You don't look different but you have changed.
It's easy to stay self-defeated in this misbegotten world. Negative messages are everywhere, and every billboard and commercial is strategically designed by experts to give us the maximum amount of anxiety about ourselves, our appearance, our age, our clothes, the suppleness of our skin and the whiteness of our teeth. If you're not careful you'll swallow it whole. You'll start to believe the lying lies and the liars who tell them: you'll stop believing you are the whole, perfect living amazing miracle that you are.
Let no one and no sixty-second commercial adorned with emaciated models convince you otherwise. It's a powerful moment when we begin to develop the courage and unshakable conviction that we are just right just as we are, and that you and I possess a tremendous and undauntable power, the power to change things by changing the way we look at them. Equally powerful is the transformation that begins when we acknowledge the patterns in our lives and claim the power to change them.
I don't want to blow her anonymity but I want to celebrate someone's courage: five days ago she made the decision not to drink anymore and went to her first AA meeting, and for five days she has been clean and sober. Already she has started to detox. Already her spirit is stronger, even this strong: she told me last night there were two times this week she wanted to drink, when the tension and stress started to mount and the temptation grew to just be numb, but she chose her strength instead. She's been to two meetings now and we might go to one tonight. An amazing thing begins when you decide your life is more important than a quick fix or an easy way out. I love her more every moment.
She sat down with her daughter and told her. I don't want to be this lost, numb person anymore. I don't want to wreck my marriage and I don't want to be unavailable and detached, lost in my fog. I don't want the uncontrollable rages and the cravings that fuel them. I want clarity. I want hope. I want the abundant life my God promised me instead of the half-life I find in an empty bottle.
I'm not naive. I know this is only a beginning and not a victory. But the thousand-mile journey to true intimacy and joy begins with the willingness to face the buried hurts and secret longings and fears that have kept us in prison. Life doesn't get better until we accept the challenge to crawl out of our convenient escapes and claustrophobic habits. This is way the clarity begins, not with a bang but a tearful admission: I can't do this on my own. I get by with a little help from my friends.
Friday, May 21, 2010
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This is the Way the Transformation Begins
"Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say "Why not?"
George Bernard Shaw, Robert F. Kennedy
This is the way the transformation begins.
It begins in me.
It begins now.
It begins with small incremental changes and shifts in attitude
it begins with positive action
failing forward
and suddenly I start looking at the world and my place in it in a new way. I speak differently and dress differently and project a different energy, and the world opens up like a glorious pink azalea bush, eight feet tall and blooming like mad.
photo by Kajo123 from the website flickr.com
Good morning!
An engineer builds a bridge and every bolt and weld has to be exactly right; every measure has to be perfect, or the bridge collapses or fails to take its place. Fantastically detailed blueprints have to be laid out. Impact statements have to be filed, sediment has to be studied, years of effort, months of planning, and a man-made marvel rises in the sky. Park somewhere and take a good look at a bridge, and think of all the skill and knowledge and hard honest work it took to create it. Consider how a few thousand years ago we were living in caves.
It is not so with a dream. Some people are remarkable dreamers and dreams spring whole from them, or they can leap up from bed and pages of creative genius flow out of their pen, intricate and perfect. Most of us though are baby dreamers, new at it and tentative to the trust the power of what we wish for.
Start the dream! Whether you want to go to nursing school or college or learn to play the guitar, take a first step, now, even in the wrong direction. Don't wait for the blueprint to come to you, the environmental impact statement, the permits and the 200-page budget and legislative dream approval. Rough it out, sketch it on a napkin, tell a friend, and take action. Your dream begins the moment you step out in first moment of believing, and the result can touch a thousand souls. Listen to Jim Valvano: never give up, never surrender. Believe in the audacity of action and your fantastic potential for change and new opportunity.
It is not so with a dream. Some people are remarkable dreamers and dreams spring whole from them, or they can leap up from bed and pages of creative genius flow out of their pen, intricate and perfect. Most of us though are baby dreamers, new at it and tentative to the trust the power of what we wish for.
Start the dream! Whether you want to go to nursing school or college or learn to play the guitar, take a first step, now, even in the wrong direction. Don't wait for the blueprint to come to you, the environmental impact statement, the permits and the 200-page budget and legislative dream approval. Rough it out, sketch it on a napkin, tell a friend, and take action. Your dream begins the moment you step out in first moment of believing, and the result can touch a thousand souls. Listen to Jim Valvano: never give up, never surrender. Believe in the audacity of action and your fantastic potential for change and new opportunity.
The Hawthorne Bridge at sunrise, Portland Oregon. Photo by Joe Collver, from flickr.com
Genuine happiness and success start with an attitude of abundance
Make it a daily practice to begin your day with five minutes of thankfulness. You can even do it in your car on the way to work. Do it in your own way, whether it's thoughtful reflection or a prayer or singing out loud, but focus on your rich, amazing, abundant life.
Feeling grumpy or resentful or worried instead of thankful? Change direction! Consider the incredible gifts you have--mind, body, spirit, senses, your family, your friends, your clothes, your car, and the breakfast you enjoyed this morning. By the standards of 99% of the world, Americans are incredibly, amazingly rich. You truly have no idea how richly blessed you are until you start thinking about it. Even the heart that beats within you and the lungs that breathe your air are an intricate and amazing miracle.
Some of my favorite movies are ones that feature a once-defeated character waking up to an absolutely new day: "It's A Wonderful Life," the various versions of Dicken's "Christmas Carol" and "Groundhog Day." How exhilarating it is for George Bailey to wake up and realize his life isn't over, it's just beginning, and that today truly is a brand new day.
"It's a Wonderful Life"
George returns home to everything he ever wanted.
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