My beloved is not a morning person. Nope, C.C. likes the warm comforts of bed in the morning. He enjoys slumbering on, resting in the cocoon of blankets, Marley the Great Cat purring on his chest, Ellie the wonder dog snoring on her mat at the foot of the bed.

Me. I love early morning. I love the quiet, the peace, the silence of the house. I love the darkness outside my window. The stillness of the road stretching west to east at the foot of the lawn.

I’ve also come to love taking the C-train into the downtown every morning, and thanks to my beloved, it’s fast and convenient because, even though he doesn’t like the morning, he loves to make a difference in my day by getting up and driving me to the C-train station. Ain’t that love? he may still be wearing his pajama bottoms beneath his coat, and his feet may be bare within his shoes, but he arises and drives me where I need to go, relieving me of the extra 25 minutes it takes to walk the distance.

He also is now getting up to make me a smoothie every morning.

And in his expression of love, in his caring ways, I feel and know Love. What a blessing. What a gift.

In November, when I was coaching at Choices, at the Annual Christmas dinner with Thelma, each person was asked to share something that made a difference to them that week. I shared how every morning before I left the house, even earlier than my normal leave for the office time, C.C. would arise and make me a smoothie. It felt so loving and I felt cherished, I told the group. In his actions, Love shimmered in the early morning darkness and my heart glowed.

Years ago, one of the first times I had coached at Choices, I watched one of the trainees as she was being attended to by a medical team. She had slipped on some ice in the parking lot and hurt her ankle. An ambulance was called and as they were moving her on the stretcher into the ambulance, I watched one of my fellow coaches as he hovered over her, checking to ensure her needs were being met.

The tableau of the woman on the stretcher, the coach standing by her side was bathed in the lights of the hotel carport. I remember watching his face as he held her hand and talked soothingly to her. There was such love and consideration for this woman, a relative stranger to him, as he ensured the EMS team took care of her and as he worked to allay her fears of missing out on any of the training.

I remember standing by my car looking towards the vignette and seeing the look of love and care on his face. And I remember the jolt of yearning, and possibly envy, that pierced my heart.

I want that in my life, I remember thinking. I want to feel so cherished, so loved, so cared for. I want someone to look at me with the purity of love that he was looking at her.

And it hit me that I had never felt that yearning before. Never known that I desired to be cherished, cared for and embraced by someone else’s concern — romantic or not.

In that moment, the seed of my future relationship was planted. In opening myself up to the awareness of what I yearned for and wanted in my life, I became conscious of having ‘needs’.

I’d always shirked away from that word. Always shied away from what I judged to be its ‘neediness’. To need someone else is weak, I said. To need someone leaves me at risk of being disappointed. Abandoned. Rejected.

And so, I protected myself. I don’t need anyone, I’d quip. And then add with a smile, but it would be nice to have someone in my life.

That moment of watching the woman being cared for by a stranger exploded my self-bullsh*t into pieces.

That moment said, “Cockapooie Louie! You have needs and you keep denying them. Stop it!”

C.C. and I wouldn’t start dating until a year later and while I knew I loved him, I don’t think I ever acknowledged that I had needs that needed to be met within a relationship for me to feel safe, secure and content until that day when I was able to acknowledge that “I have needs and that’s okay. In fact, better than okay, it’s good and it’s honest to have needs.

I believe part of being in an intimate relationship is to trust the other enough to acknowledge, “I have needs” and to be willing to state them. Whether or not the other person can meet my needs isn’t the issue. What is the issue is that I trust them enough to express my needs and to hear theirs. We then both get to make choices based on our knowing, versus guessing what the other needs to feel safe, secure, loved for and cherished in the relationship.

C.C. knows the way to my heart. I am grateful he treads the path with such loving care. In his actions, I feel loved and cherished. I know my heart is safe in his hands.

Namaste.

I see him in the dark, outside my office window.  He is struggling. Trying to pedal his bike through the snow drift. He pumps down on one pedal. Balances for one moment, one pedal up, one down, body extended. He teeters. Weaves. Loses momentum. Stops. Tries again. Finally, after several attempts he gets off his bike, moves it out to the middle of the road where the snow is less deep and bike on one side of his body, starts to run and push his bike.

Success! He gets enough momentum to hop on and keep pedalling.

He is still 6 blocks from the main road. I wonder how many times he’ll have to repeat the motion before he gets there.

We got dumped on yesterday and through the night. Snow and blowing winds, blizzard conditions.

Letting Ellie the wonder pooch out this morning was exercise enough. The howling winds had pushed the snow up against the door. I considered donning my boots and coat and mitts and toque on top of my pjs so that I could go through the front door and around the house to the backyard. Except. The side gate is also snowed in. Back to option one.

I pushed and pushed at the back door until I had enough room between the door and the snow for Ellie to escape. She had to leap across the drifts to reach the yard. Brave girl. She did it and within moments was back at the door waiting to get back in.

Marley the Great Cat considered going out but after a few moments of sitting on the front porch, he reversed his decision and high-tailed it back into the house.

My animals are smarter than that bicyclist I think.

I appreciate his commitment to the environment. But really? I think he’s crazy.

And I’m sure he doesn’t care. I’m sure that for him this is his thing. His way of making a footprint on this earth that benefits all.

Except, I wonder about the safety of riding your bike in this weather. I don’t mean the cold (when I jogged my cut-off for outside jogging was -20C so I get that you can dress for the weather), but when the roads are clogged with drifted snow and ice, how safe can anyone be on a bicycle? How much stability and control does one really have on roads like this? And what about the drivers? Their tires are spinning at intersections and four wheel drive or not, ice is ice and doesn’t leave much room for normal stopping and control.

Sometimes, we get so fixated on an idea or ideal, we forget to consider, what is the right thing to do in these circumstances?

I was reminded this morning of my penchant to affix myself to an ideal by my friend Ann over  at The Year of Living Non-Judgementally. Ann writes about ‘saying the wrong thing’ and in her words, I felt myself cringe. I have been known to say the wrong thing sometimes. Not because I wanted to hurt or cause pain in another, but rather because, in my quest to awaken them to what I consider to be ‘the ideal’, or to speak my truth, I have let go of asking — what is the right thing to do in this circumstance for all truth to have room to be heard?

When trying to help a friend see that their desire to talk about a situation again and again was what their problem was, not the situation, I trod harshly upon their heart.

Not my job.

Yes, speaking the truth is my responsibility. But truth should never be delivered as a hammer or an axe. Truth deserves to be spoken so that others can hear.

Awhile ago when I was at a community association meeting and someone was yelling at me as an official from the foundation I work for, I asked them to please not yell. “It’s important I hear what you have to say, and I can’t hear you when you’re yelling,” I told them.

That was the truth and in speaking it, they heard me and chose to say what they had to say in a way that I could hear. In hearing them and in feeling heard, we were able to work on finding common ground. A Win/win for both of us.

But when truth is spoken for me to win and you to lose, it is not truth. It is me reacting in fear, or judgement, or loathing or a whole host of non-productive emotions that position you for failure. In the end, it creates a lose/lose because in overriding your truth, I lose the things I want most in my life and in all my relationships — kindness, fairness, respect, consideration, communication, connection, Love…

I watched a man push his bicycle through the snow this morning. When I ignore the reality of the weather outside, or the conditions within, I too become fixated on my goals, my needs, my singular belief in my right to do what I want because it’s what I want. To paraphrase John Dunne, I am not an island and when I act as if this planet gives me carte blanche to ignore the world around me, I create all that I don’t want in this world of wunder. I create my own failure to thrive.

I don’t like the word. I want to push it away, avoid it, find another one.

But it persists. It clings. It keeps whispering to me to claim it, accept it, know it.

I may have to live with it for a year to find my way through it.

It’s what it wants, this word that causes such disquiet within me. It wants me to know it, breathe into it, live it and find my truth within it.

It happens every December.

I begin to meditate on that space where a word for the upcoming year arises within me. This year it has been Rejoice. The year before Renew. And before that, Humility.

Every year for the past three years I have held a word in my heart and mediated, written, discerned and breathed into its essence for an entire year. I don’t choose the word so much as it chooses me. It arises in the quiet and speaks softly to my heart as it says with measured certitude, “Embrace me. I am yours.”

In the past, the word has settled in and I embraced it and began my year in conscious contemplation of what it means for me to live the essence of its being present in my life.

This word. Ah now this word causes me to pause, to resist, to wonder if maybe I should use the entire 31 days of December to allow space for another word to enter. Maybe if I just keep seeking, something different will appear.

And I sigh. A sigh of amusement and bemusement.

The co-creative powers of the universe are not to be messed with. We’re in this life together. I don’t get to pick and choose what the universe serves up. I do get to choose how I accept, move through, embrace, celebrate, wonder about and create from what it delivers.

And this word definitely gives me pause to wonder.

‘Atonement’ is not a word that settles easily on my heart. It has such Biblical tomes to it. Some real heavy-duty righteousness. I’m not even sure I really know what it means so of course, I toddle on over to my online dictionary and there it is. My trepidations over its meaning expressed in the definition I find for ‘atonement’.  http://www.thefreedictionary.com/atonement

atonement [əˈtəʊnmənt]

My friend Julie who hails from Australia and writes at jmdoyer: wings and things, wrote a blog yesterday about the LIKE button and other iconic images.

What is the appropriate response, she asks, when someone writes of something that is heartbreaking?

Sometimes, words fail me. Sometimes, all I want to do is give someone a hug to let them know, I hear you, I see you, I am with you in spirit.

And the LIKE just doesn’t cut it.

Her suggestion is that perhaps there needs to be an alternative button, the ‘♥’ button for those instances where words fail you.

Challenge is, if you’re like me, the only icon you know how to create is the 🙂 – and when someone is sharing their ♥, or breathing through sadness, 🙂 doesn’t cut it either. (I just discovered the ♥ in my symbols folder. 🙂 )

I wonder what would happen if for a day, I could not speak any words and was only allowed to use smiley faced and other icons to communicate? Perhaps my day would be like one of those childhood books where between words, images appear to encourage the child to identify what word is appropriate. Would people still identify with me if in telling a story, I showed my emotions through pictures? Would they get my gist if I used icons to depict what was happening in my world?

Some studies show that 7% of communication is verbal. The rest is all implied through body language, inflection, tone, gestures, use of language  —  culture plays a role too, as does gender. In some cultures, a side to side shake of the head implies agreement. In others, it means the opposite. Some people use their hands wildly. Others are restrained. 

I am a hand talker. When I was little, I loved how my French-derivative mother’s hands moved so elegantly and eloquently when she spoke. I wanted to emulate her and remember consciously teaching myself to move my hands like hers. It became so ingrained that a teacher once asked me to describe a spiral staircase without using my hands. Hands placed firmly on the desk, I began to describe the staircase and my right foot started to move in concert with my words — and I didn’t even notice it until someone pointed it out.

My hands are my friends. They talk for me, they express my emotions, feelings and thoughts through writing, painting, creating. They speak for me. They reach out, they touch, they feel, they see. They connect me to my world through all my senses.

One of the exercises I like to use when teaching creative writing is to fill a bag with small objects and invite students to close their eyes and take one object out of the bag. With closed eyes, I ask them to describe the object. Feel it. Hear it. Smell it. See it through your hands and all your senses, I tell them.

I then invite them to open their eyes, look at the object and write about it — but not the object — write about the experience of choosing the object. Write about the story the object speaks to you. Sense it before you write it.

It is always interesting to me how people respond. Watching body language when informed of the exercise is a lesson in fear, confusion, discomfort, awkwardness.

Afterwards, it’s a journey through our senses. From giddy disbelief, the room inevitably turns to calm silence, to a deep sense of connection once students have a chance to breathe into the experience. Posture shifts. Relaxes. Eases. Movement stills. Voices quieten. Eyes soften. In those sacred moments it is possible to feel what people are experiencing without words interfering with their expression.

Perhaps as Julie suggests, we need something more than a LIKE button to express how we feel about something someone is expressing that is sad or anxious, or bewildered, or despairing.

Then again, maybe it’s not an Icon we need. Maybe what we need is to take the time to write the words that truly express how we feel. Maybe, like the bag of unidentified objects, we need to stop, breathe, listen and express our hearts.

When body language is stripped away because we’re in cyberspace, or on the phone, or on the page, maybe we need to put all our attention into the words we use to express our feelings. Maybe we need to use our words wisely rather than looking for a little button to push that says, I see you. I feel your pain. I am with you.

Ha! then again, maybe all we need is an icon like this  to say all that needs to be said.

My fingernails are covered in gold paint this morning. That’s what happens when I forget to put latex gloves on when I create, especially if I am creating with spray paint, which I was last night.

And that’s okay. Because in the process of creating I found that sweet spot where my mind eases into peacefulness and my heart flutters into rest and I feel the oneness of being present in the moment of creation.

It is the power of creation. The absolute bliss of being aligned with the evolutionary spirit expanding into being present, right now, in this moment without expectation of anything other than to allow what is appearing to find its presence.

I’ve been making Christmas cards.

Okay, well actually, that should read, I’ve been experimenting with making Christmas cards because I haven’t yet perfected my art to the point where I’d be willing to sell these cards.

But I can give them away.

And what could be better than that? To share with someone something I’ve created?

My cohorts and fellow artists, TZ and LS of the Basement Bombshells Art Collective are participating with me in the Benefit Concert for Christmas at the Madison on Dec 8. We’ve agreed that 20% of the proceeds from sale of our artworks will go to support the programs for formerly homeless veterans who are living at The Madison. This year, we’ll once again be buying gifts for the residents as well as preparing Christmas dinner. 

And this year, TZ and I decided to make cards and sell them at the show as well.

Except, I’m not comfortable selling these cards. But I can give them away. Maybe, with every painting sold, I can give away a pack of 5 cards?Or maybe, I give a card with every donation so that even if people are not inspired to buy a painting, they will feel moved to donate?

And then I have to stop and pause and consider what is this really about? It’s not about selling my artwork. I do that already. And it’s not about donating to the cause? So… where does my discomfort with selling these cards come from? Is it from that place of truth or that place of insecurity, that place that seeks perfection to hide my fear of being vulnerable?

See, I don’t think of myself as ‘an artist’. It’s kinda scary to go there. And if I hold onto that place of seeking perfection, I don’t have to worry about being judged…

To call myself an artist would suggest I have talent. And even greater than talent, that I have dreams… And that concerns me because…

Well because I still have that voice in my head that heard the laughter and criticism of my loved ones when I was little and thought it was true– or at least, was too scared to push it away for fear it was true. As a child and an almost teen, I would spend hours drawing and painting and creating only to be told, that’s silly. Or, you have no talent. Or, that’s pretty ugly. Or, you don’t really think you can draw now do you? People don’t make a living doing that. Become a pharmacist. That’s a good occupation for a woman….

Living the life of my dreams is scary — because my dreams include doing things that long ago I was told were not suitable, appropriate, fitting for a woman… for me.

It always amazes me when I start out with a subject matter I think is pretty straight forward only to discover beneath the surface is that place of vulnerability, of realness, of truth that needs exploring and even more than exploring, blowing up, expunging, eradicating.

I am an artist. I find myself in the creative act of painting, drawing, designing, writing, creating. Anything.

Whether or not my work is ‘fit for sale’ is not the issue. I love to create. To work with my hands and body engaged in the act of creating something. Anything.

I am also an explorer. I love to begin with nothing on my mind other than an idea and willingness to explore what can happen when I… do this, add that, go there, step here, stretch there.

When I mash my artists soul with my explorer’s spirit together, when I let them have free rein and reign over the creative process, I am happiest.

Just like writing this blog every morning. I seldom start out with a plan. I generally begin with the willingness to allow. To let appear. To let happen.

It is always an exploration into ‘what if…’ for me.

And in the process, I discover truths, and lies, that need exploring.

I’ve been creating Christmas cards. I’ll be selling them at the Christmas at the Madison benefit concert on December 8 to raise funds to support a cause I’m passionate about — creating and supporting veterans who were once lost on the street and have found their way home to the Madison.

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It was a moment filled with awe-inspiring grace. A moment that shimmered in Love and joy and gratitude. A moment that took my breath away and gave me back the missing pieces of my heart. Those pieces I didn’t know had not yet returned home and fallen into place.

The moment happened on Saturday. A film crew had been at the house since the previous morning interviewing me for a documentary that will be aired on The Discovery Channel next spring. They had flown my eldest daughter Alexis in for the weekend to interview and on Saturday morning the crew was doing, ‘B-roll’. Getting footage of Alexis and me together, talking, sharing moments, drinking tea, looking at photos,  that they could use for fill in the documentary. There were no microphones. Just a camera rolling and the director giving us instructions on where to sit, how to interact, move our hands, etc. It wasn’t about what we were saying. It was all about how we were behaving.

At one point, the director asked Alexis to tell me something she’s always wanted to tell me but was afraid to reveal. Alexis paused. Thought for a moment and said, “Oh. There isn’t anything. It’s what I love about my relationship with my mother. We tell each other everything. We don’t keep secrets.”

Time stopped. My heartbeat stilled. Silence, in all its luminous radiance descended.

For a moment, we sat. No words. No sound. No breath.

And then, we continued on.

But I felt it. I felt Love’s embrace. I felt gratitude encompass me, fill me up and hold me steady.

I am grateful.

Long ago, I deserted my daughters. At the time, I was desperate, lost, frightened, abused. At the time, I couldn’t think of anything else I could do for my daughters that would keep them safe, keep them whole. I was the reason their lives were in disarray. I was the cause of their pain. Removing myself from their lives was the only thing I could think of that would give them peace.

I was wrong. Very, very wrong. But at the time, I couldn’t see beyond the pain and horror of my life with a man who had lied so completely I believed I didn’t deserve anything other than his abuse.

At the time, I didn’t believe I deserved my daughters’ love. I believed I was unworthy.

Ten years later and I know the truth. Ten years later I know that abuse hurts. Abuse poisons our bodies, minds and spirits. Abuse would have us believe there is no light, no joy, no love. There is only abuse.

It’s not true. The things we believe that keep us from breathing freely. They’re not true – those words we hear in our heads that would tell us we are unworthy, useless, ugly, forgotten, without grace, without love, without beauty or joy or purpose in life.

Those words are not true.

What is true can be found in the beat of our hearts calling us to dance, to laugh, to sing, to speak up, to rise up, to give up believing the lies we tell ourselves that would keep us living small, afraid and beaten down.

What is true is that no one can tell us who we are, or what we’re worth, unless we let them.

Once upon a time I let a man poison me with his lies. I didn’t mean to let it happen. But it did.

I cannot change the past.

I can change how the past holds me back, or keeps me stuck in regret, fear, sadness, sorrow and all the feelings of being less than that would keep me from living life on the other side of regret. What I can change is how I am in the world today.

I am blessed. I am grateful. I am… enough.

On Saturday, my daughter said something I didn’t even know I wanted to hear. When she uttered the words, my heart filled up with joy and gratitude and grace and Love. When she said those words that sang so true, I knew deep within my soul what I have been learning since that moment when the man who lied was arrested and I set out on my journey of healing to find my truth.

On Saturday, my daughter’s words reminded me once again that it is not the falls and bumps and lurches of life that hurt us most. It’s the holding ourselves back from moving over, beyond, free of their turmoil.

On Saturday, I listened to my daughters words, opened my heart to their beauty and wonder and felt myself embraced by grace.

Once upon a time, the truth is, I was abused. Today, my truth is,

I am an alive and radiant woman touching hearts and opening minds to set spirits free.

I am thankful.

I am blessed.

I am in Love.

What are you waiting for?

A better answer — the right one? The perfect moment. The answer?

The question came out of meditation, rising into my consciousness as my body stirred into wakefulness.

What am I waiting for?

I like questions. I like how they can lead my thinking into areas, thoughts, spaces I’ve never before imagined. I like how they open me up to new ways of doing, being, seeing the world and everyone in it. I like how they keep me stepping through the limits of my ‘knowing’ into those places where I never imagined I could ever step.

I also like how questions can keep me stuck, keep me from powering through my resistance because of their constant presence.

Asking questions I know the answer to, or asking questions that I know there are no answers to is one of my self-defeating games. As Thelma Box, the found of Choices once said to me during a process at Super Choices (a follow-on program to the foundational Choices week) that really opened me up to possibility, “I experience you as a woman who will never find an answer good enough for her.”

It’s true. 

I like asking questions. It’s how I learn and understand and grow.

It can also be how I stay stuck. Sometimes, I like to keep asking questions so I don’t have to change. If I’m constantly asking questions, there’s no need to hear the answer now is there?

And that’s the epitome of a self-defeating game. To ask a question, and not heed, listen to or acknowledge the presence of what I know to be true. To ask a question and not stop and breathe into the answer to see if now is the time, now is good enough, now is the moment for me to take action.

See, here’s the deal. Sometimes, my asking questions isn’t because I’m interested in the answer. Nope. Sometimes, it’s because I’m more interested in staying stuck, continuing the dance, fixated on going in circles – all while looking like I’m actively engaged in finding the ‘truth’. Taking the spotlight off of me and putting it on someone else, something else, somewhere else outside of my locus of control is a good way to appear interested in what’s going on around me, without ever having to take responsibility for what is going on around me.

Take the question ‘Why?‘

It came up this weekend when a film crew was here to interview me for a documentary for a program on Investigation Discover, “Who the bleep…?” It is the story of how I fell into the arms of Prince Charming only to awaken to the Prince of Darkness dancing before my eyes — and, how I survived.

“Why do you think he did it?” the director asked me at one point during filming.

Because he could, I replied. Because it’s what he does. What he’s always known to do to get what he wants. Because it gets him what he wants. Because every time he did something that pushed one of my boundaries and I didn’t hold firm or push back, it gave him permission to push a little harder, a little deeper into my psyche. And, the further he went, the deeper I fell.

To heal, I had to quit asking ‘why did he do it?’. The why of what he did doesn’t really matter to my life today. What matters is, what am I going to do with my life? How am I going to live?

It is so easy to get caught up in wondering why? about someone else. It’s so easy to base my life on how I feel, think, see, or perceive what someone else is doing in my life — and the impact their actions are having on my life. It’s easy, but it’s not particularly healthy, or life-giving.

To truly live my life I have to let go of wondering why someone else is doing what they do, and focus on the things I do and get accountable. 

If I say I want to be happier, and I’m miserable, I have to quit asking ‘why am I so unhappy’ and start asking, ‘what can I do to create happiness in my life in this moment?’ — and then DO IT!

Because, while there might be a better question out there, the only answer worth living is right here, right now in this moment. It’s right here when I commit to creating the ‘more’ I want in my life because knowing what I want more of in my life is the first step to living my life on my terms, alive and in love, celebrating each step I take that brings me to life in the rapture of now.

What am I waiting for? 

Nothing.

Now is my time. Now is the time, the only time I have to turn up and live. Because, there is no better time than now to live it up and shine bright!

There is a process during Choices training where we focus on the importance of taking care of ourselves first in order to be able to take care of others.

I’m practising giving myself medicine first today.

For the past two days at the office there has been little heat coming out of the vents. Even with a space heater by my feet, (which I can’t put on full because it blows the fuses)  my body has been chilled and I am feeling the worse for the constant chill that has crept into my bones. I came home early yesterday, climbed under a kazillion blankets (okay — maybe just 3). C.C. made me tea, I slept and read and still, I have not regained my equilibrium. My body aches, my nose is running and I am under the weather.

Time to take care of me.

And, because my mind is foggyish, instead of writing a post, I’m sharing what I found to be an inspiring and hopeful video about well-being and medical outcomes . I’ll be back up and at ’em tomorrow.

May your day be filled with honouring your worth. May your thoughts be filled with joy and may each moment unfold in the beauty and wonder of all you are shining out for all the world to see.