open :: my 2015 word

As I mentioned yesterday, my word finally presented itself while I was listening to Elise and Ali during Elise's podcast. Eleanor and I were driving back from a quick trip to Portland and she was sleeping, so I was able to catch up with a few episodes. When Ali talked about open, her word from 2013, I felt my shoulders relax and my heart expand and I knew I'd found my word.

Usually I share my word at the end of December. I'd planned to share how I was going to work with four words this year, but I just couldn't figure out how to talk about them, so I knew I hadn't quite found the right practice for me. 

That said, I think working with multiple words is an awesome idea and I am actually going to keep those four words + "open" front and center for me this year. Each of them appeared in the brainstorming exercise I did in my journal above: rise, peace, allow, and delight.

I've started this journal that's going to focus on "open." It's where I'll be putting my responses to the prompts in Ali's One Little Word class (which is an awesome way to help you keep your word visible throughout the year - I highly recommend it!) and where I'll just be touching base with myself about how I'm staying open...how the word is affecting me...and what I'm learning along the way. I'm excited to try this method. I can imagine it holding other journaling that feels connected to my soul care practice right now (for example, I'm adding some journaling from Viv's Cultivating Self-Care class).

For a peek at how I created another journal that brought together all I was learning from my 2012 word "whole," see this post.

Here's what I know right now: Open has four really important meaning/intentions for me this year.

1) Staying open to connection: I continue to feel a deep longing for in-person connection on a much more frequent basis. My summer watercolor picnics were one way that I tried to create this for myself and others. I hope to do more things like this and just risk saying, "Want to meet up for coffee?" more often this year. I felt a shift already happening this fall and I want to push myself to keep going, to keep staying open, and to allow space for that connection in my life.

2) Keeping my heart open: This one is especially about my marriage. Since Ellie was born, there are parts of me that have been more closed than I ever imagined they could become, which is in such contrast to how I've felt so broken open in so many beautiful ways these last few years. The first year of her life was such a hard one for me, and I put up some walls for self-protection. As I've said to a few close friends, the first two years of motherhood felt like I was literally keeping her alive while she was on heart medication before and after her heart surgery, and in many ways that was true. And when you're in that kind of caretaker role while also growing your business, sometimes the little acts of connection and intimacy and love give way to the to-do list and the need for deep self-care and rest. The ability to vulnerably say, "I miss you and I need a hug" felt very far away. Right now, I'm asking myself, "How can I be even more open in this moment?" and seeing where it takes me/us. Jon and I also going back to a practice I shared here, where we're going to write letters back and forth in a journal. A simple way to just reconnect. I probably won't be sharing too much about this here (we'll see), but it is an important part of my personal practice this year.

(Note that I'm not looking for advice about this but am instead sharing a brief glimpse into our world because I know it might help someone else who needs to add a similar practice to their intention for themselves and their family right now. Thanks for understanding.)

3) Open to change/feeling uncaged: This connects to wanting to feel freedom as I make some changes to my business, specifically with the ecourses and retreats I offer. No big news yet as I'm in the beginning dreaming stages with some of it. But I'm excited to be in this place of "newness" and possibility again, even while I'm grieving letting go of some things. I'm interested in seeing how the practice of being open helps me heal from this grief (and other grief in my life).  

4) Open to the unexpected, to delight: When a customer ordered the phrase "rise and shine" for her word of the year necklace, as I was hammering it, I got this image of how the sun opens up the possibility in each day and how we have the choice to rise and shine and be in this light or to stay closed to what is waiting for us. We can rise up each day. We can stand in our light. We have the choice to be delighted by this possibility or ignore it. I want to stay open to the delight waiting for me each day. 

What word are you working with this year?

If you're still deciding, one idea would be to try to the brainstorming exercise I did in the photo above. I put my word in the middle of the page and just started writing words and phrases that felt connected to it, then words connected to those words etc. You could do this with several words you are thinking about working with. Get curious. 

And if you have your word, I'd love to know what it is. Share in the comments please. (And maybe even try this exercise with your word as you think about the practice you're creating for yourself right now.)

Thanks for being here beside me,
Liz 

listening with our hearts

Over here, I believe that sometimes we have to turn to the words of others when our own words fail us. I've been turning to Mister Rogers for wisdom often throughout the last year or so, well really for the last 38 years. 

Did I tell you the dream I had about him earlier this year? In the dream, I walked into a classroom in the preschool I attended just as the kids were running out to play for recess. Mister Rogers was standing in the classroom. I walked over to him and began to tell him all that his work has meant to me and how he was instrumental in teaching me so much about love as a child. He put his hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eyes and said, "Teachers like you must keep doing the work I was doing." 

When I woke up, my first thought was, "I'm so glad I was able to tell him what he meant to me before he died." And after a few moments, my fuzzy, just-awake mind remembered that he's been dead for years. Months later, it still feels real. I have to remind myself that it was a dream, yet I also feel so grateful for that moment with him even if it was imagined.

As you walk through whatever you are walking through in your corner, I hope you'll keep listening with your ears and your heart. I hope you'll keep asking questions, even when it feels awkward and hard. I hope you'll realize that just starting the conversation, whatever it may need to be about, is one step closer to love.

Be kind to each other, to yourself, today,
Liz 

*****

I sent this note to the beautiful souls on my newsletter list over the weekend and thought you might want to read it too. To receive love notes like this in your inbox just about weekly, sign up for my newsletter here.

and then something exquisite happens

Staying open to the joy, to the beauty, is a practice I turn to again and again. Especially on the days it rains or my Facebook stream is full of heaviness or I'm grumpy or it really feels like the impossible is in front of me. 

Today, try to open yourself up to noticing the joy that crosses your path. You might even want to make a list of the joy you find.

It will change you. For real.

xoxo,
Liz 

you can choose

One of my favorite guided meditations (or images to think about during yoga) is to notice the space that you create inside you as you breathe. You focus on the expansion of your breath on the inhale and see if you can notice that feeling of space inside you. Because the simple act of taking a breath with intention and noticing this space can be done at any time, it is one of my go-to practices. And then I like to finish this meditation thinking about how I choose what enters this space. I choose. Every single day.

I hope this practice can become one you slip into your soul care toolbox to pull out when you need it.

one step. one move. one breath.

Sometimes you read the words of someone else and they are the light you were waiting for as you walked on your dimly lit path.

These words are that for me when I feel the overwhelm tap me on the shoulder.

One step at a time. One move. One breath. 

And suddenly there is a lightness and a deep knowing that all that I need is right here inside me.

I hope you too remember this truth.

All you need for the next step is right there inside you.

(I really believe this.)

If you let yourself get quiet and listen, you will hear that deep knowing.

Yes.

(Here's the full quote from Anne Lamott: "E.L. Doctorow once said that 'Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.' You don't have to see where you're going, you don't have to see your destination or everything you will pass along the way. You just have to see two or three feet ahead of you. This is right up there with the best advice on writing, or life, I have ever heard.")

anything that's human is mentionable

Every day I'm so thankful for Fred Rogers and the way he taught me that talking about things is okay. And I'm so thankful for the ways I've learned to figure out who I can trust with those truths, even when the figuring out is bumpier than expected.

I posted the above words on my Facebook page last week. I'd stumbled across this quote and felt a surge of gratitude for Fred Rogers and all that he taught me. I used to watch him twice a day as a littlg girl. And one of the most important messages he gave me that I want to get out into the world is that we can talk about anything. That we need to talk about the things that overwhelm us and cause big feelings. That it is okay to talk about them. And that we can give ourselves the gift of seeking out the people who will help us learn how to share those feelings.

Over the last few days, I've been thinking about how important it is to create safe space so our loved ones can feel like they can share their feelings. When I write the words, "I really want you to know you aren't alone over there" in my newsletters and here at the top of my website, I deeply hope you feel that in your bones and you reach out to those who love you when you need them.

But I also want to admit that it can be hard to create this safe space sometimes, especially with those I love the most. My own feelings get messy and in the way and some days I'm just so tired. And it can be hard to ask for help, to risk the vulnerable feelings that come with saying, "Things don't feel okay right now."

This is why I turn to my practices in the midst of the messy that a day, a life, can bring.

I practice taking five deep breaths.

I practice feeling supported by the earth by standing outside barefoot, noticing my senses.

I practice connection by texting a trusted friend to say, "Today is really hard."

I practice releasing stories that no longer serve me to trees above me.

I practice feeling stronger than my mind tells me I am by standing in warrior pose with my feet firmly planted and my arms open wide to all that is to come.

I practice.

I practice.

I practice.

So that when someone I love needs that safe space, I have enough reserves to realize it and say, "Do you want to sit down for a minute?" or "What do you need today?" or "What can I catch for you?" or "Do you need a glass of water or maybe even a hug?"

I practice so that I can be supported by myself and realize when I need support too.

I practice so that I remember that it's okay to tell the true stories.

I practice.

And honey, if you find yourself not sure what to do as you read these words - maybe you feel alone or unsure of how to create that safe space or you feel overwhelmed at the thought of figuring out a practice - try bringing your hand to your heart and taking five deep breaths. 

Just start right there.

I'll be over here breathing too.

xoxo,
Liz 

i am whole

artwork by Lori Portka 

This postcard from Lori Portka hangs on my studio pinboard. It is from the "I Am" prayer flag set that we brainstormed one day last fall. That flag set makes me so happy.

These words watch over me as I hammer words into metal, dream up new offerings, practice yoga, dance to fun., chat over skype, paint, glue things, and sometimes rest in child's pose until the only thing I hear is my heartbeat.

These are three of the most important words that guide me every single day.

Sometimes I whisper them to myself in those moments when I'm not sure anyone else will get it.

Maybe you need these words today too.

xoxo,
Liz 

a question to ponder...

This is the question that was flowing through my mind as I prepared for this month's Hand to Heart practice of "Let It Go." Last week, I found myself face to face with it as I was in the midst of...I might as well be honest...a full-blown temper tantrum in my mind.

My to-do list felt extremely overwhelming. Work stuff. Home stuff. Paperwork. End of the school year stuff. Summer is coming stuff. Family is coming to visit stuff. Not enough stuff. I'm too much stuff.

It was stacking up inside me as I paused everything to take a quick shower. Scrubbing my body with sugar scrub, I tried to pull myself out of the "stuff" by brainstorming the stories and prompts I want to share with this "Let It Go" practice.

And I found myself focusing on the question "What story could you set down?" as a starting place for our practice.

I noticed the irony of my own stories swirling, but moved on to washing my hair and brainstorming some more.

But the question kept tapping on me.

Finally, I felt these words tumble through all those thoughts and feelings:

I could set down the story that I'm too much.
I could set down other people's expectations...and my own assumptions about those expectations.
I could set down the fear that no one will ever really get the me that lives in that most secret part of me.
I could set down the "all this shit that has to be cleaned in this house before family arrives next week" to-do list until the weekend.

And then I heard this truth, "I just want to be outside of this house."

Working from home can be awesome, but it can also mean that you never really leave your home or your office. And that longing to just be in nature can pull on me. Finally, I got quiet enough to hear that pull.

So I went to my favorite park and stood by Puget Sound and picked up a few rocks to represent these stories that I wanted to set down. And I threw them. Far. Into the water. Watching the ripples swirl and finding myself recentered and a bit lighter.

Your Soul Homework: Take out a piece of paper and answer this question, "What story could you set down today?" And then when you are done, breathe and notice what you might need. Maybe you need to put some stories onto the page and "set them down" by writing them out. Maybe get outside. Maybe ask someone for a hug. Listen. You will know what to do next.

*****

If you want to circle with a group of women who are exploring these kinds of questions, come along to Hand to Heart my free ongoing community of women. Each month I share different ideas to add to your current self-care practice and we're here to support you if you're just beginning the adventure of learning self-care.

Learn more and request to join right here.