroom condo on Lake Street yesterday … and it needs a lot of work.  But!  Just one foot before the other.  “This or something better,” is how I’ve heard it put.

As my now-partner becomes my then-partner, my rent bill will increase to previously-held levels come April 1, but luckily I haven’t changed much in my expenses.  It was certainly nice to put more into retirement, savings, and self-care categories, but as I plot April’s budget, it’s only made me realize that said previously-held levels don’t have a lot of breathing room.  It continues to highlight that an increase in income will be necessary at some point soon.

Last Sunday, I finished the 6-month “Goals Group” I was participating in weekly with 2 ladies, and we’ll be restarting another round of it in a few weeks with slightly different faces (or voices, since it’s a phone call!).  One of the ladies in the last group began working on a book at the start of the call, and by April 1 will have her book completed, ready for Amazon!

As I begin to prep for the next Goals Group, what goal am I looking to accomplish?  Where do I need structure and support and accountability?  What does my life want of me next?  And how much more breathing room can I attract into it?

 

growth · nature · patience

Sometimes Asparagus.

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3.20.18

A few years ago, I read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle about her year-long “experiment” to eat locally for one year.  In it, I learned about braiding garlic and how clumsy turkeys mate.  I also learned that asparagus have quite a unique manner of growing: they display no sign of change, growth, renewal whatsoever for weeks and then you walk outside one morning, and the whole field has sprouted with bright green spires.

The metaphor of the asparagus is pretty strong: while the field may look fallow, you can bet that there is a host of action happening beyond your vision, and one day, all that change will pop forth fully grown as Athena.

Sometimes, I feel like a “typical” plant, growing slowly but visibly with every passing day.  I can notice the changes in my wardrobe, that I’ve begun doing my dishes more regularly(!), or that the books I’m reading have a particular theme to them.

But, sometimes, I pray to be asparagus.

Because then, at least, an absence of obvious growth doesn’t feel disheartening or soddening.  Sometimes the work I put in has no clear result, whether on finance or romance, the line of a song or the filming of a vlog.  Sometimes, it’s just plain work… and sometimes I don’t wanna.

So I have to remember that I, or my projects, may simply be asparagus, working miracles I cannot yet glimpse.  I need to have faith that Nature works its own time-frame, its own intelligence, and that one day, the field will blossom gloriously.  As will the next, and the next.

Happy Spring, Everyone!

 

growth · self-flagellation · self-love

Back! Back, I say!

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3.8.18

During my weekly Goals Group call this past Sunday, we arrived at the portion of the call when we report on our accomplishments from the past week, including how we did on our “Weekly Action Items” that we stated from the previous Sunday.

This Sunday, I looked at the 5 items listed and reported:

1) go to a gallery or museum — well, no, I didn’t do that.

2) research vlog best practices — well, sort of; I looked at one lady’s “how to”

3) post a vlog — YES! I did it!!

4) grade all my students’ essays while at work — nope. I did maybe 3.

5) 10-minutes a day on my weekly goals writing — nope.  I wrote for a half-hour-ish right before this call.

After I reported out, one of my goals buddies asked, “Can I give you some feedback?” Yes, please, I replied breathlessly. “With my daily action buddy, when I don’t do something I’ve said I’d do, I just move it onto the next day’s list.  I don’t have to judge or excuse or feel badly about it.  I just move it forward, and eventually it gets done.”

Hmmm.  So I don’t have to beat myself into submission in order to achieve the results I want to achieve?  While not a novel thought, it feels novel every time someone suggests it!

There is a dictum I’ve heard: Growth can come as much from Joy as from Pain.

And wouldn’t we all rather grow from joy?! Or at least, need a little less pain to move us forward?

I don’t want to keep putting “grade papers” or “write in advance of the call” or “raise heartrate 20 minutes” every single week.  I don’t.  But I’m also at a place in which I cannot do it much differently.  And I certainly won’t do it better or differently if it’s wrought from repeated self-flagellation — at least, not sustainably or abundantly or lovingly.

It’s an alien prospect sometimes to love ourselves into the future, yet alien though it may be, it is the only true path forward.

growth · love · TEACHING

The Elevensies Club

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I love the misfits.  The oddball, unusual students who have the wry or wacky sense of humor, who know they somehow don’t fit into the “normal” mold of middle schooler.

But, too, I love the jock who writes privately in his school journal about feeling like his only pride comes from the scoreboard.  Or the soccer god who crafts a sinuous narrative with achingly emotional depth.

I am sweeping these hidden gems into my fold, and I am high on their burgeoning view of themselves.

There are currently two students, one in 8th grade, one in 6th, who fit this jock/closeted writer profile.  The older one has the reputation for being the out-of-bounds kid, the one always in trouble, the one we’re just hoping to get through.  He’s not stupid, but some of his decisions and actions paint him as a caustic child/teenager who heeds none of our words.

So, when I discovered in his (public to me) journal that he related to one of our book characters whose “Life Raft” was cartooning because he felt his only life raft was basketball, I began to see another side of, and some light for, this child.

I began to take more notice of what he was writing.  And so, he’s begun to share it more — with me, though not with his peers.  He is the secret softie, and I am glad to keep his secret from his classmates.

But when yesterday the students were sharing out a narrative from their journal prompt, and he volunteered, we listened, and I responded, “I know you’re working on your craft right now, and this really shows your skill at world-building,” I saw his quiet, hidden pride shine.  I witnessed his, Shh don’t tell them, but oh jeez, thank you for seeing me.  Then his eyes darted back down to his twiddling pencil, his posture slumping into detachment (feigned or otherwise) once again.

That I get to foster and fan the flames of this child’s ownership of his voice is price beyond rubies.  I’m not blowing hot air, puffing up his pride with false words of praise; truly, he shows the seeds of talent and I am continuously surprised by the depth of his thoughts — as I’d painted him the lost cause, too.

So now we both get to see this something special that he’s developing.  We both get to see that he is more than his scoreboard.

Surely, he dons his role as a clown, a rebel, a juvenile delinquent as well-worn shoes, but offering him this other pair, this one pair of shoes that says, You have worth inside you…

He may never decide to own that he’s emotionally and creatively intelligent.  He may move on through his high school and adult years as solely the jock, the tough guy.  I can’t know.

But I do know that he’ll have the option to remember that his English teacher once praised his writing and held open a door he’d not known existed.

growth · scarcity · truth

I’m a teacher, so…

Molly Daniels Hayes2 Comments

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I spoke this quasi-sentence on the phone Monday when talking with a potential couples’ therapist.  She and I were getting to the brass tacks portion of the conversation, settling in on the, “How much is this gonna run me” dialogue, and I offered up that half-phrase.

“I’m a teacher, so…”

What implications are in that sentence?!  I am underpaid; I don’t have any money; I cannot afford your full fee; I cannot afford even close to your full fee; I am in a profession in which I will never afford your full fee; I am poorly paid; I am undervalued.

Oh, honestly.

Whose “fault” is this? Well, surely, I could say it’s the “system’s” fault, it’s America’s fault, I could even say it’s the president’s fault.  And while each of those might have grains of truth, there is no honor in blame of others.

To be clear, a) it’s my “fault” I’m a teacher, and b) I’m manipulating the codified undervaluing of our country’s education system to seem poor and weak and un-robust so that I can get a deal on something.

I realized in recounting this later, that this is such an “underbeing” phrase! How can I stand in one breath and tout the munificence of the Universe AND ALSO pervert the archetype of the broke teacher to my benefit?

Maybe you have your own version of the above sentence?  I’ve certainly said iterations of the same: “I work in nonprofits, so…” “I’m a student, so…” “I’m in the arts, so…”

I don’t enjoy realizing that I’ve capitalized upon the pity, or generosity, of my fellows to cajole a few dollars out of them, but I do appreciate learning that my understanding of my profession as an “underearning” one lurks beneath my thoughts, as does the notion that I need to depend upon others’ pity to have what I want in life.

It will be up to me to change the thoughts, or to change my profession (which I don’t wish to happen any time soon), or to increase my income in alternate ways.  In any case, using my “pain” to foster empathy in others is a low (and borrowed) form of power, and I vow to give it up, even a day at a time.

 

 

 

freedom · growth · success

Many drops in the bucket.

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This morning, I completed the 21-day meditation challenge from Oprah and Deepak called, “Manifesting True Success,” and was struck deeply by this line:  Every path to success is a path to freedom.  This brought me pause and led me to write, and emphatically circle: What “freedom” am I seeking from this success?

What freedom am I seeking from becoming a tour pilot over Napa valley vineyards?  Well: competence, adventure, intellectual amplification, joy.

What freedom am I seeking from being a school teacher?  Freedom over my time (during the summers), intellectual & creative amplification, spontaneity.

What freedom from being in partnership? Stability, serenity, emotional growth.  From being a mother?  Joy, continuity, sharing my abundance. …

I can, and likely will, make a chart of each of my “Success –> Freedom” desires, because the magic piece is how to amplify each of these desired successes in my daily life as it is.  If I want to share the abundance of my heart, how can I do that today?  If I want to expand my intellectual engagement, how can I do that today?

How can I inject today with each of the freedoms/successes that I seek?

Every day I open the WordPress site, I must click a button labeled, “Write.”  And each morning I click it, I feel a hearty dollop of joy, competence, and esteem drip into my personal bucket.  I feel accomplishy, even if it’s the only thing I do this day (as it insinuates that I’ve already written Morning Pages and meditated, as I won’t blog without clearing my personal pathways first).

When I cross off “moisturize face and body” on my Habit Calendar, I feel competent, self-loving, and prosperous (as it implies I purchase and replenish my moisturizer).

Every morning I drink my coffee, it implies that I’ve set it up the night before, replenished and ground new beans when it was low, and desire to gift myself a physical pleasure.  Competence, stability, self-love, and prosperity.

In every morning, I can list a host of ways I feel successful before breakfast!  And that’s good, because lately in the afternoon when I continue to sit reading Game of Thrones for 3 hours… I start to feel less esteemable.

So it will be up to me to see if there is a “success” to be gleaned from 3 hours of sedentary imbibing of gore, and to parse out what it is I’m attempting to accomplish if there’s not.

What freedom am I seeking from this success?  And how can I own that freedom today?

curiosity · growth · relationships

Curiouser and Curiouser

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2.12.18 curiouser

Several years ago, I had this exchange with an old boyfriend:

“I know what you’re going to say–” I started.

“In that case we never have to talk,” he wisely interrupted.

Uh hmm… well, I do suppose he’s right.  If I believe that I already know how people will act, talk, behave, and respond, then why bother talking to or engaging with them, anyway?  If I think that all people are is a prescribed set of responses and actions, what on earth is exciting or surprising about them — and, more to the heart, what on earth am I learning?

Yesterday, I listened to the SuperSoul podcast interview between Oprah and Brian Grazer (a Hollywood writer and producer, whose name I’d not known, but whose movies I’ve cherished: Splash, Apollo 13, Parenthood).  He’d just released his book, A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life, and I loved what he had to say in the interview and promptly downloaded the book.  (My most pleasurable way to clean my house is while listening to books — and this one is read by Norbert Leo Butz, one of my favorite Broadway musical actors [yes, with a name like that, I’m sure he had no choice but to become so incredible he couldn’t be laughed at!])

Brian Grazer’s message is apparent in the title, but what struck me was the idea of remaining curious within my own relationship.

At the start of our dating, and for many months after, my current boyfriend repeated the following, partly as a habitual mantra and partly as a badge of honor: “My first answer’s always, ‘No.'”

As a woman who enjoys lots of new experiences, I was frequently given the chance to hear him say his cherished mantra:  No.  I don’t like movies.  I don’t like vacations.  I don’t like parties.  I don’t…

Yet, as soon as we’d complete one of those new activities, he’d almost invariably (if begrudgingly) admit, “I love…!” or, sometimes the pride-preserving, “I guess ___ isn’t so bad.”  Or, maddeningly, “Why didn’t we do this before?!”  *insert eye-roll emoji*

Over our year-plus together, we’ve both noticed an interesting shift in his knee-jerk response from “No” to “Maybe.”  As his girlfriend, this has been exceedingly wonderful to hear.

However, at times, even “maybe” is too foot-dragging, too oppositional, too much effort for me to convince, and I become disheartened, occasionally pessimistic, and sometimes dour about the prospect of trying new things together, moving into new places in our lives together.  And I stop hoping.

Now, while this might be a reasonable reaction to a wall of “no,” the pure truth is that the answer is increasingly, “Sure!”  While I may quietly lament a lack of verve or passion for life, the truth is that he’s increasingly taking action, showing verve, and expressing passion.

What I’ve begun to realize is that my own pessimistic reactions have become static, sedate — and outdated.  J. is not the man I began dating — he is becoming a new version of himself.  Yet I can still react to him as though he is the negative nancy I knew.

I have lost my curiosity.

I have begun to assume what his actions and reactions will be.  I have lost sight of what is happening today by pasting it over with a staid version of yesterday.  I have limited him to a vision of who he was, rather than who he is and is becoming.

How very sad.

So, my action for myself is to now notice who and what is truly in front of me.  Yes, sometimes that is still a nay-sayer, and that can be true, but how about noticing the Yeses, the That was Funs, the We should do that more oftens–

And mostly, the increased Joy.

 

 

growth · love · relationships · wounding

Emotional Cheesecloth

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cheesecloth 8 16 17

I’ve been thinking about the savior role.  About my shoving an apple into the mouths of others, nearly before they’re open because I have all the answers anyway.  How I manicly (and maniacally) attend to your needs, taking me from attending to mine.

But, there’s something else I need to learn:  how to sit with others’ suffering.

When we’re born, we’re like a house without a gate.  We throw the doors wide and absorb everything life offers.  As we grow, we begin to realize that, “Hey, wait, not all this stuff is good stuff.”  Suddenly, in our emotional house there form mountains of other people’s shit — stuff that’s overflowing or untenable in their own homes being shoved into ours.

Some of the stuff that comes in is indescribably good.  Generosity, color, laughter, awe.

But, with our doors wide open to all comers, we can begin to feel overwhelmed, maybe even resentful: There’s a storage facility down the street, lady.

And so, we begin to put up fences.  Maybe walls, maybe even security guards, or those boiling-oil pouring soldiers who cry, Keep the Fuck Out.

Because stuff is thrown at us so quickly, there becomes little time to discern its value.  (Even the city dump makes you weigh and measure your crap before they take it in.)  And perhaps your doors have been so widely open, you’ve become a drowner in a sea of rot, so that you say to yourself, you know what, I don’t want any of it.

Sometimes, though, you have a chink in that wall somewhere, and people or ideas or experiences sneak in.  Sometimes, they’re so marvelous, you are dumbstruck by how desolate and isolated your house is and how abundant and gorgeous Life is.  And so you invite that person in.  You fall in what you call love, and you have found salvation in that person who is not going to give you any more shit and may even help you clear out some of yours.

But.  People are complex.  And when, as is laughably inevitable, the cycle of realization turns from “Salvation!” to “Oh, crap, you’re Human,” that crash can lead a person to kick their loved one out.  Out, out, out.  You’re complex!!  I have no room for that.  No time for that!  Too much, too human.  Out.

It is not my “picker” that is broken; it is my emotional resilience.  The fortitude to sit with another’s humanity without absorbing and storing all their crap and without kicking it all so far to the curb their new address is China.

I am not good at this yet.  I am not good at not shoving apples into people’s mouths, allowing them to have feelings without my neeeeding to “solve” them.  I am not good at remembering people aren’t projects.

I also have very little experience simply sitting with others’ stuff without running away or growing cold.

What I need is reweaving.  My netting had been too wide in youth and I drowned.  My netting is now too narrow and I reject.  There is a human-sized webbing which allows for inflow and outflow, which allows me to speak up when you really are putting things in my house that shouldn’t be but also lets me sit with your things that are uncomfortable to me without becoming an ice queen.

I want love, healthy love, but that comes attached to humans.  So I must learn to let you be one.

 

authenticity · community · growth · love · recovery · theater

Spiritual Echolocation

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I am not the best
judge of my progress or my abilities. But, even though I can’t rightly see myself, I’m beginning to notice that I am hearing
it from others.
And this in itself feels like progress: At least I’m hearing
it.
There was a time when I described compliments as one of those
bug zapper lamps people hang on their porch. The bugs merely get within range
of the lamp and they get zapped dead. Same with compliments for me: Anything positive that was said would get deflected before it even got close to
touching me. None of that here, pew! pew!
I’d said that you can’t receive a compliment if there’s no
complementary place within you to receive it. If there’s nowhere it fits
within your own understanding of yourself, then there’s no way that it can be
accepted. There’s no ring of truth, because you don’t believe it yourself.
Time passed, and I’ve become more able to receive positive
feedback about certain things, because I have begun to hone and cultivate the
place within me that is receptive, the place within me that believes you
because I believe it myself.
That said, there’s room for growth.
This week, I’ve had several experiences where I’ve been told
about my progress and abilities, and even though I can’t quite feel this, I’m beginning
to recognize that I believe them, I
believe others are seeing this, even if I’m not myself.
Hence, spiritual echolocation. I can’t see it myself, but I
believe in the feedback I’m receiving – so there must be something to it.
I know that feeding off external validation is not the
way to walk about the world, but what it’s doing for me is giving me hope that
one day I can see it. There is an
existence of a cave wall. Others are telling me so. If that is truth, there is
hope that I will see it, too.
On Friday night, after the first act of our opening night of
To Kill a Mockingbird, the director came
backstage. He was beaming. He was so glad and proud of the work I was doing
on-stage.
I was dubious. But I thought Wednesday’s preview night
went much better; it felt better.
He told me he was the only rightly judge of my performance,
and Friday night, I was better.
Whether I felt it or not.
On Saturday morning, I went for my semi-regular voice
lesson. And at the end of a phrase I’d sung, my teacher applauded and cheered –
he even gave me a high five.
“Did you hear that?” he asked, delighted.
No, I didn’t. I can’t hear myself.
The noise and buffer between what is and what I perceive is
loud and thick.
“We’re going to have to record you more then,” he said. “You
have to get used to hearing yourself.”
This morning, I was on the phone with my mentor, and I
reported these incidents to her, as I begin to parse out these places where I’m
being told one thing, but I’m hearing and sensing another.
She, too, had told me that I’m farther along than I can
feel. And she gave me a metaphor (because we all know I love those!):
She told me I am a tree creating deep, deep roots. A solid
foundation. And you can’t always see that growth above ground, but it’s
happening.
We were talking (again) about my questioning of where and
who I am this lifetime and where I’m going. And she said, some people have
really gorgeous foliage, and weak roots.
We’re doing the work now — early, some might say — that others
come to in mid and later life. Creating a root system, carving out the rot,
cleaning the wounds.
Like a field of asparagus, you don’t see its heroic work
until one morning you turn, and the whole field has sprouted green, fully
formed, like Athena.
I am not used to
hearing or seeing myself clearly. I’m not adequately armed with the ability to
track my own progress. And thank god for other people, then!
But I do feel the promise and the hope of their reflection.
I am beginning to hear what they’re saying instead of zapping it, because I’m beginning to uncover the place within me that believes it myself.
I’m starting to open to a truth that’s been, and is, hard
for me to swallow:
I am worthy. 

abundance · desire · finances · fulfillment · growth · vision · work

a short note, just to let you know I’m not dead.

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the end.
just kidding.
I have to leave to go meet up with some folks at 9am I
haven’t seen in a very long time. I had my dailey method shift yesterday at 530am, so I
didn’t write, and sunday mornings are my check-in with my mentor, and usually
lead to more emotion than can settle enough to show up here – which is good.
so, tuesday, it is!
i just wanted to reflect on something that occurred to me as
I sat in meditation this morning, back into another one of those deepak/oprah
21-day meditation challenges: I am living the schedule I wanted.
sure, it’s not perfect! but I’d wanted my days divided into
thirds: mornings in private work, working on art, or music, or writing;
afternoons working in the community somehow – how I didn’t know; and the
evenings spent in performance.
and here I sit today, my morning spent in meditation, a
little writing. this afternoon, I’ll head over to the synagogue to teach 4th
grade. and this evening, I’ll have rehearsal (well, we’re off tonight, but you
get the point!).
without intending to, I’ve come to the structure of the day
I’ve always wanted or thought i wanted. the one I didn’t think I could achieve until I was 50, and
had more going for me.
but, today, even though it doesn’t look perfect, even though
I am only earning about a third of my needed income through teaching two days a
week… this is what it will feel like. this is what it does feel like:
awesome. fulfilling. purposeful. open. creative. engaged.
important. 
thanks, universe, for this taste of what it will and what it
is like. i was right when i discovered that’s the day i want for myself. now,
help me achieve it sustainably. thanks.