Love

Avoid the drift.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

holdhands

Otters sleep holding hands. In the open water, it would be so easy for them to drift away from each other in the ebb and flow of the tides. They also use kelp to wrap around themselves, but there is something about the image of sleeping otters holding hands to stay connected that is utterly endearing.Sea_otters_holding_hands.jpg.638x0_q80_crop-smart.jpg

We, too, bounce around in rough seas, and it is easy to drift away from those we love. Distractions, distance, inattentiveness add up until you are apart, in the storm separately, rather than braving it together.

Today, work to avoid the drift away from those you love.

Spotlight on Home

Posted on by Shari Swanson

homeswithinSomething there is in each of us that yearns for home.  Sometimes we confuse that yearning with a physical place. We travel back to that place and wonder why it feels different. What has changed? Why doesn’t it still feel like home? Sometimes we confuse that yearning with a particular time, a past perhaps that wasn’t complicated with today’s troubles, and lose ourselves in nostalgia. Sometimes we confuse that yearning with a particular person and, if we lose that person, wonder if we will ever feel at home again.

But what if home is not a particular place in time but a feeling we can take steps to cultivate? Here are some suggestions that might bring that feeling of home into your life:

Embrace the Now

Think about those times when you felt a deep sense of belonging and contentedness. Chances are, it was when you were lost in some sort of activity, maybe with people you love, and you lost all sense of time. No checklists, no to-dos, no schedule. Just falling into the moment and letting it lift you out of the day into something bigger.

Welcome Others

Remember that old TV show, Cheers, when everyone shouted “Norm” when he came in? A place where “everyone knows your name?” That sense of welcome is something we can offer others. Greeting them, smiling, welcoming them into the conversation or community. That is a profound thing we can do, and that sense of home that we give to them will undoubtedly rebound to us and make that place in time feel more homey for everybody.

Lay Down Your Weapons

It is hard to enjoy someone else’s company when you’re disagreeing with them. Sure, some conflict is necessary and even healthy to life together, but set aside time to come together in harmony with people. Search for the common elements you agree on. Abandon the judgment and criticism. Enjoy a game or activity that deemphasizes competition. Savor the time together.

Use Your Own Definitions

It’s easy in a social media culture to look at other people’s homey pictures and events and think you need to duplicate those exact things if you want to feel the sense of home they’re experiencing. In fact, that’s one of the strategies behind advertising: “Look at these happy people. Don’t you want to be just like them? If you buy our product, you will be!’ But that comparative decision-making is a set up for disappointment. Instead, look at your people and experiences and find ways to enjoy them that are uniquely your own. And then maybe consider holding those moments a bit sacred, away from the instinct to share. Savoring your home life beats bragging about it every day.

Realize Life is Difficult

For many people, that feeling of home doesn’t include suffering or loss or heartbreak, but is this the way it should be? Isn’t that comforting of each other through the ups and downs of life exactly what home should feel like? We don’t need to run from the hardships in life, we just need to be there with each other through them. Everyone’s life has bumps and bruises. We are all vulnerable.  Pretending we aren’t and that we have the perfect home life is just a set-up for disappointment. For those of us who have weathered storms, having a friend or family member down in the trenches with us has made all the difference and made even the horrible experience feel like home.

Make Time for Your People

Who are the people you love and make you feel at home? Are you finding time to spend with them? Sometimes, even when we love people and hold them close to our hearts, we need to schedule time to spend together. It’s a fast-paced world, finding an opportunity to slow it down to spend time with your loved ones is important, even if you have to pencil it in on your schedule.

Your Roots are Global

The connections between you and anyone else in this world exist, no matter how far removed. For an eye-opening experiment into just this theory exactly, take a look at this DNA experiment.  That knowledge of connection to others, even those seemingly nothing like you or even those you hate, can ground you to see others as yourself, to greet others, to befriend others, to join into a global community where you can feel at home wherever you go.

Today, come home.

Carrot, stick, or something better?

Posted on by Shari Swanson

playforher

Falling in love is one of the most powerful things we will ever do. It’s all consuming. We lose our boundaries and dive deep into exploration, spending hours learning about this “other”–person, sport, activity, place, hobby, whatever it may be. As time goes on, maybe we put our boundaries back up, or take things for granted, or revel in our own accomplishments or prowess. If so, remember back to when everything was new and startling. Remember back to when that love was young. How did it feel to drop your boundaries and protections and artifices and fall into the astonishment of discovering an all-consuming joy. That child lives in you still. Fall in love anew.

An unfailing love.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

 

home

How many kids these days are seen by their parents as just another way to show off? Look at my honor student, or my beauty, or my accomplished someone. It’s a way of vicarious puffing–if my kid is so smart, beautiful, wonderful, popular, surely the parent must be, too. But that’s not love; it’s pride. Love loves without having to be earned. It is steady and true. The parent who truly loves their child delights in their essence, in their idiosyncrasies, in all the ways they are their own person. That kind of love sustains a child and lets them lay down the shackles of constant performance anxiety and welcomes them home.

Consider Thomas Edison. We think of him as one of our most brilliant inventors, a shining star. Would it surprise you to know his teachers gave up on him and sent him home to be educated by his mother? She, needless to say, did not give up on him but helped him thrive. We all could use a love like that!

Your love canvas.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

artistic

The artist creates something from nothing.  Being artistic requires a commitment to keep working, to keep seeing with fresh eyes, to keep trying. Each individual creation may or may not be beautiful, but the artist keeps creating, for it is how they express their love.

Love creates something from nothing. Where once there were strangers, now people are joined by an invisible bond that has substance if not weight. Maintaining that love requires constant effort. Like the artist, the lovers keep creating, keep striving for something more perfect, keep expressing their love.

Both art and love are expressed in the doing.

Pause.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

awhile

The world these days moves at a breakneck speed. Twitter and social media speed it up even further.

We are tempted to respond to everything and everyone immediately with whatever thought first passes through our minds. But is that always our best thought? Once said, can it be retrieved?

Often, it is far better to pause, to breathe, to contemplate before deciding whether what we have to say can meaningfully add to the conversation or will just contribute to the din.

Embrace the now.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

lorde

Life is short. Seize it. Spend it. Enjoy it.

And find time to share little moments together with the people who are on this journey with you. For inspiration, watch this delightful video of a dad beatboxing with his very appreciative baby:

 

 

 

Life’s a schoolroom.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

schoolroomJust when we think we get what life is all about, something comes along to knock us upside the head and show us we have it wrong. It forces us to reevaluate our foundational assumptions about the purpose of life and look at things in a whole new way. It’s a paradigm shift.

Stephen Covey tells of a paradigm shift he experienced:

“I remember a mini-Paradigm Shift I experienced one Sunday morning on a subway in New York. People were sitting quietly — some reading newspapers, some lost in thought, some resting with their eyes closed. It was a calm, peaceful scene. Then suddenly, a man and his children entered the subway car. The children were so loud and rambunctious that instantly the whole climate changed.

“The man sat down next to me and closed his eyes, apparently oblivious to the situation. The children were yelling back and forth, throwing things, even grabbing people’s papers. It was very disturbing. And yet, the man sitting next to me did nothing.

“It was difficult not to feel irritated. I could not believe that he could be so insensitive to let his children run wild like that and do nothing about it, taking no responsibility at all. It was easy to see that everyone else on the subway felt irritated, too. So finally, with what I felt was unusual patience and restraint, I turned to him and said, “Sir, your children are really disturbing a lot of people. I wonder if you couldn’t control them a little more?”

“The man lifted his gaze as if to come to a consciousness of the situation for the first time and said softly, ‘Oh, you’re right. I guess I should do something about it. We just came from the hospital where their mother died about an hour ago. I don’t know what to think, and I guess they don’t know how to handle it either.’

“Can you imagine what I felt at that moment? My paradigm shifted. Suddenly I saw things differently, I felt differently, I behaved differently. My irritation vanished. I didn’t have to worry about controlling my attitude or my behavior; my heart was filled with the man’s pain. Feelings of sympathy and compassion flowed freely. “Your wife just died? Oh, I’m so sorry. Can you tell me about it? What can I do to help?” Everything changed in an instant.

“Many people experience a similar fundamental shift in thinking when they face a life-threatening crisis and suddenly see their priorities in a different light, or when they suddenly step into a new role, such as that of husband or wife, parent or grandparent, manager or leader.

“It becomes obvious that if we want to make relatively minor changes in our lives, we can perhaps appropriately focus on our attitudes and behaviors. But if we want to make significant, quantum change, we need to work on our basic paradigms.

“In the words of Thoreau, ‘For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root.’ We can only achieve quantum improvements in our lives as we quit hacking at the leaves of attitude and behavior and get to work on the root, the paradigms from which our attitudes and behaviors flow.”

(from Stephen Covey’s book, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People)

Or consider the paradigm shift that Ebenezer Scrooge’s partner, now a ghost, Jacob Marley, recounts to him before the visit of the three Christmas ghosts in Christmas Carol. Both Scrooge and Marley thought they had life figured out–it was all about business and making money, the more the better. But Marley has had a paradigm shift since dying:

“‘But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,’ faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.

“‘Business!’ cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. ‘Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business.’ “

Get ready to get hit upside the head, metaphorically speaking. It may be time for a paradigm shift.

Love is.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

thinlove

“Love is or it ain’t. Thin love ain’t no love at all.” –Toni Morrison

Thin love says, “I love you if…” There are as many ways to fill in that blank as there are relationships. Thin love is conditional love, love that shows up only when its own needs are met first. Thin love is love that doesn’t show up at all when things get tough. Thin love puts itself first and is never sacrificial.

Love is bigger than that. It shows up whether you’re in prison or the boardroom, whether you’re top of the class or getting expelled, whether you are sick or well. Love gives wholly of itself and never runs dry.

Love is.

Celebrate love.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

hidingplace

Love rejoices in the idiosyncrasies of another. Love says, “Look at this! Isn’t it amazing?” Love is curious and exhilarated, bold and exuberant. Love delights and comforts and feels safe. Love makes you better– more whole– and fills you with warmth.

In celebration of love–all kinds of love–here is a beautiful poem:

Bird Understander
by Craig Arnold
Of many reasons I love you here is one
the way you write me from the gate at the airport
so I can tell you everything will be alright
so you can tell me there is a bird
trapped in the terminal      all the people
ignoring it       because they do not know
what to do with it       except to leave it alone
until it scares itself to death
it makes you terribly terribly sad
You wish you could take the bird outside
and set it free or       (failing that)
call a bird-understander
to come help the bird
All you can do is notice the bird
and feel for the bird       and write
to tell me how language feels
impossibly useless
but you are wrong
You are a bird-understander
better than I could ever be
who make so many noises
and call them song
These are your own words
your way of noticing
and saying plainly
of not turning away
from hurt
you have offered them
to me       I am only
giving them back
if only I could show you
how very useless
they are not

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