Category: Life

  • When It’s All Too Much: One More Walk With The Dog

    This one was a difficult one to write, and it’s full of that tricky word, I. That’s because it’s also full of that tricky activity of peering into I to see what’s up in the darkness.

    I’ve been thinking about preparedness. I missed something important in my dog-walking lesson. This is what I missed:

    Sometimes, now and then, my expectations outdo my readiness, and sometimes they take me in a not-so-good direction.

    (You know what they say about expectations, right? No? Here: An expectation is a premeditated resentment.)

    “Being prepared for life means living the kind of life where the things that I am preparing for don’t need preparation. I don’t always know what will happen or what other people will do, but I can choose to always know what I will do.”

    The something important that I missed is the foundation of all the rest. Guess what? I don’t always know what I will do. I only know who I will be.

    presence-615646_960_720

    The peace – presence – power paradigm I wandered into a few weeks back is real, but now I’ve discovered something new about it. It only really comes true when I let go of expectations and let myself rest in absolute acceptance of who I am, where I am, when I am. When I reach that place, what I do doesn’t matter so much. I know it will be okay, whatever it is, so long as I’m okay with me.

    It turns out that in the strange meeting where I expected to be businesslike and professional, I had unbusinesslike things to say, unprofessional pain to express, fair criticism to communicate, and tears to cry.  So that, all of that, is what  I did.

    I thought, before I went to the meeting, that the magical three Ps (peace, presence, power) were direct routes to fulfilling my expectations: I expected to say important things with untouchable and frightening detachment. I was going to be unbreakable, unshakable. I was going to teach them a thing or two.

    Instead, I found a voice I didn’t know I had and strength to let tears come along. I cried from beginning to end (soft tears running from my eyes), but my heart was untroubled. My tears, my friend said later, were there to clean up and carry away my weakness.

    I like that.

    tears flow

    I let my weakness fall away with my tears, and I said important things with honesty, clarity, and a vulnerability that I would never have planned in my quest for superwoman. My walking-the-dog self stepped aside, lifted the mist, let me speak and held my hand so that my steady voice said everything that had to be said. Steady and soft, but I felt the floorboards tremble as my words sank slowly to the ground.

    My weakness wasn’t my inability to be an unreal, unblinking woman of steel. My weakness was my determination to be someone I’m not.

    Be yourself

    There may have been lessons learned by the others in that room. That doesn’t matter to me. The important thing is that I learned. For one thing, I let go of my expectation that I will act the part of a person I’m not. I don’t want to pretend that tears are weakness. I don’t want to pretend that professionalism precludes personhood.

    I do want to walk the dog again.

  • Peace, Presence, Power: Walking The Dog Again

    I’m still thinking about the dog walking. “Now to carry Dog’s lessons when she isn’t there at the end of the leash to keep track of my mind.” Exactly. It’s so much easier when the dog is there beside me.

    I know what to do, but without that waiting, eager being at the end of the leash, I forget. I still behave as if I think that Be Prepared means Expect the Worst. Stay Alert to all the ways things could go wrong. Watch for Trouble. Gird your loins.

    “Breathe. Sink into each step and be here with the earth, pacing her heartbeat into my own. Let that steady, slow, peace fill me…There is only this moment, this breath, this meditative footstep, and beside me, her toenails clicking,” I wrote.

    Peace and presence bring power, but if I want to be present in peace, then loin-girding and tensing my muscles to spring isn’t the way to go. That kind of preparation doesn’t work. Not in our urban jungle life today, and not, I suspect, all that well for the pre-historic hunter either. It certainly doesn’t work for me. It takes calm, centred awareness to survive in jungles.  

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    The dog taught me how to calm the moment. If I pay attention, I can see that she has another lesson for me. She is always in each moment. She doesn’t carry any burden with her from play to sleep to eat to walk.

    Me, on the other hand, I had to breathe and focus through every step of our walk because my worries bounced on the end of my toes and clamored for my attention. I can’t blame them. I invited them along.

    I found myself thinking about a poster my pilot brother had on his wall when he started flying lessons. 

    “A superior pilot uses his superior judgment to avoid situations that would require the use of his superior skills.” – Frank Borman

    Ahh. I see.

    Being prepared for life means living the kind of life where the things that I am preparing for don’t need preparation. I don’t always know what will happen or what other people will do, but I can choose to always know what will do.

    I’m about to go to a meeting. I have some seriously negative expectations about that meeting. I think I’ll let them fly away, bounce from the end of my toes into the sunny air as I walk through trees and sidewalk patios and summer downtown on my way there.

    I’m prepared, peaceful, present, and powerful. I know what I will do.