The Grace of Change

The Pleasure of Connecting

Ooof. Seems like nothing but stomach-churning news these days.

What’s an awake, life-loving gal like you or me to do? (Well, other than eat chocolate.)

Good news: during hard times, we lucky women are hardwired to use connection to deal with stress and overwhelm. And that, sisters, is very good news indeed.

Instead of responding to The Big Mess with your basic armadillo reflex (for those of you not Southern, armadillos roll up into a tight ball at the first sign of danger and just hope it all goes away), or with tight fists and clenched teeth, we are hardwired to use our divine gift of connection to reorient ourselves when life tilts at crazy angles.

Connection, my sisters, is our North Star. If we orient our journeys by it, we keep heading in the right direction for our lives and hearts, no matter what insanity is playing out around us, or within us.

Forget your ABC’s. With connection, it’s your CCC’s. The Divine Prescription: take your daily C’s in this order, and you’ll find heart’s ease and sanity even with The Big Mess Out There:

1. Connect with Source
2. Connect with self
3. Connect with others

C-1, Connect with Source, is pretty obvious. Whatever connects you to Big Mind, Big Heart, God, do it. Be aware that after 50, there might be some surprises in this department — old ways lose their oomph, new or long-abandoned ways beckon. Whatever works for you, do it. Regularly and often.

C-2, Connect with Self, is about returning to your own self, no matter what shape you’re in. This isn’t the time for self-improvement. It’s about self-compassion, self-kindness. Again, whatever connects you to your sweet, imperfect self in the most cherishing way possible (anything from pedicures to watching the afternoon light to journaling to your trusty Rabbit), is the right thing to do. Make a list of what lights you up, and keep updating it, so you have ideas when you’ve got a half hour or afternoon to return to your own body and soul.

C-3, Connect with others from a place of generosity and kindness. PLEASE NOTICE, ladies, that this one is last on this list. If we start here, as many of us are wont to do by habit and training, we can reach out from a place of deep anxiety and neediness, which only reinforces despair (unless, of course, you’re reaching out for healing and support, in which case, you go, girl!).

C-3 doesn’t have to be big or newsworthy or dramatic. Remember Mother Teresa: “We can do no great things, only small things with great love.” We’re talking:

1. A quick thank-you note (I hand-write several a week, on beautiful stationery, and consider it part of my spiritual practice)
2. Cookies for a neighbor (and yes, store-bought do just fine-it’s about the thought)
3. Complimenting a cashier (on their eyes, how they treated the person before you...get creative — it’s a great way to spend time in line, thinking about what you can compliment them on)

Research shows that these small acts actually lift the giver in two ways: 1. Giving lights up the pleasure centers of our brains, making us feel gooood. 2. Giving is a powerful antidote to despair and anxiety. It’s like that old saying that the fragrance always stays in the hand that gives the rose.

The world desperately needs us, my past-50 sisters: our intelligence and wisdom, our heart and courage, our capacity to stay in this precious moment. But the best way we can offer our gifts is by first taking our own 3 C’s.

Do I hear moans and groans about adding something *%^&@!  else to your day? Thought so.

Listen, ladies: you can take your 3 C’s in just 20 minutes. And the dividends are awesome. I notice that on the days that I take my 3 C’s, my hair is shinier, my breasts perkier, my waist 6” smaller ... no, wait! I’ve been reading too many ads ...

What I meant was on those days that I give myself the gift of this discipline, I’m more awake. Soft. Alive. Grateful. No perky breasts, but a real close second.

So, back to the 20 minutes:
10 minutes of C-1, Connecting to Source.
5 minutes of C-2, Connecting to yourself.
5 minutes of C-3, Connecting to others.

Only 5 for others? Trust me, if you’ve done the previous 15 minutes with intention and awareness, the last five will be luminous with kindness. And that sort of luminosity is precisely what our world, and family and friends, are starving for. From that luminous place, you can tip the world’s axis far closer to love and joy than you can from hours of whiny, resentful martyrdom (take it from one who knows).

Play with it, my dear and wonderful sisters. We carry an elixir inside us that’s custom-formulated to ease the world’s ills: our deep, luscious wellbeing. It’s a blessing, a well of grace, a ray of hope and light and love.

And it feels so very very good, for us as well as for others. How good can that get?

So try taking your vitamin CCC’s every day. And let me know what happens.

The Big Yes

My 20 year old daughter’s going away in a week. Far away (South America), and for a long time (almost a year). And totally on her own.

I’m so proud of Elise, and so excited for her. She was awarded a grant to simply travel and learn. She’s a beautiful, independent, deeply caring, smart, artistic gem. Elise wants to make a difference in this hurting world, and she will.

And it’s so hard for me to let her go. I’m in grief up to my eyeballs. I’m scared for her, too, traveling by herself in a world that clearly does not have her best interests at heart.

Wow. I thought I was “over” empty nesting. But no. Sunday morning I heard a song on Prairie Home Companion called “Letting Go,” about a young woman leaving home, and about the young woman’s mom. Oy. What a poignant, beautiful song. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ns9491xhS0 (WARNING: If you’re a mom, don’t listen minus hanky in hand.)

David and I were getting ready to meet his mum for brunch. As I listened to the song, I put my head down on the kitchen counter and sobbed. I couldn’t stop crying. My heart was breaking with her leaving, which it’s been doing frequently this summer, this summer that I’ve been falling in love with her all over again.

David called his mum and explained we’d be late, and why. She understood.

I feel like I’m back at Mother and Child Square One all over again.

Sisters, I admit I hesitate to write this to you. After all, if I had my act perfectly together, would I be stopping every so often to blow my very red nose as I write this? If I’m such a hot spit teacher and life coach, shouldn’t I be bypassing this to tell you something uplifting and inspirational?

I suspect not.

I remember my mom telling me how after we kids would visit her, she’d spend the next day picking. Up. And. Putting. Down. Random. Objects. In. The. House. All. Day.

If she were here (she died two years ago next month), I’d be telling her how broken hearted AND excited I feel for Elise, how blindsided by this fierce and tender love for my daughter moving out into the world.

And I imagine her nodding, saying, Yes, in her husky voice. After launching four children and outliving three husbands, she really got the Big Yes. The Big Yes to love, and all that love brings.

She wouldn’t be exhorting me to be sassy and upbeat. She’d be gently reminding me to say Yes to what’s most important, no matter how hard it might feel in the moment.

If there’s one gift passing 50 has given us, sisters, it’s about having the guts and grace to say a Big Yes to life, unconditionally. No holds barred.

And this Big Yes to life is about saying Yes to it all: not just the postcard sunsets and smiling babies, but Yes to our grief, our insecurities and anxieties, our heartbreaks.

This Big Yes isn’t about being imprisoned by our feelings or wounds. It’s about living a life large enough, big-hearted enough, so there’s space for it all, even for the no’s we say, even for the ways we run from ourselves and our lives.

I offer you the no’s I’m saying this morning:

• No, I don’t want Elise to leave
• No, I don’t want her to grow up and away into an increasingly insane world
• No, I don’t want to acknowledge being old enough to have a grown daughter

All these no’s. All this messiness of being human, deeply loving other humans.

I stop for a moment, take a deep breath, and feel my heart stretching wide enough for all these no’s to rest inside, rather like exhausted little children just needing a safe place to curl up for a while.

And then I realize there’s nothing the Big Yes can’t shelter.

Wow. The whole luscious mess of being 54 (as of last week). An all-of-the-above, rootin’ tootin’ messy woman. A woman who’s got a heart wide enough at 54 for grief AND grace, fear AND love.

Maybe the Big Yes space is the right place for me to be launching Elise from.

Maybe the Big Yes space is where I’ve always wanted to be, the open-armed and wide-hearted assent to the meaningful messiness of my life. Not the Hollywood Version of my life, nor the Perfect Coach and Teacher version, but this. Right here. Right now.

And so I find myself, once again, dancing naked with that crazy Zorba the Greek on that wide sandy beach, celebrating the Divine Messes that we are. That I am right now, so excited for my daughter, and so broken-hearted to see her go, and so scared about the world she’s going out into.

As I dance on this beach, sisters, I realize this Big Yes is really all I need, ever, to keep dancing.

Care to join me on this sandy dance floor?

I’d be honored.