Happy #79: Know what you want. And climb on.

This is another one of those posts where I know what I want to say, essentially. But I'm not certain the story I'm about to tell will say it, effectively. Or exactly.

So stay with me and we'll see how it turns out. :-)

Several years ago my kids and I were rock climbing with family friends. One particular climb I was interested in was the most difficult route I'd ever attempted. But I wanted the challenge. So I roped in.

I had carefully selected my course. There was almost nothing to hold onto for the ascent. And whatever holds there were, were few and far between. Details, I thought.

Climb on.

My friend was belaying me. Neither one of us suspected how difficult that climb would actually turn out to be. Least of all me.

When I was 3/4 of the way to the top, I literally could not go on. I had exhausted my personal strength and energy reserves. I simply did NOT have it in me to continue. I was shaking from the stress of the climb and the fatigue of trying to hang onto the wall with almost nothing to get a hold of. Several times I felt like I was going to fall.

My friend stood below, keeping me tethered, watching everything, giving me just enough rope with just enough slack. So he was also watching when my legs started to shake. He called out to me, "Kathleen, just sit back in the harness and rest. I've got you."

"...sit back in the harness and rest. I've got you."

So I did. I let go of the wall, sat back in the harness, and rested until I had the strength to continue. Then I finished the climb. After I stopped shaking. :-)

Interestingly, the "rest" taught me more about how to finish when something is hard than I ever would have learned had I pushed straight through.

1. I learned that on the way to what we want, things happen that we don't expect.
2. I learned that when those things happen, it's important to have the right person belaying the climb of our journey, someone who is paying attention. To us.
3. I learned the importance of listening.
4. I learned the importance of the pause.
5. I learned the importance of the right WE. And,
6. I learned the importance of hanging out with smart people. :-)

I've reflected on this event several times over the years. It stands out as a hallmark moment for me with regard to pursuing something we want and having the right person there in support.

"I've got you," he said. Those words in those moments of exhaustion were important for me. His suggestion that I rest (rather than shouting out, "YOU CAN DO IT!!", which he also could have done) was wise. And what I needed, which he knew because he was paying attention...

We were a team.

Being happy regardless doesn't mean you're happy no matter what. It just means that regardless of what happens in life, you find a way to look at it or work through it or think about it from a perspective that serves to lift, encourage, and strengthen you. In a way that gives you hope. And in a way that can help you succeed.

Know what you want. Because knowing what you want will help create the right WE, the team you need to succeed. You know, it's that whole "when the student is ready, the teacher appears" thing. They create each other. We show up for each other based on where we are and what we need. Yet another reason to know what you want...

And don't forget to sit back in the harness occasionally. Because that's part of getting to what you want too.

Climb on.

Happy #78: Pass the good along.

A discovery of something really wonderful and uplifting can give much needed light at just the right moment. Winter storms, being snowed in (and sick) at the cottage by myself on Thanksgiving, and what turned out to be one of the most unusual holiday weekends EVER, also produced some very good things.

Example?
SAM JOHNSON
San Francisco, CA, and his really, really good music.


I'm sharing him here because of everything this Thanksgiving weekend was (and wasn't) for me, it was all new. And he was the newest, freshest thing about it all. He's happiness behind a guitar. And I was happy listening to him the split second I heard his music. Immediately happy. That says something. At least to me. How often are you immediately happy by something you simply hear? The moment you hear it and before you even see it? It's all original and it's all him. His All the Lovin' is one of my favorites. It's remarkable.

So I'd like to help this young artist find the greater audience he deserves.

Naturally, I'm passing the good along. And I hope you will too. :)

Happy #77: Know what you need.

"Intense love does not measure. It just gives." Mother Teresa

I wish I had kept my camera out of my suitcase to capture the event I'm about to describe. This photo I found online comes close as I could find, but doesn't do the experience justice.

My son Keaton and I were at the airport in Salt Lake City waiting for our flight to Seattle. The plane we were boarding had been delayed. When it finally arrived, we sat quietly watching as the passengers came down the loading ramp and through the doors to the terminal.

You don't see people waiting at the gates much anymore. Since 9/11 and increased security, most greetings happen at baggage claim. So I was caught off guard by what happened.

A little girl ran from her mother's arms to greet her father as he came off the plane. His face lit up as he reached down and pulled her into his chest. She threw her little arms around his neck and began to cry. She just could not hold it back. Her tiny approximately five year old body was physically unable to contain her emotion and she flat out sobbed. Sobbed. Her Dad knelt there at the gate, holding her in his arms, while she cried with her love for him.

I have no idea how long it had been since she had seen her Daddy. But I will never forget the look in her eyes when she lifted her head from his shoulders and looked at him through her tears.

I saw the love in that child's eyes for her father. I saw how deeply she was feeling her love for him.

I hope he saw what I did. I hope he saw how much she needs him and how very, very much she loves him.

I'm not sure what this has to do with knowing what you need, except to say that Thanksgiving is a good time to find awareness of and gratitude for the love around us--both the love we feel for others and the love others feel for us.

In those moments at the airport, that little girl knew precisely how grateful she was for her father. And she didn't hold back. She didn't measure her love, or carefully meter it out.

Sigmund Freud said, "We are never so defenseless against suffering as when we love." Shocking, I know.

But perhaps in knowing how much we need someone, even if that love brings us to tears, we can find true gratitude for the love they offer in our lives--in whatever way they are able to offer it.

Find the five year old in you, and don't hold back. You might not get hurt very much, carefully measuring your love out, but you won't live very much that way either.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Grateful for your love,
Kathleen

Happy #76: Say something good.

I felt disappointment tonight. I've been thinking it through--why I felt it, what caused it, how I could have avoided it, how I move on from feeling it, you know the drill.

I was talking with a friend and after a long pause in our back and forth I said, "Well, I guess the best thing (another pause) is just to think about something else!" We both laughed.

But it got me thinking. These thoughts, unemotional as they may read, came through very deep feelings. A person can seem Ok and not be...

I thought about people, the world, the human condition, and the human response to a world so full of noise.

Politics are in upheaval, people are going hungry and without housing (suffering true human need), the press is covering the stories they feel are important, television is covering whatever drives the ratings up, marketing is driven by what will sell (pushing production and consumption), magazines publish what will get people's attention (providing information and promoting entertainment), etc., etc., etc., blah, blah, blah...

The common thread? People.

We let ourselves get SO busy. And I get that. Distractions can be a good buffer from whatever. Meetings, meetings, and more meetings--all supposedly geared to meet the needs of people. Busyness. And yet, if you think about it, every one of those people in those meetings (or involved in that work) all have one basic need other than food, water, and shelter. They all want love. We all want love.

I'm not saying all the other matters of are no importance. I'm just saying that what matters most are the connections we make with people and the effort we extend in helping them feel worthwhile--at showing them love.

Do we engage enough with anyone to be certain they feel seen? That they feel like they matter for something to someone? Do we say or do anything to signal we care?

For reasons I won't go into I felt less than and not good enough tonight. I'm fairly certain you've felt it a time or two yourself.

But why do we? Would you want the little girl who showed up with her parents at an evening meeting to feel like she wasn't good enough because she was wearing her pink bubble slippers instead of fancy shoes?

Would you want me to feel not good enough?

I didn't think so. We'd want the little girl to know she's enough for all the same reasons I want you to know you are enough. Because you are.

You are enough. And so am I, come to that.

We speak and write about politics (well, I don't), we speak and write about information, we work and work and work trying to make a life that will matter for something. And in the end, the only thing that really matters is what we learned and how well we loved.

We make mistakes. It's how we learn.

"Mistakes are the portals to learning," wrote James Joyce. This earthly experience is about relationships and learning. I think you can do the math. You're good like that. :)

Trust the process.

Find that little someone wearing bubble slippers (she or he is in a grown up body and probably not actually wearing the slippers) and show your love. Say something good.

This is a bowl of chesnuts.


And this is what they looked like when I took them out of their shells.


I was on a walk a week or two ago with my friend Roma when we walked by a bunch that had fallen to the ground and broken out of their casings. Roma was shocked. Shocked. She said, "How could I get to this place in life and NOT have seen these before??" Good question. ;)

Roma, you weren't missing out on the chesnuts. But they were definitely missing out on you. :)

See how easy that was? Roma is smiling. And feeling loved. :D

Say something good.

Happy #75: Move on.

If it weakens you and makes you cry, move on.
If it cripples you and halts your stride, move on.
If it makes you sick and turns you inside out, that's the surest sign it's not good for you.

Stop trying so hard to make something work when it doesn't, and simply move on.

Life's too damn short.

You get my point.

Happy #74: Keep things in perspective.

My clients and I were strolling today through the seaside village I am working in. The sky was blue, the bay was sparkling, and the brightly colored fall leaves of the trees gathered on the sidewalks and streets under the sunshine. It was a beautiful, crisp fall day in the Pacific Northwest.

Standing in it's strength as the new heart of the community, the building I designed a year ago (the Blaine Bank Building, which was recently completed) was the focus of our conversation. A breeze picked up and an unusual image just to the side of my face caught my eye.

I thought for a minute that maybe it was, well, I didn't know what it was. But a minute or two into the observation I realized it was a gray hair. A long one.

This was odd for me. I don't color my hair and as stressful as my life can sometimes be, I haven't started to gray. Or I thought I hadn't. But this strand of hair was gray. And it was really LONG. Which means it's been growing for awhile. Or maybe the whole cotton picking strand just lost it's color all at once. I don't know.

Anyway, I was so stunned that I pulled the hair out and began to express my sentiments of shock to my clients. There was a moment of silence and with laughter in his voice Brad said, "Jean (his wife, who has just undergone treatment for breast cancer) used to complain about gray hair. Until she didn't have any hair. Now she's just glad to have any at all, no matter what color it is."

Thank you Brad.

Keep things in perspective.