wholeness

re-imagining the most wonderful time of the year

2 Comments / boundaries, connecting, wholeness /

This time of year is always a mixed bag for me. Is it for you too? I’m thinking of each of you, and wondering what it would be to show up tired or sad or angry, even to this time of year: wonder – meaning astonishing or miracle – belies more complexity than what we can find within the four corners of a greeting card. In wonder there is room for wholeness. The most wonderful time of year, truly.

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choosing to speak

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“[W]hat I most regretted,” writes poet & feminist writer Audré Lorde, “were my silences.” I had planned to write something different this week. And this – Israel and Gaza, the Palestinian & Israeli lives lost and the weight of the emptiness that remains – asked that I write something different instead. “What are the words

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(Healing, connection is) to hold space for each other

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This feeling of relief – of a safe space to be again – seems to be the reaction of so many people to the election followed, for some, by joy at the possibility of what could be. The space created in this release makes a path forward for returning, for restoration, and then maybe for something new, too. First, though, as a close friend said to me: “Now the healing begins.”

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bare bushes on a hill against white clouds tinged with blue sky

Reimagining the “How are you?”

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We share greetings throughout the day. These routine acknowledgments of each other’s presence are thresholds through which we pass on our way, usually, to something else. They are moments of entry and moments of departure, of gathering in and of letting go. In these simple words and acts: saying hello, looking someone in the eye, pausing to hear a response to the question “How are you?” – there is opportunity, and wrapped up in it, power. Too often, though, we, ever focused on the doing, miss the opportunity of these moments on our way to something else. How can we commit to and prepare for these opportunities?

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To Practice Self-Compassion

1 Comment / connecting, ourselves, wholeness /

Each year, around this time, my husband and I experience waves of grief, which now feel compounded by the collective losses that we are all experiencing due to COVID-19. These experiences provide ripe opportunities for connection, with my husband, and now, with most everyone, regarding these losses. Yet this connection is not possible without self-compassion: the seed from which the flowers of meaningful and courageous connection bloom.

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Outline of aspen trees at dusk

Sitting in the dark, waiting

1 Comment / connecting, wholeness /

One barrier to connection is our instinct to fix rather than to be with someone experiencing something hard. Though well-intended, this practice creates a roadblock to self-reflection and to connection; it signals what is preferable, acceptable, good, even, and what is not. It ignores the cause of the feelings, and in doing so, denies a foundation for meaningful connection: self-compassion.

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Ash trees reflected in water

In the stillness

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What in daily living mattered when life itself felt on hold? In these moments, I welcomed nature’s unceasing movement forward to keep time for me. And I found meaning in the ordinary. Because, to my surprise, I learned that despite the stillness, sunup and sundown, the world continues to turn and us with it.

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