Notes from the Woods

Every Monday, three friends and I get together for a chat, catching each other up on the happenings of the previous week. We’ve been doing this now for nearly 18 years.

It all began as a Master Mind group focused on self-development and having, as I recall, a dozen or so original members. Over time, interests changed, life took people in new directions and our group dwindled down to us four. We met via conference call for many years. Now we meet on Zoom and love seeing each other’s faces..

Last week I found some notes I’d made after a call from a decade ago. We were talking about how each of us tends to think of our own life as ordinary. Mundane. Pretty routine. Boring, even. But then we realized that we found each other’s lives fascinating. We keep calling every week, after all, just to find out what happened next.

It turns out that what happened next usually wasn’t some great achievement or adventure (although we’ve had our share of those), but instead it was maybe a new insight or observation, a way of looking at the familiar from a slightly different vantage point.

We had been talking at the time about ways we could become more aware of the stories we tell ourselves, of the habitual labels and judgments that we slap on our experiences, and how becoming aware of that helps us break free of them and lets us experience things with greater freshness and joy.

So I got to thinking about the way we label our lives as ordinary and deem that to be a negative thing, as if life held zest only if it was filled with new and exciting events.

What if, I wondered, we chose to see the routines of our lives as a pleasure? What if we awakened to the comfort they gave us?

What if our stretches of boredom were simply the result of not paying attention? Ta-dah! There’s a little eureka moment for you!

Then, mid-week, I was doing some random surfing on the Web and I stumbled on one of those “photos of the day” sites that offers glimpses into the way people around the globe are spending their time. There’s a lot of celebration and achievement going on out there! But there’s a lot of pain and conflict and suffering, too. And the photos showed the whole range.

The photos that struck me most were one of a woman feeding her infant a spoonful of soup inside a tent in a refugee camp, and one of a father holding rolled razor wire up with a stick so his five year old daughter could crawl under it toward the relative safety that waited on the other side.

And I’m going to complain that my life is routine and ordinary? I could be one of the firefighters battling flames. Or one of those whose homes were burning. I could be digging through mud with a stick, trying to find any belongings the flood may have left behind.

May I be grateful for the ordinariness of my life!

Yesterday, I went in search of insights into the benefits of ordinariness from other people. The first one I found brought the photos back to mind:

“How we take it for granted – those trivial conversations; those mundane moments that we think hold no meaning. We never realize how much we rely on the ordinariness of everyday life. When love is gone – when our entire world is gone – only then do we understand those moments are what we live for.”

― Dianna Hardy, in Cry Of The Wolf

And then there was this one, echoing my own realization that awareness is the key:

“I thought: This is what the living do. And I swooned at the ordinary nature of the task and myself, at my chapped hands and square palms, at the way my wrists bent and fingers flexed inside this living body.”

― Dee Williams

The ordinary s the stuff of the good life, the day to day conversations and routines. In the end, the ordinary things are the ones that give our lives meaning. The key is to see them for the treasures they are, to be aware in them, and grateful.

Here’s a poem little from a guy who gets it. I’ll leave it with you as my parting gift for today:

“Do not ask your children
to strive for extraordinary lives.
Such striving may seem admirable,
but it is the way of foolishness.
Help them instead to find the wonder
and the marvel of an ordinary life.
Show them the joy of tasting
tomatoes, apples and pears.
Show them how to cry
when pets and people die.
Show them the infinite pleasure
in the touch of a hand.
And make the ordinary come alive for them.
The extraordinary will take care of itself.”

― William Martin, The Parent’s Tao Te Ching: Ancient Advice for Modern Parents

Wishing you a gloriously ordinary week!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Pexels from Pixabay}

My friend sent me a video the other day of the workshop she’d built for herself over the winter months. A couple years ago, her previous workshop burned to the ground in a fire.

The new one was a work of art. It’s walls were hung with organized tools above cabinets and sets of shelves on rolling casters filled with labeled bins, and a rack for storing lumber. She could rearrange her space according to whatever project she was working on. As usual, she’d done a top-notch job.

I was impressed.

I smiled as I watched the video. One of my friend’s top joys in life is designing and building things. Big things. The coop she built for her flock of chickens, for instance, is so elegant that I call it “the chicken palace.” Yet with all these achievements, she talks about herself as being lazy.

So I watched the video of her fabulous new workshop I wrote back, “Not bad for a lazy girl.”

She told me about the list of tasks she still had to complete, the final touch ups. She’d put in months of work on her project and the few loose ends weren’t exactly sparking her to get up and get them done.

But then she found the key. Instead of thinking “I have to,” she taught herself to say “I want to.”

And then, she said, “It gets done!”

It was a technique I’d discovered, too. I’ve learned to turn “have to” into “get to,” framing an obligation, responsibility, or less-than-welcome task into something I was privileged to be able to do.

I turn “should” into “could,” too. Instead of feeling pressured to do something, I claim my freedom to decide whether to do it now or not.

I consider how long it would take, how much energy it would require. I check my current intentions and priorities. I consider whether there’s something else I genuinely need to do now instead. Or maybe I’d rather do one of the other things that I could get done. All this takes place in a few seconds. Then, whatever I decide, I’m making my choice consciously and freely, and I get to do what I truly want to do.

My friend and I had both stumbled on one of the simplest and most powerful tricks for shifting into a more positive mindset: Our choice of the words we used to frame our situation.

Here’s how this magic works. Picture a triangle with the words “behavior,” “thoughts,” and “feelings” written on each of its sides. Now imagine an arrow pointing from each word to the next. What it’s telling you is that our behaviors influence our thoughts, which influence our feelings, which influence our behavior, and around and around.

If you make a change in one, each of the others will shift, too. You can try it out right now. Put a big smile on your face, or sit up straighter and see what happens to your thoughts, to the way you feel.

When you can reframe things in a more positive way, you get a lot more done and done more easily. Because you’re dissolving the stress of the oppressive thought, you free up pathways that are healthier on all levels.

Just think! It’s the beginning of a whole new season in your life – one where you get to do anything that you want to, that you could. All you have to do is notice when you’re putting off a ‘have to’ or a ‘should’ and reframe your view of it with a friendlier word. And isn’t that a fine trick to know!

Wishing you a week of inviting choices. Happy Spring!

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image from my friend’s video.}

A neighbor of mine, a single mom with two small kids, told me about a remarkable experience she had this week.

She’d gone shopping with her two little toddlers in tow and had set her purse atop her car while she buckled them in their car seats and loaded the groceries into her car. She’d spent her last dollar on the food and was anxious about how she’d find money for gas to get to work the rest of the week.

She was almost home, she said, when she reached for her purse to grab a tissue and realized what she had done. She broke into tears right then and there in despair. She retraced her route, scanning the roadside in the vain hope that she’d spot the missing purse. Then she drove to the local police station to report her loss.

To her astonishment, the police had her purse! It was beat up, as if it had been run over. They said some dirty, tattooed biker had brought it in just minutes ago. He told them if the owner happened to report it, to ask her to call him. He had left his phone number.

Puzzled, she called him while the police listened in, afraid he might have extortion of some kind in mind.

He said he was just returning from a 200-mile charity run and had spotted the purse by the side of the road. He told her that he looked through it for ID but only saw the photos of two babies in the empty wallet.

He thought the woman who owned it must be having an awful day. He said he was sorry she had lost whatever else was in the purse, but he had brought it in just as he found it. Except for one thing.

My friend said, “One thing? What was that?”

“Look in the zippered pocket,” he said. She did as he asked and discovered a crisp $100 bill.

“I hope that helps a little,” he said. “I just wanted you to know that good things happen in life as well as the setbacks.”

The police officers on duty were as shocked as my friend. “Just goes to show you,” one of them said, “You really can’t judge a book by its cover.”

That was two years ago, my friend said. And she never forgot the biker’s amazing kindness—or the lesson about judging people on the basis of stereotypes.

You never know how much impact a kindness that you do will have on other lives. Each gesture of kindness ripples on and on.

I know the grungy biker’s act of generosity meant everything to my friend. And I hope by telling you about it, you’ll benefit from his kindness, too.

Pass it on.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Susi Schneider from Pixabay}

After hearing about the losses and illnesses in several friends’ lives, and of the anxiety brought to more than a few folks by the world’s current events, I was reminded again of one of the most valuable teachings I ever learned.

I’ve shared it with you before, but this seems like a good time to remind you about it, too. It’s this counsel from Tara Brach about what to do when you find that you’re in distress. Say this to yourself, she says:

“This is suffering.
Everybody suffers.
May I be kind.”

I’m always comforted by that. It lets me put a name to what I’m both experiencing and witnessing in the world around me. Suffering. It reminds me that none of us is ever alone in our suffering, that every human being everywhere experiences it. That’s kind of a deep thing to realize. None of us escapes pain, whether it’s physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or a mix of them all. Life in this world isn’t for sissies. It puts all of us to the test.

Knowing that, the only worthwhile response is to be kind. Accept that at one time or another, life is painful place. Reality here has a brutal streak. And in the face of it, kindness is a healing balm. It washes over the scene with a gentle warmth. It ever so subtly brings a soft light to things, allowing us to feel a spaciousness wide enough to peer beyond our pain, to sense the love around us, too. Let yourself remember a moment of kindness you experienced and notice how it lifts and soothes you just to think of it.

The first place to focus your kindness when you’re in distress is on yourself. Imagine giving yourself a gentle, compassionate hug, one that conveys that a sincere understanding of what you’re feeling. You’re human. Pain comes with the territory. Let it be what it is; it will pass.

Then, once you open yourself to being accepting and kind towards yourself, however slightly, let it flow out to everybody around you. You never know what’s going on inside somebody else’s skin. It could be that the person right next to you needs a friendly smile as much as you do. Let it touch the entire situation you’re in—everything and everyone involved.

A friend of mine sometimes says, “Love isn’t a feeling; it’s an action.” I think of that when I think about what kindness is.

Just because you aren’t feeling especially generous toward someone doesn’t mean you can’t treat them with respect and consideration. Kindness means you look past your own troubles to try to help lift the load for somebody else. After all, it’s like the old guru said, “We’re all just walking each other home.”

.Another beautiful thing about kindness is the way it generates a feedback loop. It’s like instant karma, returning to you the love that you give, multiplied.

I know I often encourage you to “tuck this one in your pocket,” that I hope you’ll adopt a quote or an exercise as part of your own tool chest. But I especially hope you’ll gift yourself with this one. You have your own way to store things in your mind. Maybe you make a written note of it. Maybe you practice chanting it until you feel it embedding itself in your memory. Whatever means you use, use it with this one: “This is suffering. Everybody suffers. May I be kind.” Its benefits are real, and healing, and strong.

Wishing you a week of peace and ease.

Warmly,
Susan

^{Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay}