From Pucci to Pudding

poverty and hunger as keys to love

i have just returned home from several days with my family to help support my mom, who thankfully is in rehab after her stroke a week ago, and my dad, who benefitted from extra TLC during this transitional time when there are more questions than answers.

i am reminded of how much work love is. particularly with our family and the people we love the most. it's easy to love people on their best days. the real work comes when we are on our worst days--not as easy to love then. but that's when it's most crucial.

also, i notice in observing interactions (or lack thereof), that we can stop putting in the effort with the people we love. when we take anyone for granted, we lose sight of the magic. when we grumble internally that we wish they would [fill in the blank here] differently, we focus all our energy and passion for the other person on what we perceive to be lacking. and guess what, when we focus on negatives, we amplify them.

what if, instead of zeroing in on the irritations and frustrations--because those exist, always will--we imagine ourselves without those we love. if we FEEL the poverty, the loss we would feel without them, we re-awaken the magic, the hunger we had and still have for our relationship with them. we realize how grateful we are for them--including the irksome moments--and our love for them is renewed.

poverty and hunger: excellent perspective shifters to re-invigorate love.

seeing within

my mother had a stroke last week. we have much to be thankful for with regard to the scope of her stroke and the medical support and rehab she has and is receiving.

but as is easy to imagine, there is much to process and rearrange when someone so close to you suffers a life-impacting change.

as i was walking down the hospital corridor to see my mom for the first time since her stroke, i had the thought that it is so important to register happiness when we see people we love, that it would be doubly important for me to immediately look past the wound my mom has on her head from falling and the left side droop she is experiencing from her stroke. my most important first task was to see beyond and not register sadness or shock at the external changes but to see my mom who still lives inside the body that ages more and more from visit to visit.

seeing who we are within our skins--that is our essence and who we relate to. it's not our external trappings that we relate to, but we do spend a lot of time focusing on our externals. and i am reminded how much we do attribute to a person from outward appearances.

but seeing the person, the soul, the spirit and spunk within the skin, particularly when the outer trapping may be withering, wounded, blemished--whatever has caused it to shift from its comfortable familiarity--is the key to seeing and relating to what matters most: our core and not our corporeal selves.

trust and respect

i always catch some tidbit of wisdom when i watch cesar millan on episodes of his show the dog whisperer. usually, they apply not only to pupster ernie but to life more broadly. most recently i heard him explaining what it means to be a calm assertive pack leader in a way that had not registered with me before. he said calm assertive leaders show trust and respect, just as their calm submissive pack followers show them the same.

on walks with ernie, our ideal is to walk with a loose leash. he doesn't pull and i trust him not to grab at things or get into people's space. when i respect ernie with a loose leash and give him the latitude to be a good boy instead of initiating tension on the leash to micromanage him, he responds. happily, with head and tail held high, we walk with a relaxed leash between us.

it works just the same with people. when i feel i am being micromanaged or general tension and lack of trust and respect from others, i tend to want to act out in frustration. when they allow me some slack in the leash, when they trust and respect me, i am energized to do my best for them or with them.

trust, respect and the loose leash. tools for all our walks through life.

 

starting my day as a 5 year old

need a boost for your giggle quotient? your creative juice faucet need extra flow? want to see the world around you freshly?

start your day seeing as if you were a 5 year old! actually, i read recently that thinking like a 7 year old was a fantastic strategy for problem solving and inspiration. my inner child is more 5-ish. children that age don't limit their thinking. they don't look at reasons why not but rather they prefer to dream big. 

through my five years wise eyes, the world i see looks like this:

• in the anti-sad medication aisle in the pharmacy, there would be comedy movies instead.
• every afternoon there would be a nap with our pups where they would use us as a pillow and we would use them as a pillow, at the same time!
• a full table of chocolate (dark, of course) concoctions is set for us each morning for breakfast.
• we would get paid in hugs and laughs and time off to do our own thing like wander in the forest and read our favorite mystery authors and dream and snuggle.
• we would pick out our clothes that look like how we feel.
• when people see us, their eyes light up because they are happy we are here.
• when we get frustrated with people we all twirl giddily until we spin out dizzy and laughing.
• we always come home to hugs and love.

what would your world look like at 7 or 5 or whatevery mini-you you select? enjoy the vision and then see what surprises and inspirations it may open up for you. see freshly, live freshly.

liespotting--are we more deceptive or truthful?

i saw this ted talks video by the author of liespotting, pamela meyer, on spotting the lies we tell each other every day. some are "harmless" while others are deadly. the shocker to me was that we lie on average between 10-200 times each day. seems an astronomical number. and it awakens many queries:

• how much room is left in there for truth telling?
• are we a culture that is already far down the slippery slope of embracing deception as the norm?
• what value do we put on truth? 

and before we can truly answer that question, i think we must look keenly at our own proclivity to truth tell or to deceive.

• how many falsehoods do we project daily?
• what qualifies in our minds as making lying acceptable?
• if we value our relationships, do we value truth in them?
• do our actions match our perceptions of ourselves?
• where do we now draw the line in terms of truth v. deception?

 

experience-based economy

i heard a comment recently that we are an experience-based economy. the products we create and deliver are keenly important, yes, but more critical now is the experience we offer clients in the process of creating.

i would agree that experience is just as memorable a takeaway, if not more so, as is the end result.

i would also posit that experience is key in all relationships. i suppose a parallel can be drawn between economy and relationships, but that feels a little academic for me. i do, however, see that the experience we share with our friends, family, colleagues, significant others, pups is everything. experience, in that sense, is our currency.

is our currency strong? is the experience we offer one that is consistently trustworthy, high in value, rich in opportunity, creative, daring, fair, backed by integrity?

is our currency in need of bolstering? if so, where and what can we do to fortify our own experience economy?

 

importance of silence

when is the last time you listened and heard silence? or perhaps just heard the sounds of nature, without manmade intrusions?

for a significant time, i have been acutely aware of and pained by  the urban noises that even before 6AM seem to drown out my thoughts, my comments to ernie on our walks, even my ipod which i began listening to to get away from the hurtful screeches abounding in the pre-dawn. sirens, horns, back-up beeps on trucks, train horns, people screaming at each other on cell phones... they all litter the soundscape nonstop. there seems to be very little respite from the cacophony of irritating sounds.

where is nature's soundscape? i find it rarely in the city and i have long suspected that it affects me and probably every urbanite in a myriad of destructive ways. in a fascinating and alarming article in the new york times (is silence going extinct?), in addition to tragic accounts of whales and dolphins beaching themselves to escape naval sonar and birds losing their navigational aural cues and becoming extinct due to not being able to successfully migrate, birds who nest near interstates or natural gas pipeline compressors are unable to reproduce. chronic man-made noise-scapes can have disastrous effects.

sound is not just shared between the origin and its intended recipient. it's sprayed over a soundscape that we all suffer from. what if we all practiced more mindfulness about the character and quantity sounds we contribute to the soundscape?

frustration as thief of good

this weekend i confronted what i now think of as the thief of a lasting positive shift in my dynamic with ernie: frustration. in class, he blatantly turned his back on me and refused to listen to simple commands. blatant avoidance. a crystal clear message to my frustration. ernie won't play that. in fact, when my frustration ramped up with him in the beginning of our journey together, he would escalate in response. it was never a pretty scenario.

when we are frustrated working with dogs, they know that with that energy we are not grounded and they do not trust us, they won't listen to what we are asking them to do. they follow stable and grounded leaders. frustration is a thief of trust, respect and positive dynamics.

much the same with people, when we are frustrated, the other person picks up on that energy and is offput, stressed, isn't inspired to ally with us, and doesn't get a good vibe. frustration is a thief of good.

frustration as thief. it helps me to visualize dynamics rather than to just articulate them and intellectualize them. seeing frustration as a thief all dressed in black and robbing me of good dynamics and balance in our moment, in our day, in our relationship, i get my hackles up and refuse to let that thief win.

patience. clear and consistent communications. rewards. balance and breathing freer. i see it into being.

what is the source of our actions?

when we have an idea, when we feel an impulse, when we are compelled to act... do we assess the source of that action?

to keep from reacting, to choose my actions consciously and considerately, it has helped me immensely to take a survey of where the source is for my action. in a couple of breaths, i can check in and assess whether this action i'm about to take is coming from a place of creating good, or a place of creating muck.

for me, the most mucky place to be in is a place of fear. fear of messing up, fear of letting myself and others down, fear of not being a good mom to ernie, fear of not taking the leaps... from the dog whisperer and from spiritual teachers alike, i get the repeated wisdom that if we feel fear and we act on it or from it, we create pain. when we come from a place where we create a positive outcome, even if it's just in the tenor of the interaction, we grow. we build in a positive direction our connection to our best self, to respect, to compassion, to generosity, to spirituality, to balance, to joy.

so when we feel our actions stemming from an ugly place, we can choose to recalibrate. how can we flip that source to a place of creating good?

if the intention and energy are positive, we can grow from that. if it's mucky from the get-go, we will have ourselves a serving of pain.

here's to creating good seeds. good sources. and acting in alignment with the best of ourselves.

 

divine danger

always mentally in love with the idea of being a painter, architect frank gehry says he visualizes the feeling of the white canvas and the paints in front of him. i love the danger of that place, he said.

the blank page. the improvised meal. the spontaneous performance.

the tickle of the danger. the imperative to create. the call to translate the muse, transform the existing, convey the personal, evoke, provoke, inspire.

creators as daredevils. adrenaline rushes can come in front of a computer screen, at a kitchen counter, seated across from an interviewee, behind the lens, at an easel. danger can be keenest before the first step. embracing danger as partner to our process, divine.