Guilt or Appreciation

Guilt or Appreciation

by | Jan 14, 2018 | Blog

We all have a choice to feel guilt or appreciation.

There is always going to be someone who has less than us, and there is always going to be someone who has more than us.

Do you help a sick person by getting sick?

The same goes for those that have less than us, we can’t help them by feeling guilty for what we have, or by having less.

This seemed so logical once I wrote it down. But there continuously seemed to be some part of my brain that wanted to convince me that I was bad for having all that I have, for all the happiness I have, when there are so many others who have so much less.

Does it make you feel better when you get mad at someone and they just get mad back instead of trying to hear you?

Those that inspire us are the ones that are doing better than us. They give us hope, and a desire to keep moving forward.

How much can we truly contribute to someone when we feel guilty?

It’s a question I find myself asking every day.

When my life is going well, then I want to look back and bring everyone with me. I want everyone to be happy too.

But I can’t, it’s not my job. My job is to continuously appreciate what I have.

We don’t like a sourpuss that has more than us. We want them to tell us how lucky they are and how they got there.

We may feel jealous, but we still want them to appreciate what they have.

What do you feel when your life is going well?

Pieces of Me

Pieces of Me

by | Jan 11, 2018 | Blog

I originally wrote this to give as my Ice Breaker speech for Toastmasters.

 If you hear an accent, it’s from Kentucky. Even though I haven’t lived there for 28 years, it still rears it’s southern-belle head. I am the only in my family of four to have picked up a southern accent from my early years.

Often we are defined by what we do. In my case what I’ve done is based on what I love. What I do and have done is a painting of my greatest joys.

So as I tell you my passions, the threads that are woven into every decision I’ve made, I will share bits and pieces of my life. I have been able to chase most of my dreams, guided by intuition and joy.

Where would you go and what would you do if your greatest joy was being in the wild lands and interacting with wildlife?

When I was a child my parents volunteered in Rocky Mountain National Park each summer. We would fill our big green suburban with all the basics of mountain living and drive I-70 until we got to my only true home, the mountains.  I climbed my first mountain at the age of 9. When I dipped my toe in that remote glacial lake as the marmots looked on, I dreamed of all the untouched lakes in my future that had no other purpose but to nurture wildlife and bring beauty to the few who trekked to her edges.

The summer of my second birthday, while hiking with my Mom, I removed my diapers, handed them to her, and squatted to pee. I was free. The woods were and are my happy place. The only place I truly feel safe. My life in Kentucky was full of potholes and sink pits. But my life in the woods, was full of trees, quiet, and wildlife as curious of me as I them.

I was considered eccentric back then. Girls didn’t sleep on the ground, climb rocks and spend days hiking by themselves. I tried to fit in, I tried to be ‘normal’ and do all the things everyone else thought was fun, but no amount of alcohol brought me the joy I felt sitting against a tree. The first solo drive I took once I had the blessing of the DMV was to go blissfully hiking by myself.

In 1994, due to a cat who kept bringing half-live birds into the house, I discovered I could be a wildlife rehabilitator. I never thought anything would match the joy I felt sleeping on the ground near a mountain stream hundreds of miles from anything considered civilized. But the first time I helped rehabilitate a great horned owl and then release her back into the wild, brought me to a new level of ecstasy.

If your infinitely curious how would your school life look and how many college degrees would you end up with?

For me four.

Though my first two years in college I almost flunked out. Not from partying, but from exploring. I just didn’t care about anything happening inside the walls.

But n 1987, in the summer between my sopohmore and junior years in college I backpacked across Europe. It was way before cell phones and personal computers were common. It was just me, and whoever I met. There was no way for anyone back home to find me. I stopped being the strange girl. All the chains that I had collected, in an effort to get  me to fit in fell in bits and pieces across Europe, a link in Amsterdam, a couple of links in Budapest, and lots of links in Austria and Switzerland. I got the first peek of who I really was.

I returned to KY, quit the sorority and piled up classes that fascinated me. I took 20 hours a semester my last two years, and got a 4.0 every time. I competed in triathalons, I worked  a job I loved.

This curiosity, coupled with my Dad’s hatred of his high paying corporate job and my Mom telling me I could do anything I wanted, drove my work life.

Imagine getting paid to live in the heart of Yosemite in exchange for taking employees backpacking and rock climbing. Or what you would think about getting flown to small communities in the middle of nowhere, as an Indoor Air Quality Inspector and help improve people’ well-being.

Would you dare to apply to a prestigious lab to be a writer, and spend your days talking to some of the brightest minds in the world, in a remote forest covered town, when you have never done any technical writing?  I did just that, answering the question I consistently ask myself, “What would I do if I were free?”

What did you do or think you’ll do when you turn 50? I am celebrating how much I have learned and experienced in my short time on this planet.  As we go along we try to not repeat our mistakes, but now I know it’s funner to grow from a place of curiosity and seeking adventure.

I have lived in places where bear slept on my driveway and deer left antlers at my doorstep, but now I am getting to learn the power of deep human connection. Of accepting people as they are and not taking meanness and undependability as personal. I am learning to like people as much as I love animals and trees.

I am married to a man who I enjoy backpacking with more than I enjoy backpacking alone.

I have the best relationship with my parents that I have ever had because I stopped wishing they were different.

My need to be in the woods and my unsatiated curiosity has guided me to India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Jordan, western Europe, and about every state in the U.S. I have seen things very few people ever get to experience because I will happily hike 50 plus miles carrying 35 pounds on my back.  I have woken up covered in mud, because I passed out at a remote Jain temple on a mountain in central India, I have gotten to commune with bears and mountain lions and rattle snakes. None the least bit interested in harming me, as they knew I wasn’t interested in harming them.  I have gotten to surf with wild dolphins on a private California beach, I have gotten to sit with my granddad and many others as they took their last breath. I have gotten to hold a baby hummingbird smaller than my pinkie nail, and saved it’s life, and I have gotten to look in the mouth of a nighthawk and see it’s puppet throat.

I’m looking forward to seeing what adventure the next 50 years brings!

 

 

Compassion

Compassion

by | Dec 29, 2017 | Blog

A friend posted on her facebook post the other day about wearing a safety pin, to show that you are a safe person for everyone, that you respect everyone, no matter their beliefs.

A person asked her if she could wear one, though she voted for Trump.

There was a discussion about how the safety pin represented inclusivity, and the rights of everyone.

The woman said, “I voted for Trump because he represents inclusivity to me.”

I so wanted to write this woman and ask her, lovingly, to please explain her perspective. Nothing  I heard from Trump ever talked about inclusivity, but that is what she heard.

I contemplated the woman’s perspective, and what came to me was compassion. Compassion because she felt excluded. I know that feeling. It doesn’t matter that I am an upper middle class, heterosexual,white female. There are many people who ridicule me because, to them, my beliefs are ‘out there’, and because I believe that animals and nature have the same rights as people. But no one wants to feel excluded because of their beliefs and no one should ever have to.

It is one of the things I love about being in nature. It feels inclusive. I can feel the oneness of all of us whenever I am in the wild. Nature doesn’t care about your sexual orientation, your political beliefs, how much or how little money you have. There is no judgment there about what you have or haven’t done. And that’s what we all want, really. None of us want to be judged and we all want to be heard.

This is one of the most divisive elections I have seen in my 49 years. But it doesn’t have to be. A stranger reminded me, we are all here for the same thing. To be allowed to be who we are. We all just have different ways of getting it. And why shouldn’t we, none of us has walked in the same shoes.

This is why we each have our favorite sports team, or hobby, and belong to groups, isn’t it? We want to feel we have a community, that we are part of something bigger than ourselves and our families? We want to have a way of connecting with others.

I think my community is the community of compassion.

Want to join?!

Really Noticing

Really Noticing

by | Dec 29, 2017 | Blog

The forested stream curved beside us as we swashed through the shoulder high plants.  I found myself just noticing, “plant with razor-edged leaf, spike of purple protruding from stalk, wood across path, blade of green, light streaming  through the trees, neck feeling prickly.” And in so doing I felt so much energy!

I had heard a friend say many times, just notice, no judgment, no thoughts.  I had been meditating for twenty years practicing this, and now here I was walking along this remote trail, seeing things for the first time because I wasn’t labeling them!

I started doing this because I wasn’t enjoying the moment.  We had hiked six or seven miles and I was tired of climbing over downed trees and stumbling through plants as high as me.  I yearned for a clear path, one that allowed me to be in the blissfully meditative state I usually go into when hiking.  I felt the need to do something different or I was going to arrive back at camp with a headache and not be able to enjoy the quiet solitude.

I knew the names of many of the plants, but the names seem to detract from the plant itself.  I didn’t know anyone else who knew the plant names so it didn’t help in communications, it only served to keep me from really noticing and seeing the curves, the lines, and the shades of green.  This was the first time I had noticed that plants in a continuously shaded area are all the same color green, whereas those plants that receive sunlight can be a myriad shades of green.  In the past I would have been lost in my head naming the plants, studying and thinking about them, rather than just seeing what was in front of me.  This time I could really see the plants, not the constraints my mind created about them.

When I would start thinking about some random topic that had no relevance to the present moment,  I felt heavier and it was harder to navigate the many downed trees and overgrown plants.

The less I thought about random things the happier I felt.  It wasn’t just happiness, it was joy, clear, unfettered joy.  I realized, and felt in every cell in my body that thinking, labeling or judging things bound up so much energy.  It was if I was forcing down a cloud or covering over each object as we passed if I tried to label it in any way.  The practice of just noticing freed me from holding that cloud from each object and gave me energy to allow everything to just be!

It was reminiscent of that great T.S. Eliot quote:

We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.

That quote has spoken to me in so many head ways.  I thought it was about me being better, me improving that would allow me to see something for the first time. And what it really is, is that there is nothing wrong with me, I am perfect as I am, I was just putting constraints and labels on everything including myself.  I wasn’t allowing everyone and everything to be as it was instead I needed to make it fit in a neat little box that I could contain and control. This was the first time I knew that everything is perfect as it is when I allow myself and everything else to be.

It is so simple yet it is hard to describe and can be even harder to implement.  I find I go through life feeling the need to label things, to judge things as good or bad, to compartmentalize things to see if they fit within my present belief system and narrative about the world.  It is as if I need to do this in order to keep myself feeling separate from the person or object I labeled, especially if it is someone who acts much differently than I am comfortable with. Do you find yourself doing this?

Labeling objects can be helpful in communicating with others, but it is a hindrance when we continue to label as we go through our day.  When I stop labeling things a whole space opens.  It is as if I have taken the blinders off my head and I can truly see for the first time.

Just being is a challenge for so many of us. Our culture has made us to be proud of our accomplishments, how much money we have made, how much we got done in a day. How often have you felt so proud of yourself because you got your entire to-do list done?  I know I have. And yet ironically those are often the days I also feel the most drained.  At the end of the day I realize I haven’t been present to myself or whomever I was with that day.  I wanted that high of crossing the next thing off my list rather than just connecting to what is in front of me.  The high comes at a price.  The price is connection, love and joy.  The price is what leaves us feeling more and more disconnected from our surroundings, from nature, from happiness.  Most of us believe that if we accomplish ABC then we will feel better, more relaxed.  Often this does happen for a few moments until our mind comes up with the next thing that isn’t just right and needs to be done.

I am so guilty of this.  I have spent a large portion of my life believing if I just get everything done and in order than I will feel free.

But I finally got to discover that real freedom, true exhilaration comes from just seeing everything as it is.  Woman in red hat crossing the street (yes, she may be crossing against the signal but if you just see the human before you that moment will be so much richer), car getting in front of me, red glow from black box above street.  Everything has an opportunity to be what it is, and in it’s isness it contributes to the fullness of our lives. At the end of the day, instead having a piece of paper with several lines across letters, we will have experiences, we will have energy, we will feel more connected than having a million friends on facebook.

Letting Go of Lady

Letting Go of Lady

by | Dec 29, 2017 | Blog

I am writing this in memory of my beloved dog Lady.  A friend suggested I get this on paper before I forget those precious last 3 weeks that Lady and I spent together.

When I started writing this I never intended to share it, but now I share it for all those who have lost their precious pet.

Lady and I lived together for thirteen years.

She went everywhere with me.  We were together almost 24 hours a day, and yet the last three weeks of her life was the first time I experienced how deeply we were connected.  I am not sure who was taking care of whom in those final days.  On the outside it looked like I was caring for Lady, but now as I reflect on that time, I realize she was really caring for me.

She was caressing the tightness of my broken heart strings.  The areas in my body that did not want to let go and sit with the all the pain and loss I had experienced over the years.

She was teaching me how strong I am, how much easier it is to sit with pain than to push it away, and that I can do anything to which I set my mind.

She taught me the remarkable beauty of sitting in the back yard with her at my side.

It is funny because when I recall our last weeks together it seems to me it was so much more than 3 weeks.  I have had to check the calendar because it felt like an eternity and a flash all at the same time.  There were times I felt we had been living this way our whole life, and yet when it was over I wanted every millisecond back. I longed to have her sweet body sitting next to me.

I remember finally accepting and enjoying that I got to stay home, be still and not have to make any plans or have any obligations.  The weather was perfect spring weather and we got to sit in the backyard most afternoons. I sat Lady up as comfortable as possible and just felt so much gratitude for our time and our love.

What I got was fully present.

It was a switching point.  I had heard about being and living fully present but I did not really understand what that meant until the time with Lady.  I became committed to being with her fully from my heart and just loving her and tending to her needs.  It was such a special place to be.

I find that I can be in that place more and more with people now.  The best part of it is that I get to be in that place because it is so enjoyable.  I am not forcing myself to be there I am there out of pure choice.  Because all there is is love.  Lady showed me that, as only animals can.

We had sat together in the woods, in many backyards, and on street corners, but it was the first time I became fully present to how much love she brought to those moments.  How different my life would be without her sitting with me wherever I was.

Why is it so difficult to be fully present and grateful for something until you loose it?

Luckily, since Lady’s death that has shifted.  I have become much better at telling those I love how much I love and appreciate them.  Sometimes the beauty of everyday living overwhelms me.  And it is not because my life is full of so much ease, it is because I learned from Lady to appreciate what is there in front of me, much more deeply than I ever had.

The most remarkable thing that I learned from Lady was her resiliency and just wanting me

to be ok.

Here she was in so much pain, and having to be completely at my beck and call, and she

just remained this bundle of love and acceptance.

I had melt downs,  I felt sorry for myself for having to stay at home and she was the paralyzed one.

I imagine how scary it must have been for her having her sole caretaker having anxiety attacks, crying and feeling inadequate to the task.

Some months later a friend told me how inadequate he felt when he was around me.  It was a huge awareness because I could feel when he felt inadequate and I felt insecure when he went into that place.

It made me aware of why the wildlife I had rehabilitated felt scared around me.  I always wondered. It was because I felt inadequate in caring for them.

I think of Lady, just needing me to love her, and I was feeling completely inadequate.  I did everything I could for her, and the last 10 days to 2 weeks I was able to be present to her but I was still very scared.

I slept with her on the floor most nights, looking into her eyes until we fell asleep.  There was a song a friend had introduced me to the night before her fall.  It is called ‘Stay‘ by Rihanna.  It is a song about wanting to keep a relationship going that wasn’t a healthy relationship, and the addiction the singer felt for her love.  I sang this song to Lady often.  At the time I didn’t realize the significance of what I was singing but since then I listen to it often and as I cry all the way through it I realized the power of believing that a person or object and in my case my beloved pet made me feel whole and complete and in hanging on to this thing outside myself I had in fact made her life miserable.

It is something that I have thought about often.  Did I do all I did because I was scared to let go of yet another thing.  I had a lot of loss that spring, and I just couldn’t believe that I had to let go of one more thing. And the thing that I loved more than I have ever loved any being, including myself.  Through Lady I experienced love, unconditional love that would never judge me, ridicule me, or tell me I did anything wrong.  Lady only ever saw all that I did was right.  It stuns me how animals can see what humans cannot.  The fact that there

isn’t ever anything wrong.  Everything is right and beautiful and perfect all the time.

I wonder if I held onto her too long.  Did I cause her more pain than  she ever needed to endure because I couldn’t let go?  Obviously I will never know the answer to that question and for Lady I know she would have stayed as long as I needed her too, she loved me that much.

Questions to self:

1.  Are there any areas in my life where I am holding on to something that no longer is healthy?

2.  Are you willing to let that go?  If not why?  Who would you be without holding onto that?

3.  Is there anything you are running away from, that you haven’t been able to sit still and be quiet with and feel the fullness of it in your body?

Where do you feel at Home?

Where do you feel at Home?

by | Dec 29, 2017 | Blog

Where do you feel at home?

I started wondering this because, well I don’t know, I’m just curious. Most people consider home where they grew up. I never felt the place I grew up was home, it was just where I was born.

I realized for myself there are three places that feel like home-Yosemite National Park, Longboat Key, Florida, and inside my heart.

It’s not that I spent a lot of time in Yosemite or Longboat, but they are places where I have deep connections to the land and good memories of connecting with others.

Feeling at home in my heart is a relatively new thing for me. It has come about because I am physically living someplace I don’t want to be. The gift this has given me is finding that sense of home in my heart. Now it goes with me everywhere, like a turtle shell.

The answer to the question was surprising and comforting.

I don’t know why I like knowing that I have multiple places that feel like home. I don’t feel a need to be there all the time- I just like knowing they exist.

Especially the one in my chest.