How’s it going?

Recently Sally Schneider posted at Improvised Life  about not knowing. She asks the question,  “Can you hang with not knowing.”

I understand not knowing. Not knowing the MRI results, the outcome of an operation, whether an organization will turn around in time, whether our favorite oak tree will succumb to the Bacterial Leaf Drop…  the list goes on.

I wrote this poem a year ago. It is as true today as it was then. However, there is a difference.  I’m listening a little harder, trusting a little more,  and importantly, more at  peace with just “the next step.”

How’s It Going?-road-ahead-unclear-green-freeway-sign-representing-uncertainty-in-financial-business

“I don’t know”
Not a satisfying response
Most prefer a polite lie,
Definitely more certainty.

But the small voice
of wisdom won’t
be ordered about,
has its own timing.

So when the veils
haven’t yet parted,
how do you
walk through life?

The sun rises and sets
Baby birds hatch
Trees lose their leaves.
Life in its rhythm.IMG_0551

Surely you too are part
of life’s flow, as important
as the field mouse,
the fallen bird.

What’s left but
noticing what calls you.
Trusting you’re guided
Always the next step.

besliter

I said, “It made me cry.”

As I watched, the tears came. It was a video a friend had sent me. When I told my friend I cried he got concerned, and said he wouldn’t send any more of those kinds of videos.

He thought my tears were a bad thing. But really, they were the kind that come when you ‘re caught unaware and, unbidden, your heart just opens. You deeply appreciate someone’s courage, their caring, their pain, their openhearttriumph…

This is very different from becoming distraught, worried  or distracted by another’s experience. This is about genuine caring: witnessing what is and not pushing it away, appreciating the human experience without getting lost in it.

Crying when your heart opens is like going through a doorway to a place where the “we vs. them” disappears. It’s true love and appreciation. 

An open heart, even with tears– it’s a good thing.

Lessons of a Creator: #5

I found a way to shift my attention away from my thinking mind, to ask questions and to listen for the answers: FOCUSING IN MY BODY. I shift my attention into my body (I focus on my heart), center with my breath and feel a moment of genuine care. As my thinking mind quiets,  I can get a felt sense of what is going on.  I can tune into an inner guidance that goes beyond my fears, worries and limitations.

My heart-focus filters out the noise my head is  broadcasting.

(Some of the science  behind this can be found at: www.heartmath.org)