Last Saturday I had the pleasure of doing my first build day on site with Habitat for Humanity Bucks County Women Build. While I really enjoyed the seminars earlier this year I didn’t know what to expect from the day. All I knew was that I had set my intention to do whatever was needed, have a good time serving others while working on a team, and make whatever I got assigned to do into a meditation and learning experience. Good news is that I managed to do all of the above!

I ended up working on the team assigned to laying cinder block foundation. So I spent the day digging hard soil (lots of rocks in this area as I know from my own yard), chipping away mortar, mixing concrete, and laying block. While I was initially frustrated, it did indeed get better as my crew leaders had promised. I might add my crew leaders were the best — the right mix of helping, encouraging, and letting you learn as you go. What I kept thinking about for most of the day as I did the work was this famous Zen story:

“Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water.”

What that means is that the tasks are the same, but who you are being as you do the tasks is totally different. While I am certainly not claiming enlightenment, I can say that I am so much better at being clear, open, and present with a task than I ever was before. Even tasks that are exhausting and not quite my cup of tea. Instead I did my best to approach it with the bigger picture in mind — serving families in need of decent housing and with the mindset that anything you do can be a meditation if you choose to allow it to be. And, when you do that a whole new world opens up to you.

I am certainly not going to turn to masonry as a career any day soon. In fact when one of the crew asked me if I wanted to make block laying my new career, I jokingly said “I’ll choose root canal or death!”. What I did gain was a whole new respect for people who work in construction or some sort of physical trade. I also was reminded how crazy busy my mind is, how quickly I get bored and frustrated when things aren’t going according to my expectations, and just how soft we all get with totally sedentary jobs.

While I am just now getting over being extremely sore (reminds me that while I am in good shape…hiking, biking, kayaking and weight lifting do not directly translate into block laying) — I am eager to go back and do another build day in June during their Women Build A Thon. First, I must get busy raising money so I can do so.

I highly recommend checking out a Women Build in your area. It is incredibly satisfying and amazingly empowering.

Can you answer that question quickly and with a nice long list? If you can’t you’re not alone. So many people really struggle with this question. If I asked you the question “What do you dislike about yourself?” Would the answers flow freely and make a long list? If so, again, you have lots of company.

What got me thinking about this topic again was our monthly full moon gathering. We each were asked to bring to the circle a list of 2-3 things we love about ourselves and 1-2 qualities we would really like to focus on shifting for the better (aka things we don’t like as much or wish we were better at). When we met, we each got to share and talk about our list and light a candle to hold these intentions.

Once again I got to experience firsthand the power of watching wonderful people struggle so much to acknowledge things they love about themselves while quickly jumping right to the “don’t like/need to improve” list. I have seen it so many times — as a participant and assistant at Debbie Ford’s Shadow Process, in my clients, my friends, and definitely myself.

What fascinates me is how when one person speaks in the group and struggles with finding qualities she loves about herself, the others present can so quickly name those qualities. “You are compassionate! You are a passionate woman! You are so giving and charitable! You are creative and talented! You are loving!” The positive qualities just flow effortlessly from the group. Yet, the minute the question gets turned back on us, we freeze like deer in the headlights, mutter a bit, turn our gaze downward, and say “um, hmmm, I don’t know”.

Read the rest of “What Do You Love About Yourself?” at my articles archive…

This week was January’s full moon meditation gathering for our community. It is always a nourishing and enlightening time with amazing people. This month’s lesson for me was the paradoxical realization that sometimes you can actually use the chaos swirling around you to find your center. And, surprisingly it can almost be easier to get centered the more chaos that is present. How crazy is that?

Let me explain…When we meet we always spend 30 minutes or so in silent mindfulness meditation. Usually it is very quiet. Occasionally there is some ambient noise going on from pets being sequestered or the kids amusing themselves in the other room. This month was crazy surrounding noises times ten. Now, it’s not because our host did anything different or odd to have the funny series of sound come into our space, it simply happened (or perhaps we just attracted it).

So, instead of the usual mostly dead silence for 30 minutes, we had intermittent chaos. The kids upstairs amused themselves alright. They creatively decided to play a game together that involved jumping on and off the bed. So, cue random loud THUDS and giggling throughout our sitting time. No worries…just breathe into it. After all as my beloved yoga teacher Connie always says – meditation in silence is a piece of cake (comparatively speaking). REAL meditation happens when the kids are screaming and things are swirling around you. So I kept that in mind.

Then a few more minutes pass and the golden retriever locked away in the room decides to let us all know he is sad. I mean real sad. Whimpering like a stray without a home sad. Of course he’s an older dog so that didn’t last too long. So, just breathe into it, right?

A few times the host quietly got up and attempted to silence the natives. So, breathe into it and just notice…her presence leaving the circle and returning. All is well.

Silence starts to descend. At least on the inside. You can feel it happening in the circle despite all the auditory cues outside of us. Then, the phone rings and rings, and rings… OK, maybe it is spirit calling reminding us to just breathe into it.

Fairly quickly the silence returns and the thudding just becomes part of the space, of our being; equal to the tranquil sounds of water from the nearby aquarium and the cackling of the fire. Surely we are in that still and aware place now.

Then I find myself wishing the 30 minutes were over already. I mean, really, come on leader Liz can’t you ring that bowl and bring this to a close?! It has to have been at least 30 minutes with all that has transpired inside and out. Then it happens. An alarm goes off. One of those beep beep beep beep type of alarms like the kind you find on travel clocks. I think “AHA! See Liz it HAS to be 30 minutes…this is an alarm from the Universe…it’s a sign…for you to ring that bowl!”. Meanwhile our host calmly gets up and franticly searches for whatever is alarming. (it turns out later that it was her daughter’s toy and no one knew how to turn it off)

Just breathe into it right? It’s just part of what is present right here, right now. A few more moments pass, I banter in my head about embracing and practicing patience (boy I need work) and presence. Then the bowl rings and our sitting is brought to completion.

What was most interesting about this whole experience other than how funny it is to recall my own mental chatter is what was shared following the meditation. Every single person in the circle shared in their own way that the chaos that was swirling around us actually helped them get centered and keep focus. I believe that is true because for me all the distractions forced me to be even more present and hyper focused on my breath. There wasn’t this lovely silence to drift off into and out of the moment of being right here, right now. Instead I needed to keep bringing my focus back to my breath and let go of what was going on around me. And I needed to do it over and over and over and over… You get the point? It was a constant moment to moment re-centering.

The lesson here is that this same calm approach can be applied to our daily life. When things get nuts…just breathe into it and return to center. Got crazy idiots you are working with running in man made crises? Again, return to now, breathe, and find your center. From this space we not only feel better but can make more powerful choices about both the big and small things. It’s not always easy and goodness knows we’re not going to succeed at re-centering all the time, but it sure is worth giving it a shot. Sounds like I can’t use chaos as an excuse for not feeling present, centered, and peaceful anymore!

Not that long ago I finished reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s bestselling book “Eat, Pray, Love”. I had first stumbled upon it in the tiny (and only) café store on Monhegan Island this summer. It sounded intriguing but when I went back to purchase it there were none left. I didn’t remember the author or the book title, just something basic about a woman traveling to several countries alone over the course of a year and that it was a true soul searching sort of book (my favorite kind!).

Then, as divine timing would have it, in September Oprah was talking about the book and had Gilbert on as a guest. I knew it was the same book and I waited for an upcoming trip with my family so I could cajole my Mom into buying it for me (yes, an only child at 38 still does these sorts of things!). All I could say is I devoured the book. To me it is the kind you can’t put down and one of those rare books that taps into the deep, rich questions of what it means to live and does so in such an authentic voice and down to earth way.

Shortly after finishing the book, I noticed there was an Oprah follow up show with Gilbert as guest. On this show they talked about how readers have responded to this book. It was amazing to see the power one little book can have. There were people in the audience who had made pilgrimage to Bali, others who had made big leaps of faith in their lives, and still others who for the first time ever started to give themselves permission to care for and listen to their inner voice. Amazing stuff.

What struck me most about the conversation was Gilbert’s answer to a question about what is the most important lesson she learned through her journey. Like all aha moments, the depth and simplicity of her answer struck me. She shared that taking time for stillness each day to ask the big life questions is the most important thing she learned and that is missing for so many people.

Taking time for stillness each day to ask and to listen.

There’s the secret in a nutshell right there. From my own personal experience I guarantee you that if you own this sentence and put it into practice in your own life your life will radically shift. From this space you can dwell in life’s great questions and discern the answers that are right for you in your life right here, right now. It is one of the top techniques and secrets to becoming comfortable in your own skin that I teach and coach.

You might be thinking “Oh but I am so busy I don’t have time each day to sit or be still, I mean what would I be DOING?!” Let me say that I hear your resistance and I can and will write more on that. But here’s the thing — creating a daily practice can be freeing not confining. And on the occasions that you have to miss your daily time let that be OK. I found it refreshing when a viewer on the show asked Gilbert how she could possibly get up before dawn each day and meditate for so long. Gilbert answered that it is an important practice that feeds her life. She also said loud and clear that we are human, we have regular lives (or as she put it “I live a regular life in New Jersey and all that brings with it; so sometimes I just miss it.”) and that missing is OK. Essentially what she was saying was don’t beat yourself up about it;do your best, but make a commitment to do it.

That’s all we can really do is our best. So be OK with that. Release your expectation. In the same vein though, don’t let the things that matter most — being still and pausing to ask and to listen — take a backseat to the things that matter least (all the frantic “doing” that makes up most of our daily lives).

Right before Christmas, our full moon meditation group had their monthly gathering. It was a fine way to really get still and quiet during a time that is typically filled with more rushing and doing than just about any other. We had a small group…some last minute illnesses got the best of several of our dear friends. Yet as always it was a very nourishing and enriching experience.

One of the advantages of having different people host the gatherings is that we get to meet new people who show up because they are friends of the host. This time a neighbor who had not gathered with us attended. It was her first time sitting for a meditation as well. As we went around the circle to start the evening she shyly shared that she is just starting to experience for the first time that her life is more than one dimensional. In the past everything would be black or white, yes or no, but now other possibilities seem to be showing themselves.

I thought this was a powerful comment because I think we all experience life as one dimensional until we… well don’t. Much like the saying that everyone is heterosexual until, well, they discover that they are not. It is the assumed path until something within us realizes that there is a different option meant for us – whatever that might be.

To me the ideal of multi-dimensional opens up possibilities. One of my favorite mantras that gets told at Columcille are the words of St. Oran “The Way You Think It Is May Not Be the Way It Is At All”. This path of mystery and of inquiry leads us in my experience to a hopeful path, a path of possibilities and a way of seeing the world and our experiences in it with curiosity; with an openness that allows us to create our own interpretations and form our own realities. Our lives really are about how we create our own realities through our interpretations and the meaning we assign to everything – who we are and what we experience. And we experience our reality as we in turn relate to and connect with others and the greater collective consciousness of “one”.

Often times when we open up to this idea of multi-dimensional experience it can be very scary. It is not what we “know” nor can it really ever be fully “known” or certain. It is both safe and not safe. It forces us to experience our vulnerability in a way we may not have previously done. But the greatest gift of this opening up is a fuller and deeper experience — of ourselves, our relationships, our experiences, this world, and a level of presence and consciousness that is both firmly rooted in the “now” while being fully connected to all that is. (And of course since we are just opening up beyond our previously confining one dimensional thinking, that is huge — all that is is beyond what we might think and definitely beyond what we can “prove”.)

What struck me about the evening was the level of stillness in the circle. The meditation was so rooted, so grounded, and so still that we literally had no idea of the magnitude of the wind and rain storm that had occurred outside. On the drive home all we could say as we dodged downed trees and tremendous runoff was “What the hell happened while we were at meditation gathering?!” We were that still and that aware of the rain and wind yet not pulled from our center by the whims and winds (literally!) around us.

Once you open your life to the idea of it being multi-dimensional all you can say is “all possibilities are welcome here.”

The weekend before Christmas I had two fine opportunities to ponder the notion of light within the darkness. On the morning of solstice, Kim & I took the long trek to Columcille in the pre-dawn hours so we could share in the sunrise with our dear friends. Of course it was dreary and cloudy but that never deters this group of hardy spiritual travelers that gather regularly among the stones of Columcille. As the time for sunrise came, we gave some hoots and hollers to welcome the sun. Of course we couldn’t actually see it. But we took stock in the notion that even though we can’t see the sun, it is there just doing its thing. It is shining its light even though we can’t see it directly. It is always there. There is always light shining in the darkness even when we can’t see it with our own eyes.

Because we don’t actually see it, does that mean we don’t believe it is actually there? That is foolish. Most would agree that even when we can’t see the sun it is there behind the clouds just shining away. Anyone who has ever taken a commercial flight that took off in the overcast cloudy skies and then climbed to 30,000+ feet where it was sunny knows that the sun is there. We just can’t see it from our vantage point. Yet we can still believe in it and benefit from its light and know it is there. There is comfort, connection, and joy in that knowing. It is a worthwhile lesson to remember not only on cloudy day in December but whenever you may feel doubt creeping in to your heart because of sorrow, loss, darkness, or just plain uncertainty on life’s journey. We don’t have to see it to believe in it. And, once we start believing we can start creating what we most want.

My second experience of light was even cooler, at least in terms of the wow factor. Following our full moon meditation, Kim and I went to our cars along with our friend Liz. We were gazing up at the sky which had been thick with clouds due to the storms all day long. We had remarked earlier in the meditation circle about how we can trust in the full moon’s light even though we probably won’t see it this evening. I shared my message from the Columcille gathering and we all just rested in the knowledge that even when we can’t see it — it is there and doing its thing – emanating light. Well lo and behold, we looked up and just then a small section of the clouds parted and there was this big, bold, full moon shining brightly right above us. Because of the moisture in the clouds, a rainbow circle surrounded the moon. We did a lot of ooh-ing and aah-ing. Then the clouds shifted, and another break showed us the moon again but this time with a double rainbow circle around it. More wow-ing and at this point I wondered if anyone was listening to us in the driveway since it sounded like three orgasmic fools in the suburbs. The clouds shifted again and all of a sudden the whole sky in front of us was clear with a bright beautiful moon and many stars. It didn’t last long, but it was certainly magnificent. It is almost as if the moon showed its face and the rainbow fireworks to say “ok dear humans I am going to give you this fabulous show because I know how you beings need some visual proof in your belief system.”

Needless to say it was a pretty special moment. I LOVE moments like these where time stands still and I get so totally present that nothing else matters. Everything is happening but I am hyper-focused in that one moment. To me that is part of what it means to be radically alive and fully present in the moment. It is a place of strength and wonder.

So the next time you say “I need to see it to believe it” just remember this story of the sun and the moon and know that it is always there giving you its light. You just need to believe and tap into its presence. The good news is that if you can do this with the sun and moon…you can do this in other areas of your life as well. Just believe.