Always Beauty Laughing Gentle Princess

Why do you do what you do?

Why are you here?

Why do you make the choices you make?

Last week, as I walked up to my kids’ school to pick them up from afternoon dismissal, my eight-year-old daughter pushed a crumpled coffee filter she was clutching in her hand at me. It looked as if she had been holding onto it for some time.
“Here,” she said with a smile. “I picked these for you.”
I took the filter and could feel something inside . . . little pieces, small and hard, like Chiclet gum. I couldn’t fathom what gems might lie within because, frankly, I’ve seen it all; I’ve received nuggets of rubber mulch as a gift, lots of rocks and pebbles (some of which I’ve kept!), feathers, used chewing gum, a dead dung beetle . . . you name it, I’ve been gifted it! And truly, I’ve cherished each and every humble little offering.
As I began to open the filter, she asked, “Doesn’t it look like a flower?” To be honest, I thought it looked like a tired, grungy, and perhaps used tissue, but I affirmed, as most moms would: “Yes, I can see how it does.” And I could. She smiled again.
As the filter fell open I saw these small, plastic rectangular beads with words on them. They might have been beads a kid would string on a necklace. I asked Sage where she got them and she said she picked them out, just for me, in art class.
Then, I started reading the words: Laugh. Gentle. Always. Beauty. Princess. Now. Time. Good.
“I love them!” I said to Sage as I gave her a quick hug. “How did you pick each word?” I asked.
She replied, “It was easy. Each one made me think of you.”

THAT is why I do what I do everyday. Well, a HUGE part. For my kids. For my family. For that sense of CONNECTION. So that we might act as mirrors for each other when we need reminding of our inherent goodness. And even when we don’t.
And of course, to be told, through eight small plastic beads: We have time. The time in now. It is all good. And, I am an always beauty laughing gentle PRINCESS. (No, my friends, it doesn’t get any better than that! Truly. Even if she and I know she’s being really, really generous . . . but I’ll trust her on this, my sweet, sweet sage.)
Knowing WHY I do what I do is critical to becoming more of the person I want to be. And for contemplating goals I want to accomplish to help me in the process. So, as I make my way through my “different kind of January”, I am making doubly sure that my “whats” (as in what I say I want in my life) are lined up with my “whys”. Because if they’re not, I won’t succeed. And probably shouldn’t. I’m not meant to. If my “whats” are out of alignment with my “whys”, then I don’t have any business using my finite time on those endeavors, however good they might sound.
So I ask you this, as we trudge, er slow dance, through January:

WHY do you want to lose weight?

WHY do you want to make $50,000 or $75,000 or $100,000?

WHY do you want to quit your job? Or, start a new business?

WHY do you want to find Mr. (or Mrs.) Right?

WHY do you want to run a marathon this year?

“Why” questions, in general, are typically not questions people much like. In fact, they often prove very hard. And really big “why” questions – like life “whys” - can often seem too scary or difficult to even answer. Notorious for making people defensive, “why” questions push people’s buttons because they ask us to explain ourselves. Or imply that perhaps we should be doing something differently. And indeed, perhaps we should. Because where there’s defensiveness, there’s often some truth (or it wouldn’t make us defensive, right?). Hard lesson, that one.
Getting “why” clarity is simple, but not easy. Because it’s not just a glib, one-sentence answer to any of the above questions. It’s a deep, archeological dig below the surface where we ask ourselves a “why” question related to what we say we want (i.e., “Why do I want to write a book?”). And then, after we’ve honestly answered that first question (I want to write a book because I want to share the lessons I have learned with others), we follow up with another “why?”.  And we continue asking and answering until we can answer no more, until we’ve gotten to an answer that is coupled by an “A-ha!” that signals our TRUTH. A deep inner knowing that our “why” is true at a soul-deep level.
Yep. It would be so easy if our first “why” answer gave us our deepest truth, but I’m here to tell you that’s almost never the case. It takes some digging and some removing of armor and layers of the onion to get where we need to go. No, these “whys” aren’t easy. But if we want to become all that we are meant to be, knowing our deep “whys” is the one sure way to keep us on track, whole-heartedly pursuing a goal that echoes our most profound truths. 
As we put ourselves through the “why” paces, five rounds of questioning usually gets us to pay dirt. But it is imperative that we are soft and gentle (yet tenacious!) with ourselves as we go through these paces. Because as our “whys” take us deeper, sometimes we may be surprised/shocked/angered/embarrassed/ashamed by what lies underneath. But here’s a promise we all must make as we broach this endeavor: no judgments, no bullying, no filtering our answers. Just listening and listening well. And accepting what is. And by all means, being good to ourselves (patient, kind, affirming – like you’d be to your very best friend)!
Everyone’s “why” is different. And we must honor those deep “whys” as the very things that allow our souls to speak. Even, perhaps, to sing. But to get to our deepest “whys”, we must also be willing to courageously ask those hard questions and openly – nonjudgmentally - listen for our own deep answers.
So here’s the deal. Take your time. Give yourself space. And room. And no distractions. And start writing. Digging. Listening. Uncovering. Because if we can get below the surface and get clear on why we want certain changes in our lives, the process will be much easier to embrace and navigate. And when this resonates at a deep and abiding level, our commitment will be that much stronger. Indeed, maybe it will flow because we will be in the FLOW, with our life unfolding exactly as it was meant to. Each of us living our biggest and best lives.
Sure, we’ve all been at that place where we are sitting on the fence about some goal or decision (questioning if we have what it takes, the goal’s do-ability, whether or not it is convenient or will make us uncomfortable . . .). It’s as if we are waiting for anything outside of us that we can point to so that we do not have to take responsibility for our lives and choices. We are looking for anything we don’t have control over so we can use that to rationalize why we might fail . . . So we can say: “THAT is what caused me to NOT succeed. And now, I get to go back to being the same old, tired version of me. Nope, I don’t have to change. So there.”
But what I’m offering is this: Perhaps those goals weren’t meant to be because they didn’t align with your deep “whys”. And if your motivation isn’t true, how long would those changes last, anyway? (How long have those goals or changes lasted, anyway??)
Unquestionably, we are each personally responsible for our every choice, our every failure, our every happiness. This is not only hard for my 12-year-old son to accept, it’s hard for lots of grown-ups too! But it is true. And once we realize this and start living life from our deepest “whys”, our greatest good will unfold, exactly as it should.
The longer I live in this body and in my skin, having my life experiences and navigating the joys, losses, the mundane and sublime, my knowledge and understanding of my “whys” has become more honed. Hence, greater alignment. Sure, I sometimes get off track or lose myself in my own STUFF (because we are human and that’s what humans do!), but when I am willing to be honest, vulnerable and completely open with myself (and others), my “whys” are crystal clear.
My deep “whys” - why I am here, why I do what I do, why I make the choices I make – inevitably boil down to: connection, relationships, affirmation, inspiration, and acceptance (yeah, as the antithesis to control, that one still gives me fits!).
Clear on my deepest values, it allows me to move forward in all of my roles and experiences more intentionally . . . shaping my life, my family, and my future in ways that reflect both who I am and who I am becoming. And, it allows me to dream dreams that I can actually live into because they come from a deep, known place within.
Today, as a day that honors the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr., I see the evidence of his deep “whys” everywhere – in the speeches and sermons he gave, letters he wrote, marches and protests he participated in, in the people he touched and the lives he still touches . . . Freedom. Justice. Equality. Peace. Deep, deep “whys” that he built both dreams and a new reality on. They were the deep values he walked, talked, and envisioned. It’s the very lesson inherent in the necessity of knowing our own deep “whys”. So that our walk, our actions, our resolutions, are evident as our talk, our deepest truths, our inner-knowing of what we need to do to live into our dreams.
In that very spirit, let’s commit, if we are able, to these high (and dare I say necessary) endeavors in the year ahead:

• To be our own cause.
• To take a stand for what we believe in.
• To let our deep WHYS be our guide.
• To be true to ourselves.
• And last, but not least . . . to find our inner-prince or –princess and let them sing!

Remember: We have time. The time is now. And it is all good. (You always beauty laughing gentle PRINCE/SS).

The Softening: Butter Prayers and Battle Cries

Photo by Libby Mundy. All rights reserved.

“This darn butter!” I thought to myself while I was making toast for the kids this week. The butter was being totally uncooperative: hard, chunky, unspreadable. Making holes in the soft toast. Frustrating me because I like my butter soft and smooth, gliding over the toast with one even swipe of the knife (to be honest, I’ll take my butter any which way because, well, it’s BUTTER! And the icing on the cake (or butter on the bread!)? They now say organic, grass-fed butter might even be good for us – HALLELUJAH!!).
Lo and behold, my butter insights are shaping how I have decided to live out this January, as I welcome 2015 with a compassionate and simple (butter) prayer: soft is the way.  Yes. Soft is the way.  Not hard, like mean and unforgiving and resolute but soft like yielding, smooth, quiet, gentle, tender, easy, forgiving, and yes, perhaps even indulgent.
Soft like:

• Don’t measure or time my walk or run, just go do it for the sake of being outside and moving my body. And if Tractor wants to stop and smell the “roses”, don’t rush him for goodness sake!
• Don’t pull away from my husband when I’m angry or frustrated (or feel like punishing him) but be softer and kinder and lean into him instead (hard, I tell you, hard but infinitely more productive . . .).
• It is O.K., and even necessary, to peacefully let go of certain beliefs, past hurts, or people that no longer fill me up and to embrace new friends experiences, and ideas that do.

Yep, this year, I want a different kind of January.  And I’ve decided to take a new tack.  Typically, after all the holiday hoopla and the eating and drinking mayhem that occurs during the six or so weeks between Thanksgiving and New Years, I am ready to batten down the hatches.  To rein myself in.  To regain control of what has often felt like an out-of-control apple cart speeding precariously down a slippery slope to a point of no return.
But then, in the nick of time, before I strapped on my January backpack full of STUFF (shame, guilt, expectations, resolutions), with some hope and a prayer shoved into a fanny pack strapped around my middle, I came across a truffle of an idea that had this at its center:

Maybe you don’t set any resolutions for January 1. Maybe you use January to really dream, consider new possibilities, and then contemplate and thoughtfully plan what you want 2015 to look like. Write your dreams and goals down.  And then proceed - at a manageable pace - no  “ready,set, gunshot/go” required.

I know I was ready for this new idea because it felt as if the angels shone a light down, directly on me, as I sat on my couch on that cold, gray, late-December afternoon, and opened their voices so that they sang directly to the center of my heart. Yes.  This will be a different kind of January. I can make it so. There are no rules here. No unnecessary pressure. January 1 is truly just another day.  Does it have to be D-day, the day a “major operation or event is to begin”? Why no, I don’t think so.

HOW FREEING. HOW LIBERATING. HOW TOTALLY PERFECT.

Unfortunately, we do this all the time.  The routine.  The expected. The “boxing ourselves in”. And then we wonder why we feel stifled or small or bored or stuck. Consider this quote by Eustace Conway of Turtle Island Preserve (http://www.turtleislandpreserve.com/about/eustace):

“Do people live in circles today? No. They live in boxes. They wake up every morning in the box of their bedroom because a box next to them started making beeping noises to tell them it was time to get up. They eat their breakfast out of a box and then they throw that box away into another box. Then they leave the box where the live and get into a box with wheels and drive to work, which is just another big box broken up into lots of little cubicle boxes where a bunch of people spend their days sitting and staring at the computer boxes in front of them. When the day is over, everyone gets into the box with wheels again and goes home to their house boxes and spends the evening staring at the television boxes for entertainment. They get their music from a box, they get their food from a box, they keep their clothes in a box, they live their lives in a box! Does that sound like anyone you know?”                          - as written by Elizabeth Gilbert in The Last American Man

Some boxes are good. Necessary.  Others, not so much. Many of us need boxes. Some of us are just used to the boxes we’ve created.  Or have been given. Or accepted, as is, no questions asked. Perhaps we don’t know how to get out of our boxes, to be different or to try something new. Maybe we’re scared to leave our boxes. Or, we feel small or undeserving of a new box. Or, maybe, the box fits just right?
The good news? Each of us gets to decide how well our boxes fit.  And we also get to decide if we need more circles, more flow, more roundness or softness in our lives. Because we can only take so much sharpness and hard corners and bang-our-head-on-the-wall frustration before we dare to think, “Hmmmm, perhaps I’ve outgrown this box? Or need a new box? Or . . . maybe I should consider a tipi? Or a labyrinth . . . or an open field . . . or a new path . . .”

Photo by Libby Mundy. All rights reserved.

The options are limitless.  But often, a perspective shift is in order.  And sometimes we need to get out of our boxes – and even our own ways - to see what we need. Unfortunately, along with our boxy thinking, we routinely use these little, outdated measuring sticks to assess our progress or our worth: scales, hours worked, money earned, bank balances, square footage, calories in/out, “likes” received . . .
But I’ve got a new measuring stick to try on. It’s called POSSIBILITY.
How big is your soul, your spirit, I ask you? Infinite, right?  Anything can happen if we are open to it. There are a million ways our days can go.  Ask the person who just found out they are expecting a baby. Or who found out a loved one is terminally ill. Or whose kid is the first in the family to go to college. Or who fell in love.  Or got divorced. Or got a puppy. Or bought their first home . . . all of these scenarios hold infinite possibilities within them. Possibilities to grow, love more, be bigger than we’ve ever been.  Go about your day or life differently than you used to.
And you can measure none of these adequately with your checking account, bathroom scale, or friend count on Facebook.
Our lives are full of possibilities.  Each day is a new day. Be it January 1st or January 9th or August 25th. And with each one we can be more of who we are meant to be.  It is this possibility I opening myself to this thoughtful month of January. This January where I am being soft and indulgent and letting go of what doesn’t really give me a true sense of my worth and honing in on more of what does.
In years past, I set my noble, worthwhile, and very measurable resolutions and goals. And if you are seeking to make some concrete changes in your life, measureable is both good and necessary. Nothing wrong with that!  It's our motivation that is key. Is it built on external comparisons or magazine standards or little measuring sticks that just don’t capture all of our inherent beauty and goodness and potential?  Or does it come from deep inside, from a pure, true place within us that reminds us of who we are meant to be and uses that to help us shape the very best version of ourselves?
Sure, I’d venture to say that many of my past goals and resolutions taught me something and for each lesson, I am grateful. Sometimes the lesson was in the process or the striving (or even in the letting go) and sometimes it was simply, thankfully, checking the box of completion. As in, “Hip, Hip, Hooray! Thank God for February 1st!!! Now I can have a glass of wine and a piece of cake and maybe a burger to boot – I might even skip my run!” because . . .  I’m crazy like that. My battle cry? INDULGE AND LET GO!
Yes. Indulge and let go.
Don’t you love it???  Isn’t it SO much better than clamping down, clenching our jaws, and white-knuckling it through January in an Eeyore state of mind? (I don’t know about you but I’m tired of that and besides, it’s really just no fun!!)
So I'm here to offer you this.  We don’t have to go there. We can be kind and gentle with ourselves. We can be soft and easy and forgiving.  And from this place, outside of our small new year’s boxes, we can choose to shape 2015 into something more meaningful and lasting and joyous. But we must step out of our old boxes. Stand up on that box if need be.  Look around. Climb a tree. Look out at our world. Look within. Ask what it is we truly want and need.  Then, pick a new theme song.  Plan a new life. Or just a new day or a new year. Be good to yourself. Dream the possibilities.
Yes, for me this January is full of POSSIBILITIES.  Endless. Big. Beautiful. Gentle, soft, and forgiving. And mine, all mine – for the choosing and for the creating.  And perhaps for the letting go.
What I can really lift a (magnifying) glass to this January is this: illuminating the possibilities in my life, and in others’, so that each of our many gifts, voices, and dreams can be taken out of their boxes, explored, celebrated, seen, heard, and put to good use. Not measured by any outdated rulers but simply shining in the bright light of day, our true worth determined by the JOY we radiate as we soften into becoming more of who we are meant to be.  And also, for the simple joy of being alive.
This January is different and I am glad.
Soft is the way, my friend.
Ready, set . . . indulge and let go!

An Instrument of Peace

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” Mother Teresa

A few weeks ago, at a holiday mass at my kids’ sweet little school, I was overcome with the most affirming sense of rightness. Goodness. That all was right and good in the world, my world, as I sat in that full gym and took in all the loveable children, the warmth, the coziness, the goodness as I looked around me. Devoted teachers, caring parents, an authentic community centered on compassion, self-discipline, and social justice. There was an exquisite loveliness to that morning, that moment, as my mom sat next to me at her grandchildren’s school, as we listened to the mass and the children’s beautiful, imperfect voices raised in song.

And then, an alarm went off. A muffled alarm, but persistent and beckoning, near us and quiet enough that only those in the immediate vicinity could hear. But still. I turn and see two large bags – gear bags or like bags you might see unattended at the airport – about ten feet away.  It seems the sound is coming from one of them.

Typically not one to jump to conclusions, I am aware of the December 14th anniversary of Sandy Hook and those families and dear children weigh heavily on my mind. Because we never THINK anything bad will happen at safe places like our kids’ schools. The fact that this is no longer a certainty is troublesome, to say the least. And because of this awful fact, and my recent prayers for the Sandy Hook families, my mind goes THERE. Just briefly. But still. It goes there. What if that alarm is something bad? What if, while I’m sitting here absorbing all this loveliness, something BAD happens? Is this how it goes? Ends? Sitting, soaking up the good that is my kids’ world, and having it all blown to bits by some bag honking – AHNT – AHNT – AHNT – AHNT - 10 feet away from me?

A school administrator walks back, looking curiously and calmly for the sounding alarm’s source. She bends over the bag, as if to move it, and said bag’s owner – the school photographer – swoops in and rescues his bag, silences the troublesome alarm. Silences my runaway brain. At least momentarily. But my peace is rattled, my Zen cover blown.

I’m disheartened that this is what our world has come to. That we are inundated with news of bad things that happen to good people, in what we expect to be good, safe places, ALL THE TIME. That we can’t sit peacefully, prayerfully, in our sweet kids’ precious school during mass, where we send our beloved children to learn and to grow, and NOT be reminded that it could all turn on a dime . . . well, that’s no good. That an unfamiliar, untimely alarm can sound and cause us to jump (if only on the inside so as not to startle the children – many of whom I personally know already have more and deeper shudders at bumps in the night than we could have ever fathomed . . .).

It’s a hard world to live in, to make sense of, to not be overwhelmed by.

And we wonder why our kids are scared. Why we are scared. Anxious. High-strung. Always on the look out, watching for the next bad thing: war, Ebola, Ferguson, Sharia Law, sexual slavery, global warming . . . It’s too much. What our kids are learning in this brave, new world is that we always have to be a little distrustful, a little wary. And that SO goes against the grain of anything I believe in or am about that in my very, most centered space, I am UNWILLING TO ACCEPT IT.

You heard me. Call me stupid. Naïve. Blind. Tell me I’m putting my head in the sand. Whatever. Here is what I know. What I believe. Where I’m willing to put my time and energy. In good thoughts. In loving acts. In kindness and compassion toward others. In reaching out. In helping those that are scared or hurt or healing. What I know and believe is that energy in, equals energy out. What we give, we receive. What we put out, we get back. Where we focus our energy, is what we see in our lives.
Karma is real.

Like when I was writing this essay and out of one of my notebooks fell a poem by St. Francis of Assisi, in my dad’s distinct, handwriting, tucked in the front cover, a reminder to me about who I can always choose to be in this one big world and life of mine:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood, as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.

Any who knew my dad would know that he eschewed organized religion. Yet he was a deeply contemplative and spiritual man. Drawn to universal messages of love, connection, and illumination by many spiritual teachers (Rumi, Kabir, Buddha, and Chief Seattle to name a few), the apples have clearly not fallen far from the tree. My brother Chris wrote his own version of a peace prayer and though my dad never saw this, he would be proud to see how clearly he is represented in the many life lessons my brother and I embody.