When you pause for even a few minutes to observe the world around you, all sorts of messages are right there waiting.
Here are a few things I learned from the birds this morning :).
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Have you had points in your life, at home or at work, where you were chugging along and then some major event, person, idea, or pandemic knocked you onto a new path?
Hitting a wall is not fun. But sometimes the Universe wants us to go in a new direction and that wall you ran into had a purpose. What you do after you hit a wall is often where the fun and magic begin.
This was a fun one to record. Please let me know if it’s fun to watch!
“This, too.” ~ Tara Brach
Trevor Maxwell is one of my favorite human beings. He is a kind, connected, enterprising person who holds his family and friends at an extraordinarily high level. When Trevor found out he had stage four colon cancer at age 42, the pain of the illness was nothing to him compared to the pain his diagnosis placed on those he was closest to.
His first reaction when he got the news was to shut down, to remove himself from those he loved most. For a year after his diagnosis, he struggled through multiple surgeries and chemotherapy only to find out that the cancer kept returning. Trevor was in for the fight of his life but he didn’t want to fight. He wanted to crawl into a cave and disappear. Depression, understandably, overwhelmed him. But the bonds he’d formed over the years with family and friends meant that no one was ready for him to disappear. His wife told him simply, “You are still here. And you have to fight.”
Trevor is a professional writer and started writing his story, expressing his fears and his hopes. And he started writing to others on a mix of social media sites. Others found him incredibly helpful as he explained various options for those with similar cancer diagnoses. By reaching out, he gradually became part of a larger cancer community. And he started to connect in person with doctors and others in Colontown, “an online community of over 100 “secret” groups on Facebook for colon cancer patients and survivors.” You can find out more their site at colontown.org.
Continue readingI’m a planner, as you may know. I like to keep things organized and to get a lot done each day. This year, I decided to put aside a busy life and have just one thing on my list: write a sequel to my Gunny Malone novel. In order to clear my list, my plan was to travel and write-in-place. To be inspired by the places I was writing about including rounding Cape Horn on a ship. To write as I followed the trail west from Virginia to San Francisco. To write as I spent time in Alexandria, Virginia, Washington, DC, and Charleston, South Carolina. And to write while living for a month on the Dingle Peninsula in Ireland.
I had worked on my plans for about a year. I had an over-sized map on my wall with places I wanted to go, things I wanted to see, and people I was going to stay with. I got camping equipment and a new car for the journey, one I could sleep in if necessary. I quit my job. I sold my house. And I hit the road on February 26th. Continue reading
I have a lot going on that’s pushing me to the limits of my organizational skills. I got divorced in December, we’re selling the house this month, and I moved my stuff out last weekend to store it at my daughter’s house while I travel through next October. Oh, and I quit my job. Things that have been in place for a long time are very much out of place and I feel chaos looming around every corner.
Then, at a Songwriting Workshop last week, our leader Jud Caswell, talked about taking small steps to get started on something new, and mentioned Anne Lamott’s book, Bird by Bird. The title comes from a time when Anne’s brother was procrastinating writing a big report on birds. The dad’s advice was to go bird by bird. And finally the report was done. Continue reading
Don’t you love when you ask the Universe a question and you get a clear answer? It doesn’t happen all the time. When it does it reminds you of a few things.
As you may know, I’m headed off on a big writing trip at the end of February and that decision has stirred up all sorts of other changes. This has made the world feel a bit tilted and chaotic for me. I love the high energy of the decision but it’s honestly been hard keeping the organizational challenges of this from feeling like an impending tidal wave. I have a few questions! Continue reading
I just finished listening to The Stranger in the Woods; the Extraordinary Life of the Last True Hermit by Michael Finkel. This is a non-fiction account of Christopher Knight. At age 20, Chris ditched his car and walked away from an apartment and a dead-end job, preferring to live by himself in the Maine woods rather than conform to the demands of a society he did not feel part of. When Chris fled to the woods it was out of a desperate need to be alone. To have the quiet to contemplate. To be outside. Twenty-seven years later, he was arrested for burglary and sent to jail.
There is so much interesting thinking here for anyone trying to craft a life that fits with who you are. And the book reminds us that we are all different, that what works for one person does not work for all. This includes a conventional education path, climbing a ladder, to-do lists, and that ever-present push to “succeed.” If that makes you happy, great. But if it doesn’t, what then? Continue reading
I wrote this post last Wednesday. Then we had a massive wind storm and lost power for two days! I have a generator but we had no internet so I just did art stuff for two days. Sometimes it’s fun to be forced offline. But now back to my previously planned thoughts… :).
If you’re looking to make a change in your life, it helps to be very specific about what you’re looking for. At times in my life, I’ve desperately wanted someone else to make a decision for me to help me head off in a new direction. And you know what? That never happened. When I’ve made big changes it’s because I pondered them at length and then came up with an action plan. Continue reading
Getting organized isn’t just about being efficient with your time, following up on details, and doing a great job. Although that’s all really good stuff, getting organized is also about finding an inner calm, an inner peace knowing that you’re doing work that is true to who you are and that shares your unique gifts with the world.
In The Power of Moments, Chip and Dan Heath write about Bonnie Ware, a palliative care nurse who served patients in their final weeks of life. Here’s what Bonnie heard as her patients’ five most common regrets. Continue reading
Organizational Habits 