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Life brings friction with it. I don’t think I’ve met anyone whose life has been one smooth sailing. It’s natural not to enjoy the friction, but we can try to think of it as a way of growth for us, a way to shine our own unique light. That makes it bearable, no?

One of my favorite poets says:

“If you are irritated by every rub, how will your mirror be polished” ~ Rumi

Much love,

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Who should do it then? The neighbor’s daughter?

I can almost hear my mother’s soft voice saying these words to me.

Shall we call the neighbor’s daughter to do your chores?

 

The wisdom of that escaped the teenager me who had to wash the dishes by hand, in the corner of the kitchen that was not sunny or fun and had no view of happy birds playing outside. Poor me.

But I do get it now.

 

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Who should do my work?

As an emotional adult, I can take responsibility for it, but I still have moments when I see glimpses of that reluctant teenager.

 

I’ve  passed by the clean laundry pile that needs to be folded and put away several times in a day, sometimes even for several days, hoping, wishing someone else would take care of it.  Or maybe the clothes will fold themselves and float into their appropriate drawers. Then maybe on the fifth day, I hear that inner voice that sounds like my mother, who’s going to do it then, the neighbor’s daughter?

I guess not…

 

There are times  when I suffer from the opposite extreme. I exhaust myself with doing, whether it’s gardening, housework, running errands around town or even taking an ambitious walk in the neighborhood.  When I get close to the end of these activities, I so wish someone else would finish that last bit. Could the neighbor’s daughter wash the garden tools and take them inside? After all I’ve slaved away weeding, digging and planting all day! Could she maybe walk the last few blocks back home for me? The day I couldn’t even stand in the shower to clean up after gardening till it was pitch dark, I finally came up with  a solution for this one. When planning activities, chores, excursions, leave enough energy for completion and the return home. No one else wants to finish them for me! The neighbor’s daughter cannot also rest for me! That’s my job too.

 

The most annoying area I sometimes notice myself going emotionally back to childhood and wishing for someone else to do my job is my creative work, my writing.  I have many stories I want to share with you and often I catch myself waiting for them to write themselves. Now this is not always a bad thing, they could be just marinating, taking shape and they will eventually write themselves. But there are times, they’re ready and I’m still waiting for someone else to come and put them down on paper. The problem is when they sit around too long, they might not be willing to be written any more.

So again, I have to remind myself, it’s my job, no one is coming over to do it for me. Strangely, once I sit down with the intention of completing a piece, it goes pretty smoothly.

 

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I’m going to tell you a secret.

 

Many of the things I used to think need to be done, don’t care if they’re done or not.  It’s true!  No one cares if they’re done or not…. not even me!  In another post, I’ll share how to decide what really needs to get done and how to make doing it easier on yourself.

 

The most important and all encompassing place I have successfully stopped waiting for someone else to do my job is leading my own life! It’s my life, and I don’t want anyone else to live it for me! I will choose my path, I will decide what’s best for me and I will not wait for someone else to come and do it for me, or save me like a damsel in distress!

Take charge of your own life!

Maybe this was what my mother was telling me all those years ago!

The neighbor’s daughter has her own chores and her own life to live, tend to your own, dear one.

 

Now that I think about it, we didn’t have an old enough neighbor’s daughter to come and do my chores anyway. What were you even talking about, mama? Hmm.

 

How about you?

Are there any specific things you hope and wish you had a convenient neighbor’s daughter or son to come and do for you?

 

Please let me know in comments here. I’d love to hear from you.

 

much love,

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The Girl in the Orange Jeans

Three things in human life are important: the first is to be kind; the second is to be kind; and the third is to be kind. ~ Henry James

 

 

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I was standing at the edge of the stone wall looking down at the courtyard.

I remember there was a young boy near me. He had been following me around that day, being nice to me, buying me candy. That was a first for me in my young 12 years… and I was both flushed with excitement and a bit of anxiety. We had come to the famous ruins of Baalbeck, Heliopolis, or the city of the Sun, on a church youth group outing.

I remember what I was wearing- a pair of brand new orange jeans and a white t-shirt.

 

forever21-orange-jeansAs I stood there, I was aware of other tourists around, I could hear cameras snapping. Then I heard the words:

Don’t take a picture of that girl with the crooked legs in the orange jeans!

I remember freezing, then slowly turning around, my heart pounding. There was a woman trying to photograph the entire scene with the wall and beyond, and I was in the way. The man had spoken these words in a language he thought I wouldn’t understand, without realizing it was my language too. And worst of all, my young, attentive friend had heard it and understood it too.

 

 

I started walking away with tears in my eyes. My friend tried to reassure me that my legs were not crooked.. but it didn’t matter. I was shamed. My first venture out into the limelight, and I was shot down. The rest of that day was just a blur with the words crooked legs, crooked legs, crooked legs, pounding in my head. I kept it to myself.

 

 

This incident, although seeming insignificant, affected me all through my teenaged years and sometimes even later.

 

I inspected my legs that evening, they didn’t seem to be crooked… they were short in proportion to my torso, but not crooked. But that man had said they were, so they must be, right? This was such a tender time in my life, just starting to bloom, feeling so self conscious, different, awkward. The timing couldn’t have been any worse.

How could one unkind, unthoughtful comment from a clueless man have such an impact on a young life?

 

The girl with the crooked legs in the orange jeans was with me all my life. I had feelings of shame, anger, fear, resentment, pity for her. I chided her for putting herself in the center of that wall that day… as if it was her fault. I didn’t show it, of course, but it had an impact. I avoided situations and if I didn’t, I braved them with anxiety. Of course it faded away, but every now and then, on different occasions, it would pop up, speaking at a Nursing Conference, school board meeting, or a PTA function.

Then one day, I went back to her.

I went back as her older wiser self, I went back as her protector, her mother, her older sister, her best friend. I went back with deep love for her. I held her hand and walked her away from that stone edge and that man. I told her her legs were beautiful just as they were. I let her lean her head on my shoulder and cry. I told her she’s going to grow up and reach a stage where she isn’t going to care what others think or say about her legs.

 

I told her she’s going to help other people deal with such pains. I told her not to ever be scared to put herself out there because of what others might say, because she was too important, too special to hide. I brought her back home with me and showed her what her life was going to be like in her future. I took her into my heart. Then we acted out a better ending for the scene, where she turned around and took a bow and walked away not with tears but sticking her tongue out at the couple.

 

 

38520092_thumbnailOnly after I went back to her, I got over that hurtful comment. Now, if a situation arises where I get anxious about my looks and what comments they might draw, I think of the girl in the orange jeans and smile, inwardly sticking a tongue out at nobody.

How many times do we say something in public, without realizing that it could be hurtful?

By practicing being present in the moment, being aware of our surroundings, we might be able to stay true to the kindness in our souls.

So many of our fears and anxieties go back to traumas and hurts in our past. As children, we don’t know how to process them, and they remain imprinted in our brains. Research shows that there are ways to heal these old hurts. If you have encounters with fear, anxiety, anger, sadness sometimes, that don’t seem to have a rhyme or reason, maybe something that happened way back in your childhood is being triggered. It might be worthwhile to look into it. I can help. 🙂

 

Dance

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Dance when you’re broken open.
Dance when you’ve torn the bandage off.
Dance in the middle of fighting.
Dance in your blood.
Dance when you’re perfectly free.
Struck, the dancer hears a tambourine inside her,
like a wave that crests into foam at the very top,
Begins.
Maybe you don’t hear that tambourine,
or the tree leaves clapping time.
Close the ears on your head,
that listen mostly to lies and cynical jokes.
There are other things to see, and hear.
Music. Dance.
A brilliant city inside your soul!
–Rumi

Rejuvination

 

She felt invisible, misunderstood.
was anyone listening? Could anyone hear her?
They were preparing their responses
She was sharing her heart, her hopes, her dreams.
They were looking for ways to disagree.

She heard her shoulders calling
in their usual way of rising to her ears
Stop! they said, this is no fun.
So she collected all her gems, left the room.
And she faced the truth for the tenth time

This wasn’t her place anymore
not because they had changed, but she had.
This version of her was not well received
She was not as welcome
She had no business talking deep spiritual matters
when light banter was what was needed most.

It hurt. Again. Then it didn’t anymore.
Until next time perhaps.

 

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Where do you go when you need a safe place to ground and rejuvenate?

It’s often Mother Earth for me.

If you can’t go out to the dirt, bring the dirt in to you!

 

 

Messages from the Universe

          Do not feel lonely, the entire universe is inside you ~ Rumi

 

Lately, I’m very mindful of and receptive to unusual or interesting things I see in nature. These are things I wouldn’t have paid much attention to a couple of years ago, but now I see deep meaning in them, metaphors for my life, and consider them messages from the Universe.

There was the day when two crows came to my yard and stayed till they had my full attention. We haven’t had crows around here for several years, since the West Nile virus outbreak, but there they were, trying to irritate me, for two hours. I haven’t seen any other crows since.

 

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I was having a debate with myself that day. A “to speak or not to speak” decision had to be made. I heard something hit the sun room window and when I went to investigate, there they were, perched on the tip of a tree cawing away, as if saying, “we didn’t do it!” When I moved to the front of the house, they were on the front tree. For two hours, it seemed they were following me, spying on me, taunting me.

I finally looked up crows and their meaning and found some clarity for my decision. Just as I did so, they flew away. I wonder if they whispered, “she was easy”, or “that sure took longer that I thought”, on their way.

 

 

Then there are the gifts at my front door. Every time I sweep my front porch, making it welcoming to all guests, I return to find a feather there. At first, I thought it was just a coincidence, but then they became too consistent. I started to collect them, maybe I’ll make  a tiara out of them one day.  Their message is you were born to fly, what are you waiting for?

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I consider them gifts from my feathered friends, to help me soar…

 

 

 

 

Yesterday, I received a most beautiful message. My husband said something annoying to me. It wasn’t as much the words as the tone and the meaning I gave it perhaps. I could have asked for clarification, corrected his impression, or even argued with him as I used to, but I wasn’t in the mood for any of that. I rarely am anymore. After he left for work, I noticed I haven’t fully shaken it off; there was still some irritation and even a teeny tiny ache in my heart. So I took my vanilla almond latte and went out to the garden, my connection place.

I walked around, listening to birds chirp, touching the plants almost done with blooming and getting ready to rest, laughing at the chipmunks acting like they’re oh so busy doing something very important. I was feeling better as I headed to my Sit Spot area where there are some stones in front of a bench. On an impulse, I started walking on the stones in a circle, pretending it was a labyrinth, careful not to step on the ground cover growing between them. That’s when I saw it, my message from the Universe. I had not seen it before  perhaps because it had not grown into itself yet. It was a beautiful, green, alive heart between the stones.  It was almost pulsating its message to me:

You are love. The small stuff does not matter. I love you.
It made my heart sing with joy, and filled me with an amazing quiet peace I will carry with me for a long time.

 

 

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Tell me, dear reader, what messages have you received lately?

Do you pay attention?

Do you consider them just coincidences.

One thing I know is that whether I’m right, whether I’m wrong, these messages make me feel good, enrich my life and sometimes even guide it, so I choose to believe them.

                Start seeing everything as God, But keep it a secret ~ Hafiz

 

 

 

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Emotion Beads

What do you do with your emotions?

 

I asked a friend this the other day and she told me that was the strangest question she had ever been asked.

But is it really that strange?

My friend joked that she gathers them and makes a necklace out of them, but I loved that answer. Yes, a bead for every time I allow myself to feel an emotion, to experience it and let it flow,  forming a precious bead on its way out.

Emotion Beads!

I’d wear them with pride!

 

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Today I observed several emotions rise up in my body. There was sadness, confusion, anger, contentment and joy. I noticed them all and smiled at them.

Sadness, when we talked to my husband’s aunt and realized that she has dementia. She remembers the old days but forgets what she said a minute ago.

Confusion, when seven beautiful eggplants disappeared from my garden with no trace, no damage to the plants, no half gnawed pieces scattered around. Gone! Darn eggplant thieves!

 

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Contentment, when we went out and worked in the yard quietly for an hour.

Joy, when I sat on the deck in the sun, reading a book and watching the birds, squirrels and butterflies.

Anger, I’ll elaborate on the anger.

This morning, I made a quick trip to Whole Foods to buy halibut for a special dinner my husband and I would enjoy. It was expensive! $26 a pound, but I still wanted to splurge on it. It looked slightly darker than usual, so I asked Mike, one of the regular fish guys there, if it was fresh. Whole Foods has a three day policy; whatever you buy is supposed to be good for three days after the purchase date. Mike went into a speech about how fish vary in color, depending on what they eat and how we can’t control what they eat when they’re in the wild, and of course it was fresh, he had just put it out today, and on and on, until he was finished double wrapping it.

Later, when I opened the package to start preparing it, I almost fainted from the smell. That fish was not fresh. It was far gone. Rotten. Decaying. That fish was hopeless. Almost decomposed.

 

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I told my husband I wouldn’t cook it because we would get sick eating it. He said, we probably wouldn’t get sick but it wouldn’t taste good. So the fish went into the trash.

Oh well, I thought, the eggplants I was going to roast to accompany the halibut had disappeared anyway, so I might as well figure out something else for dinner. As I got busy making a spaghetti sauce and washing spinach for a salad, something stopped me in my tracks. Wait a minute! It screamed.

Now that I’m learning to be aware of my emotions, I sat down and paid attention to it. Where in my body was this feeling coming from? There was pressure in my chest and my jaw was clenched. Aha! I investigated further and sure enough I was angry but instead of processing it, I was making jokes about the fish being deader than dead and disappearing eggplants!  This has been a known pattern for me, get busy, joke and ignore emotions. This was not the first time I had brought home rotten food from Whole Foods!  Last month, the baby cucumbers looked firm and fresh from outside, but underneath the plastic cover, their bottoms had disintegrated. The packaged organic chicken a few months ago smelled even worse than today’s fish. The expensive, organic cashews were moldy. And now this.

So what did I do with my anger? I felt it. I let it fill my entire body and breathed space around it. I imagined it changing shape and color. I took it out to the garden and walked around with it, talking with it until it gave me clear messages and gradually flowed out.

Karla McLaren writes in her book, The Language of Emotions:

The questions for anger are: “what must be protected?” and “what must be restored?”

My time and money must be protected. My trust in the store where I buy my food must be restored. My boundaries of fairness and not being lied to must be restored. Once I worked through this, I was calm,  determined and knew what I wanted to do. I picked up the phone, not in anger anymore, but in kind action. Kindness towards myself and kindness towards the store.

Manager Scott was very apologetic for our dinner being spoiled. He took my name and left a refund and a gift certificate at the service desk for me to pick up on my next visit. He promised me he would talk to the meat department management about the issue. I was able to respect him, trust him and be kind. (He also pronounced my name correctly. I notice these things.)

All was well again. Substitute dinner was delicious, prepared with love and creativity, not angry energy, and my boundaries were restored.

This of course is a very simple example for anger. There are much heavier reasons for this emotion. But they all can be treated the same way, with respect, not by suppressing them or expressing violently, but finding out what their benevolent message is.

So I ask you, dear reader, what do you do with your emotions?

 

~ Do you suppress them?  Shove them under a rug? Grind your teeth and ignore them?

~ Do you express them inappropriately? Creating more conflict and stress?

~ Or do you feel them and process them? Do you listen to your inner wisdom’s input? Maybe make a emotion bead necklace?

 

 

If you don’t know how, I can help.

 

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emotion beads

 

 

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A Writer’s Metamorphosis: From Secrets to Open Expression and Dialogue

Today I am happy and honored to be taking part in my first Blog Tour for writers. I was invited to participate by one of my favorite Martha Beck master coaches, CrisMarie Campbell.

I enjoyed CrisMarie’s piece on Writing Out Loud. Her beautiful, honest depiction of how she became a writer was very touching and inspiring to me. You can read it yourself  Here.
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Now for my own writing journey
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A Writer’s Metamorphosis: From Secrets to Open Expression and Dialogue

 

I’m not a writer. I just write stuff sometimes.

That’s what I had as my profile on a blog I started several years ago.

 

Growing up, writing was not even in my consciousness until my senior year in high school when one of my teachers, Mr. K, started a small writing club and invited me to join. I don’t remember what we wrote about but we got together once a week and read our writings and opined about them. I used to feel totally intimidated by one of my classmates who wrote elaborate essays on political and existential issues with big, flowery words. I remember using that as an excuse that I can’t write and asking Mr. K to drop out of the club. He wouldn’t hear of it. He told me there were many different styles of writing and sometimes simple was better. I halfway believed him, unlike Dr. E who insisted I stay in the choir because he was sure I could sing when I knew very well I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket!

My next attempt to write was when I started college.

I had a crush on a radio DJ mostly because of his lovely speaking voice and because he played my favorite songs. My freshman year, I came across some of his writings in one of the university’s publications. This inspired me to write my own impressions of college life, the social scene, and the interactions that I distinguished as real or fake. Deep stuff for an eighteen year old.

Then I had the bright idea to send these musings to my DJ, signing them with: Peace, your anonymous friend. Thinking back now, I love that girl! I wasn’t sure he was getting them or not until he started talking about them on his radio show, thanking his anonymous friend for another great poem or story.  I was thrilled that he was willing to play with me! But then one day he said: Dear anonymous friend, please let me know who you are because you’re too precious to stay anonymous!

Wow! He called me precious! He really liked my writing! Or he found a clever way to flush me out and he succeeded. I told him who I was and he took me out for pizza and made me promise to keep sending him my pieces.  But I didn’t keep my promise. It was ruined because it was supposed to be secret! So I never sent him my stories and poems after that.

These young attempts at writing were about expressing pent up feelings, doubts, fears, thoughts about life. They were helpful because I felt I couldn’t tell anyone about these things, so I told my notebook instead. In retrospect, I wish I kept writing through college, but I didn’t.

Writing then was just for my notebook.

 

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On American University of Beirut campus

 

 

After college, I got married and had children. I found myself writing again, a diary of sorts.
I wrote about my frustrations, my fears, my hopes and my wishes. Anything from the silly about the Thanksgiving turkey being a disappointment to the serious about my dreams for my family. It was almost like praying… but on paper. I couldn’t tell anyone else these things, so I told my notebook and God.
Sometimes, I would actually address my writing to Him.
Dear God, did you read my last note? Just in case you didn’t, I’m going to tell you that story again and see what you think.

Writing then was for my notebook and God.

 

I also wrote long  epic letters to my sons just in case, you know, something happened to me and I didn’t get to tell them everything I needed to teach them about life. They remain sealed. Maybe I should update those since I’m pretty sure I’ve covered all that’s in those letters with the boys by now. They would agree.

That writing was for my notebook and my sons.

 

After the boys left for college, I entered a dark phase of my life, full of anger, doubt, pain and sorrow, regrets, uncertainty, every great emotion that is dubbed negative for some reason. I questioned everything from who I was, to what I was doing here. The day I started writing about all this was the first day of my healing process. I spent that year and the next reading and writing. It was like going through an angry, volatile, bitter storm… but on paper. I wrote to work through all the emotions, to allow them to be what they were and express them to help them flow out. It allowed me to hear what was going on inside me instead of shutting it down.

Writing became for my notebook, God and myself then.

 

Gradually the fog lifted and I emerged. Metamorphosis. I saw everything more clearly and in the meantime, I had fallen in love with writing. I knew I wanted to write so I started a blog and wrote my stories. Funny stories, sad stories, all from my life experiences. This time I was willing to share them with some people, so I put it out there but with the qualification of “I am not a writer”. I was surprised when I received great feedback, a few trusted friends encouraged me to keep writing. One day an Australian poet I loved sent me a  note: You are a writer. That’s all it said. And I might have believed him.

Today writing grounds me and frees me. It helps me see the absurdity of the old fears, helps me rejoice in being alive! It’s like  shouting from the rooftops: Hey people! I’m sitting here, breathing, and I’m writing… stuff! Come talk to me! It couldn’t get any better than this.

I see myself as a storyteller. I tell stories from my life, wisdom I have gathered over the years or learned from my coaching tribe, my clients’ struggles and successes.  These days there’s usually a subtle (or not so much) message in these stories hoping it might help at least one person, (or maybe not).

Writing now is for my notebook, for myself and for you, dear readers.

 

 

HIRES LA NLH MBI-6069

 

 

I am a writer.

I used to write because I couldn’t tell anybody.

Now I write to tell everybody who wants to listen.

 

 

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Now I would like to introduce you to three more writers:

Sarah O’Leary is a life and wellness coach certified by Dr. Martha Beck. She helps women reclaim their radiant vitality at midlife and beyond so they can choose and live the life they’ve dreamed of.  Visit her blog at: http://www.saraholeary.net/

 

Darren Stoupe is a curator of all things creative, a shameless seeker of more JOY, and a writer of the voices in his head. Hop on over to http://www.darrenstoupe.com and see what he’s all about.

 

Mary Ann Johnstone is a Certified Life Coach who loves working with other coaches, psychologists & healers of all kinds. She is exhilarated by the surprising adventure of writing and is often sprinting to her notebook to catch the unexpected ideas from the muse. Visit: http://maryannjohnstone.com

 

 

Life Lessons from the Ugly Tree

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Many years ago,

when we moved into our brand new home in a brand new neighborhood, there was no landscaping as we know it in the suburbs – grass, foundation shrubs, ornamental shrubs, trees and flowers. There was dirt all around the house, and weeds, lots and lots of weeds. There were some hawthorn trees in the very back of the yard; one of them had a long rusted nail in its trunk with an old aluminum pail hanging from it, which led me to imagine the entire area as an old farm that had been sold to the city.  There were a few crabapple trees the school district grounds people had planted here and there at the border of the school fields with our property. There was also a line of tall ash trees, along the school border; they died a few years later because of the emerald ash borer. It seems the woodpeckers dug holes in the trees looking for their favorite beetle for food, but they didn’t eat them fast enough to save the trees. I digress..

 

We had neighbors who had recently moved into their brand new homes as well; some of them had already landscaped their yards being there before us. Fences were not allowed in this neighborhood, so it was fascinating to see how they had managed without them. Some planted trees to give themselves privacy – a green screen to protect them from prying eyes. Others planted trees to mark their territory. Here’s where your land ends and mine starts. Still others left it wide open with only grass to give the illusion of a bigger yard, and/or to wait for whoever moved next door to do the planting.

 

We had an odd shaped lot, a stretched out pentagon.  They were all pretty odd shaped since they were on two cul-de-sacs butting into each other. At the far left side of our property, our neighbor John’s (not his real name) yard’s very narrow  edge met the last five feet of our land.  One day, I watched him meticulously design that five foot border from my kitchen window. He put three logs on top of each other to build a mini fence right on the property line and at the edge of it he planted a small  two foot shrub, (an arborvitae), making sure the root ball was sitting perfectly on that border line. Then he beautified his side of it with benches, wisteria on a trellis, even an apple tree like I had planted. He crammed them all close to each other, as if they would stay that size forever. It was quite lovely, then…

 

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John’s 5 ft fence on the border line now.

Many more years passed.

The little evergreen bush/tree kept growing taller and taller. John sold his house; the new neighbors were not interested in this tiny, thin, far corner of their yard, so it got completely ignored, overrun by weeds. No one came to sit on the wood benches, the wisteria and the apple tree died, and wild vines climbed up the lonely arborvitae that was about 10 feet tall now.

And what an ugly tree it had become!

Bent over under the pressure of the vines, it looked like a green monster with crazy hair growing every which way. It was not visible at all to the owner of that property, but it was in my view every single day.

I resented that poor ugly thing. It ruined the beautiful view of my yard, like a sore in the landscape, a blemish on a beautiful canvas. Ugly, ugly, ugly tree!

 

 

The Ugly Tree

The Ugly Tree

 

 

One day last month I was sitting at my Sit Spot in complete stillness.

 

I had walked there quietly like a fox, I was looking at my surroundings with owl eyes and listening with deer ears. I could smell freshly dug dirt and a whiff of sweet fragrance from the few flowers on the small lilac behind me. I loved the warmth of the sun on my skin and welcomed the gentle breeze making it so much more pleasant. It was blissfully peaceful.

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You might be wondering about this Sit Spot thing.

 

It was part of a 30 day program offered by the Sagefire Institute, where I sat on purpose.outdoors in nature.at my selected spot.for at least 30 minutes.every single day.rain or shine. The first miracle for me was to be able to look at weeds and not get up to pull them out! After a few days I loved it so much that I sat longer and longer. No, it wasn’t time wasted, it was an incredibly satisfying experience, teaching me so many things about nature and myself, the similarities, differences and life lessons. So much so that, I continue to practice it every chance I get now.

 

That day, I had sat long enough for the birds to get over their fear and come back to the feeders just a few feet away from me. I watched a pair of mourning doves claim their spots in the big open feeder, swinging gently with it, and the smaller birds push each other around the different feeding holes, then I followed their in-unison-flight to neighboring trees and back, with my peripheral vision. I laughed at the squirrels trying to push the chipmunks out of their way underneath the feeders, where they foraged for dropped delicacies, frustrated that they couldn’t climb the pole up to where the treasure was.

 

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I listened for the different bird songs in the trees behind me, the cardinal’s distinctive catcall-ish tone, the sweet chirping of the chickadees and sparrows and I accepted the drone of the tractors mowing the neighborhood lawns and pretended they were the bass for the birds’ melodies.

The ugly tree was in my view, as always.

 

I had learned to ignore it, pretend it wasn’t there, but this day I had no choice but notice it because my lovely birds kept flying to it, whispering things and flying back. A robin flew and perched on its tip, sitting there for what seemed like an eternity. (In retrospect, I think it was a conspiracy) And then it hit me! The birds saw it as a desirable tree! They didn’t care if it was bent and ugly. The robin didn’t care if his trees were pretty or not!

Suddenly I saw it in a different light.

 

None of it was the tree’s fault! It had been ignored, overcrowded, burdened by the demands of neighboring vines, even bent under the pressure, yet it stood there, still glorious in its evergreen coat. I felt a surge of love for it. I had known it since it was a little bitty baby!

 

Ah my ugly, ugly tree! What are you trying to teach me?

 

How many times do we shun people without knowing their circumstances, their paths in life, their lessons to learn. How many times they get ignored because of their looks or life situation. What did they have to endure? Were they deserted, dumped on, crowded out of their own little corners?

Everyone has a story, specially the outcasts, the unpopular, the unwanted.

Let’s treat them all with kindness.

It’s easy to love the shiny people, but every single human being shines on the inside.

Let’s show compassion for all.

Samson, as I’ve renamed the ugly tree, is doing well. We talk a bit every day on my walks through the garden and I’m working on loosening the strangling grip of the vines around him as I promised him, even though he’s not mine.

 

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All photos are from my garden.

My Beautiful Sadness


One of my favorite poems is Rumi’s The Guest House.

The Guest House

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.

Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Rain drops on the window of my plane.
Rain drops on the window of my plane.
Blue skies above the fluffy clouds.
Blue skies above the fluffy clouds.

(Photos taken on my flight back home from NYC on 4/26/2014)

It’s midnight. Quiet in the house.

I won’t be able to sleep for another hour yet because I’m not sleepy enough. I cherish this time alone, just sitting in bed quietly, letting my day fade away to allow me to sleep and rejuvenate.

I remember something from my day that makes me smile, like the squirrels who ignore my authority around here, or a conversation with a friend.

Sometimes, I go to a secret place in my soul, it’s a secret garden deep in the woods. There are fairies there, and animals who can communicate with me. There are angels there, they come sit with me on my old log bench and we talk without speaking…    (ooh so woo woo)

And then at times, like tonight, I feel deep sadness. Maybe an event triggers a memory, or often there’s an accumulation of attachments I’ve been protecting and it’s time to release some of them.

This sadness is a beautiful, gentle feeling.

 

I allow it. I sit with it and let it fill my entire body. I breathe in space around it in my chest and feel the expansion.

Cleansing tears appear and I feel completely protected and safe. I wait… and when I feel it’s time, I let it all flow out; I let it go. There’s only peace now. I have let go of what does not serve me anymore. A weight is lifted. And then a smile… Now there’s room for the new. I allow it.

Have you felt this kind of sadness?

 

Maybe you know the reason or maybe you have no clue why you’re feeling sad? Do you resist it? I used to, and I still do sometimes when I’m not alone. Are you afraid to feel your sadness? Don’t be. It’s truly a beautiful emotion that is there to help you.

Karla McLaren says in her book The Language of Emotions: “Sadness helps you slow down, feel your losses, and release that which needs to be released – to soften into the flow of life instead of holding yourself rigidly and pushing ever onward.”

Tonight, my sadness did just that for me, helped me soften into the flow of life.

 

Try it. Let me know what you think. If you need help with it, you know where to find me. 🙂

 

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