When was the last time someone asked you what actually excites you?

Not what you’re worried about, or what’s on your to-do list.

What genuinely excites you?

In our latest episode of Common Ground Conversations, Dr. JoNeil and I spent some time talking about the things that are currently lighting us up.

For JoNeil, it’s the work she’s doing around workplace bullying, nervous system regulation, and helping healthcare professionals create healthier work environments through her book, The Biology of Bullying.

For me, it’s the vision of intentional community- creating spaces where people don’t simply live near one another, but actively support one another in meaningful ways.

As we talked, we realized something important: Many of us spend years trying to be all things to all people.

We chase opportunities that don’t fit.
We say yes when we mean no (aka boundaries).
We try to solve problems that aren’t ours to solve.

Then we lose touch with the work, relationships, and passions that truly energize us.

One of the ideas that emerged from our conversation was this:

What if your excitement is actually information?

What if the things that keep pulling at your heart are clues?

What if the work you’re meant to do isn’t found by forcing your way forward, but by paying attention to what continually calls you back?

We also discussed:

• Why so many people struggle with sales and self-promotion

• The difference between service and pressure

• Finding the people you’re uniquely equipped to serve

• Why narrowing your focus often expands your impact

• The importance of honoring your own calling

And one of my favorite lines from the conversation:

“There’s a body-shaped hole in the world that only you can fill.”

I hope this episode encourages you to spend a little time asking yourself:

What am I excited about?
What feels meaningful?
What am I being called toward?

Those answers may be more important than you think.

Watch the full episode of Common Ground Conversations: What We’re Excited About here:

I’d love to hear from you.

What is something that has you excited right now? You can share it below!

You are capable of far more than you think you are!

-Dr. Bonnie

I asked her to go within to check on where she thought doing the work was going to take her. She stated she just didn’t want to do it “because it’s going to be work” and would dig up stuff she didn’t want to feel. Her comment was, “Why do I have to keep doing this? This should be fixed by now” with the implication being that somehow she was broken.

“Paradigm Shift!”, I shouted! It was time for an overhaul in how she viewed this process in which we were engaging. I asked her to see herself smashing the old musty, fusty pieces of belief around “It’s going to be work”, kicking the pieces to the side, and stepping into her process from a fresh place. She then spontaneously started framing up the process as paralleling her process when she writes. She tapped the enjoyment she felt in doing revisions, seeking just the right combination of words to convey her thoughts. She imagined the fun she had when helping others revise things they’d written.

She commented on how interesting it was to her that, despite being a wordsmith, this paradigm shift was coming to her in images. Images of the fun she had in this process; meeting the ongoing revisions of her life. That life truly IS a revisionary process.

A major implication of this paradigm shift was noting that it’s not that something is wrong with her, she’s not broken. She’s just not yet to her “final revision”; there’s always room for changes and growth. I suggested that this process was also likely asymptotic – we keep improving and approaching perfection, but we never fully arrive there because we are human and, by definition, we are flawed beings. AND that is one fundamental reason we are so freaking awesome! It’s precisely because of our flaws and quirks and such that we are so darned interesting, don’t you think?

So now both this client and I are sallying forth on our respective life paths, excited to apply the aha’s of this revisionary paradigm shift to our lives. I imagine being willing to let go of the idea that revising ourselves has to be W.O.R.K. and reframing it as a fun and interesting process will go a long way toward opening up the willingness to dive deep into those life revisions and emerge energized and triumphant. Maybe you’ll find the correlation between the process of writing revisions and life helpful for you, too.

It seems to me that is what’s happening to a lot of people right now, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.

Derek Thompson, writing for The Atlantic in an article entitled “What Quitters Understand About the Job Market”, stated, “’a major crisis has a way of exposing what is broken and giving a new generation of leaders a chance to build something better’—often in surprising ways. The Great Chicago Fire of 1871 contributed to the invention of the modern skyscraper; the East Coast blizzard of 1888 led to the first American subway system. The COVID-19 pandemic killed 600,000 people and led to a paradigm shift in workers’ power might not sound like a particularly obvious cause-and-effect. But our responses to disasters can change the world in ways that are hard to foresee when we stare into the maw of the original crisis.”

While he’s writing about more widespread changes, I think we as individuals can also take this period of time as an opportunity to bravely look at what isn’t working in our lives and make some fundamental changes. Those changes may be major, such as a career change or ending a relationship or they may be smaller, yet still very important, such as taking time to pause each day to appreciate the silence and stillness and beauty that’s waiting for us.

Much has been written about how the hardships of life can actually hone our appreciation for life itself and the good things it holds. What if we take this time of recalibration after the pandemic as an opportunity to truly appreciate what’s working well in our lives and unflinchingly face that which isn’t?

Perhaps now is the ideal opportunity for stepping out of the complacency of the “good enough” life or the “pursuit of stuff” life and into a fuller, richer life you’re meant to embrace, with all of its challenges, growth edges, and opportunities. What will you choose?

One thought that popped in and stayed a while was how to help someone see that, to pay me to free up the human blocks, obstacles, barriers to moving forward, upleveling, evolving her/his company through the employees who work there would be a worthy endeavor. The Divine thought that came through after that bout of fantasy was “The best way to do that for others is to do it for myself! Take risks, speak up, be bold!”

Someone I’ve known for many years popped into my head at that point as an example of someone who thinks from a position of scarcity which leads to her being very tight with her money, which, in my opinion, keeps her stuck in the lower rungs of success. There’s limited flow because she has her hand too tightly on the faucet and keeps turning down the flow when she gets scared. Again, I looked at my own reflection in that scenario. Loosening up frees up the flow.

As I wandered my way through all manner of push-pull thoughts and feelings, it jelled that I could benefit from some PSYCH-K balancing related to all of this and designed to free up the flow within me. Rather than keeping my hand on the faucet and repeatedly turning it up and down as my thoughts move from faith to fear and back again, I want to open the tap up, then step back and breathe through the fears as the flow continues.

To that end, I created a statement to balance, “I manage the anxiety and fears that have previously caused me to turn down the flow”. That statement needed a New Direction balance in order to get my subconscious mind on board with that concept. A New Direction balance is one tool in the PSYCH-K toolkit and I use balancing as a way to move myself forward in life, past what are mainly self-imposed obstacles based on my fears. PSYCH-K is one of many modalities I use with coaching clients to move them off of stuck places. Again, if it works for others, I can definitely benefit from applying it to myself!

I want to point out here the number of times I’ve already mentioned my observations (judgments??) of others’ paths in life and where they hold themselves up AND how I’m consciously choosing to then look at that for myself. We don’t tend to notice and judge things in others if they aren’t also operating on some level within us. Therefore, my own judgments about someone else’s hang-ups are prime real estate for me to explore in terms of my own hang-ups!

My next steps were to come up with some baby steps forward in terms of action plan for opening up the flow and stepping back to let it run. One idea immediately popped to mind, but my initial reaction was “How the Hell am I going to do that??” That let me know that particular step was too big, so I broke it down into several steps, the first of which felt very doable. Can I see the step beyond that? Not very clearly yet. But I do know from six decades of life experience that taking the first step often brings the next step into clearer focus.

As I continue to acknowledge my fears and take my steps forward on this particular project, I invite you to join me in stepping forward with something you’d like to accomplish, too. My hope is several of the thoughts conveyed in this blog post resonate for you to the extent that they get you moving forward again. As I wrote on one of the 3 X 5 cards I keep posted on my desk, “Move Ahead Anyway…Your Soul Knows the Way Through”.

As I was journaling this morning, I noticed my mind was storytelling about supporting others to realize their big dreams, their playing-to-win dreams. This makes sense given my professions as a clinical psychologist and holistic coach. Holding big space for someone to realize their dreams is definitely a service that feels “in flow” for me. But what does that mean for me about my own big dreams?

As I noodled on that question, I noticed some interesting tributaries to that flow. For example, it fit well with Jim Rohn’s idea that the best way to get what we want is to help others get what they want. So what is it I want? My big, bold, audacious dream is to build a pocket neighborhood/cottage court/intentional community that serves those of us of a certain age who don’t have family nearby to help us and those of us who want to be homeowners, but don’t have the resources to get over the humps of downpayment, credit score, budgeting, etc. Did you know the average first-time home buyer is now 40 years old? Clearly that “missing middle” housing issue continues to dog many of us. My vision is to bring together groups of folks who can support each others’ dreams of independence and homeownership. I get your kid off the bus when you’re held over at work and you clean out my gutters because you being on a ladder isn’t the disaster waiting to happen that me being on a ladder is, for example.

So back to my dream and my storytelling. Within my own storytelling, I can discover my self-imposed barriers to success in manifesting this community. These barriers tend to rise to the surface naturally as I work with clients. I can see their playing-not-to-lose approaches to their dreams, thus revealing my playing-not-to-lose approaches to mine. There’s an old therapy saw about us only being able to take others as far as we’ve gone ourselves. I think there’s validity in that, marked by another old therapy saw that whatever you need to work on yourself is going to walk through your door in the form of your clients.

These opportunities also occur for those of us who are not connected to the helping professions. Ever notice how irritated you get with folks who are struggling with something you’ve struggled with in the past? That reformed smoker as our most judgmental “ally” when we’re trying to quit? Pay attention to what you find most irritating in others, then turn your intuitive eyes inward to see where that is reflected in yourself. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself defending against taking a clear view of that. There’s a reason that particular aspect has been lurking in your shadows. Often they’re not fun to address, but so worth our efforts to do so as it opens up the flow toward our desired goals more fully when those shadow beliefs are addressed and released.

Another tributary that can show up is when our helping another person get what they want is actually a way to avoid working on getting what we want. We get to be sanctimonious and smug about how helpful we’re being to another, all the while martyring our own big dreams on the “helper” altar. If you become aware that this is you, don’t beat yourself up about that. It’s common. Not self-sustaining, but common. A classic playing-not-to-lose maneuver. When we’re willing to allow ourselves to take the painful look at that, it’s our first step toward being in our own flow and playing to win for ourselves.

When we get more willing to be in our own flow, it’s interesting to note that most often that flow doesn’t take us where we expect to go, but to where we’re meant to go. Following our flow opens the path before us to reveal what we’re truly meant to be doing and move away from what we think we ought to be doing or were trained to do. For example, my son is an artist who went through the trials of others’ fears about “how are you going to make a living as an artist? You’d better get an art education degree instead!” I countered by telling him to follow his path where it was leading him, not to cave in to others’ fears and insecurities. Where has that path led him? He’s still creating art and working at an art studio, but he’s also organizing farm workers with great passion. Would he have discovered that passion if he had played not to lose by getting a degree in art education? I doubt it.

Following our life’s path with all of its meanderings will lead to far greater happiness and productivity than trying to force a path that truly isn’t ours. And a great beginning for this is becoming conscious of the storytelling we’re doing and noting whether those stories that we have on repeat truly serve us or keep us stuck.

Recently I participated in a webinar series hosted by Rebecca Campbell, entitled “The Return to Depth”, in which she talked about how many of us are experiencing a shift in our calling, our purpose. She stated that the energetic containers that hold us need to be deeper now and more potent. We’re being called to go deeper, which to her way of thinking, necessitates slowing down. She stated, “We must slow down to the pace of the body so true embodiment of the soul can happen”.

An integral part of this slowing down is a conscious disconnection from the external noise, of technology, of social media, so as to maintain the connection to self, to soul, to humanity. Now this doesn’t necessarily mean a complete, unending unplugging. It does mean a conscious choice to detach from devices for a significant amount of time so as to go within and reconnect with one’s own inner map. We are undergoing significant transformation where the old ways of being and doing things are no longer working and the new ways of being have not yet come fully online. This is what Sue Monk Kidd called the “green muck stage”; the caterpillar is no longer the caterpillar, but not yet the butterfly. It is green muck held within the chrysalis, full of potential not yet manifest.

So that brings me to my point about this post: when we’re at a place of reconsidering and potentially revamping our purpose, what does that process look like, sound like, feel like? For many of us who’ve been indoctrinated in the competitive, pursuit-focused way of living, finding our purpose again means engaging in all kinds of external behaviors designed to find our new purpose. This can be particularly frustrating in this age of upheaval, when the ground beneath us seems to be constantly shifting and what seemed to be leading us to a conclusion on our purpose ends up seemingly leading nowhere productive.

I’m going to make the case that a better approach in tumultuous times is to slow down, quiet oneself, and listen within for the guidance that’s always with us, but too often gets ignored as we race through life. Perhaps a way to frame this process up is that it IS a process, not an outcome. The more we focus on the process and let go of the outcome, the better we feel and the more we can be in the flow of the unfolding of our calling.

As the initial name of my coaching business implied, this is a path to empowerment and purpose. It’s more about our life’s journey than about where we arrive. Are we being fully present for each step of the path? Or are we so focused on what we think is around the next bend that we miss the present moment?

There also tends to come a point on the path where we feel lost, confused, frustrated about where we seem to be. This is the “Why bother?!” stage and is a crucial part of our path. This is where those who understand that this is an integral part of the process are willing to pause, look around, rest, and tune in to the guidance that will open up the next step. As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the next step in faith.” Frankly, if we could see the whole path, there would be no need for faith and trust!

The point is to invest some time living the question, rather than pursuing the answer. Be in the uncertainty and the unknowing. Yes, it’s uncomfortable. We have vastly overvalued comfort. Discomfort can be a sign we’re on the edge of change, growth, development. Embrace that, just like you embrace the discomfort in a muscle when you work it, knowing that doing so leads to greater strength.

The living of the question can feel uncomfortable due to the uncertainty, futile when the answer doesn’t emerge in our timing, and challenging when we’ve been so indoctrinated into focusing on outcomes rather than process. Yet I will hazard a guess that those who get to the end of their lives and were more focused on process day-to- day die more satisfied and feeling like their journey was good and is complete than those who were very outcome-focused.

So my call to you today is to take a moment, take a deep breath or two, and check in with yourself on what you know to be true about your purpose in life. If it’s clear, wonderful! If it’s not, even more wonderful because this is your call to invest some time doing that inner exploring, being your own Curious Observer, and allowing yourself to hold space for your own creativity rather than production.

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In through your nose.
Out through your mouth.

Again.
In.
And out.

Feel that exhale.

There’s something about that release, after holding your breath, that reminds us how much we’re carrying without even realizing it.

And maybe that’s exactly where today begins.

Lately, I’ve been sitting with a question:

What are we allowing ourselves to be?

Not what we’ve been told we are.
Not what we’ve labeled ourselves as.
Not what others assume.

But what we’re actually allowing.

I was reading from Outrageous Openness this morning, and a line stopped me:

“I am available for anything that wants to happen in this moment, including that which is beyond imagining.”

Take that in for a second.

Available… for anything?
Even what you can’t yet imagine?

Most of us don’t live like that.

Most of us live inside quiet, unspoken rules:

• “I can’t do that because…”

• “That’s just not who I am…”

• “People like me don’t…”

And just like that, we’ve put ourselves in a box.

Here’s the thing.

Every single one of us has a range.

A spectrum.

A lower version of how we show up… and a higher one.

The book describes it through astrology, but honestly, this is just human nature.

You can be:

• reactive or reflective

• closed or curious

• defensive or expansive

You can be the version of you that reacts…
or the version of you that rises.

Think about this.

Are you living into what’s possible for you…or are you living into what’s familiar?

Because those are not the same thing.

We love labels as humans.

They help us make sense of the world.

But they also limit us.

“I’m this kind of person.”
“I believe this.”
“I don’t do that.”

And before we know it, we’ve stopped questioning whether those labels are even true anymore.

Or worse- whether they’re keeping us small.

I see this a lot, especially right now.

People boxing themselves (and each other)in.

Reducing entire human beings down to a category.

And then defending that category like it’s their identity.

But here’s a thought:

What if you’re more than any label you’ve ever used to describe yourself?

There was another piece in the reading that I loved.

It talked about evolution- not in the scientific sense, but in how we show up.

That we all have access to something higher.

And even beyond that- a version of ourselves that rises, transforms, and lets go of what no longer fits.

So let me ask you this:

Where are you limiting yourself right now?

• Is it a belief about who you are?

• A role you’ve outgrown?

• A label you’ve been carrying for too long?

And…

What would it look like to allow something more?

Not force it.
Not figure it all out.

Just… allow it.

Because when you stop trying to fit into the version of you that feels familiar…

You create space for the version of you that feels true.

If this stirred something in you, I’d love to hear:

👉 Where do you feel like you’ve been putting yourself in a box?

Or simply sit with this today:

“What am I available for… that I haven’t allowed yet?”

You are capable of far more than you think you are!

-Dr. Bonnie

Watch the Full YEMIG on Youtube

In the course of what was essentially one day’s contemplation, I made some radical discoveries that I’m so excited to put into practice. The main discovery I made was that I had been confusing discernment with strategic planning. So what’s the difference and why does it matter?

Brother Thomas’s definition of discernment was “Discernment is a process of being able to make a decision between two or more good options that best allows us to live into the life God has invited us into at this time.” His definition of strategic planning was “Strategic planning is the process in which an organization’s leaders define their vision for the future and identify their organization’s goals and objectives. The process includes establishing the sequence in which those goals should be realized so the organization can reach its stated vision.” Can you feel the difference between the two definitions? For me, the former is embedded in heart and soul, in the deep dive into “Who am I?” or “Who are we?” if for a group discernment. The latter feels flat and corporate and hierarchical with goals being chosen at the highest echelons and edicts being handed down to those who must implement them. It answers the question, “What do we do?”

I’m going to make the bold statement that focusing on “What do we do?” without having discerned “Who are we?” is a recipe for, at best, mediocrity and, at worst, disaster. As Brother Thomas said, “Don’t skip this invitation! Do the discernment before any strategic planning” because “Our dreams die when we put practicalities on them too soon!” A very sad and classic example of this is when a person choosing what to study in college chooses based on things like what will make the most money, what their parents want them to do, what seems like it will offer a number of job opportunities rather than what makes their heart sing. My own son experienced this when he chose to study Art. I encouraged him to do EXACTLY what he wanted with that, yet someone else scared him into believing he couldn’t make a living doing art and should focus on Art Education instead so he could get a J.O.B. in a school system. After one semester of student teaching, he knew it was not for him, went back to focusing on Art in his studies, and now makes a modest and joyful living as a potter.

We’ve all had that experience of coming up with a great idea only to watch it crash in flames under the weight of “How are we going to do that?”, “We don’t have money for that!”, or “We’ve never done it that way before.” As Julia Cameron states in The Artist’s Way, your creative ideas are like infants and you wouldn’t expose your baby to the harsh scrutiny of even well-meaning others who critique and criticize before that baby even begins to grow. Do the same with your wonderful ideas…protect them from the tyranny of HOW and allow them to begin to root in the glory of WHY. I often tell my coaching clients, “When your Why is big enough, the Universe takes care of the Hows”.

So what exactly is this discernment process and how does one do it? I will say it is going to be different for everyone, but there are some common elements we can parse out: it is about important matters, it is about making choices between oftentimes many good options rather than between good and bad, it is about uncertainty and embracing that, it takes time and depth, it requires God’s help (Universe, Oneness, All That Is…however you conceive of that Higher Energy). It’s about answering questions like “What am I being called to next?”, “What no longer serves me and others?”, “Who do I want to become?” As Carl Jung said, “We routinely walk around in shoes too small.” Where are you limiting yourself? Is that from fear? False modesty? The desire for certainty? What is getting in your way?

Brother Thomas offered another nugget of gold when he stated, “God is not about efficiency. God is about growth and discernment”. In other words, it wasn’t “We sat down with a white board and knocked out our plan in a few hours”; rather it is “We walked the desert for 40 years.” Yes, your toes might curl at the idea that discernment can take a loooooong time, but to rush the process really is doing a disservice to yourself and those who are meant to benefit from your discernment.

I shall end with a quote from Howard Thurman which sums up the points I’m making above: “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

When I talk to clients about taking baby steps toward a goal they’ve chosen, I often get pushback on that being a waste of time and a desire for major change RIGHT NOW! By and large, that is simply not how change, at least lasting change, occurs. It takes many small steps, strung together, to make lasting changes. It takes commitment and focus and fortitude…all things that are pretty compromised by how we live our lives these days, attached to screens, observing others seemingly conquering insurmountable odds with the flick of a wrist, zapping our brains with the dopamine hits of social media rather than the steeping of our brains in quiet stillness and contemplation, even boredom, that fosters creativity and growth.

What are some ways to address this unfortunate penchant for instant results and why even go there? First off, people do still want to accomplish things, albeit fast and superficially, rather than with great depth. Regardless, when someone looks at their life, they often lament not having accomplished many of the things they wanted to accomplish. That’s a point where I, as their coach, can offer them a path, a way to success with a particular goal. I do explain that the process may seem uninspired and slow, but if they’re willing to commit to the process, in a short time (3 months, 6 months, a year), they can be enjoying significant progress.

We then talk about their “why”. Why do they want to accomplish this goal in the first place? We explore this because, if their “why” is too small, too unfocused, too superficial, they will not have the staying power they’re going to need to get over the seeming obstacles that crop up on the path to any success. I often tell clients, “When your why is big enough, the Universe takes care of the hows”. What I mean by that is, if they waste time trying to figure out the hows on the front end, they’ll bog down their whole process and never get off the ground. If, on the other hand, they focus on their why, making it big and bold and audacious, and pay attention to the steps as they unfold in front of the path, that person will be taking those baby steps forward.

A while back, in the context of community organizing, I heard the term, “Relentless Incrementalism” and was instantly fascinated by that concept, given how well it fits in with what I’m talking about here. As community organizers take steps to challenge and change that which is inequitable, especially on the government level, they do need to focus on incremental changes and celebrate each small victory on their way to changing laws that harm people. I think we can borrow that term, relentless incrementalism, and apply it to the changes we want to make in our lives.

So what might be some ways to encourage this? I start my coaching sessions by asking my coachee for a recitation of what’s been going well in their life. By creating this list of what’s going well, not only does it put them into a better state for our coaching session, but it also demonstrates to them that they have made small changes and moved the needle forward on their path to success. Again, since most of us write off our baby steps, taking the time to articulate and celebrate them is vital.

As for the celebration, you can do this however you choose, but I’ve come up with a short phrase that is designed to acknowledge my own incremental steps toward change, and that is “Yay, me!” Family and friends kind of chuckle when I do this, but I wholeheartedly believe the habit-practice of doing this has set me up to take many more steps forward than I otherwise might have. I invite you to try it and let me know what you notice. What would YOU like to accomplish?

For Your Early Morning Intuitive Guidance (YEMIG), the daily meditation I do Live on Facebook, the card pulled for the day was Humanity from the Virtues Reflection cards by The Virtues Project. The card stated, “Humanity is an attitude of caring and mercy toward all people. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. We all suffer and rejoice. Although in the eternal scheme of life, each of us is small, we are one of a kind, irreplaceable. We lose our humanity whenever we generalize about a group of people and separate ourselves from them based on external characteristics such as race or sex (and I would add internal characteristics such as beliefs and thoughts). We tap into our humanity when we put ourselves in others’ shoes and are genuinely concerned for their welfare. Our humanity grows as we serve others. There is no ‘they’, only ‘us’”.

And the meditation I did for the Episcopal Diocese of Northern Michigan also mirrored the above sentiments. We shared a short video by Brian McLaren in which he talked about the limitations of a spirituality that’s entirely internal, not shared with the world in terms of connection and compassion for others and the limitations of a spirituality that’s only shared with others, but not rooted in a “deep spiritual vitality” within, again alluding to the need for balance between these seeming opposites, a blending of both.

A question then comes forth in terms of HOW to do this. And the first practice that popped into my mind with regard to a potential answer was the Loving Kindness Meditation. I’ll post the version we use every two weeks on our Moon Ceremony (New Moon and Full Moon), but you can also find many versions of this online by googling Loving Kindness. For the one I’m including here, there are several ways to use it: you can just read through it silently, you can read it out loud to yourself, you can record it slowly on your phone and then play it back for yourself so you can respond out loud to the prompts. However you choose to use it, I hope you find it calming, centering, and connecting.

For this version of the loving kindness meditation, I invite you to settle into an awareness of your body…and your breath.

In this practice, we’ll be cultivating loving kindness. We all have within us, this natural capacity for lovingkindness… that is unconditional and open… Lovingkindness is a natural opening of a compassionate heart…to ourselves and to others.

…breathing it in…and breathing it out… and you may repeat the words out loud…I like to hear myself saying them …or you can just repeat them silently in your mind.

May I be filled with lovingkindness …May I be held in loving kindness… May I accept myself just as I am… May I be happy… May I know the natural joy of being alive…

Now you can open the circle of lovingkindness by bringing to mind people who are dear to you…In your heart feel your appreciation for these people, and begin your simple offering…

May you be filled with lovingkindness… May you be held in lovingkindness… May you accept yourself just as you are… May you be happy… May you know the natural joy of being alive…

Now bring to mind a “neutral” person or people. This is someone you might see regularly but don’t know well…It might be a neighbor, a grocery store clerk, the person who waits in line for a latte every morning with you …Bring this person to mind now, and repeat the words of loving kindness…

May you be filled with lovingkindness… May you be held in lovingkindness… May you accept yourself just as you are… May you be happy… May you know the natural joy of being alive…

And now, bring to mind someone with whom you’ve had difficulty. Perhaps it’s someone you don’t like much, struggling to have compassion for them… see this person as a whole being…deserving of love and kindness …as someone who also suffers… extend to this person the words of loving kindness …

May you be filled with lovingkindness… May you be held in lovingkindness… May you accept yourself just as you are… May you be happy… May you know the natural joy of being alive…

Now, allow your awareness to open out in all directions… all beings…humans, animals, plants, Mother Earth, the planets everywhere… May all beings be filled with lovingkindness… May all beings be held in lovingkindness…may all beings be happy… May all beings awaken and be free… May all beings know the natural joy of being alive… And now, bringing this practice to a close by coming back to extend those feelings of lovingkindness to yourself again by sitting and basking in the energy for a few moments.

I will suggest to you that the more you practice loving kindness, the easier and more natural it feels. I hold great hope for a world where people are more and more naturally inclined to spread loving kindness to all others. As so beautifully put in the lyrics of “Let There Be Peace On Earth”, “let it begin with me”. Namaste.

e called The Marginalian by Maria Popova. This edition was a special one offering up her “Favorite Children’s Books of 2023 — tender reckonings with friendship, fear, love, solitude, black holes, time, and the interconnectedness of life”. As I savored not just the beautiful images of the books she chose to highlight, but the exquisite languaging she chose to describe those books, I pondered language and our use of it. Words have power. They can change our perspective, incite a riot, wound others deeply, draw people close, create understanding, and so much more. Yet we often use language with little attention to the impact created.

What if we were all more cognizant of the effects of our chosen words? Would we choose differently? Would we become more masterful in how we wield language? Sharon Ellison, in her remarkable book, Taking the War Out of Our Words, states in her Introduction, “I suddenly had a vivid picture of how people use defensiveness as their way of protecting themselves when they talk to each other…What I was teaching was a method of communication in which people would not have to resort to defensiveness to protect themselves…Our language prescribes being defensive as our primary means of self-protection and thus leads us directly into power struggle.”

In what appears to me to be the human equivalent of the fish being unaware of the ocean in which they swim, we view our languaging as normal because it’s what we know. We don’t question how our rules of English language may actually be setting us up unwittingly for conflict and discontent. We toss off phrases such as “She’s fighting cancer” and “I’ll conquer this yet!” without any awareness of how this sets up conflict, a battle stance, division rather than connection. I think it would be very interesting to interview people who are bilingual and see if they notice a qualitative difference in the war-like nature of the English language vs. whatever other language they speak.

My modest hope for this blog post is to stir some awareness within us of the language choices we make and how those choices impact our connectedness to others. My big hope is that this stirs enough curiosity in some of us to actually acquire Ellison’s book and begin to explore this “ocean” in which we swim. Even a small modification can pave the way for smoother communication with others and a burgeoning love affair with language.

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Examples abound, but I’ll offer a few here so you can get a sense of what I’m talking about. It can be as simple as I’m late arriving at a friend’s house and she says to herself, “I’m sure Bonnie just stopped for gas”. That may be a totally inaccurate perception, but it affords my friend that illusion of certainty and she gets on with her day until I arrive. Or I walk past someone in the hall and say hi and they do not respond. Here’s where the certainty illusion can be costly for us. I can say, “Wow, Jack didn’t even say hi to me…what a jerk!” and I feel angry. I can say, “Wow, Jack didn’t even say hi to me…I wonder if something is wrong!” and I feel worried. I can say, “Wow, Jack didn’t even say hi to me…he must be very busy!” and I go about my day. The important thing is we get to choose what story we tell ourselves about an event like that; the problematic thing is we tend to choose the negative story.

Why is that? Because of how our brains are wired and the historical survival value of assuming the negative, we tend to default more easily to the negative interpretation and have to be conscious enough of our thoughts to choose a positive interpretation. Let me share another instance where I see this happening and causing us all manner of issues. Dualistic thinking, either-or, is another trap we humans find ourselves in repeatedly. To feed our “need” for certainty, we like to look at things in terms of either-or, only two options, often opposites, are allowed in this way of thinking. Why? Because it makes it much easier to feel certain about that choice we make between two diametrically opposed options. When we move beyond black-and-white thinking, we not only have to allow for shades of grey, but also colors! And plaid! And paisley! Talk about frying out our certainty circuits!

So what do we do about this? Some people will consciously choose to stay in the perceived certainty of negative storytelling and dualistic thinking because, even though it’s faulty at best and damaging at worst, they still are heavily drawn to that illusion of certainty. Others, myself included, are willing to navigate the fears provoked by being uncertain in order to gain the expansiveness, creativity, and innovation of positive thought, “we can” vs “we can’t”, and allowing for what is right here, right now in order to influence what comes next, even though it’s uncertain. What do YOU choose?