Risk Forward

I love this phrase and I love this book. Victoria LaBalme has written a book that helps the reader create space for their own discovery of purpose and unique direction. It is a visual wonder; each section engages the right and left brain to help the reader sit in spaces of confusion, tension, discernment, and yes, risk!  The design of each page stirs and invites the reader into out-of-the-box thinking and bolder consideration that mere words would do alone.

Risk Forward has become a contemplative tool for me. The book does not have to be read/experienced in order, so, on a day I’m using the book, I’ll refer to the “circle of contents” and choose a section that pulls at me. Then I go to it and engage it slowly, trying to notice what is coming up for me. That’s the power of this book. During this season of trying to refine my own direction with writing and other projects, Risk Forward has been a welcome companion and guide, helping me risk forward in more way than one.

Most recently, I took a bold, risky step forward by starting a group for four exceptionally talented women. Every element of doing this felt like a risk forward; committing the time, praying for what to do with the group, inviting each person, and even deciding what to make for lunch during our first meeting! But…using Risk Forward helped me realize that developing leaders was essential for me and currently missing in my life. The messages in the book helped me challenge the personal blocks that crept up as I considered putting myself out there as a leader.

My question to you is, is there a risk out there that you’ve been afraid to take? Or a step that you’ve talked yourself out of? Or a dream that you’ve avoided developing? The back of the book says, “some people in life know exactly what they want to achieve. Risk Forward is for the rest of us.”   I hope you’ll benefit from it as much as I have.

Momma Driving Camp

Raising a special needs child (now young adult) is not for the faint of heart. Those in this tribe with me know the worries about the future, the constant questioning of the current game plan, and the grinding heartache of seeing our other children coast through the world with such ease while our special dear one struggles and almost every turn. Now I’m the lady on the Northeast Regional train from New Haven to Baltimore weeping as all the tension drains out of me. I feel like a puddle of goo. I’ve just spent nine days with my daughter, solidifying her driving skills so that she can get to her  job independently. I drove a little hybrid car to leave with her (too small??) and now I’m coming home (too soon??) after covering as many car lessons as I could think of (enough??).

Here’s the insurance and registration

Here’s how to get gas…no, never diesel

Yeah, double parking is technically against the rules…people break that one

Yep, I hate it when you suddenly find yourself in a turn only lane too

Here’s where we’re hiding a key in a magnet box under the car

Here’s how a squidgy works

Here’s how the rear window wiper works

Let’s practice setting up navigation once more

These tags are temporary and here’s how you get the new ones on when they come…never mind, get help on that

Oh no, we didn’t go over how to adjust the mirrors! #*&@!!

Brenna has been living in an independence development community in New Haven for three years and man, was that a game plan I questioned at various points! The place had no system for screen limits and I insisted Brenna have some, leaving our relationship battered. She deeply believed I created the depression she experienced mid-way through her second year. And…maybe I did. That’s all part of it. Constantly questioning the game plan.

But today…today I feel imminently grateful for her program! She is in a job that absolutely suits her, assembling and packaging defibrillators, now part time, but they want her to transition to full time! They love her. THEY LOVE HER!  Brenna and I went over who would take which bills and she can actually pay some! Crazy.

And still…I’m tyrannized by wondering if I’ve done enough, if the plan is airtight enough, if she’s ready enough. Several times in the last couple of days of my visit she said, “I’m going to miss you!” This is after three years of “I won’t miss you. And you ruined our relationship anyway.” and me wondering if maybe I did. Oh, hearing this change…I thought my chest might crack open from the swell inside of blended emotions; love, relief, regret, hope. I can scarcely believe we are here. And…we may not stay here, there have been more twists in the road than I can count. But as for the driving, my greatest assurance came when Brenna said, “the voice in my head that might be God is telling me it’s going to be ok.” To that I said, “sounds like God to me”. Then she wiped her tears away, gave me a rib-cracking hug for which she is famous, and she drove off without me.

Excellence in the Clutch Shot

Saturday night’s game between Gonzaga and UCLA may go down in history as one of the best basketball games of all time. Well-matched teams, both playing excellently and a magical shot in the final second of overtime by Jalen Suggs, a freshman.

            There is a camera angle where you get to watch Jalen’s face as he prepares for, executes, and then reacts to his shot.  He is full focus, eyes on all that matters, the basket. He seems oblivious to all the movement around him and I’m guessing that all the many years of practicing such shots comes together in this concentrated moment. A perfect jump, perfect release as the buzzer sounds, a perfect bounce off the backboard and in. He was in a state of flow, in the zone, everything coming together at the right time.

            It inspires me to see human excellence like that. The talents of a person honing in when it matters. To hear the commentary, you hear the respect the experts have for both teams, how much of the outcome was tied up in who won the final possession. But Suggs was able to capitalize on it and take our breath away.

            Joyous excellence. I can only hope for moments like that to touch all of us as we take a risk, make a crazy shot and see that all of our hard work, learning, and giftedness come together to make something happen. What can we learn from Jalen Suggs to help our moments of excellence come to life?

1. You have to be willing to miss. Jalen took a shot that easily could have missed the basket. It was shot from very far back and no one would have faulted him if the shot had landed a hair in either direction and bounced off the rim. But he tried it, knowing it could go either way. He put his everything into the attempt.
2. Excellence comes from practice. Jalen and all of his teammates practice every conceivable scenario for the endings of games. It reminds me of the best moment of a therapy training program I’m in where we role play our most difficult clients and consider the most effective way to interface with them.
3. Find your talent. Jalen Suggs is doing something he is really, really good at. He’s found a talent in himself and developed it. Don’t stop growing and nurturing and developing your own talent! We can all have moments, for most of us it won’t be about basketball though. It will be about OUR thing. The thing God put in each of us that we do especially well.

We have always loved the Zags in this house. My father-in-law and nephew both went there and my husband, from Spokane, always had affection for his local team. We’ll see if Gonzaga’s perfect season ends perfectly with the NCAA Championship. If it’s up to Jalen Suggs it certainly will be.

The Benefits of Laughter

We all know the benefits of laughter, but I discovered a new one last week. I was sitting with my husband, two old, dear friends and one new friend chatting about the Enneagram. A particularly wry and hilarious comment was made and I threw my head back and laughed—something I realize now that I do a great deal–and I saw something that took my breath away…….the stunning tree in the picture here. We were sitting at an outdoor table nestled between two buildings and I hadn’t looked up before we sat down.

In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth Bennet says, “what a shame, for I dearly love to laugh”. In special moments like this one, I remember how dearly I do love to laugh. In times of personal and societal heaviness, laughter can come in short supply. Especially the type that causes one to throw one’s head back!

What new things do you see when you really laugh hard….both figuratively and literally? I saw a huge, beautiful tree. But, when I laugh in the company of friends, I also see how utterly unique and enjoyable each person can be! I feel lightness and release in my body. And I feel the joyousness of God.

Yes’s and No’s

This is a shot I took of a comment a college student wrote at conference for leaders of a campus fellowship at James Madison University this weekend. The student group has over 600 members and just one paid staff worker. There were around 100 very impressive student leaders at this conference. My friend and fellow JMU grad says she can sniff out a JMU grad when she meets them: competent, social, winning, sincere, and so darn capable. Super students by any measure! And these students did not disappoint! Ironically, what these super-students wanted me to talk to them about was healthy boundaries in the midst of all of their commitments. Here’s what we did:

• One session was titled “Say Yes!” Jesus had really packed days of ministry and didn’t seem worried that it would cause everyone to fall apart. We looked at the fact that oxytocin is actually a stress hormone that gives you the urge to reach out to others (thank you Kelly McGonigal!). So, basically, their ministry output and relational commitments can help them with their stress!
• Another session was “Say No!” Jesus had personal prayer time and stuck to his agenda even when “whole towns” were coming to him for healing (see Mark 1). In other words, he knew what his no’s were because he was clear on the yes’s.
• Then we spent the whole weekend trying to unpack the implications.

The tension comes when don’t allow ourselves to seriously consider the no’s that are implied by the yes’s. The implications are far-reaching and tough to stomach sometimes; from social engagements, to leadership positions, to jobs and marriages. And my, how the students wished God would hit them over the head with all the answers! I have the same wish sometimes, but have seen in life that behind that wish is often resistance to growing up, taking responsibility, and staying steady when I have to stand in the tension that comes with my decisions.

How do you stand in the tension of your yes’s and no’s?

Procrastination

Procrastinators will tell you that it is hard to live like they do. Cycles of delay and cramming leave procrastinators feeling worn out and hopeless. I’ve been putting off learning a computer system I need to know for a class because it feels utterly defeating to ever get started. If I wait too long, I will have a long night of cramming myself!

Joseph Ferrari, a professor of psychology at DePaul University, told Psychological Science. “To tell the chronic procrastinator to just do it would be like saying to a clinically depressed person, cheer up.” Many folks will say it’s poor time management or laziness that makes a procrastinator procrastinate. No wonder procrastinators can get so down on themselves! Like most long-term issues, the fixes aren’t usually quick and easy. Making a schedule doesn’t unmake a procrastinator.

“In the last few years……scientists have begun to think that procrastination might have less to do with time than emotions. Procrastination ‘really has nothing to do with time management,’ Joseph Ferrari adds.” Click here for the full Atlantic article. So, are you wondering what the culprits are? The same professor and others say that the two basic reasons for procrastination are:

1—We delay action because we feel like we’re in the wrong mood to complete a task, and

2—We assume that our mood will change in the near future.

These reasons confirm how our moods can tend to shape our actions. Who hasn’t slept in because then they might feel more up for work later? Or rearranged their desk so that the more favorable work environment will open up more creative energy? It can be really subtle or blatantly ridiculous—if I eat half a cake now, I’ll get all my binging out of my system and I’ll feel ready for this diet. We all do it, but chronic procrastinators do it a lot. And the lack of task completion builds guilt and anxiety and shame, which can make accessing one’s resources even more difficult. So, it builds on itself.

This article concludes that the most helpful way out of procrastination is having an external deadline. But when that isn’t possible, I’m wondering if part of the answer lies in really understanding the myth behind the reasons for procrastination listed above.

1—We think we need to or are entitled to feel a certain way to do things.

2—We falsely believe the right feeling or mood will come along eventually.

What if we got underneath these false beliefs and came to the realization that to be the person we want to be, we need to develop the skill of feeling bad and doing stuff anyway. I talk about this skill with clients a lot and struggle to apply it myself.

Who has had success in this area? I’d love to hear your stories.

The Power of Sleep

This morning the most forwarded NY Times article was about meditation and sleep problems. It seems that people are catching on—SLEEP IS IMPORTANT!!! For anyone who has suffered from sleep problems, you know just how horrible it is. Inadequate sleep:

• Makes us more prone to rumination and worry
• Leaves us emotional fragile
• Seriously alters one’s perspective and outlook
• Makes weight loss more difficult
• Limits our ability to access our functional resources for problem solving and emotional regulation
• Increases irritability and irrationality

Sometimes clients come to me with some other presenting problem and when I explore the person’s disrupted sleep patterns, we wind up starting there knowing that all the other work will be far easier to tackle when sleep is regulated. Getting help with sleep regulation is not only wise, but sometimes really necessary. People don’t realize that what they do to make up for sleep problems sometimes makes the problem worse. Sleeping in and long naps can wind up exacerbating nighttime sleep issues, and lying in bed awake isn’t “helpful resting” like some of us would like to believe.

A few thoughts to get you moving towards better sleep:

• Don’t lie in bed awake more than about 20-30 minutes. Get up, read a bit, and try again in a half hour. Lying in bed awake trains you to lie in bed awake.
• Wake up at approximately the same time every day no matter how disrupted your sleep was the night before. You may be tired for a day, but you will be more likely to sleep at night after that.
• Watch for anxiety about whether you are sleeping. Nothing makes sleep harder than stressing about whether you are sleeping. Get up and do something else if you find yourself in that state of mind. Try to sleep again when you feel tired and are no longer anxious.
• Racing thoughts in bed can be a sign of a larger anxiety problem that may merit treatment.
• When you wake at night, remember that the parts of your brain don’t wake up at the same rate. The fear center of the brain wakes up faster than your capacity to reason. So, the middle of the night is rarely a good time to do any productive processing about your life. I don’t know how many hours I’ve spent in existential angst in the middle of the night only to wake up and wonder what my fretting was all about.
• Research is showing that rigorous daily exercise and meditation/contemplative prayer practices are helpful. Check out the NY Times article I mentioned earlier.

Let’s make March “Better Sleep Month” and start really working on getting better (and more) sleep!

A Prayer of Hope

Oh God, let something essential happen to me, something more than interesting or entertaining or thoughtful.

Oh God. Let something essential happen to me, something awesome, something real. Speak to my condition, Lord, and change me somewhere inside where it matters.

Let something happen which is my real self, Oh God.

Ted Loder, Guerrillas of Grace

I meet regularly with a group of folks to grow in our faith together and we pondered this prayer last night. It’s funny, I’ve had this book in my house for quite a while, but I was put off by the title. It was only in a Lenten mailing that I saw it.

This prayer challenges me to hope. And hope can be scary……and vulnerable. Truth be told, I feel safer with more general, open-ended prayers where most anything could be considered an answer. Praying like this puts my heart and risk and opens me not only to a potential radical process of transformation, but also to disappointment. What if nothing happens that I can see or discern?

The most real and gritty prayers get us to this place with God. When we are honest with our truest desires and most desperate wants we open ourselves up in the most vulnerable way! I think that our most desperate surrender places us in the tenderest place of faith. We are in a Divine story that unfolds in a frustratingly human way. We can’t see the whys or how things fit together at many points and that sometimes makes it harder to ask God for real things.

I think that I am going to sit with this prayer for a while. It challenges me and causes me to lean into the mystery of faith.

Questions To Live By

3 Great Questions

A colleague tipped me off to these great questions, from The Happiness Trap News

Am I Present? Am I Open? Am I Doing What Matters? 

AM I PRESENT?

The biggest enemy of presence is living in our heads. Distraction with worry and rumination are big culprits. I have a book in my office with the title Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life. That about says it all. We can be so caught up in our thoughts that we miss the life that is happening in front of us!

AM I OPEN?

By open, I mean are you open to whatever inner experiences may be happening or are you fighting them? Are you able to see, acknowledge and allow whatever emotions or thoughts are coming up for you without needing to change them? This might mean talking to yourself in this way, “ah, there’s some anger. OK, makes sense that would be there, now how might I respond well rather than let this eat me up?”

AM I DOING WHAT MATTERS?

Is what you are doing aligned with the person you want to be? Is what you’re doing contributing to the rich, full, and meaningful life you value? Of course, this may be more challenging when you find yourself folding laundry, sitting in the carpool line, or working at a job you don’t like. But acknowledging the mundane realities required for your life can be a discipline that increases your patience for those tasks.

These questions can spur us out of our automatic processes that impact our moods negatively. Again and again I see how the discipline of these questions can help me experience God’s presence more readily and appreciate my current experiences more fully. Or, if my present situation is a horrid one, these questions help me stay in my best place to deal with it.

For more from Russ Harris, the author of The Happiness Trap, check out this website.

Success Measured by Growth

I came across an interesting list from www.lifehack.org that someone posted on Facebook called “20 Signs You’re Succeeding In Life Even If You Don’t Feel You Are.” Here are a few of them that caught my attention:

• Your relationships are less dramatic than they used to be.
• You are not afraid to ask for help and support any more.
• You have learned that setbacks and failure are part of self-growth.
• You have a support system that includes people who would do anything for you.
• You don’t complain much.
• You can celebrate others’ success.
• You have things to look forward to.
• You love deeply and open yourself up to be loved by others.
• You refuse to be a victim.
• You accept what you can’t change.
• You change what you can.

These signs seem to describe a life with less resistance and more humility. I like it. One thing I look for in therapy with my clients is a growing sense of ease and peace with oneself and with life itself. That inner ease or peace may not mean there is less conflict or challenge in life, but the conflict and challenge is experienced differently. Rather than shaking people off their moorings, resiliency comes in and people are able to weather it differently.

What challenges you about this list? How could you grow into one or two of the items here?