courage = trust + fear

I’ve been thinking about words this week. I suppose this is because in Poem It Out, we are gathering lots of words to add to our creative toolbox to help us when we face the blank page. And there is nothing quite like a long list of gathered words to inspire some poetry. And then there are the words I hammer into metal, so those words, in the form of soul mantras, are often on my mind.

This week, as I gathered up an "I am Brave" locket to send out into the world, I started thinking about a conversation I had with a friend last month. She asked me to define brave. Because we were texting, I was pushed to get to the point, so I wrote:

Brave = faith + trust
Brave = holding hands with fear

I started tearing up after I pressed "send" because it felt like I had been waiting for those words for a long time, as though I needed permission to admit that I know being brave, standing tall in your courage, means standing side-by-side with fear and trusting anyway. It isn't about leaving fear behind. It is about knowing it is there and still choosing trust.

As I write this, I am sitting on my red couch in the middle of my little home while everyone is still asleep and the house has cooled off just enough to feel comfortable. And as I sit here, I literally feel as though I am sandwiched between “fear” and “trust,” and I'm wearing a t-shirt that says "courage" as I admit to myself that they wlll be house guests for a very long time. 

This week, we have been lowering the doses of Ellie’s medication and tomorrow she will have her last dose (at least for now). This is the medication she has been on three times a day for more than two years. The medication that regulates her heart rhythm. The medication that saved her life. The medication that has really driven the train that is our family’s daily world.

This is really good news.

This means that we are at the point where we think it is very possible that she has outgrown both of her heart rhythm “issues” and won’t need to be on the medication any more. 

The only way we can know this is to take her off of the medication and wait to see what happens.

Twice so far I’ve almost called her cardiologist to say, “I’m not ready.”

But of course, it isn’t about me. It isn’t about how ready I am. It is about a little girl. It is about letting go of knowing. It is about trust.

For several months we've been in a holding pattern with her weight. Wanting her to get bigger to literally grow out of this arrhythmia; speculating she isn’t getting much bigger because the medication affects her appetite. So this is the next step.

And we wait.

And while we wait, she just keeps teaching us as she dances and runs ahead of us and lives a life punctuated with yes.

And I tuck trust and fear into my pocket and take a breath and exhale a forcefield of courage around all of us.

softly (leaning into wholeness)

whole heart soul mantra locket

Yesterday, I was thinking about my word of the year and reviewing my practice of thinking about what this time next year would look like if I lived 2012 from a place of wholeness. I began making a mental list of the "shoulds" and suddenly heard these words, "let yourself do it softly."

Deep breath.

As I navigate all that was being away from my family for several days during the last month to so many launches during the last few weeks that I can't even keep up with myself to how I know I need more rest instead of "do" to the ways in which I want to choose love to how I want to show up for myself and those I love, I am going to hold onto these words that seemed to have been whispered through the open window last evening.

Stillness speaks just the wisdom I need yet again...

a guest post from kristin noelle

 

Kristin Noelle is a writer and an artist whose work illuminates trust as the antidote to all that ails us.

Find her at Trust Tending, where she blogs, draws, and listens deeply for the sake of trust-ward transformation. She lives in Los Angeles with her husband, young kids, and 6 chickens.

 *****

A note from Liz: This re-entry after retreats can be such a tender time as exhaustion walks hand and hand with love. After everyone leaves, my own loneliness sets in as I experience what I tell retreat participants they might experience: You come home forever changed but no one at home has had the same experience you have had...so they might not get it (even if they really want to). At each retreat this year, Kelly and I are giving retreat participants "self-care kits" to take home to help them with this re-entry phase. During the retreat, one of the Pen & Paper participants asked me about how I practice self-care during my own re-entry. 

I didn't really have an answer.

Then I saw this piece of art Kristin created that is shared above. My heart felt like it literally expanded when I realized she had sent over a gift for me (for all of us really) in the form of a guest post. Looking at this, it is as though we sat in a cafe together and she peeked right inside me and then created this...but we've never actually met or even talked on the phone.

As I sit here in a mostly quiet house wearing my superpower mom cape over my owl pajamas while wishing for a nap, I am reflecting on all the truths and stories and creative play shared over the weekend and marveling at how these women found there way to a little cabin in the woods just because I said, "Wanna come?" And then I am looking at this gentle artwork Kristin has created, and I am simply struck at the exquisite beauty the internet can facilitate as it gives us a forum for the simple act of reaching out and saying, "Me too. Me too." 

My self-care during this re-entry time is going to be creating an altar with this artwork as the backdrop. It will be an altar to wholeness and home.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

enough(ness)

a glimpse into evening work + play

This week is full of days that are "just us girls." Work has Jon away many evenings and unexpectedly out of town all day Saturday. This means the overwhelm continues to wait in the wings, hoping for its cue. As I sit with the reality that a cold arrived last night and has decided to stay for a bit, I am sifting through my self-care moves to see what might work for me today as I know I have to cross off things on my "must be done today" to-do list.

As I mentioned in my video post earlier this week, I have been thinking a lot about this illusion people have when they ask, "How do you do it all?" I am still not sure what "it" is exactly, but this is what I am thinking about this morning: A big part of this illusion of someone else "doing it all" has to do with how someone observing another fills in the cracks with assumptions.

And in the blogging/social networking world many of us "live" in, the observations another makes are just a tiny slice of what is real. Just a tiny slice of what someone puts out into the world. And we put our own spin on what we see and read and hear as it goes through our own filter. I think part of what pushes people away from connections that are made in this blogging community is that they feel the weight of the assumptions others are making about them, and perhaps, even more than that, they feel the weight of the assumptions they are making about others.

As I hear Ellie stirring and begin to slip into yet another role I will play today, I want to echo the words I said in Tuesday's video because I need to write them here to remind myself: Being enough does not mean doing everything. Being enough does not mean doing it all.

Let's be gentle with one another today. Let's be gentle with ourselves. Let's release our grip on the shoulds and the assumptions. Let's listen to what we most need and love ourselves so that we can live from a place of open-hearted love as we move about the world. Let's try to live from a place where we believe the people we meet, where we believe we, are already enough.

a few more journaling thoughts

So the Smash Journal love continues. As I mention in the video, I received a few emails with questions so I thought I would share a bit more in this video. (Be sure to check out my first post about how I am creating a practice around my journal and read the great comments in that post where people share their own thoughts about journaling.) I have decided to just call this my "Creative Wholeness Journal" because that really sums up all that it holds right now.

Settle in with a cup of tea...

A few notes about things I mention in the video:

1) Jen Lee totally made a video when I asked her to share the way she uses her journal. So excited for you to hear her thoughts and be inspired. Watch her video here. (Thank you Jen!) And while you are over on her site, check out the t-shirts she has been posting about that are coming soon. LOVE her shirts!

2) I am using my new red Smash journal for ecourse ideas. I really do think creating a journal with tabs for your current projects is such a good idea. Do you do this? Would love to know more from those of you who do. I have tried the 3-ring binder approach in the past, but it didn't stick. Hoping this will as my current approach of having notes in three spiral notebooks (depending on which I can find in a given moment) is not so much supporting me.

3) Here is a link to Tricia's shop of beautiful handmade journals. I have one of her coptic-stitched hardcover journals that I use for notes at my retreats. Love it.

4) A few of you have asked me about the sticky notes I am using (since you too thought they were cute!). It looks like the company, Galison, that makes them has discontinued this exact line, but I did find their website with so many other delightful options and other good things to distract your for a bit. I also have these that I am using in the new journal. 

Thank you for continuing to share your thoughts about your own idea journaling and daily journaling. It is so much fun to learn from one another.