It’s never too late

Well, at least not as long as you are still above ground… and even then, who knows, really?

I’ve been pondering the chain of events that have been unfolding in the past months since I took up my blogging journey in earnest, and realizing how many marvelous new opportunities have been presenting themselves to me along the way.

These new opportunities for business and personal expansion are seemingly unrelated to my blog, but as we know, life works in mysterious and imperceptible ways, and one thing always leads to another….

My point?

When you say Yes to one opportunity, one commitment, one change in your life, it unleashes a whole chain reaction of previously unimaginable openings. It’s like you put your foot in the door, and before you know it the momentum of life and your own openness and willingness to respond opens it all the way.

And then?  Why then, anything is possible.

So remember dear reader, as long as you are still breathing, it's never too late to say Yes to something new!

Coming in for a landing: the bumps along the way

It’s often a bit bumpy when you fly in for a landing and go through that layer of clouds. It seems like a good analogy for the experience of re-entry into the atmosphere of your daily life after being away on a trip. It’s bound to be somewhat jarring.

There’s something wonderful about being away in a completely different environment for a time, especially when you are mostly cut off from the usual deluge of electronic bits of information, with its ensuing demands, on your time and energy. Quite liberating!

So I guess it’s no surprise to feel somewhat overwhelmed by the mountain of information, requests and demands that seem to have accumulated in your absence.

What to do?

The natural response is to tighten up, stop breathing, dive in head first, and try to tackle it all at once. Whoa!  Not a good idea. At least, not in my experience.

Having learned from past uncomfortable landings, I gave myself a whole day to do nothing but putter around and nest this time– take a nap, unpack, visit, and just land. That really helped!

And as to the mountain of to do’s? I remind myself that just because they exist, doesn’t mean I actually have to get them all done at once. I can actually choose, prioritize, delegate, postpone or even scratch them off my list entirely. After all, I am in control of my life, right?

Next time you face a bumpy landing, dear reader, take it from me, give yourself a break and remember – you get to choose what you do with your time and energy. It’s your precious life.

Stepping out and stepping in – who leaves and who comes back?

It’s truly amazing to me that thanks to modern air travel, in the space of 24 hours I went from a tiny village in the highlands of Chiapas back to my home in Santa Rosa, California – two such different realities.

But the really interesting thing is that, just slightly more than 24 hours after my return, I realize I am not the same person who stepped out from my front door two weeks ago.

It’s peculiar- how many times a day, a week, a month, do we step though our front doors, go out into the world, do our thing, and then step back in…. without even thinking about it, and probably assuming that the person who stepped out in the morning is the same person who steps back in some time later?

So what is it about life’s experiences when we are out in the world that changes us in some profound way? I’ve often had the experience of going on vacation and coming back refreshed and renewed, full of new memories and experiences, a more relaxed and happy person. Or of witnessing some challenging or even tragic event, and coming back shaken and vulnerable.

This 2-week time period time in Chiapas feels different. Not a vacation, but an immersion into another reality, a time of such intense focus that the rest of my life seemed almost like a distant dream. I realized it’s rare these days, with so many responsibilities and distractions, to spend a period of 2 weeks with such single minded concentration.

I don’t know if I could tell you what it is that has changed in me, what layers of inner transformation are making themselves slowly known. But I do know that as I allow it to be revealed, and give myself the time to sit in silence and contemplation and resist the temptation to rush helter-skelter back into the daily realities of life back home, that the mystery and the grace of embracing a new opportunity and challenge will continue to reverberate in my being.

But perhaps it doesn’t really take a 2-week odyssey into foreign territory to precipitate a change in consciousness, maybe all it takes is a willingness to be open and vulnerable to the mysteries that always surround us, and to give ourselves the gift of a pause when we step back in the door to reflect and integrate the day’s gifts.

So dear reader, who will you be when you step back in the door tonight?

The mystery of time

Spending time with my 88 year old mother gets me thinking about the passage of time. Since her short term memory isn’t so good, we often spend time talking about the past, a lot of which she does remember quite clearly.

It makes me wonder, how do we mark the passage of time?

And where does it go once it’s gone?

It seems universal, this experience of time speeding up. You wake up Monday morning, and before you know it, it’s Friday and you wonder, where did the week go?

Or as Dr Seuss puts it so eloquently, “How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

Then I wonder, well, what is time anyway? Is it the seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks we schedule and program and cross off our calendars?  Or is it something else, something more elusive, more meaningful?

Then there is what physicist Sean Carroll calls the “arrow of time” – the fact that the past is different from the future. And why can we remember the past but not the future?  There are things that occur that you can’t reverse – like in his example – “You can turn an egg into an omelet, but you can’t turn an omelet into an egg.”

We all experience the  passing  of time– the changes it brings with it. My kitten is getting bigger. The roses are blooming. The leaves are coming back on the trees. The weather is changing. And on and on it goes, through infinity, apparently.

Here’s the one thing I can say with certainty. The more fully I inhabit the present moment, the more time I seem to have.

The more I am distracted by negative thoughts of the past (especially regrets, rehashing and the like), and fretful thoughts of the future (such as worrying) and not fully inhabiting this very moment, the faster time seems to go by. Because I was not present to it.

Funny how that works!

Maybe that’s why time seems to go slower when you are a kid, because, kids, as anyone who spends time with them knows, are very much in the present moment.

My granddaughters teach me that all the time.

So, this mystery called time, shall probably always remain a mystery…. But what we do with it, now that is something we can decide.

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.

"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

What will you do with the time that is given to you?

 PS you might also enjoy Time for a Pause, You are not behind

Time for a pause

It’s so easy these days to be busy being busy. Rushing from one activity to the next, crossing off this thing and tackling that one.

Always late, perpetually behind.

Never quite awake to the world around us. To the world within us.

So busy that we actually miss what is going on around us. The experience of awe. The space and time to simply wonder.  The room to allow our inner self to make itself known.

How will I now who I really am if I don’t take the time to ask?

If I don’t take the time to listen to the answer?

Perhaps we need to find a sacred spot ~ a time, a place that we carve out in our busy hectic lives to just sit and be, and see what happens.

I’m not even talking about meditation.

Just a pause, a long moment, to sit and do nothing.

Maybe to stretch out in the grass and watch a cloud go by. Or to lie on your stomach and watch an ant crawl up a blade of grass. When was the last time you did that?

Just sayin’!