✨ Practice Notes ✨ Fleeting Serenity is Overrated.

One of the greatest urban legends about meditation is that our experience should be all bliss, butterflies and serenity with no thoughts and a calm mind. While that *might* be your experience, the other 99% of us will probably encounter things like tight hips, unwanted distractions, strong emotions and a busy mind in meditation.

This is not only common, it’s wonderful. Because the kicker is that this is precisely how we develop a calm and spacious mind over time.

Our purpose in meditation is not to get rid of thoughts and distractions, but rather to become a bit more intimate, aware, and accommodating of them when they do arise. With practice, they become less charged, less of a problem. And we in turn become less reactive when challenges (big and small) arise off the meditation cushion.

If your mind is busy in meditation, trust me— you’re doing great. The practice isn’t just about fleeting serenity. This is where we learn to hold our seat.

---- Via MNDFL Meditation :: Wind Down Wednesday 

See that "Flaw"? There's GOLD in there. :: Advice from Don Draper and a Coffee Shop Chalkboard.

Image :: Eugenia Loli

“If you don’t like what’s being said, change the conversation”.

—Don Draper :: Mad Men

A few weeks ago I was swimming in the deep end with a client of mine who was preparing to launch her new business. 

She’s a self-aware and savvy artist who lives in the Bay Area— which is basically a tech-startup boomtown. It’s an ideal location for her, and her biz— which delivers her experience and enthusiasm for creative expression into startup company culture.

These are small companies with big potential that rely on being consistently, prolifically creative in the innovation jungle.

At face value, her vision is spot-on. She lives in the ideal location. Has a brilliant business plan. Arranged for the gorgeous confluence of doing what she loves, for those who want and need it. 

But that afternoon there was still one big albatross, hanging doubtfully around her neck. 

“Who is going to take me seriously?” She said. “I’m only 24.”

Damn those albatrosses. 

They’re like bad reviews that we write for ourselves before the production has even begun.

Sometimes our bad reviews assure us that we’re too young, or under qualified. Sometimes we don’t know enough, or we’re under-prepared, or past our prime, or don’t belong, or too flighty or undisciplined, or it’s because we’re a Sagittarius, or Scorpio moon, or really what have you. 

It’s an anticipatory move. A maneuver of protection at best. But one that stifles our most sincere impulses before they ever see the daylight. 

I can’t help but think that maybe, just maybe, sometimes what we consider to be our biggest flaws or detractions, have the potential to be our greatest assets in disguise. 

That perhaps it’s not a matter of concealing our perceived flaws, or working extra hard in spite of them, but rather changing the slant of the conversation we're having about them. 

Flipping the script. Seeing new views.

Finding the asset in the albatross. 

I had this experience on a recent trip to New Orleans, where my cards were read by a Congolese voodoo priest (what a bizarre sentence to write), who began by telling me that I was “a sensitive, empathic intuitive” that is a “sponge” for the energy around me. 

My first thought was that this might be my threshold for “woo-woo”. My second thought was that he was dead on. And my third thought was “Well, crap.” He was basically saying that I’m totally ill equipped to live in this world. 

The conversation I was buying into is that our culture is too fast and hard for sensitive people. The premium is on extroversion, cynicism, and competitive ambition, which means that a sensitive little spongelike creature such as myself is basically an invertebrate out of water. Crippled for survival. Roadkill on the highway of life.

My fourth thought, though, was a new conversation.

That yes. I am a sensitive being. And frankly, I’m better for it. These are exactly the same qualities that fortify my ability to do what I do. To be a perceptive coach. An instinctive meditation teacher. An empathetic friend. To give a genuine and sometimes heartbreaking f*ck about our planet and the people who live on it. To revile against oppression in it's insidious forms, while also striving to have understanding for those who oppress. 

Crippled for survival? Psssht. Please. 

One message, two potential conversations, 

The first says “flawed and faulted." The other says “blessings and assets”.

In the case of my client, one quick Google search revealed that the median age of all tech-startup founders is 24. After college.The golden number. Which meant that not only was her age not a detriment to her ability to be taken seriously, it was actually an asset.

Her clients are her peers. Her relatability is a boon. 

As for not knowing enough? It also means you have the gift of Beginner's Mind. 

Inexperienced? There's a lack of baggage there. It means you're not stuck in your ways. 

Past your prime? That prime is old news, anyhow. But I bet you learned a TON about what a new "prime" feels like...

Lucky Ducks. 

A few days ago I walked past a coffee shop in the West Side that proudly displayed a chalkboard inviting patrons to "Come inside and have the WORST cappuccino that a guy ever had on Yelp."

It was a brilliant display of taking a bad review, and changing the conversation.

I laughed to myself, took a photo, and went in to try it for myself. I couldn't resist. I was charmed. Curious. And the cappuccino wasn't half bad. 

Our own "bad reviews", our albatrosses, are probably more flexible than we believe them to be. When we look for the assets within them, we have an opportunity to change our view.

When we change our view, we have agency to own our stuff and change the conversation altogether. And on the other side of that? 

The sweet sweet freedom to invite others inside.

The Glass is Already Broken :: SONIMA Article

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 10/2/15 ON SONIMA.COM

In this moment, it’s early autumn in New York and the weather presents itself as an invitation to be easy. The sensation of moving freely, without layers, makes me feel intrinsically more connected; there’s no barrier between my environment and my skin. This is a sweet time of year, an easy season to inhabit, with Indian Summer days that seemingly stretch through forever.

Of course the calendar reminds me otherwise. The sun is setting much earlier now, and the warmest days of the year have passed.

One of the hardest natural laws to reconcile is that everything is subject to change whether we want it to or not. Autumn turns to winter and winter turns to spring. The Law of Impermanence is everywhere and the seasons just stand up to testify.

I would guess that by the time we’ve hit adulthood, we’ve all felt the truth of impermanence in a million mundane ways. Job situations break down. Love affairs ignite and fizzle. Even our own bodies change, eventually becoming weathered and time-worn. I have bottles of eye serums and face creams that promise to exonerate me from this rule, but at 33, those first few unruly grey hairs tell it to me straight. I can prolong, postpone and deny the inevitable, but what comes to pass does not stay.

This is often presented as the “bad news,” or fodder for an existential crisis. I’m reminded of a video that was circulated recently of a young girl who realizes her infant brother will grow up, and quickly begins to connect the dots to her own mortality. Her breakdown at the realization is touching because we’ve all been there. The tenuous nature of things can be a difficult pill to swallow.

When impermanence is served as the “good news,” it’s often as a salve in difficult times. This too shall pass. Time heals all things. When one door closes, a new window opens. Even heartbreak changes.

However, I can’t help but wonder if rather than “good news” or “bad news,” impermanence is simply “the news”—the way that we generally accept that organic matter breaks down, without artificial preservatives. As Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron reminds us, “That nothing is static or fixed, that all is fleeting and impermanent, is the first mark of existence. It is the ordinary state of affairs.”

CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE READING ON SONIMA.COM

The Secret to Stoking a Friendly Fire :: SONIMA Article

Anger can be intimidating. Inflammatory. Uncomfortable. But that doesn’t mean it’s a problem. This feels like a sentence I should repeat, because it often seems counterintuitive to the pursuit of happiness and the practice of peaceful living. Anger isn’t a problem. It’s simply information.

Like most things unpredictable and wild, anger gets a bad rap: the reputation of being a troublemaker. It rolls in uninvited, rocks the boat and threatens to break things down. Our stomachs tighten in anger’s presence, our throat and muscles constrict. One hot hit of anger mirrors the way venom spreads through the body of the bitten. Everyone I know knows this feeling; by virtue of being human.

But perhaps rocking the boat is exactly what anger is for. It makes us pay attention. It afflicts us with a sucker punch to alert us that something is wrong. Anger is the body’s delivery system of an incandescent message. Whether we’re willing to receive the message or not depends solely on our relationship to its source.

Do we trust that the fire is friendly? Or do we regard the fire as a foe?

CLICK HERE TO READ ON @ SONIMA.COM

Photo Courtesy + Originally Published 7/30/15 @ SONIMA.COM

Words for the Woman With a Story to Share

During a coaching session last week, a client of mine shared one of her biggest fears with me.

Maybe you can relate.
 
It’s a fear that I’ve heard many women I’ve worked with express. 
A fear that I’ve grappled with ad nauseam. 
And a fear that still visits me each time I sit down to write. 
In fact this fear is riding shotgun right now as I type these words. 
 
It’s the fear of sharing her voice. In her work, and in her life. 
Without apology or negotiation.
 
I’ve heard this challenge from women so often, and have felt it so acutely myself, that it seems important to address. 
For the sake of all of us who have a story to share, or a possibility we're yearning to create— 
but choose to stay quiet, or hide out, or sterilize our point of view into something more pleasing and agreeable for the sake of others.
 
Here’s my plea to you:
 
We need your strong voices. Your stories are valuable. 
Especially voices and stories that share the truth. 
We need as many as we can get
The truth of your experience... the truth of your perspective...
Tell us like it is. 
It’s what keeps us connected, how wisdom is passed down, how we all feel a little less alone. 
Speaking our truth without apology is how we set ourselves free…
From the constant concern of how others will see us.
From the expectations of who we “should” be. 
 
One hard truth. No one will ever give you the permission to take up space or be vocal. 
That permission is only self-granted.
Not to gender generalize, but this is especially true for women. 
It’s sucky, I know, but it’s the material that we’re working with. 
Which means that it’s up to us to learn how to share our voices in way that is decisive and meaningful. 
It’s our work. No one can hand us the permission slip. 
In fact..

Either we tell our stories or someone else will shape them for us.
There are plenty of people who are happy to tell us who they think we “should” be. It’s often well intentioned. In the guise of friendly advice. It also shapes us in their image. Which is not necessarily the truth of who we are. Something precious is lost in our silence. 

1:: NAME THE ARCHITECTS OF YOUR GLASS CIELINGS

Somewhere in our lives we’ve learned to fear what might happen if we let our voices be heard. 
The concern of negative impact or outcome.
 
If we sift through the contents of our experiences we can probably name the moments when our personal glass ceilings were constructed. 
 
Perhaps it was well meaning friends and family who encouraged you to “never change”. 
Maybe it was the mocking or teasing you faced when you let yourself be vulnerable. 
Or the mythology that women should be pretty and quiet that seeped into your family tree. 
 
One of my thickest glass ceilings was built in the 4th grade, when my well-intentioned mom forbade me from performing at the school talent show. 
 
I was planning a one-woman lip sync to En Vogue’s “Free Your Mind”, complete with a neon-green leotard and floppy brimmed hat, circa 1992. (Lord, I wish I had photo of this.)
I thought I was hot shit. I couldn’t wait to do my show. 
She told me I would embarrass myself. And put the kibosh on my performance.
 
In retrospect, I can understand where my mom was coming from. 
I was a chubby kid in a neon leotard, and it is a song with undertones that I was too young to understand. 
Her intention was to save me from the ridicule of my peers.
 
But It’s the first time I became painfully aware that making myself visible would also make me look foolish. 
 
We all have moments like this, as we learned how the world works, and how to safely navigate it. 
It’s our jobs to recognize where our beliefs stem from. Understand who helped us build them and why. Then give them a bless and release. 
 
Sometimes our glass ceilings crack in the moment we witness their construction. 
Oftentimes, it takes repeated work.  Like a mantra we carry with us, to chip at our ceiling each time that we hit it. 
Breaking through means truly releasing the story with full-on blessing and understanding. 
Because when we release our old hangups, fears, and mythologies, it’s actually us who is released. 
 
(Thank you mom, for protecting me. I set that story free.)

2:: INTERROGATE YOUR ANXIETY

If you’re skittish at the thought of sharing your voice, it might be time to take it to trial.
Invite your anxiety up to the witness stand and ask it to make a testimony. 
Chances are the evidence it will present sounds a little something like this:
 
“What if I share what I have to say and no one listens to me?
Or worse. They think I’m a fraud?
What if I’m criticized for what I believe in? 
Or people think I’m arrogant or a know it all? 
What if I fall flat on my face (and prove my worst fears right)?"
 
Cross examine your anxiety with a little Socratic Questioning: 

Is it True?

How do I know it’s true? 

Could it be another way?  

2 :: INVITE YOUR FEAR TO RIDE SHOTGUN 

Sometimes the most skillful thing we can do is make space for our fear to come along for the ride. 
 
Fear is a shape-shifter, especially when it comes to speaking up for ourselves.
 
In one moment, it may seem that we have our anxiety licked— after we’ve stood up for ourselves in a new way, or shared our story in a way that is brave and honest. 
And then…
Our anxiety puts on a different hat and shiny new shoes and manifests as a fresh doubt or hesitation when we’re reaching for our gumption. 
Slippery little sucker. 
 
Rather than trying to fight, crush, battle, or do something equally aggressive to our anxieties, take a moment to recognize that Fear’s main job is to look out for us. To keep us safe. To make sure we don’t hurt ourselves. 
 
Anxiety is actually our advocate, in a twisted, often misinformed way. 
 
When we recognize that our fear of sharing our voices is simply a personal defense, we can turn and look at it head on. 
Perhaps even thank it for it’s information. 
And then make space for it to ride shotgun in the front seat with us. As we go ahead act bravely anyway

Out on a Limb Radio Interview :: Embracing Uncertainty

A 15 minute rapid-fire convo on human nature, our need for control and security, and how to navigate uncertainty-- in work, in relationships, and in life. 

Buddhist Geeks Podcast :: Interview with Adreanna Limbach + Lodro Rinzler + Vince Horn

 In this conversation recorded during the 2015 Aspen-Snowmass Wanderlust Festival, host Vincent Horn, Lodro Rinzler and Adreanna Limbach discuss the challenges of making meditation accessible to a mainstream audience.

CLICK HERE to access the recording via the Buddhist Geeks website. 

6 Lessons from the Global Coaching Classroom

This week launched the beginning of a fresh round of coaching circles at The Institute for Integrative Nutrition.

A few times a year, I host group coaching calls for current students of my alma mater that have collected from across the globe. I'm joined by students from Dubai, Ireland, Texas, Japan, and many of the locations in between.

I lovingly think of these groups as my Global Coaching Classroom. I'm assigned eight groups. Twelve hours of coaching a week. 40+ women (and two lucky fellas), a cross section of personalities and backgrounds, with a sweet knitting-circle sort of vibe. 

We talk business and marketing. We get deep into coaching technique. We roll up our sleeves together and chart the course for the lives they want to create, while deconstructing what having their dreams would do for them.

It's all about extrinsic goals that give us an intrinsic feeling, and employing strategies to make that happen.

I've been coaching these groups for close to 6 years now, but it never fails to feel like the first day of school. The nerves. The expectation. The desire to leave them with golden nuggets and help them reveal their own perfect wisdom.

What inevitably happens in this "first week of school", though, is that I'm brought around to my own golden nuggets— tiny truths and solid reminders of why I love doing this work, how we're all better, more clear, and devoted to our dreams after having spent 7 weeks together. 

The students become the teachers. The teacher is a perpetual student. In a container of reciprocal learning, the lines are more blurred than we think. 

Here are 4 lessons that I was reminded of last week: Straight from the coaching classroom.

1 :: We all have a story to share. Give people a chance to tell theirs, and we're given an opportunity find the nooks and crannies where we all connect.

Although these groups of creative change-makers span cultures, ages, and locations on the global map, our differences became less blaring than our commonalities once we all began sharing our stories. What brought them to the table? What are their intentions? What are they looking to create and contribute? Who else might benefit from their vision?

Many have come from a path of challenge and healing. Many have a vision of leaving the world a little better than they found it. And all of us are perusing our personal definition of freedom. We’re different, complex, and all strikingly human. 

Lesson: When we give others a chance to tell their stories, we're given a gateway to our similarities in return.

2 :: One of the best forms of education is direct experience.

There's the information we read in books, and then there's the knowledge we've lived into our bones. 

This is any experience we've had close up, immersed ourselves in, kneaded it with our own two hands in such a way that it's left an impression in our skin and our psyches. Intimacy does that--intimacy with people, experiences, practices--closeness makes an impression.

Much can be said about academics and book smarts, but there’s another form of learning, brought to us by The School of Life, that can’t be underestimated. What have you lived through? What did that experience teach you? 

Are there rituals, skills, or circumstances that you’ve gained personal insight into, simply by spending time doing them?

Whether it’s playing the piano, juicing, soothsaying, or motherhood, the learning that comes from practicing repeatedly is what develops our “expertise”. 

Studying up on a topic is great, but DOING IT is how we alchemize information into understanding, and develop a well crafted perspective we can share. 

Lesson: Step away from the manual. Step into the experience of it. Keep an open heart/mind and you’ll learn along the way. 

3 :: Community connection is a healing modality.

As the doyenne of empathy, Brené Brown would say, shame breeds in isolation. It thrives on secrecy. And once it’s spoken, it dissipates. It’s easy to think that we’re the only ones who feel confused, overwhelmed and “not quite ___ enough” when we hide these feelings under the veneer of having our shit together. We’ve all done this on occasion. I know I'm not alone here. None of us wants to be perceived as a hot mess, a failure, a fraud. 

However, these feelings need oxygen to heal, and that comes in the form of connection. 

Sharing ourselves in totality with supportive, likeminded people reminds us that we’re not alone, and that others feel the same. It’s also a keen reminder that our emotions don’t have to break us, they can come along with us for the ride. And if that ride includes the support of others, it’s bound to be faster, smoother, and a whole lot more enjoyable. 

Lesson: Allowing ourselves to be seen, and encouraging each other to shine is a fast track to collective blossoming. 

4 :: Feeling grounded, authentic, and at home in our skin is a metric of success.

Recognition. Accolades. A seat at the Lady Boss table. Our name in flashing lights. We all have an idea of when we'll know we've "made it", and a personal inkling of what success looks like. But what does our version of success feel like; even if those external metrics never come to fruition?

Most of the time we're chasing an external idea of success because of the way we believe it will make us feel. 

Contentment, freedom, security, confidence, and the limitless permission slip of self expression come from being more at home with ourselves. The next time we take out the measuring stick and ask ourselves what our version of success is, we might also ask what we believe this success will make us feel. It's here that we'll find what we truly want.  Often, it's a feeling we can cultivate by becoming more at home with ourselves-- with or without the added bling. 

Lesson: The ability to be at home in any situation, because you're at home in your skin is a dazzling, intangible, measureless way of knowing you've "made it". 

The Power of our Personal Narratives :: SONIMA article

click for original publication 

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 4/24/15 ON SONIMA.COM

 

In Ancient Greece the three Moirai were goddesses who handled the thread of our lives.

The first of these “Fates,” as they’re sometimes called, was a goddess named Clotho, the spinner. She would arch over her spindle and weave human life, spinning a thread from its moments. Her sister Lachesis, the allotter, took stock of our threads with her measuring rod, deciding when our story was woven to completion. The third sister, Atropos, would then decide the final act of life, and snip our thread with her shears, bringing the story to completion. Her name means “inevitable” or “unturning”; the cessation of spinning, the story we can’t escape.

This myth is a story about stories; an answer to questions that were hard to define and even harder to prove. Why are we here? Who is calling the shots? It’s a story about the weaving of our stories, both personally and collectively—a means of understanding who we are as people.

Humans have told stories to make sense of the world since the beginning of time. The earliest stories are in the Lascaux Caves of Southern France. Primal narrative of the art of survival, the ritual of the hunt, painted on the walls in 13,000 B.C. Aesop crafted his fables of ethics and virtues, tales of what it means to be human in 500 B.C.; tales that we still tell to this day.

Our ancestors took sounds and created speech, symbols and created language. Alongside opposable thumbs and a sophisticated prefrontal cortex, stories are the trademark of being human. We’re distinctly wired for narrative, both that we collect and that we create.

If you’ve ever sat down to meditate, it’s easy to see the narratives that we spin, on and off the cushion. We have an unobstructed view of our thoughts: One moment we’re in the future, planning our dinner, our presentation, how to allay the outcomes we fear, and create the ones we desire. The next moment we’re in the past; analyzing a conversation we had on Tuesday, what we could have said differently, the tone of our partner’s response. We sift through our stories to collect meaning and information, weaving our threads from the contents we find, building our perspective on ourselves and the world around us.

The novelist Virginia Woolf once described our sense of self “like a butterfly’s wing…clamped together with bolts of iron.” And indeed, our mind flitters like a tiny time traveler, riding the length of our stories.

Cognitive science and psychology agree, with the study of narrative identity pointing to the flexibility of self. It’s the measured assertion that we don’t just tell stories, we are our stories; bound together by our beliefs and experiences. This makes our stories, and the qualities of our stories important to who we are. The question then becomes, what are the stories we’re telling ourselves if they’re the script of who we become?

The ancient Greeks gave our life’s story to the Fates, but may have misunderstood the place of the narrator. The power of any story is that it’s infused with a point of view, and told through the narrator’s interpretation. In other words, we own our stories; no one else can tell them for us.

There’s an old Chinese fable of a farmer and his neighbors. One day the farmer’s only horse escaped from its corral and ran away. The neighbors came when they heard the news and stood around shaking their heads. “Oh what bad luck!” they lamented, but the farmer simply shrugged. “Perhaps.”

About a week later, the horse returned, bringing a whole herd of wild horses with him. As the farmer and his son corralled their new stock of horses, the neighbors stood by and rejoiced. “Oh what good luck!” they declared, and the farmer replied, “Perhaps.” The story continues like this with an unfolding of good luck and bad, but to the farmer, a matter of perspective.

We can’t predict the cards that we’re dealt, but we have agency over how we interpret them. A tragedy, a blessing, a story of redemption, forgiveness, revenge: Regardless, we are the narrator.

Some of our narratives are so entrenched that the story begins to tell us. That’s when story becomes dangerous; when we’ve lost ownership of our interpretation. We begin to view things as “just the way it is”, which breeds cynicism, passivity, and doubt.

Imagine being a woman in 1848, when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and 100 colleagues gathered in upstate New York to reevaluate a popular story line. The question was “What does it mean to be a woman?” and they didn’t believe in the assumed answer. It was a story that was so deeply embedded that we as a society mistook the status quo for truth. There’s a popular adage in public relations; “If you don’t like the conversation, change it”. I’ve never worked in PR, but I’ve always loved this saying. It’s a permission slip of personal agency, and reminds us that our story is in each of our hands.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton decided it was time for a new narrative, an updated story that would answer the question of who we are, and 19 years later Wyoming was the first state to grant women the right to vote, with the rest of the nation following suit, tipping the scales of women’s equality.

Our cultural heroes and those who have changed our collective conversation possess diligence and faith, but most of all, imagination; they saw a story that needed to be told and told it.

On a personal level, all change begins by recognizing that we are the narrators of our stories. If we believe that we don’t deserve it, or that others are generous, or that the grapes are sour anyways, then we’ll act in ways that confirm our suspicions. The psychological term for this is confirmation bias; but we can call it the power of personal narrative. We’re always seeking out information that colludes with our story, and behaving in ways that confirm it.

Stories run deep, often the length of our lives, and are not always easy to change. Sometimes shifting our narrative requires splicing, healing, or the force of Atropos’ proverbial shears. However as long as we recognize that we own our narrative, the stories we collect and the stories we create are under jurisdiction of our point of view; they can be rewound, reinterpreted, reviewed, and reimagined.

Moment by moment we choose the ones that we tell.

Notes on Hope: Rebecca Solnit

To hope is to gamble. It is to bet on the future, on your desires, on the possibility that an open heart and uncertainty is better than gloom and safety. To hope is dangerous, and yet, it is the opposite of fear, for to live is to risk. 

I say all of this to you because hope is not like a lottery ticket you can sit on the couch and clutch, feeling lucky. I say this because hope is an ax you break down doors with in an emergency; because hope should shove you out the door, because it will take everything you have to steer the future away from endless war, from the annihilation of the earth's treasures, and the grinding down of the poor and marginal. 

Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action, action is impossible without hope. 

At the beginning of his massive 1930s treatise on hope, the German philosopher Ernst Bloch wrote, "The work of this emotion requires people who throw themselves actively into what is becoming, to which they themselves belong."

To hope is to give yourself the future, and that commitment to the future is what makes the present inhabitable. Anything could happen, and whether or not we act on it has everything to do with it. 

-Rebecca Solnit; Hope in the Dark 

Notes on Sufficiency: Henry Miller

"Every day we slaughter our finest impulses.  That is why we get a heart-ache when we read those lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty.  

Every man, when he gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering profound truths.  

We all derive from the same source.  There is no mystery about the origin of things.  We are all part of creation, all kings, all poets, all musicians; we have only to open up, to discover what is already there."  

~Henry Miller, Sexus

The Pitfalls of Pursuing Your Purpose :: SONIMA article

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED 3/18/15 ON SONIMA.COM 

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The trajectory of my 20s reads like a dilettante’s handbook, or a drunk pirate’s treasure map; winding, dabbling, non-linear. Like most children of the 80s, I was raised in the height of the self-esteem movement, with its encouraging maxim that I could do anything I wanted to do, and be anything I wanted to be. Thankfully I’ve also had the privilege of parents who supported this view. When I proudly announced in 4th grade that I would be the first woman president, no one batted an eye. When I decided to move to Manhattan after high school, I was given a hug, two cans of mace, and a membership to Bally’s Sport’s Club; just in case I wound up homeless and needed a place to shower.

I had faith in my own resourcefulness and in the benevolence of mankind. I didn’t have a plan, per se, but I was on a mission to find my purpose. Oh, sweet purpose. The final frontier.

The importance of purpose is not a new concept, but one that seems to be on our minds quite a bit these days. According to the 2015 Deloitte Millennial Survey, 60% of the millennial generation listed a “sense of purpose” within the organization when asked why they chose their current employers. Purpose-driven books topped the New York Times bestsellers list in 2014, with titles like Your Life Calling by Jane Pauley, and The Promise of a Pencil: How an Ordinary Person Can Create Extraordinary Change by Adam Braun. And ranking third in the Top 10 most watched TED Talks of all time, Simon Sinek asks us what “our purpose, our cause, our belief” is; urging 21 million viewers worldwide to connect with our “WHY.” I’m responsible for at least 30 of those views, I’ve shared this gem so often.

On one hand, I find this turn toward purpose incredibly heartening. In a culture that traditionally values metrics of success, it suggests that we’re asking ourselves how to live by our own standards, collectively elevating meaning over measurement. When I was a Girl Scout our motto was: “Always leave things better than you found them,” which is an idea reflected in the popularity of purpose. We’re consciously contemplating what we’re built for, and how best to contribute to the world.

On the other hand, I can’t seem to shake the feeling that all of this “find your purpose” business is somehow missing the mark. There’s something lacking from the conversation; and it’s the small but mighty distinction between having a purpose and living a purposeful life.

It may seem like a matter of syntax, but syntax is important. The way that we talk about things reveals our relationship to them, and ultimately, how we approach them. In the case of purpose, it’s the difference between seeking the keys to redemption and revealing what’s already there.

During my decade as a dilettante, I would lay awake, fixed on the water stain above my bed wishing for some sort of map. I had tried my hand at acting and spent a year in film school. I wrote sketch comedy on the side, worked in food advocacy, studied design in undergrad, and worked enough crappy waitressing jobs to redefine my notion of humility. I had a passion for travel and yoga, but could that truly be my purpose? I’d always had a knack for organizing, but was this my soul’s North Star?

When given too much gravitas, finding “our purpose” can be frustrating, and at worst, a trap of paralysis. If we truly have a calling, a single purpose in this world, what if we never find it? Are we destined to go through the motions, a half-lived vessel of unrealized potential?

Related: How Making Time for Reflection Can Help Unlock Your Potential

Defining our purpose as a destination or a single pointed direction bears resemblance to searching for “The One”. Even if we do find our forever person, or the mission statement we can live by that fills our days with meaning, there might always the lingering question of whether we’ve made the right decision, if we’re missing out. Even if we feel a sense of certainty, it’s easy to attach the expectation that it will always remain the same; which pits our hopes against the laws of ever-changing nature.

Purpose was just another way of chasing that magical “someday” that precluded my self-acceptance.

If you had asked me about my purpose when I was 7, I would have given you a cock-eyed stare, most likely because I was busy discovering the world through first-time experiences. Everything had purpose; from crickets to kickball to Paula Abdul.

It all clicked into place during one of those crappy waitressing shifts. This wasn’t, by any stretch, my forever career. I smelled like fried calamari and had ketchup in my hair. However I decided to try an experiment. What if I tried treating all of this like it mattered? What might happen if rather than approaching this like a sidebar to my life’s purpose, I brought purpose into my approach? What if I am purposeful instead of waiting for one to redeem me? The answer is that I stopped looking for my purpose—the one I claimed ownership to—and allowed purpose to flavor my moments.

I can’t help but think that rather than having a purpose, we simply have purpose. It’s something akin to dignity or meaning, an inheritance of being alive. We can direct our purposefulness through clearly chosen intentions, but ultimately, it’s a quality we possess, not a statement, a job title, or a place that we find.

My friend Marisa once told me a story of an MTA employee who worked in a Brooklyn subway booth. Each morning she would emerge from the train, and he would lock eyes with her, and greet her warmly. They became familiar through their daily exchange; a wave, a smile, a connection. She talks about how this always made her mornings, they joy he brought to his booth, his generosity of spirit. After some weeks she noticed that she wasn’t alone. This tollbooth employee had a relationship with every regular commuter, exiting the train and waving. Some mornings there would be dozens of people who would wave, and stop to say hello on their way to the subway stairs.

This man’s purpose wasn’t raised on a banner for the rest of the world to see, but rather he connected to the world through the act of purposeful living.

If you’ve decided that this is the year to find your purpose, the good news is you can relax. It’s already there and best lived through you. The way to find purpose is to apply it generously; to the crappy jobs, and the sleepless nights, and the hours stuck in traffic. If our lives are purposeful, then nothing gets excluded.

Our moments, after all, only have the meaning we give them.

Fill'er Up, Pour it Out: A Practice of Gratitude

The weather has officially "turned" here in the States, the last autumn leaves are covered with snowfall, pumpkin-flavored-everything has hit a fever pitch and a finale, and Holiday shopping season has been ushered in with Door Busters and Cyber Monday. 

I was grateful to spend this Thanksgiving with my big, loud and loving Italian family in Coastal Ohio. I brought my beau home for the first time (who my Grandpa playfully dubbed “Zonk, King of New York.”), cuddled a tribe of toddlers, carb loaded like a marathoner, downloaded old family photos (including the foxy shot of my Grandma, above), and went on a thrift store treasure hunt with my cousin, Cyllie. 
I also contemplated Gratitude. The Giving of Thanks, and the heartbeat of the holiday we were all celebrating. 

Gratitude has been a buzz word for quite some time now, pulling rank on Instagram and Twitter (#blessed #grateful #humblebrag) and the glossy personal journals sold in Barnes and Noble. 

But, really, what is Gratitude when it's not just a hashtag that expresses our good fortune, or a warm feeling between our collar bones? 

Is gratitude something that we can do? Activate? Cultivate? Expand? 

Brother David Steindl-Rast, a Benedictine monk, who has dedicated his life to exploring this question gives a gorgeous understanding of Gratitude that I love so much I had to share. It's simply this: Practice Gratefulness and Thanksgiving. 

The first branch is Gratefulness. Open hearted appreciation for what we have right here in it’s naked, mundane state. It's the sense of being touched by the moment. Letting our lives penetrate us. Break us open. 

Hands palms up in the mudra of Receiving. 

The mantra: Fill ‘er up, please. 

In action, the Fill'er Up branch looks like 
•spending time with children, animals, wildlife, or anything else that brings you close to your essential nature. 

•Saying “yes” when someone offers you their resources. Even if it’s awkward, or difficult. We all like to help. Let us. 

•Unpluging your internet for 2 hours. (Literally, take the router plug out of the socket.) Crawling under the covers and reading for pleasure. 

•Stargazing, Cloud watching, connecting to that place inside that recognizes the paradox of our immensity and tinyness when we turn our gaze upward.

•Asking for what we need, while trusting that our Ask is based in mutual respect and the spirit of Generosity. Even if it’s awkward or difficult. We all like to help. Really, please let us. 

•Keeping a journal. It doesn’t matter what you write, it’s simply a commitment to converse with yourself. An act of friendship and solidarity. 

The second branch is Thanksgiving. It's described as the moment when our vessel is full from the generosity of life-stuff, and we feel moved into the action of expression. We're compelled to contribute, freely transfer, and furnish others with our inspiration and good fortune. This is the juice of creative bursts and authentic exchanges. Our levy overflows. 

Hands palms up in the mudra of Giving. 

The mantra: Pour it out, thank you. 

In action, Pouring it Out looks like
•Making something and sharing it. Whatever floats your creative boat. A CD mix with a magazine collage cover, a pecan pie, a workshop, your writing, a stick figure comic strip, a limerick or a sock puppet. Infuse it with your inspiration, and then give that sh*t away with love. 

•Introducing people, unprovoked, because you think they might really dig each other, as new friends, lovers, or co-conspirators. Good things happen when good people meet. 

•Looking at the woman behind the counter in the eye as you take your change and thank her while thinking “you’re lovely.” See her beautiful humanness, and reflect it back to her. 

•Writing a thank you note to someone who’s support has allowed you to flourish, and be specific about the qualities you admire and appreciate about them. Send it via snail mail. We all like to get presents in the mail. 

Generosity and Greatfulness are perfect bed buddies, flip sides of the same coin, two branches of the same tree, and what Gratitude looks like in action.

We have to give it to get it and vice versa. Gratitude doesn't stick, it flows. 

The Beauty of Being Right Sized: An Antidote for Perfectionism

My mom is the kind of mom who receives messages from the Universe. 

This sounds a little "woo woo", I know. 

However, she speaks about it as Eastern philosophers speak of contemplation practices, or Judeo-Christians speak of prayer, holding a question or thought in mind until she receives a response, or spark of insight. 

Often this happens spontaneously, when her mind is relaxed with other activities, and sometimes the messages are for me. 

One evening during a very dark winter she called me up with just such a message. It was on the heels of botching something that was extremely important to me. I had planned it all month, certain I would receive accolades, praise, and tiny yellow tea roses thrown at my feet for being a quiet genius, revealed. 

Instead, I had a panic attack. Full out. Breathless, body quakes, phlegmy tears rolling down my chin while a circle of my peers watched me unfold.

Aka: The worst.

In a fit of humiliation, I had self-quarantined in my bedroom for the remainder of the weekend, hoping my bedsheets would swallow me whole, cocoon and transform me, eventually releasing me reborn on the beaches of Bali in June. 

This didn't happen.

Instead, my mom called. 

"The Universe has a message for you... It's 'Humility.'" 

OH. REALLY.

I received this "offering" the same way as I would if the Universe had a message for me: "You've let yourself go since high school", or, if the Universe had a message for me: "Your face is too round for that new haircut."

It seemed like a celestial-padded jab from my mother. 

NOT what I wanted to hear. 

But as we know, our needs and our wants are distinctly different devices.

So I did what any wallowing word-nerd would do, which is find the definition of "Humility" on Wiki, looking for even more reasons to be injured by this insult.

Humility. (n) Close to the Earth, grounded, right sized. 

It took a bit of contemplating (and a bit more wallowing), but eventually, I got it.

My expectations of myself and my performance had been so inflated, so dependent on grandiose standards, and my desire to be praised, that I collapsed when it didn't play out as desired.

Perfectionism in drag. Disproportionate thinking. The gap between expectation and a reality sandwich can be brutal. 

One of the finest antidotes is staying right sized. 

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3 Practices for Staying Right Sized 

1::Drop Expectations, Embrace Intentions.

Desire is the root of all action, but the intention we approach our desires with can be the linchpin difference between staying stuck, beating ourselves up afterwards, or shaking off slights and moving forward with personal permission. 

Is our reason for acting dependent on the outcome? Is it because we expect to change someone, be received a certain way, or to get something in return? 

Motivation that's dependent on outcomes that we can't control is the best recipe for staying in a perfectionist "freeze", or falling apart in the after wash. 

Rather, ask yourself "How do I want to participate in this? With compassion? Honesty? Dedication? Humor?" We can control how we 'show up', and honoring our intentions vs expectations keeps us right sized, and confident in our abilities; regardless of how the situation plays out. 

2:: When in doubt, Generosity trumps all. 

Humility doesn't mean thinking less of yourself, it means thinking of yourself less.

The concern that I hear most often from clients is some variation of: "What if I look silly?" or "What if they think I'm a fraud/chump/total loser" or "What if I make the wrong decision?" 

I've felt every one of these anxieties nestled in the pit of my stomach at some point, and the one thing that they all have in common, is that the anxiety lens is intently focused on ME. 

As my teacher, Venerable Robina Courtin so divinely put it: "We're so wrapped up in what other people think of us. It's a fucking nightmare."

I really like ordained nuns that drop F* bombs. I also think she's spot on. 

Peeling our attention off of ourselves and how we'll be perceived, while pinning it to what we want to contribute, offer, and create for the sake of others is the most effective way that I've found to navigate the tides of inflated/deflated thinking. 

When we do something for others, we organically drop into our right size. 

3.  Revel in Enoughness

Abundance is sexy. I get it.

The idea of living the luxe life, and chasing the dream of "having more and being more" is super seductive and ingrained in our cultural mythology. However, it also leaves us unsatisfied and unaware of what we have sitting right in front of us.

When we're prone to inflating who we are in the world with every new compliment/promotion/win/shiny thing, and deflating with every disappointment/discouragement/challenge/loss, our sense of self worth is always in flux.

As Alice said to the Caterpillar in Wonderland, "I'm not myself, you see...being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.". 

You said it, sister. And it's exhausting. Being right sized means being able to inhabit what we have right here right now, appreciate that it's not perfect, and admire that it's "enough".

Ourselves included.