Stuckness

I’ve been a little stuck lately – wanting to step out more fully into the world, fully embodying the Work I am here to do, yet meandering in a place of trying to figure the Work thing out. Business is really good right now, and…

I can see snippets of what that Work is. Although my work with people, mostly women, to help them move toward their vision has found great success already, there’s a place where I have felt somewhat stuck.

Just today, in researching for this post about Margaret Wheatley (who will be speaking in Oakland this Saturday), I came across words she wrote some time ago that seem to directly speak to the place inside of me where a sense of stuckness has been living.

“What if we could offer our work as a gift so lightly, and with so much love, that that’s really the source of fearlessness? We don’t need it to be accepted in any one way. We don’t need it to create any certain outcome. We don’t need it to be any one thing. It is in the way we offer it, that the work transforms us. It is in the way we offer our work as a gift to those we love, to those we care about, to the issues we care about. It is in the way we offer the work that we find fearlessness. Beyond hope and fear, I think, is the possibility of love.”

I usually see insights…meaning, I see images that show me something I’ve not known. In these images that have come to me, I see myself offering this work in love, from a deep place of love that is far beyond me or anything my rational mind could conjure up.

Work as Offering

Perhaps like you, I’ve been taught and conditioned to look for results, to see success in my work as something results-oriented. In our current paradigm, that’s how success is measured. Even streams of thought that teach us that success is not based on dollar figures still hold a sense that success is about a certain outcome.

When I read Margaret’s words, “We don’t need it to be any one thing. It is in the way we offer it, that the work transforms us.”, my mind relaxes. I can feel how its been caught up in ‘understanding’ what the ‘one thing’ is that my work must be.

When I read, “It is in the way we offer our work as a gift…”, “It is in the way we offer the work that we find fearlessness.”, I can see my focus has been on the how, on what I am getting done (or not), rather than on the way I offer it and how I hold the work itself.

I sense the how comes out of the offering, the next step comes when I am let go into the love that is there for “those I love, to those I care about, to the issues I care about…”

A love so vast

In the short video on fearlessness I’ve shared with you below, Margaret shares this quote:

“Fearlessness is not being afraid of who you are.” ~ Chogyam Trungpa

When I heard these words, I saw that being tied to the ‘what’ of my Work keeps me stuck.

When I feel the love I have for those I am here to serve, I feel a letting go happen on its own.

Simply offering what is here without any attachment is having to ‘be with’, really ‘be with’ the vast unknown that is at the heart of this love.

It’s a vastness that is terrifying yet in some strange way reassuring because it is the only thing that never changes. It is that which has always been here, unchanging, yet from which change seems to be born from.

I have a sense that who I really am is a love so vast that it scares the begeebus out of me. I’ve had glimpses of this love and I literally can’t hold the glimpse, can’t stay with it because it is too much contain.

Latent Powers

I have to laugh at these words as they appear on the page. Of course I can’t contain it. The small “I” seems to think it can do this. This small “I” sees it all as impossible, because the small “I” is not the power behind one’s life-task…

“Our proper life-task must necessarily appear impossible to us, for only then can we be certain that all our latent powers will be brought into play.” ~ C. G. Jung, Letters vol. 1, p. 94

I can see that what I sense lies ahead appears impossible, and reading Jung’s words helps me have a sense of why that is. These latent powers within us can come forth when we get out of our own way, in a sense a kind of ‘bowing down’ to the real you that you are, the one you are afraid of. In my experience, it doesn’t have anything to do with the small “I”, or me, that is attached to the outcomes, does want success, or longs to have it be seen or received in a certain way.

That part will always try to control, and it is this control that is creating a sense of stuckness within.

A Call to Fearlessness

I have dined on Margaret Wheatley’s wisdom many times in my life. I first saw her speak in person in 2005 at one of the Thought Leaders Gathering in the Bay Area. Her wisdom, as she shares in this short video, always opens something new in me…

This Saturday, October 22nd, along with the wise and multi-talented Barbara McAffee, Margaret Wheatley will speak to a community of change-agents in a day-long event titled, A Call to Fearlessness: Discovering Your True Leadership Voice to Create Community and Joy.

Hosted by Bay Area Coaches, this is going to be an event to open your heart to doing work in the world in an entirely different way. Even if you don’t live in the Bay Area, you can still attend via simulcast.

And, if you buy one ticket to attend in person, you can purchase a second ticket for a friend at half price – either in person or via simulcast.

Take a moment right now to taste more of Margaret Wheatley’s wisdom in this article on Eight Fearless Questions. I promise, you’ll come away with an entirely new take on what it means to be fearless.

True and Beautiful.

And, have faith in YOU.

Happy Wednesday!

We’re already having stormy weather here in Northern California. The rain pounded so hard against my window last night, I thought it was going to pour through the glass. Very unusual weather for this time.

Making Time for What Matters with Britt Bravo

Today, I have a guest post over at Britt Bravo’s blog, Have Fun, Do Good. I’m really happy to have had the opportunity to write this post on Making Time for What Matters, as part of Britt’s series by the same name. In writing the post, I discovered something really important:

“Writing this post has been an illuminating process. From the outside, it seems like a fairly straightforward idea…how I make time for what matters. But, as I sat with the question of what really matters to me, I realized, over time, that what matters isn’t anything I do, it is who I am being, and how I relate to life when I do whatever it is I do.

Below are qualities of being that bring me peace and a resonance with life as it unfolds.”

Read more:

I’d love to know which qualities of being allow life to unfold with more ease for you.

About Britt:

“I’m a blogger, podcaster, and blog coach for artists, writers, entrepreneurs and do-gooders. I’m also a big vision consultant who loves to help people find and express their calling. When I’m not blogging, I love to cook, collage, write letters, interview big visionaries, and bring groups of people together, online and offline. I offer the Juicy Blogging e-course four times a year. You can learn more my work at www.brittbravo.com, and connect with me on Twitter at @BBravo.”

If you are interested in blogging, or want to get juicier with your blog, check out Britt’s Juicy Blogging e-course.

The Whole Woman

I’m busy preparing to teach the first evening of my new course, The Whole Woman, at The Teahouse Studio in Berkeley tomorrow evening, October 6th. If you live in the Bay Area or know women who do, there’s still time to register and join us.

I’m excited about the course.

• If you’ve been feeling a nudge to look inside, wondering who you are and what you’re here for, this course is for you.
• If you have a challenge in front of you, or a big decision to make, then the tools we’ll be covering will help support you in this time.
• If you know you’re not living your truth, yet don’t know what that truth is, or even how to begin to shift how you’re living, come join us.

Many women are finding themselves being called to let go of who they’ve thought they were, in order to discover the truth of their being. It is time for us all to discover what is real and to live it with love and compassion for ourselves.

You may sense the course is right for you, but may be afraid to dive in – if so, don’t worry, you won’t be alone. We all feel a certain amount of fear about change, especially when we step into it willingly.

Happy Friday!

Today’s the last day of September. It’s hard for me to believe we are three quarters of the way through 2011.

And, on this last day of September, you’ll find me over at Your Courageous Life with Kate Courageous (Swoboda), a woman and friend I am so grateful to know.

Kate interviewed me for her brand new, soon-to-be-released product, The Coaching Blueprint, and today she’s released a short portion of our interview. I’d love for you to stop by her place to check it out. It was a joy to be interviewed by her. In turn, I interviewed her and that interview will be released next week.

The Coaching Blueprint is nothing short of brilliant. For all of you coaches, and other professionals that provide a similar service, The Coaching Blueprint will be your guide to set up your practice the way it needs to be for you…for who you are as a person, as a coach or provider, and as a business owner.

How I wish I’d had The Coaching Blueprint when I was just beginning.

Kate has included interviews with other great coaches, too, such as Tanya Geisler, Jamie Ridler, Dyana Valentine, Michael Bungay Stanier, Pam Slim, Tara Sophia Mohr, Tara Gentile, Jennifer Lee and Michelle Ward. Also, Intuitive Counselor Bridget Pilloud shares how she’s differentiated her practice from Coaching and counselor Steve Bearman talks about the experience of training other people to become Coaches and counselors.

I am an affiliate for The Coaching Blueprint. If you’d like to purchase it through me, there’s an affiliate link to your right. If you’d like to purchase it directly from Kate, you’ll find a link on her site.

Have a beautiful weekend.

Creativity in Work

I’m preparing to co-teach the annual fall class, Creativity and Leadership, at Stanford Continuing Studies. We have a full house, again: 50 students.

Much of this particular course is based on the Stanford Graduate School of Business course, ‘Creativity in Business’. In its day, it was a highly popular course for business students, many of whom went on to create some of the core businesses that were the foundation of what has become Silicon Valley.

In this class we speak of Self and Work, capitalized with intention. Self is a term many are familiar with: who you truly are, your deep Self, Essence, true nature. Many aren’t as familiar to Work, to what it means when we capitalize the ‘W’.

“W” is the work of your life. Some may refer to this as purpose. I like to think of it as that which brings you most alive.

Spiraling Deeper

I’ve been wrestling with this very question, myself.

I spent many years working as a programmer/analyst for a financial institution. While I loved programming, it certainly wasn’t my Work.

After I graduated from school in mid-life, I could see that I did not want to spend more decades doing that work.

So I ventured out to find something else. I became a coach, a teacher of Creativity in Business, and subsequently a writer. I’ve been teaching this material for eight years, now, and I have to admit, even as a teacher, and maybe most especially because I teach this work, I’ve been spiraling down closer and closer to discovering what I love.

Re-discovering what we love (and yes it is re-discovering, since we did know it in our youth) is integral to learning to love oneself. After all, to truly honor what we love, what is at the heart of our soul’s deepest longing, is both honoring of Self, and honoring of the Sacred.

I’ve kept what I love deep down in places where I can’t see it, where it can’t pull at my heart. It is painful to do what you don’t love for over forty hours per week.

I put what I love away a long, long time ago when I was very young and decided that I shouldn’t love it, but instead should love what I saw adults in my life doing. After all, they were the wise ones, right?

Not. So. Fast.

The juicy joy of doing what you love makes you come alive. Deeply alive.

The sheer pleasure of doing what the soul loves emanates love from the soul into the world.

Think about it. When someone spends decades doing work they are ambivalent about, maybe even hate, what kind of effect does that have on them? on the people around them? the world around them? the world at large?

What is the wisdom, here?

Creative Desire

I’ve been writing (for the course I’m teaching this fall in Berkeley, The Whole Woman) about what it would be to ‘work’ from creative desire, pleasure, love and joy, rather than from striving, pushing, and sheer will. Flow doesn’t happen from the latter.

For many of us, just considering our desires and pleasure causes us to cramp, to contract, to tighten up. Yet, when we are in the place of pleasure and joy, there can be a delicious kind of freedom and devotion to beauty, to harmony and love, even to the truth.

My friend, Mandy Blake, shares the following quote on her site, and for me it truly speaks to what a shift from work to Work might mean for us all…

“I feel that the attitude “work is a means to an end, which you have to put up with to get to the fun in life” is pathological.  I think it results in no end of harm.  The philosopher David Hume had a motto which was “work is its own reward.”  If this thought is just meant to express the Protestant work ethic gone mad, then I think it is awful.  But if it means we should do the work which is of itself fulfilling and meaningful then I think it is right.  If people the world over stopped doing the work they didn’t believe in there would be no arms trade, more equality, and greater well-being for everyone.”  ~Robert Poynton

The Artist in Me

I am coming to the place where I can finally re-claim the artist within. As a child, I love to paint. As a teenager, I painted in oils, taking after my mother, grandmother, and great-grandmother. I have paintings painted by each of these women in my matriline. Yet, at some point, I put down the brush.

One way of seeing this is to do what we love as a hobby, while doing what we’re ‘good’ at or what can make us a lot of money for a living. And, there might be a different way…

A question I’m exploring:

Can what brings us pleasure, sheer pleasure and joy, be what financially supports us and helps us to remember the sacred to a world that seems to have forgotten what these are?

I do know if so, it will be because rather than my intention being to save the world, my intention must be to do what I love, while I let go of the outcome. Perhaps it’s as simple as people doing what the soul loves, emanates the beauty, the peace, the joy that is at the heart of a truly alive world, a world that is sacred.

While my soul comes alive through art, creativity is NOT about art…it is about the art of being fully human. Creativity is what we are. It’s our nature. We are all creative creators.

And, you?

Take a moment to consider what it is you really love to do. Not what you’ve been conditioned to love, or taught to love, or believe you are supposed to love, but that which, when you do it, causes you to forget time, feel most alive, joyous and a deeply connected part of this wild and wooly world.

Can you let yourself do what you truly love?

Can you know you deserve to do what you love, and that the world might be better off for you doing what you love?

What is your Work?

Early Bird Discount

Tomorrow, September 18th, is the last day for the Early Bird discount for my new course, The Whole Woman. If you live in the Bay Area, or know someone who does, check it out here, and register here. I’d love to have you join me.

What does it mean to witness?

What is it to listen, deeply, to the voice of another speak something that must be spoken?

What is it to not flinch when hearing the truth that flows from another’s heart and soul?

Many, many women are writing their stores. And, many women are reading these stories. We are bearing witness to each other, to our lives, and yes, even our deaths.

My good friend, and writing partner, Jeanne Hewell-Chambers is sharing the writing of her friend Rhonda at her blog, the Barefoot Heart.

In Jeanne’s words:

“Rhonda is now in hospice, and though she doesn’t fear death, she does dread it a bit because she still has so much she wants to say. And there’s so much we need to hear. “Jeanne, they tell me to rest,” she said in a recent phone call with a tone that’s as close to whining as I’ve ever heard come from her lips. “Fuck that,” I said. “You can rest later. Now you write. And write. And write.””

As I writer, I know how it feels when I must write. And as a writer, I know how it is to have my words witnessed, read, and considered.

::

Take a moment to read Rhonda’s stories and, as Jeanne writes, “join me as we bear witness to her words, to her life.”

As Rhonda writes, “I write only truth.”

I imagine that when it comes time to die, one’s patience for anything that is not truth grows thin.

Happy Beach Feet

The Big 55

My time in Hana was a gift. A big, beautiful birthday gift to me. I turned 55. That makes it sound sort of like my odometer rolled over (do you watch yours when it nears repeated digits, too?).

I guess my odometer did roll over. I’ve traveled a lot of miles in my life.

Or maybe it’s a pedometer. You know, the kind that measures your mileage on foot. That would make more sense, since I have two of those.

Muddy

On Saturday, I hiked the two miles up the side of Haleakala, the dormant volcano on Maui, to Waimoku falls, which fall from 400 ft above.

Waimoku Falls

(insert cool waterfall shot)

Saturday morning was rainy on and off. The following evening we’d had a long steady rain, so the trail was exceedingly wet…and muddy. I forgot to bring my tennis shoes, so I was wearing my thongs. As I trudged up the hill, I could feel things getting more slippery along the way. I found myself trying to stay ‘clean’. Big smile, because after the fact, I can now see how futile this was!

At the top, just prior to the falls, you have to cross two parts of the creek/river. This didn’t sound like fun in thongs, so I took them off and proceeded barefoot, making sure to put the thongs back on across the way.

On my way back down the hill, I was still trying to walk in my thongs, but it was more slippery by now because the rain had been falling for a bit. Just as I was feeling frustrated with myself and the mud, a group of people going up the hill came into view. One of them was a teenaged girl. She was barefoot. She took one look at me and said, with a smile, “Why don’t you just take them off? I did.” I looked down at her feet and, sure enough, bare feet covered in mud.

muddy feet

I thought about it for a moment, and realized I’d been not fully present to everything around me because I was afraid of slipping and gettingdirty. Here I was in this glorious place and my attention was more on walking than on my surroundings. So I took them off and walked barefoot. The mud was warm and squishy. Why had I been avoiding this?

I felt connected. I was aware. I enjoyed it so much more. I had a deeper sensual experience through my feet.

It was so freeing because by taking off my shoes, I stepped right into what I had been trying to avoid…getting dirty. Suddenly there was nothing to avoid anymore. Why was I trying so hard to avoid the mud?

A similar thing had happened back in January as I hiked in Tilden park. The paths get very muddy there in the winter and spring months, and I would try to keep my running shoes from getting muddy. One day in particular, I was trying to get through a patch of mud and slipped right into it. Once I was dirty, it didn’t matter anymore. I felt lighter, more free and enjoyed the walk much more.

Wet

I had realized the same thing on my first full day in Hana. I was swimming at Hamoa beach. My towel and bag were on the sand. It began to rain quite hard. I noticed many of the people there rushing out of the water to get their things and carry them to a dryer place under the trees. I decided to get out and attempt to do the same. We were all trying to keep our stuff dry.

When the rain subsided, we went  back to the beach, laid it all out again and went back in the water. Sure enough, back came the rain. Here I was in the water all wet, and I was worried about keeping my stuff dry. I thought about it and realized there was nothing in my stuff that couldn’t get wet. So I gave up trying. I continued to swim and it was quite an amazing experience being in the warm pouring rain while swimming in the warm ocean.

Water, water everywhere.

When I did decide to return to my bungalow, I gathered my things and put on my hat and it began to rain again. My hat was dripping wet, my cover up was dripping wet. My towel was dripping wet. I was dripping wet. Everything was wet. There was no longer anything to keep dry, and it was incredibly liberating. Nothing was getting hurt by getting wet.

In both cases, I let go and relaxed more deeply and immediately into my surroundings. I was more in tune with the sensual nature of the experience itself, and not surprisingly, with my own sensual nature. Without the worrying brain spinning fast, I was available to notice and feel what was immediately present…and the most noticeable thing was freedom, with a gentle joy following closely behind freedom’s feet.

Messy

I’ve been contemplating this in my life and wondered how often I hold back on doing things completely for fear of getting wet or muddy (either literally or metaphorically).

Where do I fear jumping in because it might get messy?

How much less awareness is available when much of my awareness is focused on my worry or fears?

I can now feel how liberating it would be to let go this way in everyday life.

Most of our fears are not really fears of immediate danger. They’re more like fears of avoiding things we’ve been conditioned to fear experiencing…like getting too muddy or getting our things wet, lost, broken, stolen, etc.

Avoiding messiness is avoiding life.

The joy I felt when I let go into what I was already immersed in was so much more real than what I had feared.

Life is in the mud, in the wet, in the full-on contact with all that we’re swimming in. When I am in avoidance, I am not living.

Yes, a good pair of pants might get stained. Or not. But,

rediscovering this place of joy is priceless.

p.s.

the mud washed off.

my pants cleaned up.

i dried out.

pedicure is still mighty fine.

I am changed by it all.

…

and, you?

I’d love to know about a time when you let it all go, when you realized it was futile to keep avoiding what you were obviously swimming in…

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.” – Elizabeth Kubler Ross

broken-open heart

Yes, beautiful people don’t just happen. And, what can open our hearts to the beauty of life, making us beautiful people, are the events that every human being experiences throughout our lives. Living is a vulnerable proposition. It’s what we do with the experiences, how we hold them, if we are open to the gift of them, that awaken the soul to its true richness and beauty.

We all experience suffering.

On a retreat with Adyashanti, he once explained that suffering is our doorway in to awakening. And I would add, to our beauty.

Difficulty in life is real. We all, every human being, experiences what Kubler-Ross writes about.

And, it is these difficulties that are the pathway to a broken-open heart. In my experience, I’ve felt heartbreak many times. And, when I’ve fully felt the loss, when I’ve allowed grief to take me in to the depths of that feeling, riding the line of its experience in my body, that is when my heart breaks open to the beauty inherent in these times of life.

a beautiful offering

I’m writing today to let you know of a beautiful ebook I’ve been blessed and honored to be a contributor to:

Picking Up the Pieces guide

is an offering by Alana Sheeren. An offering from one woman, and her fellow broken-open-hearted friends, that guides you through the many facets of the journey of grief.

Alana started writing at LifeAfterBenjamin.com after her baby boy, Benjamin, was stillborn last year.  She has been in the deep process of grief, sharing some very intimate moments along the way.

This guide is not only beautifully designed and put together, it’s also filled with so much wisdom about grief and the process of grief.

The guide is written by Alana, designed by Shenee Howard, with artwork by Diana Nelson and supplemented with contributions from Christa Gallopoulos, Dyana Valentine, Emily Lewis, Erica Staab, Gail Larsen, Karen Maezen Miller, Roos Stamet-Geurs, Vera Kate Hadley and me.

Grief

Grief takes many forms and appears, many times, when we least expect it.

I wholeheartedly recommend Alana’s guide.

With love to Alana, and to you,

Julie

Photo Booth, 1964

Perfect? No.

Loved me? Yes. Fiercely.

She became a single mother of three young girls in the early sixties,
a time when being so was judged harshly.

She did whatever it took to provide for us. Whatever it took.

Intelligent,
artistic,
with a wild side that was never really expressed,
she taught me about
hard work,
taking action,
perseverance,
oil painting,
sewing,
ice skating and
remembering our ancestors.

She taught me about Spirit,
things you can’t see but know in your bones,
questioning,
compassion,
and a deep love for four-leggeds.

She taught me to champion for women,
children,
animals and the earth.

She taught me to find a way to carry on when life brings painful times.

She taught me to see the unconditional love that shines through conditioning.

::

Joan left her body three years ago, today.

Perfect? No.

Loved me? Yes. Fiercely.

Sharing Beauty

Sometimes, I stumble across the most divine succulence in everyday moments. I can’t help but swoon at how life displays itself in infinite ways.

succulence

I’ve become captivated with Instagram on my iPhone. A closet photographer, I love to snap pictures of the everydayness of life, and this app invites me out to play on a daily basis.

I took the above photo on Wednesday, in a parking lot in San Francisco. This beauty was soaking up the rays and I couldn’t help but notice her succulence.

graceful afternoon

This is another of my favorite Instagram shots from the many long walks I have taken in Tilden Park.

eBook Gifts for You

I’d love to let you know of a couple of ebooks I am thrilled to have contributed to. They are free and filled with some pretty great wisdom and love.

23 Things You Might Not Know About You

The first is a gift from Lisa Baldwin at Zen at Play. Lisa is a delightful woman, filled with much wisdom and kindness. Download her gift, 23 things you might not know about you. As Lisa writes:

When I asked 23 glorious humans if they’d like to write a love note of encouragement to your glorious self, they said: Yes please!

So here it is, my lovely. Just for you. A gathering of wise, gentle nudges to remind you of your magnificence, your sense of possibility, your beauty and your truth.

Your notes of encouragement, smartness and truth come from:

Alexandra Franzen. Amanda Oaks. Chris Guillebeau. Chris Zydel. Danielle LaPorte. Darrah Parker. Dyana Valentine. Goddess Leonie. Fabeku Fatunmise. Heidi Fischbach. Hiro Boga. Jamie Ridler. Jen Louden. Julie Daley. Karen Maezen Miller. Kylie Springman. Leo Babauta. Marianne Elliott. Mark Silver. Susannah Conway. Tammy Strobel. Tara Gentile. Tara Sophia Mohr.

The She-ro’s Journey

The second ebook was put together by Jennifer Louden, a woman I feel blessed to call friend. She is woman on a mission to ignite us all to savor and serve. Her ebook, The She-ro’s Journey, is a collection of offerings of which I am thrilled to be a part of. Here’s what Jen had to say:

Are you with us?

You will need food for the journey and companions. I asked 47 women to respond to the question:

How are you stepping into your she-ro’s journey these days?

Here is what they said - compiled in a gorgeous and inspiring and freeee love-fest e-book! Essays, photographs, videos, poems, art – amazing voices to inspire your journey.

Simply click here.

My Journey

Speaking of journeys, I am moving, tomorrow, to the City. It’s a big change for me. I may be away from the blog for a few days, but trust, when I return, I’ll fill you in with all that’s happening my in life.

May you see the beauty inherent in each moment as it unfolds before you.