Letting Go

I had just taken out a couple of dying elderberry bushes when I injured my knee for the second time in two months. I had tripped on a limb y-joint and I heard the “pop” when  my knee corkscrewed as I went down. For a split second, I was afraid I’d seriously damaged it this time. But when I tested it, limping to the house for an ice bag, it didn’t seem quite so bad as that nauseating popping sound might have suggested.

Still, I realized I needed to take a moment to contemplate what was going on. So I sat on a step with the pack on my knee and did just that. I immediately connected the injury to the telephone conversation I’d had right before going out to do the pruning. My longtime astrologer and dear friend, Sally McDonald, had called to give me details about the cancer she was having surgery for in a few days. The cancer had been a surprise to her. She was still in shock. So was I. And I was afraid for my friend.

Sally was not the first among those dear to me to be dealing with life threatening illness. My husband had been managing life with metastasized prostate cancer for two and a half years. My youngest sister’s hepatitis C had reactivated six months earlier, after a six-year remission following the birth of her son and a liver transplant. While I was ridiculously healthy, those around me were not, and when friends asked me how I seemed to be managing so well, I talked about how I  didn’t believe in death, how grateful I was for every day with my loved ones . . . and how living with their illnesses was a little like living with a persistent and constant slight fever.

I hobbled inside to see what Louise Hay had to say about knee problems. I had a good deal of faith in my own ability to sort out the energetic reasons for problems, but Louise Hay was always a good place to start when it came to physical maladies. Louise related knee problems to fear, inflexibility, stubborn ego and pride. Fear? You bet. Inflexibility? Stubborn ego and pride? Those three were, no doubt, there. I was human, after all. But I wanted to dig deeper.

So I thought about the elderberry bushes. We had been living in our beautiful home for eighteen years and the elderberry bushes had already been mature when we moved in. I had planned to do just a bit of pruning that day, but there was so much dead wood in two or three of them that I ended up removing those completely. It was time to let them go. I knew I needed to do the same thing with one of the lilac bushes. The blue spruce next to it and lilac bush in front of it had edged it right into oblivion.  And a year earlier, I’d hired a friend to take down two trees that were struggling. While there was so much vibrant life in my yard, not everything was making it. Like all mature yards, some things were past their prime and dying.

I realized that a part of me was resisting it. I was resisting the departure of bushes and trees that had been friends for years and I was also resisting the illnesses of those I loved, fearing that they might depart, too. I was trying to hold back time and change. That was where the inflexibility was coming in. Despite my deep spiritual understanding that everything and everyone survives what we think of as death, a part of me was stubbornly hanging on to some point in time in the past, a point in time when bushes and people were younger and healthier.

Of course, at some level, I was clinging to some past version of myself, too. At sixty, I found it curious that I was now likely in the last quarter of my life–if I was lucky. How could so much time have passed? There was so much left for me to be and do.

I realized I needed to let go at a deeper and more profound level than I ever had. I knew that love lived on, that it was the most enduring thing in the universe, that one instant of love for anyone or anything reverberated on and on into infinity. I’d experienced it and I needed to trust it now. And while I’d practiced and taught the art of making death the aly for many years, I needed to trust the very cycle of life and death at a more profound level, too. There comes a time when life and death look back at you when you look in the mirror each morning and I had come around to that very point in this life–as I, no doubt, had come around in life after life before this one. 

Ice, elevation, ibupropin–and a great massage therapist–got the knee back on track. I got my mind, spirit, and emotions back on track, too. I contemplated the divine paradox: none of us are getting out of here alive and all of us are getting out of here alive. I might as well let go and ride the wave of this life.

Three weeks passed. And then I was in a thrift store and came upon a set of gorgeous, never used, Mikasa china: eight plates, twelve bowls, and twelve bread plates. I gaped. And I thought about the china I was using every day at home. My grandmother had purchased it as a wedding present–forty-one years ago. I had left the troubled marriage in 1979. How I had managed to end up with the china, when so much else had been lost, was a long standing mystery. My second husband had been cheerfully eating off that china our entire marriage. It was time to let it go.

As I loaded my cart with the treasure, it occurred to me that this find might not have come to me if I hadn’t heeded the message about letting go and trusting the cycle of life and death. I had wanted to divest myself of that china from another life for some time and my opportunity to do so was presenting itself almost effortlessly.  As soon as I had gotten the message in more profound areas of my life, I was open to it in other, more mundane areas.

Apparently, all I’d had to do was let go.

 

Copyright 2009 by Melanie Mulhall

My Father’s Daughter

I sit at my computer, staring at the blank Word document, the nascent rumblings of an idea beginning to spark along the neural pathways of my body–beginning not at the brain and moving outward, but at the heart. By the time the idea actually hits the brain, my fingers are already moving on the keyboard. This isn’t exactly the way my father said it would be, but on a good day, this is how it works.

It’s not that I have no familiarity with what spills out onto the computer screen.  Whatever is spilling out has often been forming somewhere inside of me for days, weeks, or months. I have a flickering thought and seem to work with it, deep within my body, for a time. But I’m less like a brood hen, sitting on her eggs, giving them the heat of her body and the time needed to hatch, than like a monk going about his daily chores and somehow meditating at the same time. 

Sometimes I’m in the shower when the flicker of an idea comes wandering into my consciousness. Or driving my car. Or meditating. Some inspiration–that is, some drawing into the body of an idea–begins the internal process that, in turn, gives rise to what spills out from my fingers and onto the keyboard. When the words come, when they hit like raindrops onto the screen, they seem to pouring from my heart.

Heart to brain, back to heart, and then back to brain. Is that how it works? Or is it 8th chakra (the one outside the body) to brain to body to heart to brain? I’m not sure. But I know that however it works, my father never described it to me.

I’m sorry for that. We talked about books and writing when I was growing up. He was, himself, a writer. Something of a frustrated writer, because he was never published, but a writer, none the less. I think it must have pleased him when I learned to read and the first little sparks of interest in the written word quickly blossomed into a nice campfire, then a conflagration.

Writing is like fire (at least as much as it is like rain). We’re consumed by the flames that come from our pens and keyboards in a conflagration of the spirit.

I’d like to think it was that way for my father and I believe it was. He wrote at night, when most of the family was asleep. He sat at his desk (an arts and crafts dark oak one when I was small, then an industrial gray metal one later on), chain smoked cigarettes, drank beer, and sat in what appeared to the observer to be a meditative state–or at least a pensive one–for long periods of time. The quintessetial brooding Irishman. Of course, that “observer” was likely to be nothing more than a mouse, out from hiding in the quiet of the night, or me, back from a date or out of my room to get a glass of water during a late night of study.

He wrote thoughts and observations on scraps of paper and advised me to do the same. “When you get an idea for a story or anything you might want to write on later, put it down in writing, right then,” he told me when I was still a teen. “Even if it is just one good sentence . . . or two good words . . . write it down.”

It would be years before I understood, through my own experience, how important that advice was. Ideas are sometimes like dreams–ephemeral, disappearing as soon as you turn your head if you are not careful. It is important to capture them, like dream butterflies, in the net that is the pen or keyboard. Beautiful sentences are that way, too. I have lost many a beautiful phrase, sentence, and paragraph because I failed to stop whatever I was doing (that seemed more important at the time) and write it down.

I have, actually, pulled over to the side of the road to write something that would not wait. I have also rummaged in the nightstand for scraps of paper and scribbled something that nagged at me enough to prevent sleep. And I have captured my thoughts on paper when I was supposed to be attending to a meeting. It’s glorious when it happens like that, but it doesn’t happen that way as often as I would like. Still, I imagine my father smiling on the other side when it does happen.

My father tapped out his stories on a little Royal typewriter. I used that typewriter when I first cranked out papers in college and I inherited it from him. It gathers dust in my office closet but I couldn’t give it up any more than I could give up the old LP of Bing Crosby singing George Gershwin. He loved them both and so do I.

If my father were alive today, he would love tapping out his thoughts on a computer and he would marvel at the mystery of the machine. He would love its efficiency and he would love that delete key. He didn’t live to see a personal computer, let alone long enough to see his daughter’s name on a book cover, but I felt him behind my left shoulder (along with St. Germain) when I wrote my first book. And even though it was nonfiction, instead of the fiction he dearly loved, if he had lived long enough to see it, he would have surely claimed me as my father’s daughter . . . and I would have shook my head in agreement and whispered that it was also probably that brooding Irish anscestry.

copyright 2009 by Melanie Mulhall

My Mother’s Daughter

Every May, I am reminded that I am truly my mother’s daughter. Some dominant gene becomes activated that sends me out to survey my flower beds and think hopeful thoughts about what I might accomplish in them this year. By July, sweet hope has turned to gritty, raw survival, but in May, there is always hope. 

Spring waits for no one. Depending on the fickle Colorado weather, I am sometimes able to get out in the yard in April to cut back the dried and brittle stems of last year’s growth: purple coneflower, hostas, Annabelle hydrangeas, chrystanthemums, daiseys, meadow sage, sedum, coreopsis, and all the rest. The roses–David Austins, miniatures, and assorted others–along with the tangle of clematis and honeysuckle, could be cut back earlier, but I never seem to get it done until April.

By May, the grass sprouts where I don’t want it and remains intransigently absent where I do. I know that if I do not pluck it from the flower beds, along with its evil cousin, the weed, the two will have taken over my beds by the next time I turn to look.

On my hands and knees, weeding and pulling grass, I can sometimes leave my body and hover a little above, watching the solid form of the woman so intent on her work. Sometimes she’s a wild woman, the female equivalent of Green Man, with dirt under her fingernails and bits of leaves and twigs in her hair. At other times, she is more fairy-like, an aging pixie talking to her flowers and herbs. Always, she is her mother’s daughter.

My mother grew up on a series of farms in Illinois. Her father was a dirt farmer and he was dirt poor, never owning any of the farms he worked. He was a tenant farmer. My mother worked the fields as a child, weeding in the hot summer sun. By the time she left home, she had no desire to grow vegetables, but had somehow come to love flowers.

The summers of my own childhood were spent reading books, riding my bicycle, and watching my mother work her little patch of earth. With trowel and fork, bare hands and shovel, on hands and knees or bent over at the waist, she produced flowers to rival any botanic garden. She had her favorites. Sweet William was one. And when she was older and her health prevented her from doing the hard garden work she had done as a younger woman, she still put out pots of impatiens and planted a huge, old birdbath with petunias.

As a young woman, I was first interested in houseplants, another of my mother’s loves, and we bonded over them. It took a bit of time for me to come into my own green thumb outdoors, but I am grateful that I came to be the avid tender of flower and herb beds some years before she died.  

Now I am near the age she was at in my favorite photo of the two of us. She’s clutching a cigarette, one she has yet to light, against her chest. The sun hits her short, curly, hair in a way that produces a halo effect. She’s as brown as a sparrow, thanks to the sun, and she is wearing a summer top she probably sewed herself. 

I’m next to her, my pale Irish skin sunburned, my hair pulled back and away from my face, gold hoops dangling from my ears.  She has a wise smile on her face, a smile that says yes to life, even though she’s had more reason to suffer than she ever deserved. At about thirty, I have the big, toothy grin of a woman who has recently escaped from violent circumstances and sees her life spread out before her like fields of lavendar. (Thirty years later, my smile is more like hers. I’ll probably never be as brown and wrinkled as her, thanks to sunscreen, good skin care, and an easier life. But the smile is there.)

My arm is around my mother in that photo and her right shoulder is up against my left. We could be a mother/daughter team, selling tomatoes and peppers at some farmer’s market. But, of course, that wouldn’t be us. We’d be selling flowers.

copyright 2009 by Melanie Mulhall

Faith

No doubt about it: the internal guidance system is a major tool for navigating life. But using the internal guidance system requires something else, too: faith. I have been reminded of that, again and again, over the past few weeks.

When I listened to my internal guidance system and kept driving forward through that snow storm, as reported in the last post, faith was required of me. The road behind me was quckly becoming impassible. The road ahead was uncertain, except insofar as I was willing to have faith in what I heard through my internal guidance system. I’m happy I had faith that day. Otherwise, I would have missed my own talk.

Last weekend, I again found myself in circumstances that required faith. Actually, those circumstances really began in February, when Melisa Pearce (Touched by a Horse) and I decided to offer a workshop together in April. We both knew that April is a fickle month in Colorado. It can be clear and in the sixties one day and snowing enough to make the Easter Bunny think he’s covering for Santa the next. We each trusted our intuition and set the workshop in the geographic center of April (about as close as the Four Corners Marker is to the geographic meeting place of four states–which means just a bit off center). This was the first time I would be offering my Shamanic Writing Workshop and to do it with Melisa and her talented healing horses was a gift of grace. We did our marketing and had faith that those perfect for the workshop would sign up.

They did. We had a very good response. People were coming from out of state as well as within the state of Colorado. It seemed we were on to something.

The weather was wonderful a scant week before our workshop and all looked good, apart from that pesky storm that was working its way towards Colorado. Our workshop was to start at 6 p.m. on Friday the 17th. The day before, it rained. The forecasters believed that rain would turn to snow sometime after midnight and predicted either slushy roads or a major snow storm. We were right on that liminal edge between the two.

I needed to have faith that all would be well for the workshop, but I must admit that my faith slid sideways on Thursday. I was opening my house up to an old friend who had a four-day commitment  nearby and wanted my home to be her port in a storm. It was a very reasonable request and one with which I happily complied, though I pointed out that I might need my own port in a storm if the weather turned ugly. I would be out in the wilds of Colorado, between Boulder and Lyons. I knew I could stay at Melisa’s ranch if necessary, but what about our workshop attendees?

Friday morning brought rain turning to snow in much of the Denver metro area. I left for the ranch in the morning, set myself up for the workshop, and waited. A couple of people cancelled. A couple of others called to be sure the workshop would go as scheduled (Friday night, all day Saturday, and Sunday). Two women had driven in from Utah on Thursday, the storm tracking them.

What was it doing at the ranch? Raining. Just raining. We seemed to be in the metro bananna belt, in a manner of speaking. There was a bit of magic to it. When I went inside and slid beyond that part of me that feared a workshop at risk, I kept hearing a voice that said it was all much ado about nothing. I needed to have faith that all would go as planned and I chose faith over fear.

The workshop did go as planned. Apart from two or three cancellations, everyone was there. One woman had even come from what would turn out to be “snow central” in the mountains. Some brought clothes so they could bunk at the ranch that night (the equivalent of praising God, but tying down your cammel).  No lives had been at risk and no one whined. There was an undercurrent of faith in the group, faith that we were all exactly were we were meant to be and with the people we were meant to share that time.

The workshop was a huge success. There were moments of breakthrough for some participants, moments of profound self-realization for others, and many moments of pure joy for everyone.

We’re planning another Shamanic Writing Workshop together and I have faith that it, too, will unfold beautifully and perfectly.

 

Copyright 2009 by Melanie Mulhall

Navigation Tools for Life, Part IV, Practical Application

The past three posts have been about navigating life with tools like centering and grounding and the internal guidance system. In this post, I’m going to bring it down to practical application with a recent example from my own life. It’s one thing to describe the tools and quite another to practice them, particularly at difficult moments. I know this all to well from my own experience. But I might have a few years of practice on some of you, so I’m going to describe how I managed to avoid being a traffic fatality (okay, that may be a bit hyperbolic), or at least managed to get to a speaking engagement with plenty of time to spare and without an accident.

Those who have experience with Colorado weather know that March is our snowiest month and that fifty and sixty degree days are often puntuated by spring storms that rip the nascent leaves from trees and take the branches while they’re at it. Last Thursday was one of those spring storm days.

We have had drought conditions in Denver this winter so any moisture is a welcome sight. The problem was that I had plans, long set, to speak at CIPA College on Thursday. (CIPA College is the annual conference put on by the Colorado Independent Publishers Association. It is a major event that draws speakers and participants from the four corners of the U.S.) I was scheduled to head up a panel of editors at “Newbie” College, the half-day session for new and aspiring writers/publishers. I had selected the topics and I had selected the panel. I was responsible for the session.

News of the forthcoming storm on Wednesday had me scrambling to book a room at the hotel for Thursday and Friday. I have had enough experience with Colorado snowstorms to know that having a warm port in a storm is a good idea. I got my gear together. (I’m a woman. This takes time.) I planned to leave relatively early in the morning, even though my panel wasn’t speaking until about 3:00 p.m.

There was rain mixed with snow by 6:00 a.m. on Thursday morning. The streets were still warm enough from the previous day’s sixties to melt anything resembling snow when it hit. But within an hour, the rain-snow mixture was more snow than rain and it was sticking. I hurried to get myself together and my gear in the car and left my home by 8:00 a.m., within an hour of the switch from rain-snow to snow. I could see that conditions were deteriorating rapidly and wanted to find myself drinking coffee and schmoozing with other speakers by 9:00 a.m.

The roads were snowpacked and slick. SUVs were already in ditches. I had some faith in my Subaru Outback and my driving (ah, crawling at about 25 mph), but I had less faith in some of the yahoos speeding by me in cars that didn’t appear to have four-wheel drive like mine.  It was already a horrific drive and I was only a few miles from home.

I had heard from one member of my panel and knew  she was bailing. I suspected that she wouldn’t be alone. I was prepared to be the sole speaker (and have done enough speaking gigs that I knew I could easily pull it off), but the only thing that was really keeping me pointed onward was the fact that I was the moderator. It was my panel. I felt responsible.

Still, I contemplated turning back. I had only gone five to seven miles (and had another fifteen or so to go), but didn’t want to make the rest of the drive if it was going to be as harrowing as the drive thus far. Before making the decision, I checked in with my internal guidance system.

It was a smart thing to do. I received a very clear message: The road behind you is more dangerous than the road ahead. I couldn’t really imagine that being true, but the message was very clear and kept repeating itself. I decided to go forward.

And the road ahead was, indeed, far less dangerous than the road I had just traveled. (There may be more meaning to this than just one drive to one speaking engagement, I’ll admit.) Within a couple of miles, the roads became more wet than snowpacked and the snow gave way to rain-snow.

I made it to the hotel in time for that morning coffee.

If I had not listened to my internal guidance system, I might have turned back. If I had done that, I would have missed my talk because the roads became increasingly problematic as the day wore on. In fact, I probably would have missed the Friday morning session of CIPA College, too.

As it turned out, I had one panel member with me and we gave a great session. And before the weekend was out, I had won another EVVY Technical Award for Editing and my clients had snagged an additional seven awards for their books.

Am I happy that I listened to my internal guidance system? What do you think?

I would love to hear your personal stories, too.

 

Copyright 2009 by Melanie Mulhall

Navigation Tools for Life, Part III, Understanding Your Navigational Tools

Imagine being the captain of a ship. You want to travel north and all of your navigational instruments give you clear information on where north is. But you have seen something shimmering in the distance, off in a direction that does not match what your navigational tools say is north. You decide that the direction in which the shimmering object lies is actually north and head in that direction.

It sounds insane, doesn’t it? But that is exactly what we are doing when we insist on being in control instead of allowing ourselves to soften and surrender a bit.

In the last two posts, I talked about the internal guidance system and in the last post, I gave a couple of very simple tools to acess it. But being willing to access those internal guidance system tools will have limited impact if you do not understand a few basic things about them.

1. You will have limited success in accessing your internal guidance system if you insist on being in control of the process. To access and hear/see/feel your internal guidance system, you must suspend the hallucination–for just a bit–that you are king or queen of the universe. You must be willing to soften and surrender a bit to that part of you that your ordinary consciousness just does not have access to.
2. You must understand that your internal guidance system is not there to make you rich and famous. You may actually become rich and famous, but that’s not the point. Your internal guidance system is there to guide you towards the next move, inspiration, perception, or understanding that is best for you–based on a complex web of knowledge and interactions your conscious mind has limited access to. Your ego may want to be rich and famous, but your internal guidance system wants the highest version of you to be enacted, whatever that is and however that happens.
3. At some point, you will have to act, not just sit back and passively observe. In the be/do/have cycle of things, there is a time to just “be” and tap into your internal guidance. But make no mistake: your internal guidance system will not do all the foot work for you. It may give you alternatives that will smooth your way, but it will not act for you if action on your part is an important component of manifesting what your guidance is showing you. The world may or may not come to your door without your having to leave home–but even if it does, it will be because you did your part to get it to your door.
4. The more turbulent the sea, the harder it will be to navigate through it on a consistent basis. The internal guidance system works best in calm waters. Meditation–in any form to which you are drawn–helps calm the waters. And you need not be a follower of any particular religious path to meditate. There are nonsectarian meditation methods, sectarian ones, and methods that might have started out as sectarian, but have become nonsectarian in common practice. In short, there is a meditation method for everyone. Find one that resonates for you.
5. The dirtier the equipment, the less the results can be trusted. This is very important to understand! Try reading text through a glass encrusted with years of dirt. You might not be able to read anything at all. If you can, you might miss something important that completely changes the meaning of the passage. Making sense of your internal guidance system is much the same. If you want a clear channel to your internal guidance, clean up your act! That means acknowledging,  working through, and clearing the jetsam and flotsam of the human psyche. The more you do this, the more trustworthy the information you receive will be.
6. If you ignore the message, you may have simply lost an opportunity . . . or you might receive the message again–stronger, louder, and less kindly. Opportunity lost is one thing, but sometimes, when it is important, if you ignore a message from your internal guidance system, it will be repeated . . . one, twice, three times, or as many times as it takes. The internal guidance system has a way of getting our attention when it is important. That means that while the first message–or first ten messages–might have been subtle and gentle, you may find subsequent ones becoming increasingly pointed and/or uncomfortable. What has that meant for me, in my own experience? When I have ignored too many messages over too long a period of time, I have become ill. I have attracted clients from hell. I have had accidents. I have become tense and unhappy. These days, I prefer to pay attention sooner instead of later.
7. Be gentle with yourself. If you have never consciously tapped into your internal guidance system or have been ignoring it for a long time, it might take some time for it to take you seriously and actually kick in with good, clear information. Give it some time. Practice in very simple ways, on a daily basis. It will eventually become activated. And when that happens, you will find you have made a good friend who provides indispensible help.

Want some navigation reference tools? There are many good books available and, yes, I do recommned my own book, Living the Dream–A Guidebook for Job Seekers and Career Explorers. Among the best resources, I believe, are two books by Penney Peirce: The Intuitive Way and Frequency.

May you navigate the seas of life well and safely, and may your ports of call be more than you could have hoped for . . . and everything you might have dreamed.

I would love to hear about your journey.

 

copyright 2009 by Melanie Mulhall

Navigation Tools for Life, Part II, Accessing Your Internal Guidance System

I’ll admit it: I take an Autie Mame approach to life, experiencing it as a wonderful banquet. And I am sometimes perplexed by those who turn their backs on that banquet. I suspect that one reason some people shun the banquet is that all those choices can be overwhelming. The banquet may be full of savory food, but making good choices can be daunting as you navigate your way through it.

In my last post, I suggested a very simple place to start: centering and grounding. But suppose you’re at that banquet. You have remembered to center and ground. Now what?

There are many tools to access your internal guidance system. Again, I’m in favor of simplicity. If you are going to make sense out of your internal guidance, then being able to discern an internal “yes” from an internal “no” is crucial. The brief suggestions on how to do that I am giving here are actually a slightly modified version of what can be found in my book, Living the Dream–A Guidebook for Job Seekers and Career Explorers.

• First, realize that the internal “yes” and “no” are not accessed through your rational/logical thinking process, but are more likely to be found in your sensory system. So get out of your head and into your body.
• Think of a time when you made a decision to do something, were confident that it was the right decision, and had an outstanding result. To the extent possible, time travel back to that place and fully embody it with all of your senses. (If you insist that it has never happened before, time travel to a point in the future when it is happening.)
• Now, identify where in your sensory system you know the decision to go forward is a good one. Do you feel a sensation in some part of your body? Do you see an inner image? Hear something? Does your sense of smell or taste kick in? Note that.
• Using the same time traveling technique, return to a time when you made a decision not to do something, were confident that it was the right decision, and have been forever grateful for your choice. Again, fully embody it and note which part or parts of your sensory system are providing you with the understanding that this is not something you should do. Make a note of it.
• Now, using the information on what an internal “yes” and an internal “no” are for you, test it out. You might want to test it against something you know to be true and for which you have a strong emotional pull (”I love my cat, Stubbie,” for instance), then against something you know to be false and around which you have some emotional tuggin (”I have not the slightest concern about my 401k,” might be a good one right now).  Alternatively, just try it out on ordinary things in your day like which route to work is easiest on a particular day.
• Pay attention to the spontaneous appearance of that “yes” and “no” in your life. The more to pay attention to your internal guidance system, the more it will guide you.

Are there other ways to access the internal guidance system? Of course! The one I have just described is a simple way to begin to hone your skills. Am I suggesting that no thought can be trusted, that you must only rely on your sensory system? Absolutely not! But I have discovered, over time, that we humans can bamboozle ourselves easily with our heads. It is vital to have a sensory system check. The rational/logical thoght process is great, but it does not serve us well when we’re looking for higher guidance.

But here is something else to try. Begin to pay attention to the fleeting thoghts that enter your mind, seemingly out of nowhere, that have a distinclty different tone to them than the usual internal chatter (which is more ego-involved). You might have the sudden thought to call your best friend, take a hike instead of go to the museum show you’d planned on, check out something in particular on the Internet–whatever. Listening to and following up on those fleeting thoughts can be very instructive. (Just be sure to use appropriate discretion.)

You have an internal GPS system. You might as well take advantage of it. It can make navigating life’s banquet more delicious, not to mention easier on the stomach.

I would love to hear how you experience your internal guidance system.

 

 

copyright 2009 by Melanie Mulhall

Navigation Tools for Life, Part I, Centering and Grounding

The New Year is like a new kid on the block with a shiny new bicycle: it makes us itch to reevaluate what we want for ourselves. Many people make resolutions at the end of one year or beginning of another. My friend and colleague, Rosemary Carstens (http://www.carstensfeast.blogspot.com), suggets a slightly different approach: setting a direction instead of making resolutions. I like Rosemary’s approach. It is a bit more flexible and realistic than setting resolutions. The very word “resolution” sounds concretized and unforgiving to me.

Using Rosemary’s approach a bit symbolically, I would like to suggest that to set a direction and follow it, one must have some tools. Whether a compass, a GPS device, or stars by which to guide them, no sailor or backpacker can get to where she is going without tools.

So what tools do you have to guide you as you contemplate your direction for this year? What tools will help you every time you reevaluate your direction? One’s theological, philosophical, and/or psychological proclivities will certainly impact her answer to that question and it is a question worthy of spending some time on.

In a world that bombards us with stimuli, provides more options than can be employed in any single lifetime, lulls us into intellectual stupor, and often attempts to herd us into group sanctioned approaches to what is of value and what is not, I suggest a countermeasure. Tap into your internal guidance system.

We each have internal navigation tools and an internal gyroscope to help us find our way through life and stay on course. While it could be argued that we came into life knowing their use, many of us have been sidetracked by life’s external pressures for so long, we have forgotten we have them, let alone how to use them.

If that describes you, then you may be wondering how you can find your way back to them. I suggest starting simply. Start with centering and grounding. It is difficult to tap into the power of your internal guidance if your energy is dispersed and is floating around in the stratosphere.

It takes seconds to center and ground, once you know how. Here are some simple instructions:

• Stand in a relaxed posture, spind straight, knees soft. Close your eyes.
• Take a few deep breaths, breathing in through you nose and out through your mouth. Allow your belly to expand with every in-breath and contract with every out-breath.
• Focus your attention on that part of your body approximately two inches below your navel and just in front of your spine. Feel the stability you gain when your attention is placed in this area. Feel the power of it.
• Congratulate yourself. You have just centered.
• Now, maintaining this sense of centeredness, imagine the top of your head (your crown chakra) opening up like a blossom, allowing a stream of powerful, positive enregy to enter you. (If it feels right to do so, envision this energy as coming from Source, God, the Universe, or whatever other term you use to describe the Divine.)
• Imagine this energy filtering through your entire body, permeating each cell–right down to the DNA–flowing downward from the top of your head to your face, throat, chest cavity, arms, abdomen, and legs. It fills you with energy.
• Envision that energy passing through your body, down through your feet, and into the solid ground on which you stand. Your body is permeated with energy, which continues to flow in through the top of your head. Every part of your being absorbs the energy. There is so much that it passes freely through you and enters Mother Earth.
• Feel the connection between that energy, your body, and Mother Earth. Above, below, and within are joined. You feel the power of your energetic center (that point two inches below your navel), you feel the connection to the life-giving energy flowing in from above, and experience the comforting feeling of solidness and groundedness in your connection with Mother Earth.
• Again, congratulate yourself. You are now centered and grounded.
• Set the intent to retain this feeling, long after you have opened your eyes and resumed your activities.
• When you are ready, gently open your eyes and experience the power of being centered and grounded.

If you feel you have been less than well centered and grounded for some time, you might choose to return to this practice at points throughout the day.

What else can you do? I’ll save that for the next post.

 

 

copyright 2009 by Melanie Mulhall

Rules to Live By

I just want to know what the rules are!

That was what I mentally moaned during a meditation some years ago. I am used to getting guidance during meditation and I expected that my Guidance (or, in fact, the entire Council in front of which I often find myself) would respond in some way.

Of course, I do not always get what I ask for. Sometimes I am told, It’s none of your business, and have come to understand that this means, (1) I need to figure it out for myself, over time; (2) Diving Timing is at play and it is just not time for me to understand the situation; or (3) This is something related to the agreements and plans I made before stepping into this form and it will all play out as it is meant to.

We thought you’d never ask! That was the initial response I received, or words to that effect. Then I was taken to a temple, shown a book, and saw in that book a dozen rules by which to live.

Let me be clear: These were given as rules for me to live by, not anyone else. Still, there might be a useful nugget here for my readers. At least, that is what came to mind when I found the list in my leather folder a few days ago, as I waited for a client to arrive at Common Grounds. (Common Grounds is a coffee shop in the Highlands area of Denver at 32nd and Lowell. It is one of my favorite places to meet with clients who live at the opposite end of the Denver metro area from me.)

So here are the “Rules for Melanie to Live By,” as given me during that meditation. I wrote them down when I came out of meditation. They made me smile. They still do.

Melanie’s Rules to Live By

1. Be guided by your heart.
2. Learn to discern the voice of your heart.
3. Develop and maintain a strong connection with the Divine.
4. Be of service to others.
5. Know that to be of service to others, you must also serve yourself.
6. Release what is not working.
7. Let ease and fun tell you what is working.
8. Know that you do not always have all the answers.
9. Know that you always have all the answers deep within you.
10. Be grounded on Earth and in the Divine; know that you are fully human and fully Divine.
11. Be willing to ask for help.
12. Be willing to accept . . . help, gifts of the Spirit, and abundance in its many forms.

I would love to hear what rules to live by you have discovered, been given, or otherwise come to find useful in your life.

copyright 2008 by Melanie Mulhall

 

Frugality with Grace

The current economic crisis seems to have the media talking about how people can live more frugally. In the US, we are probably long overdue for a review of how we live and how we spend our money. There is a downside to all this focus on hard times, though. It can lead to a paucity mentality.

When we focus on what we do not have, we tend to forget what we do have. When we focus on keeping a close watch on our money, we also tend to focus on all the things we cannot buy instead of how gracefully we can live with what we already have.

Those of us with one-person businesses might have an edge over the rest of the population. In the process of keeping our businesses afloat, many of us develop a frugal lifestyle. I certainly have learned how to live frugally.  Whether it stems from my childhood and the circumstances of my life or, as I suspect, the life I have chosen as a shaman, I have developed a mindset about life and living simply that serves me well in both flush and flat economic times.

Living frugally and with grace is not particularly difficult, but to get there does require you to be comfortable in your own skin. If you are concerned about keeping up with every trend, having every convenience, and possessing every luxury, you will struggle with frugality. Grace? Life’s trappings might pass for grace . . . for a time . . . but if it is all about the trappings, your lack of comfort in your own skin will be obvious. Why? Because if you are comfortable in your own skin, the trappings will be secondary. Instead, meeting the world head-on, in the moment, will be at the forefront.

Frugality with grace is not comprised of the same things for everyone. Different things are important to different people. What is grace for one person is not for another. I can talk about some of the things that have helped me live frugally with grace, but I will not for a minute suggest those things are necessary, sufficient, or would take you to the same place. All I can do is reveal some things that have worked for me.

That said, here are a few of those things:

·        I tend to put my money towards what is meaningful to me and not on what matters less to me. That means I don’t have cable or satellite, I don’t have an expensive cell phone plan, I don’t have a new or near-new car, and I don’t spend much money on entertainment. (I’m very good at entertaining myself.)

·        Staying healthy is important to me, so I belong to a gym. I also run. The gym costs me some money. The run only costs me the occasional pair of shoes and running tights. I know myself well enough to know that I won’t accomplish the same thing at home that I will at the gym, so the gym membership works for me. I believe it has paid for itself. I don’t have the back problems I once had.

·        And because staying healthy is important to me, I take almost all my meals at home. I prepare them myself and they don’t come out of a box. Preparing my own meals at home from great ingredients is light years ahead of almost any other way to eat from both a health and a frugality standpoint. The act of cooking (for me) is also grounding and takes me out of my head (where my work as a writer and editor keeps me much of the time).

·        I love clothes. I love having lots of options with clothes. I love good fabric. I love expressing myself with clothes. And I buy most of my clothes at thrift stores. I get my share of designer labels and current styles (though I care about my own sense of style more than what someone else says is current). Many of my friends, acquaintances, and colleagues are astounded by the fact that my clothes come from thrift stores because I usually look good and well put together. Not only is this a very frugal way to attire one’s self, it is also incredibly fun. Shopping at thrift stores is like going on a treasure hunt.

·        My shoes? The occasional pair of almost-not-worn boots also comes from thrift stores, but most of my shoes come from DSW and more than half of those come from the racks at the back of the store where the shoes are deeply discounted. I could do an ad for DSW. I think they’re great. That one can have beautiful, quality footwear (important for me as a Pisces) without spending a fortune is frugality with grace.

·        I clean my own house. There was a time when I hired others to do that, but for a number of years, I have taken back that activity. I save a great deal of money in the process (sacrificing a little time for it), the manual labor is good for the body and soul, and it is another activity that keeps me grounded.

·        My husband and I also look after our own yard, for the most part. I have gotten help with felling trees, but the maintenance work is done by us. I love my flowers and herbs and have a number of small beds. They have been developed over many years, so I am fortunate to have something other than a bare patch of ground that must be planted. I save additional money by over-wintering some plants indoors. That means I don’t have to replace them every spring. I get a bit of thrill from the sight of folks walking by my house who stop to gawk at my window full of geraniums, blooming all winter, and I have the grace of living among beautiful, living things. Doing so with frugality in mind is grace with frugality.

·        I admit that I do probably spend more money on plants than many people, but I consider cost and the life of the plant in when I make purchases. For instance, I often buy perennials to plant in pots to dress up my decks, then put them in the ground in the fall. Dual benefit.

·        Yes, I spend money on books, too. I’m a writer. That means books are important to me. But I often buy current fiction at the thrift store and get the rest as deeply discounted as I can. That is, except for those I buy full price in support of my fellow writers. I also pass books on to others when I am done with them and occasionally even get a few from others, too. Frugal, luxurious, and better for the environment.

·        I have good equipment for my work (which ends up saving money, I believe,) but I do not jump at every new thing out there and I do not have equipment I don’t really need. I’m not trying to prove how hip I am with technology (which is a good thing because I am definitely not hip). I would rather demonstrate that I am good at what I do by the results my clients see.

I could go on. This is just a taste of how I manage to live frugally with grace.

But I’d like to hear from you. If you’re good at this, share some hints. If you aren’t yet good at it and have questions, bring them on.

And for those of you who want to know what the “grace” in frugality with grace means, here’s my off-the-cuff definition: grace is a sense of peacefulness, of effortless ease, of harmony.

I’d like to hear your own definition of that, too!

Copyright 2008 by Melanie Mulhall.

It’s all about living the dream!

We are all living the dream. Whether your dream is a beautiful one or a nightmare is entirely up to you! But what does that mean and how do we go about living a beautiful dream, anyway? I hope to explore exactly that in this blog. Come join me!

A Little Housekeeping

I want to thank all of my Boulder Media Women friends for their posts on my nascent Blog. Many of the women in this group have blogs of their own. You can track them down through www.bouldermediawomen.com.

More than one person has commented on my banner. This is the logo on my business cards and on my web site, www.thedragonheart.com. I collaborated with a great designer, Judy Gardner, on it.

Kathy Lefwich commented on the thousands of blogs out there and pointed out that they can be a form of mental masturbation (she’s quoting another BMW member here, so neither of us will take credit for that phrase). I appreciate the comment because it directly relates to why I have taken so long to get into the blogging community with my own. I want to avoid the kind of self-indulgence that, I think, is what Kathy is referring to. To do that, I encourage others to pipe up here and be heard.

So what is living the dream, anyway?

Andi O’Conor has commented that living the dream is a great contemplation. I agree . . .  and we could spend the rest of our lives contemplating it and living the results!

Andi has asked how we identify what is most precious and dear to our hearts. In doing so, I think she has identified what “living the dream” means to her. It’s a pretty good definition, too.

For me, living the dream means a couple of things. Perhaps above all else, it means doing what I came to Planet Earth to do. Second, it means enjoying the journey, itself. Either of those things could be a lengthy blog post, in and of themselves. Andi has posed a couple of other thoughtful questions, too.

But for now, I would love to hear what is evoked in the readers of and participants in this blog when they hear or see the words, living the dream.

Melanie

Life is a Four-Part Harmony

One of my client-friends is confronting the issue of balance in his life at the moment. Living authentically and walking his talk is important to him. He is writing a book to help people live their dreams consciously, with purpose and with abundance, so he is sensitized to his own process.

Balance is a trickly thing for those of us focused on living our dreams. The image that comes to mind for some of you might be of someone perched on a highwire, teetering and trying to avoid falling off. Others may get the image of scales, the sides perfectly–or not so perfectly–balanced.

There is nothing wrong with either of those images, but I prefer to use the word “harmony” as many people use the word “balance.” Why? Because balance often implies portions in equal buckets (like those scales) or  the threat of crashing and burning (like falling off that highwire). Harmony suggests something quite different: a congruent and pleasing arrangement of parts.

I believe that life is a four-part harmony comprised of body, mind, spirit, and emotions and that all of these components have a being and a doing quality. My client-friend has discovered in himself a tendency to over-do, to plunge forward with activity, sometimes at the expense of his health, well-being, and . . . yes, at the expense of maintaining harmony of mind, body, spirit, and emotions. He is consciously attending to the being side of all four, as well as the doing side. In doing so, what I am witnessing from the outside is a period of amazing transformation in him.

Living the dream is about four-part harmony: attending to it, making it a priority, and being conscious about both the being and the doing sides of each one of the four components. I don’t suggest it is always easy, but the experience of harmony is delicious enough to bring you back, again and again. And, in the end, everything seems to flow easier in harmony.

What’s your experience?

 

Harmony? Where do I Start?

Life is definitely a four-part harmony built on mind, body, spirit, and emotions, but if your life feels anything but harmonious at the moment, where do you start? Many of us are over-stressed, over-burdened, over-committed, overweight . . . and too overwhelmed to know how to get over all those things.

I’m going to suggest something so radical it’s simplicity might get lost in the tsunami of emotions it is likely to evoke in the reader: start by getting more sleep. Why start with sleep? Because it impacts almost everything else.

Before I say one more word, I want to insert a caveat. If you are the parent of a newborn child, I know you’re already groaning and throwing things at the computer. On the other hand, if you’re the parent of a newborn child, you’re probably not reading this anyway! If you actually are reading this blog, you get a buy on this one. Someday you may get a good night’s sleep again, but it might not be anytime soon and the smell of your baby’s skin probably brings you back into harmony faster than most people can pull off with a week of meditation. I’m not talking about you.

The rest of us, though, may need a reminder to get a decent night’s sleep.

Science is finally catching up with what many of us have known experientially for years: we eat more and we eat less healthfully if we don’t get enough sleep. Ever had a craving for junk food after pulling an all-nighter in college or at the office? If so, you know what I mean. If you are out of harmony with your body and one part of that is food related, you are not easily going to find that harmony if you are routinely sleep deprived.

Want a clear head and emotions that don’t careen all over the highway of your inner being? Get enough sleep. Executives and entrepreneurs just might be the worst perpetrators of self-inflicted sleep deficit (excepting those new parents) and it is scary to think about the effects. Even Harvard Business Review is hip to this problem. The October, 2006 issue featured an insightful article titled “Sleep Deficit: The Performance Killer.” That article was the result of a conversation with Harvard Medical School professor, Charles A. Czeisler, who is one of the world’s leading experts on the biology of sleep. Czeisler had a great many things to say on the subject of sleep deprivation, but one of the most rivetting was his belief that the level of sleep deprivation endorsed by and even expected of companies for their people (particularly managers) impairs those people, over time, every bit as much as intoxication would. Yikes! What are we doing to ourselves?

Want spiritual harmony? Well, one thing I advocate (and practice) to help get there is meditation. But if you are falling asleep every time you sit down to meditate–because you are too sleep deprived to do anything else–you are not going to reap the benefits for which you sat down to meditate in the first place. 

The folks are legion who will argue that they just plain have too much going on in their lives to get more sleep. But both efficiency and effectiveness suffer if you are sleep deprived. Getting enough sleep is foundational to amassing the energy you need to live life at full throttle. 

Think you get enough sleep? Many people who are sleep deprived do. You might not be one of them but, then again, you just might be. Here is a question to help you determine where you fall on this. It may not be the acid test, but it will provide some clues. Do you need an alarm clock to awaken?

If so, consider the possibility that you might need more sleep. Start there and you will be striking the right chord to play a four-part harmony life.

Melanie  

How Does Any of This Relate to Use of Time?

Helena Mariposa posted a comment on my “Life is Four-Part Harmony” post that inspired me to think about how we use our time and how that fits with living the dream and being in harmony with body, mind, spirit, and emotions.  And because there is really only one of us in the room anyway (as Marianne Williamson has been known to say), I received my weekly inspirational message from my friend, Tom LaRotonda (http://www.corematters.com), within minutes of seeing Helena’s post and thinking about some of the issues with how we use time. Tom’s email inspiration was complementary to my thinking.

I have set and accomplished goals in my life and have found goal setting to be a useful practice, particularly when I keep my energy open to possibilities not originally part of the goal or planning around it. And, as the author of the book Helena has referred to seems to suggest, goals and use of time are–or should be–related. For instance, when I had the goal of writing my first book (Living the Dream–A Guidebook For Job Seekers And Career Explorers), accomplishing it required me to think of that goal and include it when I thought about how best to use my time. While my writing style is not as regimented as some authors I know (many, actually), linking the goal to the use of my time helped me actually finish and publish the book.

It did not, however, take over my life. And that is the risk in over-planning the use of time. Now I know that many people would not make it through the day and retain their sanity if they did not have their time planned out with some discipline, and even precision. And I have enormous sympathy for what the pace of life today does to us. But I don’t want to forget how important the simple daily encounters and frequent disruptions to my plans can be when it comes to living my own dream, helping others live theirs, and making a difference in the lives of people I may never know I have touched.

And that is where my friend, Tom LaRotonda, comes in. Tom wrote, in his piece titled “Your Life Makes a Difference,” that whenever we touch another’s life by listening to them and telling them we appreciate them, we are making a difference in the world. We are, in fact, changing the world, he purports. I not only agree with him, I have seen it operate in my own life.

Two days ago, I received a call from a woman I hadn’t heard from in several years. I knew her in a former (corporate) life and reconnected with her several years after stepping out of that life. I helped her with some career matters at that time and stayed in touch as I could. She was calling me to tell me how important all of that had been to her and, in fact, continued to be. I remember when we reconnected, years earlier, and if I had not been paying attention (not just with my eyes and ears, but with my heart), I might have exchanged a few words with her and that would have been the end of it. In fact, I was busy at the time and easily could have let my own concerns distract me from the heart message. I’m sure I have actually done that, again and againg, and I’m happy I didn’t do it that day.

And this all reminds me of one of the most riveting experiences I have ever had as I have attempted to navigate living the dream, living in harmony, and how I use time. I was at the Carmelite monastery in Crestone, Colorado–Nada Hermitage and the Spiritual Life Institute. It is one of my favorite places (and one I am feeling pulled to again, of late). I checked out some tapes from the monastery’s considerable library and one of the tape sets was the monastery’s own Sister Sharon Doyle speaking on leisure. (That’s leisure in the medieval sense of the word, meaning “stillness.”)

Sister Sharon commented on how busy the lives of the monks at the hermitage was and how often they were so wrapped up in getting things done that they did not take the time to just be with one another. Wasting time with one another was how she put it and it was a good way to say it because we are so enculturated in our society to not waste time. She believed that taking the time to waste time with one another was important.

I was stunned by her comments because my rather innocent image of monks and monastery life at the time was one of simplicity, unrushed doing, plenty of time for being, a healthy dose of communing with nature, and, of course, plenty of time to be with the Divine. And I thought to myself that if the monks at this (and other) monasteries were having as much trouble with time as the rest of us, the world was surely going to you-know-where in a handbasket.

I am still stunned by the thought, though I have a great deal more understanding about the issues than I did then. (Sister Sharon’s reference to Walter Kerr’s wonderful book, The Decline of Pleasure, and Peeper’s great work sent me off on a delicious inquiry that has never really ended.)

As we explore what it means to live the dream and live life with four-part harmony, as we explore how we set goals and use time as part of that, I, for one, am going to remind myself–frequently–that we make a difference in simple ways that have profound impact and taking the time to listen, be with another, and really be present with life matters as much as the pursuit of any goal.

Taking the Time to Recharge Your Creativity

In my last post, I commented on how we use time and how it relates to living the dream and maintaining harmony in our lives. Not long afterward, a colleague sent me an email that kept my pondering on that subject going–but in a somewhat new direction.

My colleague (who I will call Al, because I haven’t asked him if he minds my using his name) is something of an expert on the subject of creativity. Al has been studying it and writing on the subject for a number of years. In May, Al took a trip he had wanted to take for many years. He would soon turn sixty and decided he’d waited long enough to make the journey.

Did he go to an exotic place? Well, yes and no. It depends on what you think of as exotic. But anyone who has found herself on Chicago’s Lake Shore Drive on a Saturday night will probably admit that it is exotic enough for most of us!

Al made an art and architecture trip to Chicago. He started with with the Edward Hopper exhibit at the Art Institute, went on to explore Frank Lloyd Wright’s home and studio, and explored all things deco and nouveau. He found it somewhat disconcerting to discover that Marshall Fields is now Macy’s and that Carson, Pirie, Scott is closed. He was happy, though, that Macy’s had the good sense to keep the original name plates intact on the building and that he could still see the Louis Sullivan ornamental iron trim at the edge of the scaffolding on the old Carson’s building.

He had a great time. He likened it to a mythic journey. He took so many photographs that he was still taking them in his dreams when he returned and emailed me to tell me about the trip.

Al was rejuvenated, inspired, and in creative overdrive as a result of that trip. And his journey is instructive.

If we want rich, full, creative lives, we have to surrender to where life wants to take us sometimes. Life wanted to take Al to Chicago. (That last sentence makes me want to whip out an old Fenton Robinson CD and play “Going to Chicago, ” or, at the very least, burst into song, myself.) Al was smart enough to allow the excuse of his impending sixtieth birthday to lead him there. He has enough material for his studies and writing on creativity (both from the trip and from the creative juices it cranked up in him) to last for months.

Now that was a good use of time.

One last thing. Al told me that Edward Hopper made the following comment when asked about one of his last paintings, one of a light-drenched sun in an empty room: “I’m after ME.” Now isn’t that what living the dream is all about? Isn’t that what creative expression is all about? Isn’t that the best reason for doing anything that maybe takes us away from our hurly-burly lives?

I think so. What do you think?

Melanie

Life Lessons from the Weight Room

If I’m paying attention, everything in life validates what I already know, teaches me something new, or advises me on some issue I have at the moment. The weight room at my gym is no exception. While I have been a runner for many years (though I run neither as far nor as fast as I once did), I have only been doing weight resistence training for a little under three years. During that time, the equipment and free weights have had their way with me, using their unique language to remind me of some very important things about life. Here are a few.

Beginner’s Mind Makes All the Difference

Adventure often means being willing to return to beginner’s mind. Among other things, that requires a willingness to make a fool out of yourself as you try something new. We adults have mastered enough things over time that it can be disconcerting to stumble, bumble, and otherwise be a novice.

My first day at the gym, I wisely had a session with a trainer. Jay (Jay Willy, something of a living legend in Broomfield, Colorado) showed me how to use enough pieces of equipment to get me started. He even took notes on the settings. Of course, when I returned for my next visit, I couldn’t make much sense out of the notes and spent some time at each piece of equipment, just staring at it, as if staring would reveal its secrets. It took some time before it became second nature. Before it did, I got to experience the thrill and challenge of being consciously incompetent at something. It’s humbling. It’s also exciting. And it’s how we learn.

Showing Up is Half of It

I get up very early on the mornings I go to the gym. I run, return home and record the dreams I’ve had during the night, meditate, and then pull myself together enough to get to the gym, work out for an hour, and get home before many people have begun their work days. Some of the people in my life think this is an admirable routine and others think I’m crazy. I know that I’m not doing anything special. I’m just showing up for life.

In truth, I could easily talk myself out of the run, the gym, the meditation, and the journaling if I allowed myself to think about the work involved or the time these things take. Instead, I just show up. It all falls into place once I’ve done that. Any of the elements of my early morning routine may be difficult or easy that particular day, but once I’ve shown up and am in the process of doing them, there is momentum to carry me through. Showing up is really half the battle.

Form is Important

It is true that form follows function, but that doesn’t mean form is unimportant. At the gym, form is critical. Use a piece of equipment without attention to form and, at best, you will simply not work the muscle group you are trying to work. At worst, you will injury yourself.

Fortunate for me, Jay is often in the weight room when I am. Even though I only schedule a session with him once in a blue moon, he keeps an eye on me and my form, gently correcting me when I am a bit off. Staying in form requires vigilence. Caring about form is something else again. I often see men and women (men more often than women) applying incredible weight and losing form. They grimmace. They power through. And they may not actually be accomplishing as much as they think. They may look tough, but when the form is off, there is a great deal of waste to the effort.

Consistency Matters

If it is a Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I’m usually at the gym. I’m willing to make sacrifices in other areas of my life to manage that (like going to bed on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursday nights at roughly the time a six year old would). I am consistent. Some people call it disciplined. I sometimes call it persistent. Whatever you call it, it is easier to show up when you decide you are going to do it on a regular basis.

Consistency is related to, but not the same as, showing up. Showing up gets you there on any particular day. Consistency gives you a plan for showing up. Consistency turns a concept into an ongoing practice. And, at the gym as well as in many other life experiences, mastery requires ongoing practice.

I cannot speak for anyone else, but if I were not consistent in my practice, I would never make those small but meaningful gains in strength. Instead, I would begin to develop strength, lose what I have begun when I dropped out of the practice a while, and have to start over when I came back to it.

Interestingly, it is actually easier to be consistent than sporadic. And the gains come from the consistency.

You Can Talk About it or You Can Do It

I have met some wonderful, inspiring men and women at the gym and I always look forward to seeing them. That doesn’t mean I spend half of my time at the gym chatting. On the contrary, the time I spend on weight resistence machines and with free weights is darned near aerobic because I am very focused.

There is pausing between sets and there is killing time. I’m friendly with my fellow weight trainees, but I don’t use other people to avoid working out. It would be easy to do that and I see folks talking themselves right out of their workouts on a regular basis.

As with almost anything else in life, we can plan, posture, and circle around things endlessly or we can do them. We can talk about what we plan to do ad nauseam or we can do what we plan. I don’t want to get to the end of my life and realize that I spent it thinking and talking about the grand things I wanted to do instead of putting one foot in front of the other and actually doing those things.

So . . . those are just a few of the things the gym has shown me. Have I perfected the learning? Hardly! I’m still a pilgrim going down the road. And I translate those learnings to other areas of my life better in some places than others.

But tomorrow is Monday, which means another opportunity to learn something about myself and life at the gym. And you can bet I’ll be there. Look for me in the weight room of the Paul Derda Recreation Center in Broomfield, Colorado at about 6 a.m. I’ll be the very short, aging but determined woman who looks like she means business.

More Life Lesson from the Weight Room

I want to thank everyone who commented on the last post. It confirmed my belief that life, itself, will tell us everything we need to know if we are just paying attention.

Here are a few more lessons from the weight room.

You Will Be Asked to Take Risks

For many years, I had a small clipping on my refrigerator that I had taken from a magazine. It read, The Only Risk is Not Taking One. No, I don’t do extreme sports. I have climbed a Fourteener or two (that’s shorthand for one of Colorado’s 14,000 ft. mountains), but I don’t make a habit of taking risks just for the sake of taking risks. But life itself is a risk and a well-lived life requires a willingness to take frequent, calculated risks, as well as some that feel like a trusting jump into the abyss.

Even getting to the weight room in the first place is a risk. I really didn’t know until I tried it if weight resistance training was something I would love enough to do consistently so I could have the stronger body I wanted. It was. And while I will not suggest for a moment that I have a body to envy, it is stronger thanks to the training. Every time I have tried something new at the gym or increased the weight on a machine or the free weights, it has been a risk. Can I do it? Will I hate it so much I’ll avoid it? Will I embrace it? Will I stick with it?

In the gym, there are trainers to help us and colleagues to encourage us. In the rest of life, there are those to teach and encourage us as well. But we have to take the first step. We have to be willing to take the risk.

Meditation Can Be Practiced Anywhere

The gym is a very meditative place for me. Yes, I do sitting meditation, as well as other forms and other activities I view as meditation–including my workout in the weight room. Counting repetitions is similar to repeating a mantra, though, admittedly, one without the spiritual underpinnings. Not every weight room session is meditative, but they often are. What makes it so meditative? Well, for one thing, it’s pretty quiet in the weight room. While there is always a certain amount of chatter, most folks are intent on their workouts. And by intent, I mean focused. My own experience is that of turning inward, concentrating on what I am doing in the present moment, and keeping that focus relatively narrow during the practice. And, yes, there is the counting of repetitions.

Am I suggesting that I am not engaged in thinking? No. Just as with other kinds of meditation, the mind continues to think and, just as with other forms of meditation, I just choose not to pay attention to it.

To be sure, one can enter a meditative state practically anywhere (so long as it is mindfulness meditation when we are doing things like driving a vehicle). The weight room is just one example.
Meditation happens.

A Bit of Courtesy Makes Everything Run More Smoothly

Gyms have rules meant to make things run smoothly. At my gym, there are both official and unofficial rules. For instance, we are asked to use antiseptic spray when wiping down the equipment after use. The implication here is, of course, that we are also asked to wipe down the equipment in the first place. We are also asked not to tie up a piece of equipment for more than twenty minutes, so others have access to it. And we are asked not to rest on the machines, which is not an admonition to eliminate pauses between sets but, rather, a gentle request to not just sit on a machine for a long period of time without using it as one talks to a colleague or gets lost in reverie.

It is also understood, though not an official “rule,” that it is bad form to interupt someone else’s workout by trying to nudge them off a machine or other piece of equipment. Likewise, it would be considered bad form to tie up more than one machine at a time.

What all of these guidelines have in common is that they encourage those in practice to employ a bit of courtesy. Consequently, the weight room is a fundamentally civilized place to be. For the most part, folks get along.

It is a reminder that a bit of courtesy goes a long way.

There Are Good Days and There Are . . . Not as Good Days

Some days are good in the weight room. The machines and the free weights flow, one to another, and you accomplish your practice with ease. Even the machine on which you have just increased your weight seems relatively effortless. On other days, even the things you have been doing for months or years seem difficult, or some of them do. I know this is more than my personal experience because we trade notes on these things at the gym.

Is it biorhythms? Does it have to do with how much sleep we got the previous night, what we have eaten (or drank), or the massage we did or did no get a few days earlier? Who knows? It’s not a bad idea to sort it out, but no amount of sorting it out can always explain it.

The moon waxes and wanes. Our lives move more in a wave form than cyclically. Sometimes things are good. Sometimes they are not as good. The weight room reminds me of this. But would it be better if I were not actually in the weight room on those not so good days? I think not. Would life be better if we tried to cocoon ourselves from everything unpleasant? Not only do many forms of spiritual practice suggest that it wouldn’t be, life itself teaches us that life, in all its aspects, cannot be denied.

Without Superficial Distractions, People Get Along Naturally

We are all wearing one version or another of gym clothes in the weight room and, for the most part, that clothing is ubiquitous. It is not just not trendy, it is pretty much anti-trendy. There is something very useful about that. No, I am not suggesting we all go through our days wearing uniforms. I shudder at the thought. For me, how I put myself together is a form of self-expression, as well as a way in which I entertain myself. But one effect of the nondescript attire is that it cancels out socio-economic distinctions.

True, gender and racial differences are still obvious, as well as age and ethnic differences. But removing the trappings of status, class, and vocation has has an incredibly freeing effect–and a leveling effect. In the weight room, we are all just humans faced with the challenges provided by a collection of equipment and our relationships with that equipment. We may have wildly different goals–from training for competition to just trying to forestall the physical effects of aging–but we are all facing down the same equipment. There is a bond created by that and that bond is forged more easily because there are not the usual distractions of occupation, community standing, and financial status to intrude.

Is there something to be learned about individuals and nations getting along in the weight room? Is there the potential for that elusive sense of oneness? I think so. And I try to carry the reminder out into the rest of my life.

Copyright 2008 by Melanie Mulhall

The Law Meets the Compulsion to Control

I have been working with it and teaching it for many years. Abraham provides a beautiful, simple description of it. The Secret made it a household name. What is it? The Law of Attraction.

I have a theory about why the Law of Attraction has become so hot: It feeds the human compulsion to control. It’s not that there is anything misguided or wrong with the Law of Attraction. It’s just that it tells only part of the story. And the part of the story it tells makes people fantasize that if they just have the right thoughts and if they just have the right feelings and if they just do the right things, then they can control everything around them.

Recently, I have been getting questions and complaints about the Law of Attraction from people I know. Some complain that it just doesn’t work or that it might work for others, but they cannot “make” it work for them. Some are confused about how, when, and in what way it works. Others suspect there is something important missing about it.

From my experience and vantage point, the Law of Attraction is real and valid. One of the most common problems faced by those trying to consciously understand and employ it is that they want to jump to the desired experience without acknowledging exactly where they are in the present moment. That’s one step that cannot be skipped. Another problem is the strength and consistency with which the person chooses the supportive thoughts and feelings. But both of those issues are dealt with beautifully by others, so I’m not going to spend time addressing them. There are a few other things going on that I will address?

So what else might be coming into play?

Among other things, there is the energetic impact of others–other people, other creatures, and everything else outside of us. We might have a certain amount of control over ourselves (and, in my opinion, we overestimate how much that is), and it is true that our energetic state impacts everything around us. But we cannot control everything around us. Change yourelf and you begin to change your experience. Believe that you can energetically wrestle the world around you by using the Law of Attraction as the equivalent of a half nelson and you are going to be disappointed with what you experience. At best, you will fail. At worse, you will experience a boomerang effect sock in the jaw.

There is us and there is “the other” impacting our experience. What else?

In my model of the Cosmos (formed, among other things, through mystical experience), there is also the larger energetic source of which we are a part, the numinous presence that is both imminent and transcendent. Might we have made some agreements before we came into human form that impact our experience here? Yes. Might there be larger plans at play? Yes. Is there something called Divine Timing? Absolutely.

We love to focus on our part, the part that has to do with our thoughts, feelings, and actions. We hate to accept that our part is only part of a larger body of influences that impact our experience. We hate it. We try to manipulate others. We try to beat Mother Earth into submission. We try to make deals with God. We want control over everything and the truth is, we don’t have control over everything.

There is a good reason to support and practice the principles that make up the Law of Attraction. For a species that has such a compulsion to control, we tend to exert control over our own thoughts and feelings shockingly little. Just attending to what we think and how we feel can change your life. Don’t believe it? Try it.

But our thoughts and feelings, along with our actions, make up a sweet little package that is only one part of the complex mix of energies that is the creative soup of our experience. So if you are struggling with the Law of Attraction, it might help to step back, take a deep breath, and accept the fact (shocking as it may be) that you are not in control of everything. And if you contemplate that for very long, you just might come to like the idea.

The Wisdom of Horses

The horse, QT, was making faces at me through the pipe panels of the round pen. I did my best to pay no attention, but not only could I not ignore him, neither could anyone else.

Melisa Pearce (the owner of Touched by a Horse and facilitator of this weekend retreat) had been demonstrating a technique for leading a horse by using intent and clarity. With simple body placement and a whip used as an extension to her arm (but never used on the horse), she asked the horse to move in a clockwise direction and he moved in a clockwise direction. She asked him to move in a counterclockwise direction and he moved in a counterclockwise direction.

It was beautiful to watch. Her movements were subtle, yet had profound influence. The horse’s response was the response of an animal in the presence of the alpha. He followed her leadership with trust and ease.

Melisa assured us that, while she had many years of experience and knew the horse well, she had demonstrated this technique at shows with horses she had never met before the demonstration. It was a matter of focus on the third chakra (the solar plexus chakra, the seat of will) and of employing enough clarity for the horse to be completely certain of what she was asking of him. It was an inspiring thing to watch.

She left the round pen and talked a bit more about the technique and its relationship to personal empowerment. She related it to asking for what one wants and getting it. Easy for her, was my fleeting thought.

As she talked, QT poked his head between the pipe panels and made faces at me. Not the women on either side of me, but me. He eyed me. He moved his mouth as if to talk, but made no sound. It was amusing and distracting. I attempted to keep my attention on Melisa, but kept stealing peeks at him.

When Melisa asked if anyone wanted to take a shot at what she had just done, no one was quick to volunteer. When she asked if anyone was particularly afraid to try it or doubted they could do it, my blurted response was involuntary.

“There is absolutely no way I could do that. No chance,” I admitted.

QT continued to make faces at me through the pipe panels and it seemed clear to the other women that he wanted me in the pen. I wasn’t keen to surrender. I wasn’t keen to fail.

I surrendered, got up, and went towards Melisa. Tears were already forming in my eyes and beginning to run down my cheeks. Melisa asked what they were about and I said I didn’t know. Actually, I did know, but I also knew I couldn’t put it in words. She asked where they were coming from and I put my hand on my throat. And I admitted that I had a sense of what it was about but could not, in that moment, articulate it.

QT was at the gate, waiting for me. Melisa asked me to ground myself and, when I was ready, go in and walk to the center of the pen. I followed her instructions and went in, questions and comments racing through my mind. What in the world am I doing in here? There is no chance I can do this. That horse is not going to do anything I ask him to do.

All of my doubts about myself and my ability to do what Spirit had been whispering to me to do with my life came slamming forward in consciousness. This horse was a world uninterested in my work, the new book in process, the speaking I had seen myself doing in meditation . . . everything. He wasn’t my critic. It was worse than that. He was the world turning a blind eye to me. He was every fear I’d ever had about being irrelevant, about having nothing to say that anyone wanted to hear or read. He was all of my fears about my own competency and my fears of being passed over and passed by. He was every “No!” I had ever received from the world.

Melisa had been the model of everything I was not. And I got to follow her demonstration and demonstrate just how incompetent, impotent, and irrelevant a person can be.

And QT did, indeed, refuse to move on my command. He not only refused to move, he turned to look at me as if to mock my miserable attempts. He refused to move and, when he did finally move a bit, it was in no way related to my lead.

Melisa asked me to recall where in my life I had self-confidence and felt competent. I could do it, but it felt light years from the woman whose skin I was now inhabiting, the woman falling apart and being completely ineffective. Tears continued to stream down my face and I could barely talk.

Melisa coached me. She reminded me of my skills as an editor. She assured me that the editing I was doing for her used skills she did not have. She pointed out that she couldn’t do what I was doing for her, almost as if she had read my thought that she was everything I was not.

But the woman in the pen was not the same woman who was editing Melisa’s book. Nor was she the woman who midwifes the spirits of others, nudging them towards what is possible for them. Nor was she the shamanness who works fearlessly and impeccably at her calling, or the writer and editor who has won awards for both writing and editing. That woman was absent or, at the very least, set aside for the moment. She was on the other side of those pipe panels, watching with the other women, perhaps. She was out having coffee. She was dreaming at home in her bed. But she was not in the pen with QT.

The woman in the pen stared down a horse who represented why she could not move forward with the next step of her soul’s purpose.

Diane, Melisa’s assistant, brought in a sign on a stand. “Do or do not. There is no try.” A quote from one of my heroes, Yoda. I viewed Yoda as a powerful shaman. In that moment, I viewed myself as an incompetent woman–forget being a shaman and forget getting advice from one.

Melisa had asked me to move towards the back of the pen after my early failed attempts to get QT to move on my command. Now she told me not to go back to the middle of the pen unless or until I decided I could . . . or would . . . do what was being asked of me.

I paced the far side of the pen. Back and forth. Dealing with myself. And then, almost as if it were someone else’s feet, I stepped back into the center of the pen, picked up the whip, and addressed the horse in a pathetic, weak voice. Then I spoke stronger and deeper. I rose up, knowing, somehow, that I could do it. I spoke, clearly and strongly again.

And QT moved on my command.

The rest was anything but perfect. It wasn’t even pretty. But he moved clockwise on my command. I switched hands with the whip, adjusted my position, and he moved counterclockwise. Back and forth, switching sides, some hesitance on his part . . . but he did it. I did it. We did it together.

He had shown me just how much I doubted myself, just how afraid I was of failing. He had been my projection of a world I expected to turn its back on my work.

And something in me had risen up. Something in me was not going to take being ignored by the world–or that horse–and just slink away, humiliated and defeated. At some point, I rose up and answered, “Hell, yes!” to the Universe’s “Will you?” I rose up and answered, “Yes I will,” to every “No!” I had ever received from the world. I stepped forward so determined that there was no room for doubt.

Tears were still streaming down my face. I had a headache, but I knew why. My brain was knocking on the inside of my skull, like a powerful visitor knocking on my door.

And I had opened my door to her.

[You can find Melisa Pearce at www.touchedbyahorse.com. You will find information there on her retreats and trainings, her one-on-one work, and her speaking engagements. You can also purchase her Whispers from a Horse’s Heart inspiration cards and her guided meditation CDs through her site–or you can purchase those products from me.)

Don’t Die With New Underwear in Your Dresser Drawer

New underwear. That’s what I found when I went through one of my mother’s dresser drawers after she died. The underwear she wore on a daily basis was old and stretched out. This was pristine, new underwear. She had saved it for trips to the doctor, the rare night out, and other special occasions.

I was not completely surprised to find the new underwear. It was consistent with her depression era mindset that the good things in life were in short supply and needed to be doled out carefully.

Some months before her death, I gave her the most beautiful flannel sheets I could find. Those last years of her life, she got cold easily. Some part of me knew that this could be her last winter. I bought the sheets for her birthday, but gave them to her when fall turned chilly, instead of waiting her birthday on December 23rd. The sheets were thick and elegant. The top sheet and pillow cases had scalloped edges and beautiful embroidery.

I mailed them off to her in October or early November. I wanted her to enjoy them as soon as the smell of winter was in the air, not wait for her birthday.

She called when they arrived. She loved them. She was surprised by the early gift and thought they were the most beautiful sheets she had ever seen. Was she going to put them on her bed immediately? No. She wanted to wait until Christmas. One of my sisters planned to come for the holidays and my mother intended to put them on the guest room bed for her to enjoy.

I think I screeched. Then I begged her to put them on her own bed. I think she waited until after Christmas to do that.

She died the following April.

My mother did not hold off on her enjoyment of everything . . . and thank the gods for that! But that new underwear in the dresser drawer and the memory of her waiting to enjoy the sheets intended only for her have been a lasting gift from her, a reminder to not follow in those particular footsteps.

I was quite young—six or seven, perhaps—when I had my first reminder to savor the day. Memory is a home invader who rearranges the furniture of the mind while you are not paying attention. I can only piece together the details.

I was watching television while visiting my aunt and uncle at their farm. The Loretta Young Show was on and in this particular episode, a wealthy woman from the city had stopped at a farm to buy apples. While there, she encouraged the farm wife to put aside her chores and bake her family an apple pie. The farm woman could scarcely imagine such a use of time during picking season, but the city woman reminded her that baking an apple pie for your family can sometimes be the most important thing you do in a day.

This episode of The Loretta Young Show just might encapsulate the overarching mindset towards women in the 1950s and we have surely come a long way since then. Or have we, men and women alike?

I am not going to itemize what we have gained over the past fifty or more years. It would be a long list. I am also not going to itemize what we might have lost. That list might be long, too. Ponderously long. But that first reminder to treat every day as important, a reminder I received when I was six or seven and which has stood me in good stead for over fifty years, tells me that even in the 1950s, we needed such reminders. I think we need them even more today.

If I admonish my readers—and myself—not to die with new underwear in the dresser drawer, I am not suggesting we abandon good sense and our current lives for some fantasy of a life in Tahiti or Timbuktu. I am suggesting, though, that we not put ourselves after the long list of what must be accomplished before the day is out and I am suggesting that we appreciate this day and this moment in some very simple ways.

Like what?

When the weather is fine, I take a vintage tablecloth and the everyday china down to my lower deck. There my husband and I take our evening meal. And, yes, I have prepared that meal myself. It has come neither from a box on the pantry shelf or from some outstretched hand through a fast food window.

What else?

Well, I can only speak for myself and I know there are legions of entrepreneurs and wishful would-be entrepreneurs who seem to like the idea of working in their bathrobes. But I am not one of them. I dress to please myself, but I do dress most days before sitting down at my computer. There is something wasteful about treating any day as one that can be lived sloppily. So I dress for the occasion of the day. My habits regarding underwear are my own, but let’s just say that you can count on the fact that I’m not wearing old, worn out underwear.

I also write thank you notes on note paper and send them out in the mail, read good books before falling asleep, celebrate the accomplishments of my friends and colleagues, lift weights as if I planned to live to be a hundred, meditate for the pleasure of it, get to know store clerks, tend to my flowers with tenderness, and otherwise conduct my daily life as if it mattered . . . and as if it cannot wait.

Because, you see, it really cannot. I want to live life full throttle. That does not mean collecting experiences and things at breakneck speed. It means savoring moments.

I don’t plan to die with new underwear in the dresser drawer.

Note: I would love to hear about your own experiences. What things do you savor? How do you make room for life?

copyright 2008 by Melanie Mulhall