Posts from — January 2009

In today’s day and age with GPS systems easily accessible at a decent price, who needs a map? It always tells us where we are and where we need to go. No worries, right?  Just program in the address of our destination and poof, there it is.  A direct and often shortest path to our destination.  But what about those times when you don’t have access to technology, or even a map?  How do we find our way? It’s funny, I’m not inclined to get a GPS thingy because I like the adventure of dead reckoning – finding my own way and carving my own path.  Fortunately, I was blessed with an incredible sense of direction, like a homing pigeon, and I rarely get it wrong.  My husband calls me his human map.  He’s the type who needs a GPS system. My daughters call me for directions when they are lost.   But let me tell you, when I am “off” it’s really bad.  I get all turned around.  It’s usually more a characteristic of the day than a moment, I know when I’m off.

But I wanted to talk about this notion of driving without a map and how this is really a translation into our life.  We live our entire life without a map. There is really nothing that is telling us where to go next, in the physical sense. We must navigate on our own, rely on our own homing devices, and choose our own paths.

For the most part, it works, right?

No one told us how to be an adolescent, we just did it.  No one told us how to be born, no one told a woman how to have a baby, you just do it.  We seem to have all the homing devices we need to make it in this world.  Atleast I think so.  It’s when we disconnect from those parts of ourselves when we really lose our way.  We get all turned around, in our own lives and are unsure what to do next, where to go next.  We lose a little faith in the process of the journey, and worry can literally splinter into every choice we make. It’s the eternal pendulum of struggle betweeen our spirit, emotional and physical/material needs.

I know alot of people I know are getting laid off, losing jobs and it can be scary.  I feel their pain, been there and done that.  I’ve vascillated back and forth with the best of them, do I do this, do I not do this, what will happen if its not right, what happens if …if if if.  The reality is we are not listening to what our inner thoughts are calling us toward.

In every situation where I’ve found myself without gainful employment of some kind and hit bottom where every fear was flared, I went resume  crazy, put myself into overdrive, and usually found myself in a new job that is EXACTLY like the old job that I didn’t like anyway.  Now that’s the true definition of insanity – finding myself in the same spot again and again and wonder why?

In 2002, I found myself in another layoff.  I had moments of fear, but I sat back more.  I didn’t jump into the old patterns. I got quiet. I listened to my thoughts, fears and concerns. But more importantly, I let things happen, I let go of the ropes and let my inner guidance take over.  It requires a bit of faith and determination, it’s much easier to get back into the old cozy warm bed of finding a job – atleast I know what that looks like.  And I discovered that truly every job loss was an opportunity to realign myself with what I do like – even though I may have not gotten it quite right every time, but it was in a sense, a gift to realign with what is important.

I also found that this last time around it was different than the rest – I had been in this spot 3 other times, and they were not all layoffs. Fill in the blanks.  However, despite the challenged economy, I found independent work.  I found myself attracted to doing different things, with different groups.  It all led me to where I am now.  We need to learn to let go and allow our guidance systems to come back to the surface in our mind so we can hear it.

We are being shown a path.  A path that will deliver all that we really want.  And we don’t need a map to find it.  It’s already been carved out, we need to get quiet so we can hear our own thoughts, and discover the joy of the journey itself.   I truly believe you can’t go wrong when you are tuned into our inner urgings.  It’s when we don’t listen that we get all turned around.

Here’s to finding more paths to carve with only our inner guiding maps…that no one can see but us. Then blaze a trail, and the whole world will finally “see”.

Hello friends, it’s been some time since I checked in here on my blog.  Well, good news I’m back and ready to roll.  It’s been an interesting few weeks, and bitter cold here Brrr….I’m not loving living in New England right about now.  We’ve already had 6 or 7 storms, and we’re only at Jan 15th.  Florida is looking better and better.

Life’s been busy here, work has never been busier.  I feel blessed about that.  It’s almost too busy because I’m checked out alot mentally, working my mind overtime.  I’m trying to keep my focus ahead on desires and a life I want, some days are easier than others.  But, lately I’ve been noticing more of life’s little surprises and their ripple effects of doing good things.   It’s not that I didn’t have them before, but I’m not sure I was keeping track of it.  In fact, I’ve had a steady stream of nice surprises.  It started at Christmas when I received two very thoughtful gifts from my kids.  First, my 12 yo son decided I needed to have a star named after me.  So, I received a beautiful certificate and map of a star for me.  I was really touched, he’s a bit of a romantic at heart.  The fact that he thought of it on his own was touching. I know he spent time thinking about something I’d like, he’s really a considerate fella.  Then, my daughter Kristen compiled a beautiful scrapbook that covered the first 15 years or so of my life with them.  She did a spectacular job, the attention to detail was incredible.  Again, I was blown away.  I know she must have been working on this for months.  She alluded to me before the holidays that she’d been “swiping things from under my nose for months.”  Hmm, that’s a nice feeling…not! But she was funny, because she knows now that my picture box was a nightmare. She made something beautiful out of a pile of, well… you know, my disorganized mess.

It was nice to be on the receiving end of their love.  It made me wonder what I could do to bring more of that into everyday life. Why does it need to wait for special occasions?  For all the less-than-perfect moments we experience in life, these nicer moments seem to make up for them in spades.  It breeds more kindness and compassion.

Speaking of special occasions, we threw a little birthday party for my father-in-law and his twin brother Dick.  It wasn’t a milestone birthday or anything, but my husband had the idea to throw a little party for his Dad and Uncle.  But in the spirit of giving back, sharing good times, good energy flowed throughout the day.  I was a little worried about how the day would go, the family is a tough nut to crack. Fortunately there were no worries.  The cousins who don’t usually spend time together had a blast, seeing that they had stuff in common with each other.  It was cool.

And it’s not hard to plant your own nice little surprises, it doesn’t have to be a party.  Write a nice note in your child’s backpack or partner’s pocket, being courteous sharing a smile, lending a hand, shoveling a walk, whatever we can do.  Be of service.  Because life’s little surprises are worth it. Even when it seems bad and cannot see our way out quite yet, it usually ends up good.  Let’s pay it forward and move that stagnant stuck energy or black clouds by planting goodness where you can, no matter how big or small.  It’s worth it.

Until next time…