This is an opportunity

Work has become busier lately. It tends to happen at this time, the collective push to wrap things up by end of calendar year (arbitrary timelines, but we’re all bought in, so it is what it is!) when it feels like all we want to do and are meant to do is slow, taking cues from nature, like fall to winter in the Northern Hemisphere.

Last year at this time I completely burned out. I was overextended at work, doing things I wanted to do and felt were important, but were beyond my capacity. I took a month off at the holidays and returned more centered, lighter and resolved—to not reach that point again.

So, this time, rather than see this, and feel this, as a time of stress, concern, burdening, overwhelm, I’m pausing more, reflecting and reframing. This is an opportunity. This is an opportunity to strengthen my boundaries. To prioritize. To decide what I want to do right now, and how I want to do it.

I choose to believe that everything that is presenting itself, for own good, our best good. It’s in service of our growth, and the bigger challenges—or opportunities—show up to show us where we are in that growth, and how we have grown. This is an opportunity; there is an opportunity in this, and in everything.

The whole is greater than the sum of the parts

Sometimes, someone says something you’ve heard before, lots of times, and it’s like you’re hearing it, really hearing it, for the first time. You know?

This happened to me last week at the eye doctor’s, a stylish spot on Abbott Kinney in Venice with all and only international designer frames, exposed concrete walls and big coffee tables books about LA and California that had me daydreaming even though I live here. (I loved it.) I was reading those letters with one eye covered, alternating, right eye, left eye, as instructed. Then I could see it all again, with both eyes. I think I said something to the optometrist like, whoa, that really makes a difference, to which he responded, “The whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” And I sat there, feeling like I was hearing that for the first time ever, seeing clearly again, and it all felt very profound. Maybe it was adding another sense in that made it all make deeper sense.

I looked up the origin of the quote and it seems as though it’s a misquoted quote of Aristotle’s, as it is really, instead, I guess, about Emergence, the properties of a system, or that which “…refers to the existence or formation of collective behaviors — what parts of a system do together that they would not do alone.” (From the New England Complex Systems Institute. A complex name.) This author says the quote would instead be something like, “The System is something beside, and not the same, as its elements.” (And now I know, thanks to that site, that there’s something called an International Council on Systems Engineering and that one can become certified as a Systems Engineering Professional and this is all feeling very complex, but also makes sense, and I’m reminded of how complex is not a synonym for complicated.)

Things have the meaning we give them, anyway, and I think both quotes, both concepts, both aphorisms, feel special and make sense. Or, makes senses.

Expand, not contract

This came to me during a meditation a few weeks back, and it’s felt right as I’ve continued to move through life. (Or, as I’ve let life move through me? Have you heard that concept before, that we’re the universe experiencing being human? Or, we are the universe experiencing itself? I think Neil deGrasse Tyson said it…)

It’s this idea, this awareness, of how when something new arises, a change, we—humans, animals, all of us—have the natural reaction to contract. To hide, to go inward, to shy away from. It’s a form of a protection. It’s also a form of rejection, I think. Of rejection of something that may be a wonderful thing. Different can mean scary, but not bad. It can be good scary. Exciting. (My friend and I started to say “excitey.”)

I’ve heard this concept referenced often in money consciousness, too. Rather than saying, for example, I want to do this (a trip, a career change, a move), so I need to save money, it’s instead about opening up to attracting in more. Creating space to welcome in the resources and opportunities, an act of trust.

So, I remind myself. Be aware of where and when you contract, maybe explore why. Gently, curiously. Consider, instead expanding into it. Even consider considering a different initial reaction is expansion in itself.

May we continue to expand, to ripple, to “flow… in ever widening rings of being,” like Rumi says.

Expand, not contract. Abundance, and not lack.

Life is meant to be enjoyed

Over the past years I’ve come into the belief that life is meant to be enjoyed, and that life doesn’t have to be hard; in fact, life is meant to be enjoyed; it’s meant to be easy, and it’s meant to flow.

It felt like a big, obvious secret to discover, or more like, rediscover, because I think it’s a concept that I think we’re born knowing and, ideally, grow up embodying as freewheeling, playful, imaginative, open children. Then, most of us lose it or are convinced out of it, convinced otherwise, through this conditioned concept of “real life,” and the “real world” and such. (Especially in the U.S., I think! A country founded on the Puritan work ethic, where children were treated as “little adults,” where this world was a necessary, get-through-it earthly stopover to show just how worthy of deliverance to heaven in the afterlife, or whatever.) For more on this, too, I super, super recommend don Miguel Ruiz’s writings of Toltec teachings, like The Four Agreements, which talk about “the dream of the planet.”

I remember hearing at one point that…

Buddha’s famous quote “life is suffering,” is actually a imprecise translation. It’s more so that, “life is enduring,” and it speaks to the idea of the continuity, the forever flow of life.

It’s not a justification for suffering; not as setting ourselves up to expect that whole human experience to be that way. (And that’s the interesting thing about translation; it reveals so much about the values and energy of a culture. I loved reading and writing about this concept, especially in relation to Jorge Luis Borges’ writing on it when I studied Spanish literature in college. An aside.) I heard that so long ago I can’t remember when or from whom, but it’s stayed with my powerfully, “empowerfully,” I’ll invent a word to say, since.

So, here they are, the big secrets of life as I’ve intuited and discovered them so far, through my one narrow, singular and also somehow universal (as we all are!) lived experience.

1. Life is meant to be enjoyed

2. Life doesn’t have to be hard—in fact, life is meant to be easy, easeful

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For Dawn, whose name alone represents the coming of light, and who has so gently and sweetly guided me through so much of my own spiritual exploration.

May we always know our worth

A good friend of mine at work, who is an amazing human and amazing at her job (and does even more, like providing important and heartfelt support for diversity, equity and inclusion programs) was recently promoted. After she shared the news, I asked her how she was feeling, and she said, “Like it was well deserved!” And I loved that. Because it was. And because I realized how uncommon it is to hear women feel empowered to respond like that, without the learned, conditioned behavior of feeling like they, we, have to divert attention from ourselves, unnecessarily humble ourselves in what is a shining moment. “Yesss!” I responded. “May we always know our worth!” She, we deserved to honor and celebrate that. Her promotion, her worth.

May we always know our worth. (Especially in the workplace, as women!) And may we always remember that our worth is intrinsic and whole, always, without need to be proven or earned.

(But, also, like, an aside: We live and work in capitalism and I always tell people, especially women and people of the non-dominant corporate profile, ie: not a cisgender, hetero-presenting white male, to negotiate the first offer because when I managed a large team it was always the men, especially and predominantly of the dominant class, who always asked for more.)

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For Kaitlin—keep shining, Leo star!

How can I sink, even more, into the moment?

This last trip (Barcelona, Ibiza, Malta, Munich for Oktoberfest, a dream!) reminded me of how putting ourselves into new contexts, places and spaces is really sooo beneficial to developing ourselves more, and solidifying one’s sense of self—especially when it’s some new aspect of ourselves and identity. We get to put more into practice and play, whether by invitation, like when introducing ourselves to strangers (who do we want to be? How do we want to be?), or, perhaps, by a little bit of force, like when sprinting through an airport to make a connection. (Just because I’m moving quickly doesn’t mean I have to become stressed about it, and that realization was new and nice! Also, we made it.)

One thing that I was interested to be with on this trip was my personal shift to no longer drinking alcohol, really; like more than a drink here or there. I was going to a bachelorette party in Ibiza and Munich for Oktoberfest, after all, and I was curious to see how I would feel. It’s a change I felt called to make a little over a year ago when I moved from NYC to LA, and realized that I just didn’t really like how I felt physically or mentally because of it. I wanted to feel good, and I wanted to be as present as possible to my life.

Over the past year I’ve gotten more comfortable not drinking in certain contexts, and I’ve realized no one really cares. (Or even knows, especially when you’re holding a sparkling water with lime.) Rather, people are often very supportive and even curious. My close friends in LA don’t drink much, and even on the bachelorette trip, 1/4 of the people there weren’t drinking and it was totally cool, fun and easy.

Throughout the trip there were a few moments where I felt a little odd about it, though I know full well those were my own slight feelings of judgment and questioning, and no one else’s. Like when everyone was toasting and I’m just, like, smiling, and wondering. should be toasting? Would that be more participatory? (We’re over “should’s,” or more over them than ever before, but sometimes they happen!) At this point, though I know well enough that those little feelings are fleeting, not worth paying much attention to, and that almost certainly no one else is even having that thought.

What was fun, though, is that I found I developed a little trick, or tool, for those moments of slight discomfort. I found myself taking a moment to look around, breathe deep and ask myself, “How can I sink even more into this moment?" As a result of thinking that simple question, I shifted more into presence, and into the present. I dropped more into my body and that place and time, exactly as they were, and could be with it all with a newfound appreciation. I saw my friends singing, laughing, sitting together in this place and in celebration, at everyone gathered there altogether, sharing this one moment, and my heart would become so full. I was so happy. And, I was out of my head.

I’ve tried it out in different contexts, too, and it always feels good, always makes things better. Like, when trying to fall asleep on the plane, when navigating a crowd in the rain, when feeling into a connection to someone new. As Caroline Myss writes about, “this day will never come again.” We’ll never be in this moment, in this way, again, so how can we be here, even more?

How can I sink even more into this moment? How can I be in this moment, even more? (Also, Oktoberfest is still super fun, still super joyous, still the best time, even without the beer. Ibiza, of course, too.)

Leave room

I drafted this post in my head, and a little bit on here, before leaving for a ~2.5-week trip that I returned from on Sunday night. (But, instead, I left myself some room, and more time for sleep, that last night.)

I prefer to carry on when I travel and usually end up packing my bag to the max. It makes repacking during the trip a challenge, because I’m never repacking with as much time or care as that first time—I’d rather be spending my vacation time doing anything else, everything else. It also means I have no space, really, to pick up anything along the way. This time, as I was finishing packing, I made a conscious choice to leave some room.

It’s in keeping with a larger theme of wanting to of create and leave more room in my life these days. Like, leaving room in my days—giving myself more time, rushing less, and, ideally, not at all—and recently going through my whole apartment to consolidate and organize my belongings. (Outer organization equaled inner, mental organization, and was nice to return to@)

Someone I know used to say, “leave room for surprise,” often, and I like that. Leave room, and space, for the unexpected, because we never know what it’ll be. This time, this trip, it was a bunch of cute, functional and sentimental bachelorette gifts, like a monogrammed bucket hat, and some bigger things, like the dirndl I bought in Munich for Oktoberfest and thought would be a whatever purchase before finding a trendy one (it’s a thing) that was a point of pride, because it ended up eliciting compliments from Germans. I did have to sit on my suitcase to close it that last day, what with all those layers of Bavarian ruffle, but I did have the room!

It's also this

I recently completed reiki level 1 training and have now added that to my morning routine, which is already lengthy (meditation, reiki, journal, light yoga flow/stretch session), and also which I love and feels supportive and fun. Yesterday after I finished, I noticed the thought pop up: “OK, now my day starts.”

And I was like, wait. My day has already started. That was part of my day, and this is all part of my day. My day is not just work, turning on a computer, plugging into the “productive” side of society. (Also, rest is “productive.”) It’s also this, and this is also mine.

That slight reframe, a soft zoom out, felt so nice as soon as I noticed it. Even in the past day, it’s already helped give me more perspective with myself (or, helped me give myself more perspective, you know!) in relation to work, and my job. It’s part of my day, and it’s part of my life, yes. And there’s so much more. The same could be, can be, said for any role and any identity we hold, too.

I remembered the thought again when I was biking home from Pilates later that day. I was waiting at a traffic light, eager to push out and pedal home, and looked around. I came to present on that corner, under the palm trees, in the summer nightfall. This moment was also my day—and my evening—my life. And it was a beautiful one, and I wanted to be with it.

It’s also this. It’s all of this.