Seeds of Change

You know how if you plant seeds,

it takes time for the fruits of the seeds

to push up through the ground’s surface?

Same goes for the changes you want to manifest.

They take time to see.

~Karen Salmansohn

The thing about seeds is that they don’t grow overnight. You can plant them, water them—even talk to them—and you get nothing, or at least that’s how it seems. But there’s business going on underground: roots are forming, intertwining with others for mutual support and growth, while decisions are being made about how many flowers, or apples, or tomatoes will grow from that seed. Then one day, just when you thought nothing was happening—BAM! Signs of life emerge from the ground, reaching for the sunlight. Suddenly, it all makes perfect sense.

So it is with you and me.  Dreams are our seeds of change.  Words are also seeds, and when dropped into the ether, whether spoken or held deeply in our spirit, they grow and bring forth their kind.  Nothing grows without a seed.  Nothing changes without a dream.  And as we move deeper into fall, I’m reminded how temporary it all is. Seasons change. People come and go. Time marches on, waiting for no one, yet moving us forward in rhythm with the silent longings of our hearts.

Just as the Aspen leaves turn green, then gold, falling to the ground with winter’s early warning, I’m reminded that we, too, must first die to one life before experiencing the new growth of spring.  We must clear space; shed a part of what we know and make room for what we want to create. We know it’s coming; we’ve longed for it.  Yet so often we fear the change we seek.

Consider the Aspen—do you think it spends the winter fearing that it will never again experience the joy of having beautiful leaves adorn its branches? Questioning the essence of its being? Wishing things were different? Regretting having done what is in its nature to do? I think not.  It’s rather like they are hibernating, conserving energy for the new cycle of life that will emerge come spring.

Why should it be any different with people? Consider what you do between cycles of change, waiting for your seeds to grow. How do you fill your time? What do you give your energy to?

When you’re moving through change, yet you can’t quite see the end result, do you live in fear that where you are is all your life will ever be? Or do you get busy doing what you can to organize yourself, energize your thoughts, and develop a good plan to support your change as you move forward?

All changes, even the most longed for, 
have their melancholy;

for what we leave behind is part of ourselves;

we must die to one life before we can enter into another.

~Anatole France

Even when change comes from a conscious choice to restructure some aspect of our life—to let go of a dead-end relationship, change careers, start a family, create a new business or embark on a great travel adventure—it is tempting to spend our time in an anxious state, questioning our decisions, worrying that it will all go horribly wrong; expecting signs of new life to emerge immediately on the heels of our decision to change, just after planting the seeds.

But if we could step back and observe ourselves from a distance, we would see that we aren’t done yet: We are still moving toward a destination that we can’t quite see because we’re consumed with the day-to-day experience of our change, slowed by the natural timing of things; like watching seeds grow underground.

Remember: To everything there is a reason, a season, a cycle and right timing. Work with the energy of change, not against it. Be patient and mindful of life’s rhythms.  Use down time to improve where you can, turning weaknesses into strengths.  And prepare yourself, for a bright new tomorrow will emerge just as surely as the snow falls on changing leaves.

Will you be ready?

It's All the Rage

Anybody can become angry—that is easy,

but to be angry with the right person

and to the right degree

and at the right time

and for the right purpose,

and in the right way—

that is not within everybody’s power

and is not easy.

~ Aristotle

Laughing Men, Vancouver, B.C.

Picture it:  You’re stopped at a red light waiting for it to turn.  Green. You barely have time to lift your foot from the brake when the car behind you starts blaring the horn.  Maybe she’s trying to tell me something, you think.  Is something wrong with my car?  Stunned, you haven’t moved through the light yet when the driver in the car behind you approaches.  You roll down the window.  She starts screaming at you then punches you in the face.  In self-defense, you cover your face with your hands, but then she grabs your wrist and bites off your middle finger—at the knuckle, through the bone—before fleeing the scene.

Sounds crazy but it’s a true story that happened in my aunt’s Northern Virginia neighborhood.  Aside from the obvious questions, like what allows a person to bite through skin and bone and blood vessels to remove part of a finger?  And once bitten, what do you do with it?  Spit it out?  Throw it in the owner’s car?  Leave it in the street?  I have to ask:  Why are we so angry?

You’re better than that.

You’re not an angry person, not the fighting kind.  You’re a volunteer, your son’s baseball coach, a Sunday school teacher at church.  Just last month, you attended a community fundraising event and donated money to support a local homeless shelter.

And yet you have these moments where anger gets the better of you—where ugliness turns you inside out and the worst parts of your nature are revealed; moments when your frustration builds to a fury and explodes in ridiculous ways as you burn those around you with your annoyance. 

Like yesterday when you got stuck in the wrong line at Whole Foods.  You stopped on your way from work, in a hurry to get home and make dinner.  You only needed three things, which should have taken five minutes from door to door.  Instead, the woman from Minnesota in front of you decides to write a check for her groceries.  Slowly. And of course, the cashier couldn’t figure out how to enter an out of state check into the system, which led to multiple cries for help on the P.A. system that went unanswered, followed by more failed attempts to process the check.  You’re ashamed to admit it, but you were huffing and puffing and on the verge of throwing your money at the cashier and storming out with your groceries.

Then, as you’re headed home, there’s a guy driving slow in the pass lane, blocking the free flow of traffic.  As you try to pass him on the right, you see that he’s talking on his cell phone and completely oblivious to the fact that there are other people on the road.  You make a point to give him your best stink eye with your face just inches from your window, and nearly rear-end the car in front of you because you’re so blinded by your rage.  Now you’re laying on your horn, screaming some shameful obscenity that your offender can’t even hear and, which, in any other moment you wouldn’t dare speak.  What's wrong with you?  One look in the mirror and you would see the reflection of a crazy person.

The scary thing is—you’re not alone.  There are a lot of “you” out there.

Take a look around.  We’re all losing it over something or another.  Our anger boils over in our politics and religions, in our music and social networking, in our schools and sporting events, in our jobs.  We rage over inconveniences.  We shake our fists with righteous indignation when others don’t do what we want.  Why? 

Have we become a culture so entitled to comfort and ease that we steamroll anyone or anything that gets in our way?  Are we simply scared of not getting what we want, afraid that we can’t handle it if things don’t go our way?  Perhaps we’re so accustomed to expressing our feelings and anger that we can’t keep it in check anymore.  Or maybe we’re suffering from a spiritual starvation that demands to be fed yet we don’t even realize what we’re hungry for? 

Its not an easy question to answer.  For starters, there just aren’t any clear-cut ways to judge how pissed off people really are, and why.  Perhaps we can ponder this the next time we’re recovering from a meltdown.  I dare you.  It’s all the rage. 

Stressing the Vine

When we long for life without difficulties,

remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds

and diamonds are made under pressure. 
― Peter Marshall

People speak of wanting an easy life.  But how many of us really want it ‘easy’?  If our desire was met and we faced only comfort and ease, wouldn’t we soon become bored?  Where’s the fun in life without challenge?  Where’s the flavor without spice?  Where’s the growth without pruning?  Would we not seek to create our own chaos if chaos didn’t exist, particularly where situations have become stale or too readily assured?  I dare say that we would.

Yet we hear so much about how unhealthy chronic stress is for our bodies.  We need only turn on the news or read a health post on the Internet to discover all of the reasons why we should rid our lives of this toxin.  Constantly faced with demands, frustrations, hassles and deadlines, it seems impossible to break free.  But do we really want to break free?  Might this be where the magic happens?

Consider the life of a wine grape.  While it’s true that many agricultural endeavors require nutrient rich soil to thrive, winemakers worldwide will tell you that when it comes to growing grapes for wine, fertile soil is not always the best.  In fact, most California vineyards are planted in soil that would choke the life out of other crops.  Growers look for nutrient poor or even dry soil that drains well because it forces the vines to extend their roots far into the dirt to find sustenance—stressing the vine—and causing them to direct their energy and sugar into grape clusters instead of leaves, which produces small grape berries.  A handful of tiny grapes will be almost all skin and very little juice, which translates into a rich, concentrated color and flavor in the wine.  For these growers and vintners, the stressed grape is the best grape and produces the superior vintage.

Might we also benefit from a bit of stress on the vine?  In our periods of stress we are called to break out of our complacency, extend ourselves beyond the comfort zone, and direct our energy to find ways to thrive even under the most pressure-filled conditions.  We are given an opportunity to turn our negative stressors into positive ones that help us to grow, remain vital and alive.  We learn to think positive and remain hopeful for better days. We discover how strong and capable we are.  And if we stretch, we learn that humor and laughter are the catalysts that lift us out of our oppression and transform us into the most colorful and delicious versions of ourselves, like the wine grape.

So perhaps what we really mean is that we want an ‘easier’ life, every now and then; a break from worrying that a certain wolf may huff and puff and blow our house down.  If an easier life is what you desire then I suggest you can have it, simply by making up your mind to not dwell on factors that you cannot change and, instead, look for ways to set a positive process in motion; and trust that there is a good reason for this.

Stepping Into the Future

The future is something which everyone reaches

at the rate of sixty minutes an hour,

whatever he does,

whoever he is.

~C.S. Lewis

Mooghaun Hillfort - Dromoland, Ireland
(MHopkins 2013)

People speak of “putting the past behind us”.  But where else can the past be put?  It has only one place it belongs and, once there, can only be a reference point for the future.  Yet we make it a part of our present by clinging so tightly to our experience.  We go round and round in our heads, remembering some conversation, slight or injustice, real or imagined, and we stay stuck in that feedback loop reliving it again and again, often exaggerated and out of context because now we’re focused on some isolated aspect of our otherwise fading memory, giving it life, meaning and a whole host of expressions that perhaps never were.   Imagine what we miss while running around the same tired circles!

Can you see it?  How clinging to an aspect of our past might prevent us from seizing something wonderful that is available to us in the here and now?  Consider this: 

A new form of clinical psychology known as acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) stems from the understanding that a great deal of our psychological pain comes not so much from the experience itself, but from the words we use over and over to describe our experience.  Instead of getting stuck in our heads and avoiding any real forward movement, ACT encourages acceptance of the situation, conscious choice of direction and action, bringing more meaning and psychological flexibility into our lives in the process.

In his book Get Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life, author and ACT co-founder, Steven Hayes, suggests that we can actually repeat a troubling word or concept over and over until it loses meaning and power in our lives.  Take the word grass, for instance.  Hayes recommends repeating the word over and over for 49 seconds.  Grass, grass, grass, grass, grass, grass…  The theory is that at some point, your mind will stop associating ‘grass’ with the luscious green stuff and observe it as a meaningless noise.  This disconnect between words and reality will allow us to drop those mind movies that have been tormenting us.  Why not give it a go,  beginning with ‘grass’ or some other word of your choosing and then moving on to the more emotionally charged descriptors that unnerve you, like ‘rejection’ or ‘failure’ or ‘broke,’ or any other parade of horrible that you can conjure.  The idea is to rub out the sting these words carry so that you can deal with life free from the fear created by your internal dialogue from the past.  Sound feasible? 

Diagnosis, they say, is half the cure.  But we’re best careful with how we use our diagnosis lest it becomes the story we tell about our life, the reason for why we can’t have or be or do what we want.  For just as understanding the root of our problem paves the way for setting it right, so too can it provide a ready excuse for not living our best life.

Is there something that you’re ready to put down, let go of, and leave behind?  Are you ready to reach for something new and make it real in your life?  As you move into a great new year, now is a perfectly fine opportunity to trade what torments for something more solid and real so that it becomes part of your future.

Wishing you all the best in 2014!

LOOK WHERE YOU WANT TO GO

Why would you give your precious life energy . . .

to something you [don’t] want?

~Dr. Wayne Dyer

The Road Less Traveled
Connemara Region, Ireland © 2013 MHopkins

While learning to ride her motorcycle, my mother decided to practice in their neighborhood.  Having made the loop, she topped the hill and came to a stop, preparing to make a left turn.  That’s when she saw it—the neighbor’s mailbox just across the way—and though she tried not to look at the mailbox and, instead, focus on the road before her, as she turned left, eyes still on the mailbox, she veered off course and crashed…into the neighbor’s mailbox; the very thing she wanted to avoid.

There is a golden rule of motorcycle riding that says “look where you want to go.”  Though she knew it in theory, my mother learned this the hard way.  There are many long and complicated theoretical reasons why this rule of riding might be true, but none that make any real sense except the idea of target fixation, which says, in essence, that what you focus on expands. 

And so it is in our every day lives.  How often do we repeat some aspect of the past or dwell on the negative parts of our situation and then find ourselves faced with more of what we don’t want, instead of giving attention to what we would most like to create and then taking small steps each day to make that vision our reality?  Maybe we’re unhappy in our relationship or we dislike our job or we don’t like the extra weight we’re carrying around like a spare tire, yet instead of creating a positive plan of how to get from here to there we focus in on what we don’t like, complaining or feeling sorry for ourselves, repeating the same bad habits, or avoiding the discomfort of change, and so we keep driving our proverbial motorcycles around and crashing into the same mailboxes. 

It is impossible to be angry and laugh at the same time.

Anger and laughter are mutually exclusive

and you have the power to choose either.

~Wayne Dyer

Choice is the essence of our free will, and it is through our choices that we direct the course of our lives.  While we may disagree with the actions of others and even dislike our own circumstances, we have the right, power and opportunity to make choices every day—the attitude we adopt, how we respond to the world around us, where we place our attention, the thoughts we entertain, what we take responsibility for, the meaning we give to the events of our lives, and what or to whom we give our power.  It’s all energy, and the lightness or heaviness of that energy determines much about our physical, mental and spiritual health. 

Take another look down the road you're traveling.  Do you really want to go there?