7. Day 19: 100 Reasons Why Panic Is My Friend
Yesterday I shared my experience of a recent assessment that left me inundated with nervousness that felt a lot like panic. I determined that this energy was surely a gift if I could only see it that way. My lists of 100 Reasons Why have become a great tool for me to hear the Holy Spirit within me when I am really stumped. “100 Reasons Why Nervous Energy (aka Panic) Is My Friend” There is nothing wrong with nervous energy Energy is energy All forms of energy are forms of love Love loves me I am Love I can learn to love in all colors & flavors because that is what I...
Read More7. Day 18: Peer Tour Review
My fear of honesty was really brought to the front burner this week. I am a docent at the Crocker Art Museum. I love being a docent. I love getting to hang out at an art museum as if it were my own. I love the mini performance that giving a tour is. I LOVE my fellow docents and the staff at the museum. I was led as if by the hand of Jesus to this opportunity. Yet when it came time for the Peer Tour Review I felt so nervous I was sure I was going to pass out, throw up or flee to the nearest bar. Know that this is truly the gentlest of assessments to make sure we docents are on the...
Read More7. Day 17: Wisdom Is Not Knowing
I get a lot of epiphanies in the bath. The quiet, the water, and the cleansing must make me feel like church. This morning this thought floated out on the steam: “Wisdom is not knowing more, it is just that you stop running from what you don’t know.” I must have been the only teenager who longed to be 45 (oldest I could imagine at the time). At 45, I was certain I would know all I needed to know, then I could proceed happily and live a safe and comfortable life. Well, 45 came and went and I was no wiser. Now that 55 came and went (just weeks ago) I realized I was no...
Read More7. Day 16: An Honest Quiet
As I am consciously extending love to my fear of honesty by practicing real honesty I have to say that there is a whole bunch of stuff that tries to pass as honesty that really isn’t. Here are just some of the things that kind of sound like honesty but under further scrutiny is just something standing in the way of my awareness of true honesty. Things That Try To Pass As Honesty: opinions, tiredness (really that old thing?), silence, suggestions, “You be honest first, then I’ll be honest.”, using my “serious” voice, talking fast, hurrying (I am SO...
Read More7. Day 15: I’ll Be Honest With You
I feel a withdrawing sadness/what’s the point energy today (maybe for a few days?). I would toss it off as tiredness, but it feels both deeper and more on the surface than usual. I can’t tell if it is overcommitment or being dishonest in making the commitments in the first place. Or is it that deeper churn of my own children entering new phases in their young adult lives that I can only watch and welcome whatever I am feeling within myself? Me: Please help me extend the tenderest love and awareness even as I ask for guidance. Thank you. I extend generosity to this thought....
Read More7. Day 14: When Extending Love Is Impossible
I am beginning to wish I had not listened to the Holy Spirit and chosen extending love to my fear of honesty. And I certainly wish I hadn’t told anybody. I am in a funk today for no apparent reason. I could call up a few reasons and try to make those stories the “why” of my funk but that feels less than honest (again I say damned honesty). I just woke up with a great sense of heaviness on my chest, a tightly-wound, imploding sort of energy. It feels like a personal version of a black hole. And nothing untoward has happened. I want to run from this energy but must...
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