(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Do you live in your head?  I do.  Constantly.  I’ve been a watcher since I was a child.  I observe people and behaviors.  I watch the theater that happens all around me, most of the time without being a central character in the play.  I suspect this comes to a great extent from being an only child and spending the majority of my time with adults, or playing alone and being raised by conservative, non-risk taking parents.

Even when I created close friendships growing up, many of which I still have today, I’d wind up back inside my head, because they moved away for this reason or the other reason to other states.

I had never really thought about it much until I went through some couples counseling many years ago.  One of the first things the counselor pinpointed about me was that I spend a lot of time, perhaps too much time, inside my head.  This meant that I didn’t express my feelings much, I didn’t talk a lot or share a lot with my boyfriend.  Of course, part of that came from what I experienced from him when I did share in the beginning of the relationship.  I suspect those experiences reinforced my natural tendency to live in my head.

When I was struggling with too many changes in major quadrants of my life a few years ago, a second counselor, again, pointed it out to me. Being inside my head is a coping mechanism almost as much as it is a natural tendency.

So, it is something in relationships, especially with men, I think holds me back.  I am reticent to share my inner most feelings, and thoughts.  I am reticent to share my living space – not meaning to live with someone, but to just have them over and in my personal sanctuary.  I am extremely reticent to share my family.

In some ways, it has served me well.  Especially in my work life, because it’s allowed me to “see” things that others didn’t.  So, it offered me the opportunity to make contributions that were and are meaningful, because I listened and observed more than I talked and did.

It also helps me understand my surroundings and the people in them better.  People have come to me since I was a teenager for help and to talk through the things going on in their lives.  Being a watcher, and more inside my head has helped me ask the right questions at the right time because I’m constantly asking myself questions to clarify what I’m thinking and feeling.  It’s helped me be a better listener when others needed to talk.

As I travel my path, and listen to my calling – to write, to teach, to offer assistance and support – I realize I have to move more into the play.  I have to be central to the story of my own life in a more outward way, a supporting character in the story of others’ lives, and share my thoughts, my experiences, my life.  This comes with risk and requires me to get OUT of my own head.

Getting out of my head, and into my life is something I have to consciously do, because, as you can see, it doesn’t come all that naturally to me.  Knowing it about myself, and recognizing it in myself (which are two very different things) help me realize when I’m doing it.  It also helps me understand when I’ve been spending way too much time doing it.  Which I have been of late.

Do you live inside your head?  What do you do to get out of it, to engage?

Cathy Lynn

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SERENDIPITY (Photo credit: alex drennan)

It’s always amazing to me when things just fall into place.  I’ve been a witness to just such an event recently.A little over a week ago, as my aunt and I sat on my parents front porch talking, she mentioned how good it had been to catch up with my mom and a couple of friends while she was visiting.  (Her house burned a couple of years ago, and she moved to live with a friend two hours away.)  She hasn’t really made many friends in her new city, and she finds it a tad lonely at times. 

My aunt loves working with the elderly, and she’s good at it.  It was a large part of her work life for many, many years. Her last job was still working with seniors and lower income families.  She has a knack for it that few have.  So, I suggested she look into something along those lines, perhaps as a part timer in an assisted living community.  She said she had considered that, and there was one not far from where she lives.  She left later in the day, and I didn’t think about it any further because she didn’t really seem all that receptive to the idea.

She called me the next day to tell me that when she got almost home, she stopped off at a convenience store to get a coke.  Once inside the store, a man was talking to someone else about how badly the assisted living place needed help.  He was asking that if the person knew anyone who might be interested to send them his way.  She commented to him that she was interested, and as luck would have it, he was actually the owner!  She told him about her background, and he took her phone number, gave her his card and asked her to go online and fill out an application.

The owner had called her that morning to make sure she was still interested, and to let her know he’d alerted his folks to look for her application.  He also told her, she could come in person to fill one out if she wanted, and gave her directions to their offices.  When she told her friend about it, he was very supportive and offered to go with her to the offices.

I told her, “You know, when this sort of thing happens, you can’t say no, right?”

She laughed and said, “Yeah, you think I might be shooting myself in the foot if I don’t walk through the door, huh?”

She told me later, when she got to the office to fill out the application, the owner was actually there, and got her all settled with the right people.  As of today, they are doing her background check.  I suspect within the next couple of weeks, she’ll have herself a part time job that she will love.

This event just solidifies for me that serendipity is alive and well.  That when you finally open yourself and trust, the Universe will offer up what you want.  Have you had a serendipitous moment lately?  What did it solidify for you?

Cathy Lynn

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Our days are getting warmer here and the morning dew reveals things I usually don’t see. This morning I walked past the same patch of grass as yesterday but today I noticed a cobweb in the grass highlighted by the dew and morning light. On my walk back I noticed another delicate cobweb in a Lantana bush. The spider’s web has probably been there every day but I had not seen it until today. I stopped to consider my next thought: this is what hope looks like. What we wish for or dream of could be so close but it’s not the right time to see it or experience it.

Just because you can’t witness it with one of your senses doesn’t mean it’s not there or not possible. Perhaps what you hope for is waiting to be revealed or seen in the right circumstance.

-Rebecca

I know I am doing what I am meant to do because I experience incredible joy from many aspects of it: teaching, sharing inspiration, brining like-minded people together, witnessing amazing connections, and always learning more myself. 

Pursuing this work has taught me a valuable lesson (one of many) about listening to my heart.  I remember when I first started down the path of considering coaching as a career. I was feeling like I hated my job, which was very difficult for me to come to terms with because I had worked so hard to build a successful career in environmental consulting. I had an interest in becoming a coach, but I couldn’t really identify where the interest came from and I certainly had no idea how I could make a career transition. I remember feeling unfulfilled and being drawn to coaching because I felt like I could make a more meaningful contribution doing that work.  These are feelings that were coming from my heart, rather than my head, which was new for me to pay attention to and act on because I have always been analytical and listened primarily to my head.

I am incredibly grateful I followed my heart and pursued the dream that percolated inside me. I didn’t understand it at the time, but now it all seems to make sense. I had always felt like I wanted to be a teacher, but I didn’t understand what that meant because I wasn’t interested in traditional teaching roles.  I know now that I just didn’t have all the information I needed to understand, and I still haven’t figured out how to totally make the career transition.  However, as I experience deep fulfillment when I hear feedback from people I’m connected with through my coaching work who have transformed their lives, I gain a better understanding of why it’s important to follow your heart. I believe everyone has a knowing in your heart that will lead you to your best path if you listen and don’t try to figure out why or all the details. Get quiet inside, allow the dreams in your heart to emerge, and take action even if you don’t understand how or why – the path will reveal itself and you will learn what you need as you experience more joy and fulfillment. What dreams have been percolating inside your heart?  

-Carolee

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Here in Twangtown, we don’t have St. Patrick’s Day parades and such.  There are lots of celebratory things that go on in the pubs and bars around town, but that’s just not my scene.  So, tomorrow night, I’ll be celebrating the green holiday with some friends at a restaurant I’ve wanted to go to since I first heard about it 25ish years ago, but have never been.

We’ll be participating in the 78^th annual St. Patrick’s Day celebration at Jimmy Kelly’s.  There will be good food, spirits, Irish music, and supposedly Irish jokes – not sure what that will entail.  It will be an upscale evening with some good friends, having dinner in a Victorian mansion with lots of ambiance and character.

As I was growing up, it was tradition in my family to have beef stew and cornbread on St. Patty’s day.  We’d gather at my maternal grandparent’s house, decorate with some green stuff, and have a grand time.  My mother’s family is English/Scots/Irish, so it made sense that we would do a little celebrating of the day! The celebration tomorrow night will have a more adult flair to it, in that it will include some adult beverages, something that wasn’t allowed in my family as I grew up!  We will most certainly be responsible about imbibing, so no worries on that front.

I’m planning to wear something green, and my St. Patrick’s Day jewelry, fix my hair and wear green eye shadow.  I’ll enjoy my friends company, laugh heartily and eat a big steak (I’m not a fan of corned beef and cabbage!).

What will you be doing?

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Rain (Photo credit: eirikso)

The rain drenched city stretched out in front of me as I got off the interstate this morning.  Traffic wasn’t too bad, all things considered, and I’d made it to that point in the usual commute time.  I thought about work most of the way in, and a couple of situations that have been trying to say the least.  The situations had me spun up yesterday, but as I drove in the rain, I felt myself winding down.

Rain does that for me.  It gives me the opportunity to slow down and relax.  The water is like a conduit that allows my thoughts to flow more freely, and associate things in different ways.  It’s almost meditational for me.

There are folks who have issues with overcast and rainy days.  It’s all depressing to them.  I actually have a friend whose mood can be pretty sour if it rains more than a day, or it’s overcast for more than a couple of days.  It’s something that’s hard for me to understand.

And I know I’ve written several times in this blog about just how much I love rain.  Today, though, it really hit home with more force than it has in quite some time.  I could just feel my stress level decreasing as the rain got harder and harder.  Once in my office, I was able to look out at the city and see the cloud ceiling almost touching the tops of the buildings.  The low lighting in my office continued that feeling of decompression

It also made me realize I’ve got to find a way of harnessing the effect rain has on me so that I can use it at any given time, but especially in times when my stress level is through the roof, as it has been of late. Maybe it’s the full moon illuminating something for me, offering me a clue on how to start working back to a balanced point.  Perhaps a CD of rain and storm sounds would do the trick?  Not sure, but it’s something I’ll be looking into.

I need the rain.  It’s something in my makeup, in my code, in my soul.  What do you need for peace of mind and de-stressing?

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Thinking about New Zealand reminded me of my childhood pen pal, Selena, who lived in New Zealand when we were writing to each other back in the 1970s. I haven’t thought about her in several years but now I wonder how she’s doing and what has happened to her. Was she affected directly by these earthquakes? What is her life like now? 

I don’t remember how I was matched with a pen pal from New Zealand when I was 12. We exchanged letters for a few years. We even arranged a phone call and I remember Mom coaching me about what to say because suddenly I was nervous on the phone. I was a kid talking to someone with an accent on the other side of the world. I’m so glad Mom encouraged that call because it is a vivid memory. Maybe that was the beginning of my interest in other countries and cultures. I don’t remember Selena’s last name and can’t find any letters so I will likely not find her to reconnect. But I hold her in my heart.

In 1994 I began writing to four people matched as a pen pal and have stayed in touch with two of them. After writing for several years,  I met Linda from Holland three times and she is so fun and cosmopolitan. She loves to travel, too. I have lots of fond memories of her visit to Louisiana, my visit to Amsterdam, and meeting up in London one weekend.  I loved the letters from Karen living in Australia describing her growing family and it’s fun to read how her sons have grown. She’s a funny, chatty writer and great at describing her life in rural Australia. From her I first understood how extensive American culture is because she knows so much about it through movies.  Because of her I notice Australian actors and movies and eagerly look for stories about Australia. When I heard about the flooding last year in Queensland, I was grateful for email to be able to find out she and her family were okay. Visiting her in Australia is on my bucket list. Though the internet has made it quicker to communicate, we don’t message each other as often as we did when sending paper letters across oceans. Why is that?

All this pen friend reflection led me to consider what it takes to cultivate and maintain a friendship. It’s easier when you’re living near each other or working together every day. But it takes a real commitment to maintain a feeling of connection and caring over long distances. We’ve probably all faced that in friendships when one or the other friend changes jobs or moves somewhere new. Those connections often fade over time but that doesn’t mean you don’t care, right? I do care. Today I’m feeling lots of gratitude for all the people who have shared my path at some point and what they’ve taught me. I hope they’re well and happy wherever they are now and remember me fondly.

I need to close this post and send a note to Linda and Karen, my pen friends, and tell them how much I’ve appreciated their friendship. To catch up and keep up one letter at a time.

-Rebecca

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Related Blog Posts Elsewhere on WordPress:

• Want a penpal? (moosenoose.com)
• Bucket List Item #9: Correspond with long-term penpals (zarabucketlist.wordpress.com)
• The Penpal Come-back … Kinda (bittersweetbyname.wordpress.com)

I enjoyed this exercise again in both of the trainings that I attended, validating my feelings and getting in touch with my inner guidance each time. Today I decided to use this exercise to help me explore some questions that my coach and I have been discussing. He routinely asks me to write about challenges that we discuss, so as I was writing this morning I decided to try drawing with the question I am mulling over now - how to more effectively move my personal business forward.

The exercise goes like this. You draw pictures in response to three questions, with the final question formatted in a way to engage your intuition. The questions I wrote today to help me explore my current challenges are:

1. How do I see myself doing my personal business now?
2. How do I see myself with my personal business fully created?
3. How do I most effectively move from 1 to 2?  

The process of creating each drawing gives form to the ideas in my head and the feelings in my heart. What do I include? How do I represent my thoughts on the paper? What colors do I use? I feel like this exercise engages different aspects of my inner knowledge, and I love being creative with it. How often do I get the opportunity to pull out my colors and get to act like a kid again? And the beauty of its simplicity amazes me.

What challenges are you struggling with? Try exploring it through this drawing exercise and let me know what fabulous insights you tap into.

-Carolee

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Vanity Fair features the Proust Questionnaire on its back page and I love reading what famous or notable people answer. For instance, I tore out and saved the page featuring Wynton Marsalis’ answers and I smiled when I read his answer to “What or who is the greatest love of your life?” He said, “The Blues. (It cost a lot to find her and much more to maintain our relationship.)” True that! I love blues music, too, and he had other interesting answers that made me consider the various ways we find inspiration.

After reading several years of answers from other people, I thought about how I would answer these questions. “When and where were you happiest?” “What is your greatest fear?” “What is your idea of perfect happiness?” “What do you consider your greatest achievement?” “What is it you most dislike?” “Who are your heroes in life?” There are more questions like this and they really make me think about how I see myself and consider the influences in my life.

Marcel Proust used this questionnaire at parties when friends gathered together and it’s fun to think of people answering these fundamental questions more than a century on. Read here how Marcel Proust answered the Questionnaire in 1892.

You can answer the basic Proust Questionnaire at Vanity Fair here. I’d love to hear what question you thought was significant and how you answered if you care to share it in the comments.

The last question on the list is “What is your motto?” I recall something Auntie Mame said in the movie Mame, “Life’s a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death.” Perhaps that best explains my love of travel. I want to fill up on adventure and add a healthy sprinkling of love in everything.

-Rebecca

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It’s a day for lovers.  It’s a day of flowers, candy, romantic dinners and steamy evenings!  But, what if you don’t have a Valentine?  Then what?

Be your own Valentine and celebrate loving yourself!  And here’s a few suggestions on how to do it:

Stop by the grocery and pick the makings of your favorite meal.  Go home, put on some good music and cook for yourself.  Pull out a place setting of your best dishes, your favorite pretty glass and light a candle.  Then enjoy your meal.

Fill your bathroom with candles, and just give yourself a good relaxing soak.

Call and schedule yourself a massage.

Buy yourself some roses.  Most any store around will have a single rose, to a dozen roses relatively inexpensively.

Wear your favorite outfit, the one that leaves you feeling the way you’d like to feel all the time.

Pick up your favorite candy and savor it.

Watch your favorite romantic comedy.

Whatever you decide to do, do it well, and do it for yourself because you’re the most important person in your life.  You deserve to treat yourself that way!

Happy Valentine’s Day from 3 Shared Paths!

Cathy Lynn, Rebecca, Carolee

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