hope

Opening to gratitude.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Happy thanksgiving.

In honor of the holiday, what is a way we can open to gratitude? Sometimes the veil is pulled back, and we can glimpse a larger picture, a connection between all things, an appreciation for the here and now, and we are grateful.

Brother David Steindl-Rast explains how these jolts into a different reality can change a day, and, perhaps, even a world:

My vision of the world? My hope for the future? This topic sounds a bit big. Allow me to start small—say, with crows. They are my special friends. Just as I am writing these lines, one of them, the shy one among my three regular guests, is gobbling up the Kitty Fritters I put out for them. This brings to mind a short poem by Robert Frost that might provide a stepping-stone for our deliberations about world-vision and hope for the future—if any.

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree
Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Surely you will remember a similar experience of your own: some quirky little incident made you smile, changed your mood, and suddenly the world looked brighter. If this ever happened to you, the key for understanding a causal chain of great consequence is in your hand:  any change in attitude changes the way one sees the world, and this in turn changes the way one acts. When Robert Frost claims that the crow’s little trick “saved” part of a day he had rued, or of which he repented, he means this in the full sense of a redeeming change of heart. When he got home, I’m sure he greeted Mrs. Frost in a better mood than he would have been able to do without the crow’s nudge. And there is no telling what this did to her—and to the way she treated the dog afterwards, or talked more kindly to her neighbor.

He continues to suggest five small, easily adopted ways to bring this gratitude into your life and, consequently, into the world:

1.  Say one word today that will give a fearful person courage.

All gratitude expresses trust. Suspicion will not even recognize a gift as gift: who can prove that it isn’t a lure, a bribe, a trap? Gratefulness has the courage to trust and so overcomes fear. The very air has been electrified by fearfulness these days, a fearfulness fostered and manipulated by politicians and the media. There lies our greatest danger: fear perpetuates violence. Mobilize the courage of your heart. Say one word today that will give a fearful person courage.

2. Make a firm resolution never to repeat stories and rumors that spread fear.

Because gratitude expresses courage, it spreads calm. Calm of this kind is quite compatible with deep emotions. In fact, mass hysteria fostered by the media betrays a morbid curiosity rather than deep feeling—superficial agitation rather than a deep current of compassion. The truly compassionate ones are calm and strong. Make a firm resolution never to repeat stories and rumors that spread fear. From the stillness of your heart’s core reach out. Be calm and spread calm.

3. Make contact with people whom you normally ignore

When you are grateful, your heart is open—open towards others, open for surprise. When disasters hit we often see remarkable examples of this openness: strangers helping strangers sometimes in heroic ways. Others turn away, isolate themselves, dare even less than at other times to look at each other. Violence begins with isolation. Break this pattern. Make contact with people whom you normally ignore—eye-contact at least—with the cashier at the supermarket, someone on the elevator, a beggar. Look a stranger in the eyes today and realize that there are no strangers.

4. Give someone an unexpected smile today

You can feel either grateful or alienated, but never both at the same time. Gratefulness drives out alienation; there is not room for both in the same heart. When you are grateful you know that you belong to a network of give-and-take and you say “yes” to that belonging. This “yes” is the essence of love. You need no words to express it; a smile will do to put your “yes” into action. Don’t let it matter to you whether or not the other one smiles back. Give someone an unexpected smile today and so contribute your share to peace on earth.

5.  Listen to the news today and put at least one item to the test of Common Sense.

What your gratefulness does for yourself is as important as what it does for others. Gratefulness boosts your sense of belonging; your sense of belonging in turn boosts your Common Sense—not the conventional mind set which we often confuse with it. The common sense that springs from gratefulness is incompatible with a set mind. It is just another name for thinking wedded to cosmic intelligence. Your “yes” to belonging attunes you to the common concerns shared by all human beings—all beings for that matter. In a world we hold in common, nothing else makes sense but Common Sense. We have only one enemy: Our common enemy is violence. Common Sense tells us: we can stop violence only by stopping to act violently; war is no way to peace. Listen to the news today and put at least one item to the test of Common Sense.

The five steps I am suggesting here are small, but they work. It helps that they are small: anyone can take them. Imagine a country whose citizens—maybe even its leaders—are brave, calm, and open towards each other; a country whose people realize that all human beings belong together as one family and must act accordingly; a country guided by Common Sense. To the extent to which we show ourselves not hateful but grateful this becomes reality.

Who would have thought that a prankish crow shaking down snow from a hemlock tree could inspire this vision of a sane world? Well, if we leave it to the crows, there is still hope.

Small steps; big pay-off. And, to remember, keep your eyes open for the birds. They are there, singing songs of hope.

Wishing you joy.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Today, may you find joy in all the little moments. In the solitude and in the bustle. In the labor and in the rest. May that joy bring you peace and connection on this imperfect day in your imperfect life. May joy choose you.

Enjoy this poem on joy by Donna Ashworth:

Giving up control.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

We want to support the people we love as they go through difficult times, but how often does that support turn into telling them what to do or criticizing them for what they’ve done? How often does it make our loved one feel smaller or shamed or detached? What message does our trying to control them or the situation send them about our confidence in their abilities to handle the curve balls that life throws at us all?

In this powerful column on the concept of holding space, Heather Plett explains how we can show up for the people we care about without controlling them or the outcome, how our presence can be constructive rather than destructive, how we can offer support in a healthy way. She learned these lessons from Ann, a palliative care nurse who helped her deal with the challenges of her aging mother’s impending death. Here are Heather’s eight take-aways:

  1. Give people permission to trust their own intuition and wisdom. When we were supporting Mom in her final days, we had no experience to rely on, and yet, intuitively, we knew what was needed. We knew how to carry her shrinking body to the washroom, we knew how to sit and sing hymns to her, and we knew how to love her. We even knew when it was time to inject the medication that would help ease her pain. In a very gentle way, Ann let us know that we didn’t need to do things according to some arbitrary health care protocol – we simply needed to trust our intuition and accumulated wisdom from the many years we’d loved Mom.
  2. Give people only as much information as they can handle. Ann gave us some simple instructions and left us with a few handouts, but did not overwhelm us with far more than we could process in our tender time of grief. Too much information would have left us feeling incompetent and unworthy.
  3. Don’t take their power away. When we take decision-making power out of people’s hands, we leave them feeling useless and incompetent. There may be some times when we need to step in and make hard decisions for other people (ie. when they’re dealing with an addiction and an intervention feels like the only thing that will save them), but in almost every other case, people need the autonomy to make their own choices (even our children). Ann knew that we needed to feel empowered in making decisions on our Mom’s behalf, and so she offered support but never tried to direct or control us.
  4. Keep your own ego out of it. This is a big one. We all get caught in that trap now and then – when we begin to believe that someone else’s success is dependent on our intervention, or when we think that their failure reflects poorly on us, or when we’re convinced that whatever emotions they choose to unload on us are about us instead of them. It’s a trap I’ve occasionally found myself slipping into when I teach. I can become more concerned about my own success (Do the students like me? Do their marks reflect on my ability to teach? Etc.) than about the success of my students. But that doesn’t serve anyone – not even me. To truly support their growth, I need to keep my ego out of it and create the space where they have the opportunity to grow and learn.
  5. Make them feel safe enough to fail. When people are learning, growing, or going through grief or transition, they are bound to make some mistakes along the way. When we, as their space holders, withhold judgement and shame, we offer them the opportunity to reach inside themselves to find the courage to take risks and the resilience to keep going even when they fail. When we let them know that failure is simply a part of the journey and not the end of the world, they’ll spend less time beating themselves up for it and more time learning from their mistakes.
  6. Give guidance and help with humility and thoughtfulness. A wise space holder knows when to withhold guidance (ie. when it makes a person feel foolish and inadequate) and when to offer it gently (ie. when a person asks for it or is too lost to know what to ask for). Though Ann did not take our power or autonomy away, she did offer to come and give Mom baths and do some of the more challenging parts of caregiving. This was a relief to us, as we had no practice at it and didn’t want to place Mom in a position that might make her feel shame (ie. having her children see her naked). This is a careful dance that we all must do when we hold space for other people. Recognizing the areas in which they feel most vulnerable and incapable and offering the right kind of help without shaming them takes practice and humility.
  7. Create a container for complex emotions, fear, trauma, etc. When people feel that they are held in a deeper way than they are used to, they feel safe enough to allow complex emotions to surface that might normally remain hidden. Someone who is practiced at holding space knows that this can happen and will be prepared to hold it in a gentle, supportive, and nonjudgmental way. In The Circle Way, we talk about “holding the rim” for people. The circle becomes the space where people feel safe enough to fall apart without fearing that this will leave them permanently broken or that they will be shamed by others in the room. Someone is always there to offer strength and courage. This is not easy work, and it is work that I continue to learn about as I host increasingly more challenging conversations. We cannot do it if we are overly emotional ourselves, if we haven’t done the hard work of looking into our own shadow, or if we don’t trust the people we are holding space for. In Ann’s case, she did this by showing up with tenderness, compassion, and confidence. If she had shown up in a way that didn’t offer us assurance that she could handle difficult situations or that she was afraid of death, we wouldn’t have been able to trust her as we did.
  8. Allow them to make different decisions and to have different experiences than you would. Holding space is about respecting each person’s differences and recognizing that those differences may lead to them making choices that we would not make. Sometimes, for example, they make choices based on cultural norms that we can’t understand from within our own experience. When we hold space, we release control and we honour differences. This showed up, for example, in the way that Ann supported us in making decisions about what to do with Mom’s body after her spirit was no longer housed there. If there had been some ritual that we felt we needed to conduct before releasing her body, we were free to do that in the privacy of Mom’s home.

That #4 is a tough one, yes? We want to be important; we want to save the day; we think we know best. But giving others a safe place to find their own path forward empowers them to meet future challenges with resilience and courage. If they are dependent on us and our ‘wisdom’, they may not trust their own abilities. And, let’s be honest, do we really have all the answers anyway; isn’t life surprising and full of struggles that we don’t anticipate fully? Don’t we all need to develop the resilience and courage to respond to these challenges?

For more on Terry Crews and the background of the powerful quote above, including his conclusion that we can evolve and change and do things better, go here.

Saying goodbye.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

For those of you who know me, you know I recently lost Honey, my beloved dog. Honey was my soul animal, my constant light, my precious girl. I am having trouble accepting that I won’t see her again. The world feels so different without her presence in it. And those eyes. What I would give to look in those eyes again!

Loss is hard. Whether it is of a spouse, a child, a friend, or a pet. We carry a hole with us where that loved one was. But when we sit and consider that relationship and dwell on the things about it for which we are grateful, the loss hurts a bit less.

Smiles replace tears. Warm memories flood our senses. Laughter surprises us. We remember ways we’ve grown or blossomed because of that relationship. Gratitude replaces hurt or anger or grief.

We remember that, yes, we had to say goodbye, but how lucky we were to say hello.

Our hearts start to heal.

Aging, well, gracefully?

Posted on by Shari Swanson

There is a certain tipping point where life becomes weighted with loss. Things shift from everything out ahead to having a full past. In many ways, it is challenging, sad, and frustrating. But in some, it can be liberating.

Consider these words from Anne Lamott:

“So many indignities are involved in aging, and yet so many graces, too. The perfectionism that had run me ragged and has kept me scared and wired my whole life has abated. The idea of perfectionism at 60 is comical when, like me, you’ve worn non-matching black flats out on stage. In my experience, most of us age away from brain and ambition toward heart and soul, and we bathe in relief that things are not worse. When I was younger, I was fixated on looking good and impressing people and being so big in the world. By 60, I didn’t care nearly as much what people thought of me, mostly.”

“I do live in my heart more, which is hard in its own ways, but the blessing is that the yammer in my head is quieter, the endless questioning: What am I supposed to be doing? Is this the right thing? What do you think of that? What does he think of that?”

“A lot of us thought when we were younger that we might want to stretch ourselves into other areas, master new realms. Now, I know better. I’m happy with the little nesty areas that are mine. For some reason, I love my softer, welcoming tummy. I laugh gently more often at darling confused me’s spaced-outed ness, although I’m often glad no one was around to witness my lapses.”

“It’s Good to Remember: We Are All on Borrowed Time,” by Anne Lamott.

I do ‘feel I live in my heart more’ as she notes. And that grief is keen and biting. Almost as if my mind is at war with itself, one half realizing that death is a natural part of life, inevitable. While the other half refuses to accept the new reality. And yet, ultimately, it is our impermanence that gives our lives luster and meaning. And acceptance, if it should come, may not bring comfort, but peace.

Opportunities

Posted on by Shari Swanson

If you look for thorns, you’ll see thorns. If you look for love, you’ll see it all around you. And if you look for opportunities to make a difference, to shower people with love, and to take a stand for all that is good and right in the world, those opportunities will be there.

What opportunities do you see in the day ahead?

Crisp fall days

Posted on by Shari Swanson

There is something glorious about a crisp October day. The crunch of leaves, the astonishing colors, the bite of a cold breeze. Something is changing, as old as time. Resting in order to be reborn again. Renewal is coming. But, for now, the dropping of leaves. The advancing cold of winter. A time to rest.

Enjoy this Mary Oliver poem on this last day of October.

Finding glimmers.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

I learned a new word recently, or perhaps, more accurately, a new application of a word I had thought of as a verb.

Glimmer.

It’s the opposite of a trigger. A trigger may set off negative reactions or memories in your brain and cause you stress, but a glimmer is a moment in time that brings you joy, happiness, peace, or gratitude. A glimpse of something deep and profound perhaps, an opening of the curtain or peek behind the veil.

For me, glimmers include the crunch of autumn leaves, toddler laughs, cloudy days, pausing and noticing the intricacies of city planning. The list goes on and on, but the important thing is we can train ourselves to look for glimmers, not to let them pass unnoticed.

And they will be everywhere. Reminding you that you are part of something bigger and mysterious.

Tortoise and the hare

Posted on by Shari Swanson

I’ve been watching Lessons in Chemistry, based on a wonderful book. One part stood out for me last night. A dog character, Six Thirty, remembers why his person, Calvin, said he loves running. Calvin said even when it is hard or you don’t think you can go on anymore, you just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

“One foot. One foot. And then sure enough, you’ll be home.”.

Isn’t that profound? In this life, we keep putting one foot in front of the other, until we’re home.

Slow and steady wins the race. We get discouraged and stop, or chase after another enticing goal, or turn back. But, if we stay true, we will make progress. One foot, one foot.

Remember the tortoise and the hare? They had a rematch recently:

This is my yopp.

Posted on by Shari Swanson

Sometimes turning off the news is the best form of mental health protection.

But then we remember. In times of darkness, there are always those working to light a path, helping, fighting for the common good, making progress.

And maybe we, too, can help.

Maybe not in large, brokering peace kind of ways. But in small ways that, combined together with the small ways of many, many others, may help to right a wrong or turn a tide.

I think of Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss, everyone shouting and banging on pots to be heard, but it is the final Yopp of a child that turns the tide, saving their world.

What is your ‘Yopp’?