Meditation Mantra

 I will hold myself open.

Where I am closed, I am false.

When I am open, I can lead in love.

Vacillations

I am swinging from an almost euphoric feeling of well-being and rightness and gratitude to overwhelm and exhaustion and resentment at all that there is to do - ALWAYS - so much to do that never ends. But of course it doesn't. So why be mad at what IS and not change how I react to what is? That is, I realize, what I can actually control.

And sometimes, I can. And I breathe. And I settle my shoulders. And I let a smile creep back onto my face. And I let myself feel the well being that is here for me when I settle myself long enough to hear it. 

And then I blink and move and check off another task. And feel good for a moment until I remember that there's another one. And another one. And then the cycle starts again.

Is this middle life? Trying to be okay with who you are, your failings, your shortcomings, what you will never get better at? 

Brene Brown says so. (And here let me pause to say how much I want a guru, a teacher, a wise one whose lap I can crawl into and ask for a story - one with a moral that will help me make my next choice and make it a good one.)

And generally, I do like myself, when I see myself more holistically and less through judgment, which tends to only be slivers and facets, shadows and fractions of me. Me in moments and not me over the course of multiple rooms, multiple days, multiple contexts. 

I wish I were more calm. More generous. I feel sometimes that my homebody hunkering down means I don't have much to share with others. Maybe I should find more ways to be there for people I love. To be open to connection. That feels hard. I'm reminded of the image of Ernie hammering planks from the pirate ship to the shore. How tenuous that felt. The miracle of leverage that held until his friend was safe. I'm not sure I trust that for myself. 

And I don't know what I am becoming. I forget that there is no arriving. That where I am, I cannot stay, even if I do learn to love myself and where I am. 

I had a dream the other night of a long-lost love. In the dream, I had another chance to fall into his arms, into the black hole that was our connection and our love. I felt myself want to trap him, keep him, fall into us and lose myself. Awake, I think it felt easier than walking my own path. Continually looking for and finding and then looking for myself. 

My search for poets I can love and poems I can learn from feels like that, too. Like I'm looking for a shortcut, an easier way to wisdom. Like I'm running from my voice, because what if I don't like what I have to say? Or what if I have nothing to say? 

Intentions (not plans) for January

 What are my intentions for myself in 2022?

Intention = to stretch toward

• To feel connected to the church as it stretches
• To seek out opportunities to feel playful
• To feel strong and healthy
• To be mindful around food, particularly sweets
• To find rest in ways that are not mostly about numbing

How do you want to show up in 2022?

(What kind of person do you want to be?)

God of Janus - beginnings and endings. Doorways. 

• Compassionate
• Mindful
• Open / present
• Flexible
• Generous
• Curious
• Playful

White Privilege - Editorial by Kyle Korver of the Utah Jazz basketball team

 April 2019

Poem - In Winter - Michael Ryan

At four o’clock it’s dark.
Today, looking out through dusk
at three gray women in stretch slacks
chatting in front of the post office,
their steps left and right and back
like some quick folk dance of kindness,
I remembered the winter we spent
crying in each other’s laps.
What could you be thinking at this moment?
How lovely and strange the gangly spines
of trees against a thickening sky
as you drive from the library
humming off-key? Or are you smiling
at an idea met in a book
the way you smiled with your whole body
the first night we talked?
I was so sure my love of you was perfect,
and the light today
reminded me of the winter you drove home
each day in the dark at four o’clock
and would come into my study to kiss me
despite mistake after mistake after mistake.

Quote - from a poem by Jane Kenyon

"If it's darkness
we're having, let it be extravagant."

from "Taking Down the Tree"

Poem - Your Luck Is About To Change - Susan Elizabeth Howe

(A fortune cookie)

Ominous inscrutable Chinese news
to get just before Christmas,
considering my reasonable health,
marriage spicy as moo-goo-gai-pan,
career running like a not-too-old Chevrolet.
Not bad, considering what can go wrong:
the bony finger of Uncle Sam
might point out my husband,
my own national guard,
and set him in Afghanistan;
my boss could take a personal interest;
the pain in my left knee could spread to my right.
Still, as the old year tips into the new,
I insist on the infant hope, gooing and kicking
his legs in the air. I won't give in
to the dark, the sub-zero weather, the fog,
or even the neighbors' Nativity.
Their four-year-old has arranged
his whole legion of dinosaurs
so they, too, worship the child,
joining the cow and sheep. Or else,
ultimate mortals, they've come to eat
ox and camel, Mary and Joseph,
then savor the newborn babe.

Poem - Lines for Winter - Mark Strand

for Ros Krauss

Tell yourself
as it gets cold and gray falls from the air
that you will go on
walking, hearing
the same tune no matter where
you find yourself—
inside the dome of dark
or under the cracking white
of the moon's gaze in a valley of snow.
Tonight as it gets cold
tell yourself
what you know which is nothing
but the tune your bones play
as you keep going. And you will be able
for once to lie down under the small fire
of winter stars.
And if it happens that you cannot
go on or turn back
and you find yourself
where you will be at the end,
tell yourself
in that final flowing of cold through your limbs
that you love what you are.

Video: Reading by Mary Louise-Parker

Read the day after Christmas while listening to "May I Suggest" - a song with words and music by Susan Werner

"May I suggest that this is the best part of your life."

Sermon on joy - Rev. Katie Templin Culbert

 

12/12/20021

Be with yourself in your feelings. Empathy for yourself. Mindful feeling. Experience the moment. Be here with now. If we are here. Being awake to the present is a conduit for joy. Cultivate and express joy.

Sympathetic joy. Delight in others' joy. 

Elephant and 3 men. Not wrong. Perspective is right. But incomplete. 

Thinking of Ross Gay's quote...

Rini Death Self paintings

The more perspectives we have, the more it all makes sense - the wide view. Interdependence. Not despair and independence

Vimeo video

Opening to joy...

 Sermon by the Rev. Angela Herrera on 12/5/2021

• The man and the tigers and the strawberries
• The study in 2020 of happiness among different ages
• Woman seeing Jupiter

Vimeo video

Me: 

• Joe vs. Volcano: "some things take care of themselves. They're not your job; maybe they're not even your business."
• Kristen in college, after taking anti-depressants, noticing the breeze for the first time, de-centering herself and her pain, able to experience the world, open for the first time to joy
• Me in college, feeling depressed and suicidal but noticing the sunset one evening and realizing my feelings are beside the point. My job is to be here to witness and worship the world. 
• Alice Walker, pisses god off when you walk by the color purple and don't notice.
• Mary Oliver quote - standing still, noticing the world, and being astonished.

Tocaya = name twin

“Eres mi tocayo“

 Michaela/Mikayla/Michayla/Mikaela/Mikayla

Michelle

The space between what happens and you respond

Brene Brown Dare to Lead podcast with Dr. Susan David on the Danger of Toxic Positivity, Part 2

Between what's happened and my response is a space. Emotions rush in to fill the gap, but you can stay present, use your emotions as a signpost for your values, and choose how you show up here in your values.

How do I want to show up here in my values?

“The Stubborn Gifts of Breath and Life” by the Rev. Maureen Killoran

"You must praise the mutilated world...."
—Adam Zagajewski, trans. Clare Cavanagh

    It felt like being on the moon, walking on Mount St. Helens. Just a few years previous, that mountain had blown her top, destroying human and animal life, flattening vegetation and buildings for miles, and sharing its ash with the world. As we stepped from our car, we felt that ash drift like talcum around our ankles, rise in the air, enter with our breath. Other than occasional blacked memories of trees, all was grey, grey as far you could see.
    Silence seized us for the longest time as we stood there, two irrelevant humans and this huge, mutilated world. Only gradually did our eyes slow and our hearts focus. Only gradually did we begin to see what was really before us.
    How had we overlooked the fireweed, that perennial volunteer, its brilliant buds proclaiming, “Hey, world, we’re back!” What blocked us from celebrating the eager insect conversations around us? It was right there before us, and we nearly walked away. Overwhelmed by the devastation, we almost missed the tiny pond, its surface literally dancing with more tadpoles than I had ever seen.
    We do this, you see – we ensnare ourselves with the magnitude of what the poet called the mutilated world. We get busy, and troubled, and frightened, and then, incongruously, it’s time for Thanksgiving. I, at least, need this season to remind myself to be grateful for intermittent beauty and the stubborn gifts of breath and life. I—maybe you too? —need this season, even if just quietly to say, “praise be.”

Indecision

 What am I good at? What do I want to do? What don't I want to do?

I'm at the juncture where I could do multiple things, but in some ways, the possibilities start to narrow as you get more years of experience doing something. 

I'm nervous about being used, being manipulated, being taken advantage of. And for all those things, I think I can be saavy and ultimately can be ready to walk away. 

I'm nervous about being the last man standing on a crumbling hill. But there's also the possibility to build something good, if I can fill in the holes that -- admittedly -- are yawning chasms right now.

But I believe in this work. And I love it. And I'm well suited to it. And I'm the heart and soul of it, and if I walk away, it most assuredly WILL crumble, even if rebuilt with a different vision -- maybe better -- later.

The politics is ugly and getting worse. But my team is getting better. I'm getting better. And it's an endlessly interesting puzzle. 

And did I mention that my work and my heart and soul have fused? For better and worse. 

So when do you walk away? And into what? And is it just my fear of what I don't know and haven't experienced that is overpowering my instinct that I'm being misused? Perhaps.

Or maybe there's nothing better that suits me. 

This space is so uncomfortable, full of fear and uncertainty and mistrust of myself. It's hard to see myself right now. I don't feel grounded, and I don't trust anything I know. Everything I think I'm good at doesn't seem to serve me fully when I need it most. But isn't that always true? Some challenges are bigger than your skills. 

And talk about first world problems! Wah, I got offered the promotion I wanted, but not quite in the way I wanted. And maybe my work situation isn't exactly what I want it to be! Poor me! I've gotten lots of good validation from people around me who I do respect and trust when I made the decision to walk away. Will they respect me less when I stay?

Or ... I Keep Trying

 Just when you think you're out... they pull you back in.

They offered me the promotion I wanted and assured me I had support. Maybe I do, maybe I don't. But in the meantime, I get paid what I'm worth and have a chance to continue building what I was trying to build. 

And if I stay for 3 more years, that's the next step in the retirement plan, which would be fantastic. 

I'm excited to try to staff up and shape what we do and how we do it, carve out a place of support in a bigger bureaucracy that can be toxic and political. But also leaves freedom to fill voids left when people get busy and focus mostly on appearances.

Changes

 After 10 years, I decided tonight to change jobs. 

What I do is a big part - perhaps too big a part - of who I am. So this change is monumental. And I'm sad and angry and grieving. But it's also like getting out of a bad relationship. You can't want it more than you're wanted. Your love does not make up for them not loving you. 

And I will miss my team. And the plans I tried to put in place. I can't quite see how any of it will come to fruition now. Not that I'm all important. Just that I was the last strand of glue holding it all together. And now that I can see that I cannot keep holding on, I see how futile my holding on was. One person is not a system, much less a system that's workable, effective, or sustainable. 

There will be other big efforts and things to build and grow and nurture and contribute to. 

And I'm excited to have a partner at work again. The new job - if it pans out like it's shaping up to look - will still be a little bit of everything I love. The difference will be that I'm valued. And not asked to do it all with no tools or resources or leadership or backing. 

And part of me is wanting it all to crumble when I leave so that maybe they'll see and regret how they treated me. But that's not going to happen, since none of what I built was what they wanted. 

I feel the worst about leaving good people behind without cover or leadership or a plan. They'll be put to work, doing something, and I hope it's what they like doing or that they find other things. Everyone is hiring right now. It's bonkers. So many good jobs out there. 

And to the public who thought I only wanted the worst? Good luck with the next one in my shoes. I hope you go more gently on them. 

My hope is that I can take time between now and Christmas to just be home, focus on myself, exercise and listen to Brene Brown and do an inventory of what I want, what I'm good at, what I'd like to work on, what I need. And next. And enjoy my family. And rest. And grieve. And nurture a new seed of hope to plant in my next opportunity. May I grow stronger roots and broader branches. May I catch more sunlight and breathe more deeply. 

Leadership

I've been consuming Brene Brown podcasts, my new favorite source for soul searching epiphanies, but also just daily life hacks about how to be a better person, live my story, set boundaries, and lead others by showing up in the ways that reinforce the culture of vulnerability, trust, and accountability. 

In the past few days, I've listened to the Dare to Lead interviews with Jim Collins, Charles Duhigg, and Doug Conant. They all talk about habits as the discipline to live your values every day and hold yourself accountable. Jim Collins seems to go overboard with this by tracking his time into 3 buckets -- creativity/curiosity/learning, teaching, and other things that need to get done -- and setting the goal to spend 1,000 hours in each rolling 365 day period on creativity/curiosity/learning. Charles Duhigg says that habits = discipline and commitment but also that they are a short-cut to flow. Our brains rely on heuristics to be able to focus on what's novel and important. The more we can develop practices around what's meaningful, the easier it is to access deeper thinking and focus. I feel that's true, even if I'm not sure I've experienced that much, at least recently. 

It's been true of writing for me. I know the times in my life when I was writing more every day, I wrote better more easily and wrote better -- deeper thoughts, easier process. It's the difference between when you're learning a new sport and have to think about every move versus when you're good enough that you stop thinking about HOW to play and just play. Much more enjoyable, easier, and definitely more successful.  

One thing that has bothered me about these conversations is that race has only glancingly been mentioned. I feel like race is a big part of the conversation when people of color are being interviewed, but when white people are interviewed -- even when concepts seem so ripe and like such opportunities for applying them to racial equity moments -- Brene doesn't go there. I'm not sure if she just isn't seeing it, thinking about it, or ... It feels colorblind racist to me. Like she's primed to think about race with POC, but clearly white people are just talking to everyone, and it's universally applicable! Frustrating. I think it would be fun for Brene to have a Leslie Jones version of the podcast, where she can just Mystery Science Theater 3000 the conversation and translate everything they're saying from a race lens. 

Charles Duhigg went there a little, and seemed to say that he can see his white privilege because he grew up in Albuquerque's South Valley (!) and that his wish is that everyone can experience that same sense of limitless potential. Hmmm. Little cringy. I wonder how that would land for POC listeners. 

Doug Conant talked about firing 300 of the top 350 leaders at Campbell Soup when he took over as CEO, and Brene didn't press him on why that was needed. They couldn't be trained? And now this guy is a leadership trainer? And it never came up that maybe there was a missed opportunity there? Or at least .. some irony given what he does (for free) now?

I wish Brene would debrief the conversations a little, like Dax Shepherd and Monica Padman do on Armchair Expert. I feel like she might see some of these holes / opportunities when she has a bit more distance, and I'd love to hear what she THINKS after and about these interviews. Maybe with her sister Barrett and Tarana Burke? YES.

All the ones I've listened to lately have definitely been really good back-and-forth conversations, and they've inspired me to think about who I want to be as a leader, how I want to show up, how I spend my days compared to what I say I value.

"Everybody's written on habits. Well, that's part of the process. Life is not epiphany-driven. We're all looking for the epiphany... 'I just need an epiphany a big idea, and I'm going to break through.' Life is a grind, and we've got to find a way to thrive in the grind of it all. It's all about progressive improvement, continuous improvement, doing a little better today than we did yesterday with a little more intentionality. And I have found that you can actually build your leadership muscle and get unstuck in small ways over time in a way that can be immediately more fulfilling." - Doug Conant

I don't really know how I show up as a leader. My team only seems barely functioning, and my senior leaders left, so ... maybe not good. But I think one of my strengths is mentoring people to keep developing in their careers, which means, people outgrow their positions and look for bigger opportunities elsewhere.

I don't feel I have the power to protect my folks or shield them from the unrelenting pressures and political monkeying that has us jerked around and buried under too many urgent have-tos. Maybe that's more of why people leave. 

Do I spend my time on what I value? Days ago I was questioning my weekly check-ins with each of my direct reports. It's 30 minutes weekly that's in my calendar in case they want/need my time, and it's up to them whether we meet or skip it so they can "keep rolling." More often than not, we meet. And sometimes it's for an hour. We talk about tasks, I have time to give more context or answer questions, and often we focus on professional development goals and opportunities. But it does mean that 1/2 my day every week is given over to others' priorities. But it's an investment in my people, and I do value that! Maybe I should ask everyone.

And this promotion! The not knowing is so hard. I feel like I'm interviewing every day. And how to do you say no to things or admit you're over your head and drowning when they're deciding whether to give you more responsibilities???

Impossible situation. 

And part of me is DARING them to not promote me. See how fast I'm out the door and let all these plates fall. And maybe that would be a good thing. Maybe even the best thing. Let someone else take ownership. Maybe they will have solutions that I can't see and wouldn't be open to even if I did. That's hard. Because I still feel like I'm the best at what I do. 

But what should I be better at?

 

Facesoul - Grow (song)

 Haunting...

Fear - quote

 Boots Cooper (as told by Molly Ivans): 

"There are some things that will scare you so bad, you'll hurt yourself."

The Rev. Angela Herrera asks us: 

"What might be possible if fear wasn't in the driver's seat?"

Poem - Sweeping Up Dust - Philip Hughes-Luing

Everything becomes dust eventually
blows away, even our own, constantly
adrift, traveling over continents
rendering sunsets with colors to inspire
others to feel awe, others who
may or may not talk about us, much
if at all, but who will watch sunset
will feel our fading fire, and connect