Daring to Dream in 3 Steps

If you are what you should be, you will set the whole world on fire.

– St. Catherine of Sienna

What do dreams, Bradley Cooper, and my last blog post all have in common? No ladies, I did not marry Bradley…keep guessing. Maybe some of you frequently dream about Bradley Cooper, but how would I know? Go on back to my last post and see if you can connect the dots…

Still stumped? Okay, okay…It’s:

JOY. 

Have you seen the movie Joy yet? If not, put this post on hold, change whatever plans you have tonight, and fire up the popcorn. You have a date with Joy! (or Jennifer Lawrence/Bradley Cooper…you choose). It moved me in a way I think movies should move people. I mean, they do in fact share a root word. Perhaps it’d just been awhile since I watched a movie this intrinsically pure and beautiful. Or there’s the fact that I was on the flight home from my unforgettable two-week mission: destination wedding. There I was flying high, feeling all the feels, and watching this masterpiece on a glorified iPhone, while shaking and shedding tear after heavy tear, literally moved by such a story of perseverance and overcoming. [Read: I was a total basket case!] I think my new hubs may have been a teeny-tiny bit self-conscious with my hot mess of a situation. I didn’t care. Neither did Southwest, thankfully. It wrecked me in the best possible way.

If you aren’t able to watch Joy tonight, don’t worry, spoiler alert thwarted. When it happens, it will be perfect timing. I guess, in my experience, any time I have such a visceral response to art of any kind, I stop and notice what is coming up for me in that moment—and sometimes dare to ask why. Sure, Joy is a truly next level work of art with first class writing and a heavy hitting cast. You don’t get Robert De Niro, Jennifer Lawrence, and Bradley Cooper in the same room for nothing. Barking on the gritty heels of Silver Linings Playbook, they meant business. Still, there was something deeper…something…scary?

I was dumbfounded as I sat watching the credits roll and wondering what on earth just hit me in those friendly skies 36,000 feet somewhere over Little Rock. The reckoning rumbled:

Am I living a life fueled by fear or desire? 

How can I peel back the dusty layers of shame, need for certainty, and learned behavior in order to excavate the well-spring of dreams I once overflowed with? 

If numb with fear due to the jolting upper-cuts life has thrown, how do I recover the bold inner- tapestry of my six year old self? 

Oh she’s in there alright…otherwise, I wouldn’t be a blubbering mess right now!!! If I gave her a voice, what words of encouragement, or enlightenment would she give me? Well, here are the 3 messages I heard…

1. Wake up! 

In the movie Joy, several different subplots are brought to life through many of the characters. Perhaps the saddest and scariest of all for me is Joy’s mother. We come to know her as a vacant and numb aging woman who has taken permanent residence on the sidelines of life, glued to a television set and living vicariously through the melodrama of daytime soap stars. They are her point of reference for life; her Guiding Light if you will. I guarantee there is pain and sorrow in her story along the way, what with a broken marriage and forgotten dreams of her own. She shows us exactly how to fall asleep at the wheel and float into life’s proverbial purgatory while still in the land of the living. Our experience in life will never exclude hardship; however, we all have the same opportunity to reach out, as vulnerable and wobbly as it may feel, in order to graft into a stronger root system of support and connection. I don’t want to drift through life on autopilot only to wake up twenty years down the road, unrecognizable and corpselike. I also don’t want to dance with ghosts of old damage, holding onto unforgiveness and resentment. We must wake up to the glorious invitation to our own voice; our unique callings.

2. Silence the naysayers

Thankfully, after countless discouragements and disappointments, Joy did not follow in her mother’s footsteps. She woke up and heeded that curious little girl inside who loved to make things. Perhaps the most maddening subplot for me in the movie was that of her father and sister, the Naysayers. I don’t think I’ve ever hated Robert De Niro so much in my life! They nearly damned her to the same grey landscape as her mother with their slithering lies of “Who do you think you are?”, “You will never amount to anything”, and “I can’t believe we ever encouraged you to follow your dreams.” Who are the naysayers in your life? What lies have they spoken and do you believe them to be true? We must identify those people in our lives who hold us back with ill intent and toxic messages, spoken or implied. As we begin to align with the powerful truth of our dreams and identities, the naysayers must go, plain and simple.

3. Commit to the work

What I have learned as I observe those who courageously walk in the direction of their dreams and destiny is this: they inevitably fall down, over and over again. More importantly, they always get up, humbly mending those scrapes and bruises, and get back in the game. Just like Joy, many of you are these overcomers. I have had the overwhelming honor to witness your courage throughout the years as you share your journey, stare down the naysayers, and absolutely CRUSH it, despite giant obstacles all along the way. You don’t numb out or stuff the pain. You show up in splendid color to the wondrous and complex journey of your experience, day after grueling day. You teach me to wake up to the dreams of my youth, honor and cling to them for dear life, and commit to the work that will give them wings. I thank you for that.

joy in and of itself can be tricky. It’s not syrupy like happy, not that there is anything wrong with happy. We all want to be happy… let’s be honest! I like this definition of joy:

a : the emotion evoked by well-being, success, or good fortune or by the prospect of possessing what one desires : delight.

The possession, or pursuit of a deep desire almost always involves a struggle, a resistance. Joy reminded me that it’s more than worth it. You are more than worth it. So, for this joy set before us, may we not back down.

Space Between the Notes (The Beatles & Benders)

I have a confession to make. I went on a bender this past weekend…a Beatles Bender. It was excessive and glorious and I highly recommend it.

While 34,000 dedicated runners recovered from the St. Jude’s Rock n’ Roll marathon, I was happily sat on my back deck for the better part of Sunday chugging coffee and devouring the brilliant and arguably most influential sounds of all time.

“Music is the space between the notes.” Claude Debussy

Now, I grew up on a steady diet of Jazz and Bossa Nova with a side of classic country. Stan Getz, Astrud Gilberto, and Antonio Carlos Jobim were household names. Crystal Gale (aka childhood hero tied with Princess Leia, of course) and John Denver got thrown around a lot too. Though sophisticated and cool, my early music education had some holes in it. A late bloomer in most areas, I didn’t begin to appreciate the Beatles until well into my mid-twenties. In fact, I’m not sure one can ever fully appreciate all the layers of genius and nuance their music houses.

Mid-way through the White Album, something struck me: music is absolute chaos if it lacks space. My favorite Beatles tunes, including Hey Jude, Something, Eleanor Rigby, While my Guitar Gently Weeps, All You Need is Love, and Blackbird (to barely scratch the surface), all dance around those beautiful and strategic spaces between the notes, lending melody and lyric that simply transcend. (Well, maybe they had some help from other “transcendental” substances as well; it was in fact the ‘60s…and beyond…) Perhaps this truth applies even more, what with the exquisite improvisational stylings of my native tongue, Jazz.

Can you imagine music without the space?

What about life?

Space between the notes is metaphorical for life, and specifically in our case, therapy as well. Rest, play, blank space, stillness, quiet. Pick your poison; however, we need them all in this life for so many reasons. For the sake of congruence, I will use the word “rest” to further my musical narrative (#nerdalert).

First off, we need rest in order to recharge and refuel our beings for more. Sure, there are seasons when we fire on all cylinders, but we can’t sustain them, nor are we meant to. When we go for long stretches without deep rest, our body chemistry changes and certain hormones spike to unhealthy levels. This can be extremely dangerous; something we don’t want to mess around with. Accidents happen, cognitions are blurred, moods swing, health problems surface, metabolisms stall, depression hits, and we lose touch with reality.

Secondly, we need rest in order to show up in a loving and compassionate way for relationships. When I experience high levels of stress and resulting burnout, I lose compassion for the people I love. It is impossible to authentically love and give from a constantly depleted, run-down state.

Lastly, we need rest in order to take inventory and gain new perspective. If we are always in “go mode” somewhere off in the distance, we miss out on the beauty of the here and now. Eckhart Tolle renders, “When you lose touch with your inner stillness, you lose touch with yourself. When you lose touch with yourself, you lose yourself in the world.” Nailed it.

Have you ever woken up at 3 am, unable to get back to sleep? No matter how tired you are, how many sheep you count, or deep breathing exercises you do, you are wired. Not only that, but insignificant details of the day appear and start damning you to hell. You are now considering a new friend group, fitness regime, psychotropic medication, and the local psych hospital even becomes appealing…like the Four Seasons or something. Exhausted and crazed, you finally manage to doze off with all the cognitive acrobatics you just did. You wake up four hours later wondering what on earth the big fuss was about. You just needed sleep, not a life overhaul.

Rest creates space for new perspective when the treadmill of life and busyness has us running at a grueling pace.

Where are the crevices in your week in which you can carve out time for rest? It doesn’t have to be an entire day or afternoon (though that would be nice!). Setting just an hour or two aside can do wonders and reset you physically, emotionally, and spiritually. Rest is NOT a nasty little four-letter word. Rest is also NOT a sign of weekness. Paradoxical as it may seem, we ultimately get ahead in life by taking the time to slow down. Next time you hear your favorite song playing, pay attention to the space between the notes. Let them catch you off guard. Learn from them You may even hear and appreciate that song in a totally new way.

If music is truly the universal language of mankind, then rest must be what keeps us speaking.

In honor of The Beatles and the late, great Prince, I leave you with this… Watch and weep along…

Prince, Tom Petty, Steve Winwood, Jeff Lynne and others perform "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" at the 2004 Hall of Fame Inductions. http://rockhall.com/ ⁍ Buy "While My Guitar Gently Weeps": https://goo.gl/8sEuNp ⁍ Buy the Rock Hall of Fame Vinyl: http://goo.gl/fVR2Go ⁍ Buy the Rock Hall of Fame 3 DVD set: http://goo.gl/W7mKXa Visit us!

World Gone Small: The Isolation Trap

I grew up in Mobile, Alabama. Mobile is a charming southern city, dripping with history, Spanish moss, and extra syllables. My elementary years were challenged as a kid with all that humidity and resulting frizz. However, despite seeming eternal spells of awkward and frizz, my childhood was wonderful in so many ways. I grew up with parents who love and enjoy each other as well as their five wildly colorful kids (still do, I’m pretty sure), and siblings whom I call my closest friends to this day. My Dad is a seasoned entrepreneur, writer, teacher, and visionary. For many years he served in ministry, traveling all over to share his keen insight and passion for our unique calling as Christians in this metastory of life and faith. Even though we grew up in a small town, my world view and hunger for more got off to a big start. I attribute this to my Dad.

One of the most valuable truths Dad instilled in us youngsters was that we were made for something bigger than our experiences, our agendas, and ourselves. My faith journey has been winding to say the least, yet I have always come back to belief in a God who is orchestrating something bigger than what I cling to now and that this God is indeed good. This always gives me hope in times when what I see in front of me is a dark and damaged view of Eden.

When I am cut off from a sense of bigger belonging and purpose, I experience deep depression and anxiety. Remember that scene in Star Wars when Leia, Luke, Han, and Chewbacca get stuck in the Death Star trash compactor? The walls close in on them as they frantically swim through a sea of garbage. Solo dryly remarks, “One thing’s for sure; we’re all gonna be a lot thinner.” Classic. Well, that scene portrays the claustrophobic doom experienced when I feel alone in my struggle. (Sans the charming reframe from Harrison Ford, aka the crush of my youth, and maybe even beyond…  ).

Connectedness to something bigger than self, such as creativity, community, and calling, serves as an emotional umbilical cord. It sustains a steady and nourishing life source of hope.

When depression and/or loneliness hit and that inner dialog goes south, we have two options. We can reach out or we can isolate in our pain. Isolation is a sexy temptress, luring us into her grip one little lie at a time.

I work with countless high achieving, self-aware people in therapy who experience a similar feeling from time to time. Often, this feeling is described as loneliness. Ahh, the “L” word. We have all felt lonely at one point in our lives and from what I have observed, loneliness is part of the human condition. Not to be a buzz-kill, but what if our expectation would allow for those times in life that we feel lonely? What if we could embrace this feeling of loneliness, knowing it is part of the collective human experience as well as one we in fact have control over?

When depression and/or loneliness hit and that inner dialog goes south, we have two options. We can reach out or we can isolate in our pain. Isolation is a sexy temptress, luring us into her grip one little lie at a time.
“No one will understand.”

“No one cares.”

“I don’t want to be a burden.” And on and on…

In many ways, isolation confirms a futile story we make up about ourselves that says, “I don’t deserve love and connection, and therefore I will hide out in isolation.” That screwy lie is the very culprit that endangers our existence and smushes a wondrous world of possibility into a tiny marble of a globe.

In her book Radical Acceptance (purchase at Amazon), Tara Brach articulates, “Feeling unworthy goes hand in hand with feeling separate from others, separate from life. If we are defective, how can we possibly belong? It seems like a vicious cycle: the more deficient we feel, the more separate and vulnerable we feel.”

With this in mind, it is vital that we take inventory of our sense of worthiness and connectedness. When the proverbial trash compactor starts closing in, how can we find a way out through resources of support and community? Life can feel lonely even in a room full of people, which demonstrates the faulty belief that we don’t belong. Lie of the century.

You do belong. You are significant, beautiful, and your life matters.

Failure (ish) – Two Tiny Words Pt. 2

Well, It’s been two weeks now since I “failed” my big test and I must say, I feel just fine. The feedback you gave me from last week’s blog post was invaluable and life giving, to say the least. Thank you for taking the time to thoughtfully respond and, as you will read, for widening my vision. There is something palpable and powerful about vulnerability in the face of a painful fall. It cuts through layers of nicety and ego, getting right down to the core of our insecurity. As scary as it was for me to admit my perceived defeat last week, your compassionate responses shed light on a profound truth I have come to believe more than ever as of late.

…explore reframing failure into a learning experience and ask questions instead of cast judgments on ourselves.

So remember that word curiosity from last week? I want to circle back around to it for reasons a bit different than what I originally had in mind. You see, at first, I thought I would crank out a little two-part blog series on failure and the infinite power we possess if we sit in a posture of curiosity to soften the blow of failure. By that, I thought we could explore reframing failure into a learning experience and ask questions instead of cast judgments on ourselves. The vital signs of this approach are good. I learned that the hard way through many stubborn years of trial and error leading me to the knowledge that self-flagellation is just a big fat time and energy suck.

Unexpectedly, what I have learned through your responses to my last blog post is simply beautiful and goes far deeper than the practice of curiosity or reframing or however you want to spin it. You taught me that ultimately, connection is more important than success. Yes, that’s it! Being truly seen, known, and accepted sans the masks of performance and personality is far more significant than passing a test, landing a promotion, receiving a glowing review, or making the cut. You showed me what I was really seeking from my test performance was love and acceptance, things a computer print out with a number on it would not give me even if I’d passed. You also taught me that our shared human experience is a most impressive force, and one that does not require conjuring. It flows freely into that sacred space carved out by vulnerability. Connection calls us to a higher, broader place to stand on so we don’t rot in a den of shameful isolation.

In essence, I do believe a spirit of childlike curiosity is something to cultivate and cherish in life. Perhaps it allows us to more readily reach out or change courses when we hit a roadblock. I once heard a Seth Godin podcast discussing the topic of failure. He said, in so many brilliant words, something to the effect that the smartest people in the world are not actually the most successful. The most successful people in the world are optimists. They are the people who fall down over and over and keep getting up. They are the people who see failure as an invitation to discover what is true about themselves and their work in that moment. I imagine they are also people who don’t take themselves so flipping seriously. That’s my two cents, Seth.

Again, thank you for showing me just how vital two tiny words can be: me too. Let’s get out there and live bravely this week, honoring the beautiful and constant invitation for connection and presence.

The Power of Ritual (Desire)

The enemy of art is the absence of limitations.

-Orson Welles

What is it that drives you?  What gets you out of bed each morning?  Perhaps it is a steaming hot cup of coffee, or the inevitable 8am commute to that blessed place called work, or training for a 10k, or… love? I am talking about that thing you love and desire more than anything else.  It’s the thing that makes us depressed and edgy when we ignore it, yet freaked out and energized when we embrace it.

I am still trying to fully define this for myself, so if you are clueless, don’t worry…you’re not alone.  More and more though, I think what drives me on many levels is healing and beauty.  As broad as those may seem, it’s what I keep coming back to.  It seems once we hone in on an area of interest, or the general concepts behind it, we can experiment and tease out the specifics over time.

For example, despite the fact that beauty and healing are pretty nebulous, I have learned that they really do show up in most of my daily focus.  This can look like working with clients in a counseling setting or communicating through writing and/or song, or maybe even creating a space for others to enjoy it while connecting over a dinner table (assuming my cooking turns out beautifully).  Thankfully, I havelearned that our drive, calling, passion, whatever you call it, doesn’t have to look a certain way.  We can get rid of the boxes.  Calling is birthed in desire and nurtured through ritual.  It’s far less complicated than we make it.

A songwriter friend of mine once told me about an interview she saw with John Mayer. Despite his less than glowing publicity throughout the years, he has been a long-time favorite guitar player and singer/songwriter of mine. I am also inspired by his steely will that paved the road to his oozing, effortless talent and style.   In this interview, Mayer shared how he  “locked himself up” for an entire year to focus solely on one thing: learning and loving everything about the guitar. In the interview, he also challenged others to examine their schedules and passions, and to be super serious about committing to their craft.  Now, I don’t know all the details of his ritual and what exactly “locking himself up” looked like (nor am I encouraging anyone to follow his extreme lead), but the concept is worth examining:

What practices do I have in place to further my deep desire for __________________?  

I am always a bit jolted into action when I hear someone challenge me this way: “Well, if you don’t embrace and pursue your passion, someone else will run with it!”  Ouch.  Talk about serious blow to the old ego!  However, it seems to get right down to the point and gaugelevels of committment.  Sometimes fear can be a powerful catalyst if we are clever about it.  By this I mean fear can be an excellent indicator of calling.  There is always resistance around places of truth and destiny; fear tends to be the preliminary symptom of courage leading the way.   We have the opportunity to discover and commit to something excellent, yet in my experience, when the desire or goal loses its sparkle and the honeymoon phase is over, we abandon our work; what was once ablazing pursuit becomes a dim and lonely path.  Have you ever experienced this? 

 These final blazing days of summer  may be the perfect time to examine some  habits.  I believe Ritual is a heavy hitter in the realm of progress, thus I am breaking this entry up into two segments for the sake of being annoyingly wordy.  BUT, what would be awesome is to get your feedback. Take a few minutes and email me your experience as it relates to this stuff.  How have you tackled, accomplished, bombed, and even re-invented your greatest loves: those things that get you moving each day?  What are your daily and weekly rituals? How do you get the most from them and even make them…fun?! I can’t wait to hear from you…

xoxo

katie