Your Enneagram Classroom Awaits You

This year has been integral for me in so many ways.  I won my battle with breast cancer and started a new business called The Practice.  Neither were by any means easy but I’m so proud of both.  It’s no coincidence that the year I faced the most daunting physical and emotional challenge, I launched my self-care passion project.  As I shared in last week’s blog, I’m 100% certain that my cancer journey was victorious due to years of my own self-care and a multitude of prayers.   I learned first hand, attitude is, indeed, everything.  

As we cross this 2022 threshold, I’m so thrilled to bring you a deeper dive into both self-care and the Enneagram.  I’ve got several opportunities for you to experience both! Over the course of the year, the founding members of the Practice gave us some vital feedback—more Enneagram  content!!!  So that’s what you’ll get.  The monthly subscription will give all the goods of the original program: daily journal prompts, yoga flows, guided meditations, expert interviews, and monthly support sessions PLUS core enneagram content each month.  We will explore concepts like growth paths, subtypes, wings, relationship styles, and more!

To love yourself is to first know yourself—to really understand the why behind how you think, feel, and act.  The Enneagram is the best tool we have for self-understanding and development.  Further understanding how to take care of you in all your glorious uniqueness is exactly what we’ll do! 

I’ll also be offering two exciting in-person opportunities to build your Enneagram toolkit.  Starting in February, I’m partnering with Nashville City Club to offer a monthly Enneagram Mastermind Group.  It’s a great opportunity to meet other professionals in the area and learn how to apply the Enneagram in your work and life.  

Lastly, Bloom groups are back! Bloom group is an enneagram-focused therapy group for women.  For anyone who wants a more affordable therapy option, groups are a wonderful option.  It offers a safe place to process the ups and downs of life and connect to other like-minded women.  It’s also an amazing way to use the Enneagram for healing and transformation.   

I’ve been studying and using this powerful tool for 15 years now and I can honestly say it has illuminated life and relationships in remarkable ways.  No matter where you are on your Enneagram journey, I believe you can find a place to go deeper with me in 2022!  I hope you’ll join…

5 Things Chemo Taught Me

My cancer diagnosis back in April of this year was an unexpected gift in many ways.  Perhaps most glaring was that it forced me to take a forensic inventory of my life—and how I’d been living it up until that point.  It crystalized the things that were and are truly important. It has invited me into more personal integrity—alignment with my deeply held values.  It convinced me there was no reason to sweat the small stuff—adulting means we have more responsibility, more to live for, more to lose, and more to let go of when it ceases to serve us.  

I’ll never forget the day after I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  We attended a friend’s over-the-top gorgeous wedding outside of Nashville.  I  had no idea what the course of treatment would be at that time.  All I held to that day was the certainty that  my story had taken a dramatic shift to the tune of that terrifying “c” word.   

I savored every single minute that day.  I got to dress up (which is my spiritual gift),  hugged and kissed my 2-year-old when we dropped him off at my folks house on the way, sipped champagne, and held my husband’s hand tighter than I can ever  remember.  I even got to slow dance with him.  As my cheek pressed up against his crisp suit jacket, I cried hot tears of joy, gratitude, and fear all at once.  I’d been given another day and the days of taking this beautiful life for granted passed right then and there.  That was another gift I’d been granted: perspective.

From where I sit today, eight months later, the lens I look through isn’t fear, it’s sheer possibility.  I’ve undergone a bilateral mastectomy, a brutal recovery, countless doctor visits, smaller procedures, and chemotherapy.  I’ve lost my hair completely.  I’ve lost the illusion of invincibility.  But I’ve gained so much more.  I’m pretty sure my heart grew.  I know my faith did.

Along the way, especially during chemo, I learned five things that I believe we can apply in the face of any challenge.   I want to share those things with you today.  

1. Guard an open mind:  Keeping an open mind in the face of adversity is necessary.  We will never be able to predict the future and going to the worst-case-scenario is futile as a result.  Though oftentimes we slide right into a fight-flight-or-freeze fear response, practicing curiosity is everything as we start to thaw out. 
   

2. Life is hard—it’s our attitude that makes it a bit easier: At my last oncologist  appointment, my doctor told me something that I’ll always be grateful for.  She told me that in all her years as an oncologist treating cancer patients of every kind, I was in the top one percent whose chemotherapy experience seemed  easy and even inspiring.  She attributed that to my positive attitude every step of the way.  I’ll tuck that away in my pocket the rest of my days and forever swear by the power of a positive attitude.
   

3. Protect your time and energy:  It is totally okay and even necessary to pull back from our normal responsibilities during difficult seasons.  One way we do this is by setting boundaries around our time and energy.  For me, my immunocompromised state required this.  However, it was a lesson either way.  I learned to let my “no” be as good as my “yes” without guilt.  I encourage you to do the same!
   

4. Self-care pays off: It’s no accident I started the Practice, my enneagram-based self-care business, the same year I got cancer.  It was a lesson in synchronicity.  I have been practicing self-care (especially meditation, exercise, therapy, etc. ) religiously for decades.  I witnessed first hand how every single time I showed up for myself over the years paid it forward to undergird me in the most physically and emotionally daunting season of my life.  Practicing self-care will always serve you when you need it the most.
   

5. Let people support you but not always advise you: People are well-meaning. I do believe this.  However, each of us has a unique story and process. There’s no one size fits all. Take the advice of others with a grain of salt and as a gesture of support.  My chemo experience, (that 1% situation my oncologist observed) was not informed by the stories of other’s experience with cancer.  And boy am I glad!  

I suppose another gift cancer gave me was a nudge to return to a lost identity—an artist.  Life is simply too short to dry up creatively.  Writing is my first passion.  Self-expression through songwriting and recording is something I stopped pursuing in my mid-thirties.  This next year I’m making some changes though.  I can’t wait to share some projects with you in January.  

Thank you for accompanying me through this incredibly wild ride.  I hope and pray your journey unfolds in beautifully unexpected ways…and where there is suffering…I pray God’s grace surrounds you.  Life is a constant gift waiting to be unwrapped.  Let’s open it up with childlike wonder this season.

Your Gift is Inside

I want to take a quick minute to say a huge thank you and Merry Christmas! 

Whatever your holiday traditions, it feels so important to me to take time out of all the busyness and hard work and celebrate those things that matter the most.  

After all, I fear as a culture, we’ve lost the art of celebration—and savoring.  

This month, as you may be in the midst of family gatherings, travel, or sneaking that third handful of toffee (I saw that 😊), I pray you take a  moment to celebrate the work you’ve done for you to untangle the false beliefs that have held you back in the past.  Isn’t that what we are tasked with on this glorious and often terrifying journey from the head to the heart?  Unlearning the stuff that doesn’t serve us anymore?  

Well I’m proud of us!  We’ve been unravelling nicely this year and it’s time to do the important work of sealing it all in with love and celebration.  

Something that’s been stirring inside me lately is how to cultivate more faith.  This season, I want to unearth the faith and awe I had as a child.  The simple, yet stunning wonder that was there from the very beginning.  I want to unlearn a bit of the fear I picked up along the way.  Sure, fear helped me survive for a bit, yet it has made my faith feel dim.  

Maybe it’s having a two-year old (or my overall space-cadet-ness due to chemo brain…and yes, it’s real.)  Whatever it is, I love the idea of detaching from some of the “grown-up” fear in order to rediscover the childlike faith that’s our God-given birthright.  

This is good news for you and me!  Why? Because it means we’ve already got everything we need deep inside.   We get to rediscover it this season, and perhaps for the first time.   

If this feels weird and foreign, don’t worry, it should—letting go of what’s familiar in order to receive what’s new can be!  Your brain is not used to it.

We’ll get there, together.  We’re building this supportive community that will only grow stronger in 2022.  

This month, however, let’s celebrate—and savor—how far we’ve already come together.  

Thank you for joining me.  For having faith and putting one foot in front of the other, often blindly, in order to give yourself the gift of time and attention.  It’s important, life-giving work.

You are a gift to me…and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the days ahead.  

My Heart is Full

This Thanksgiving means more to me than any other.  If you have been following my story on social media and the blog, you may know that in April of 2021, I was diagnosed with breast cancer.  I had a bilateral mastectomy in May and started chemo late August.  

As I write this newsletter, my heart is full.  I completed my last round of chemo on October 28th.  After three weeks of my normal post-chemo symptoms (i.e. fatigue, flu-like aches, low-grade fever, and pains, as well as the strangest metallic taste in my mouth), I can honestly—hopefully—and humbly say, I’ve come through the worst of it.  And I feel strong. 

If you’ve experienced cancer, you know there is no easy way around it.  The word alone sends a chill of fear through my bones.  Thankfully, mine was stage one, and despite having the genetic mutation that creates higher risk of having it later in life, the combination of surgery, chemotherapy, and ongoing medication will knock it out.  

Sure, Thanksgiving is all about gratitude—a day we celebrate the posture of a thankful heart—and a meal of some sort to share with those we love.  What I’m learning though is that it’s too little too late if we rely on a national holiday to remind us of what we’re grateful for.  I pray a day doesn’t go by that I forget to actively, out loud, thank God for walking me through every step of my cancer journey.   

I believe something has to happen in order for us to stay connected to a gratitude practice—presence.  Some people interchange the words presence and mindfulness.  Bringing our thoughts and inner dialog down low as we connect to the simplicity of the moment. 

However, I actually like how some eastern traditions refer to mindfulness as “heartfulness” instead.   After all, our emotions help to integrate our brains and bodies as humans.  

To me, this looks like feeling on a heart-level, the beauty and wonder of the present moment.  Bringing our whole heart into our moment-to-moment experience.  From this place, the clanking noise starts to flatline and our willingness and curiosity build.  From this place we let go of scarcity and ego and receive love and openness.  

If cancer has taught me anything, it is that life is too short to be bound by fear—too short for playing small.  You and I have a calling, and if we will say yes to that calling, we can illuminate the way of hope for a hungry and hurting world.  Let’s say “yes” together.  

Happiest of Thanksgivings, from my table to yours.  

Parting Ways with Perfectionism

Raise your hand if you’ve ever struggled with perfectionism. Though I can’t see you right now as you read this, I have a hunch most of you have your hands up, either literally or figuratively in your heart where no one else can see you and wonder if there are bigger problems than perfectionism at stake. Oh, I’ve got your number, I’m a recovering perfectionist.

Perfection is so elusive, yet so tempting, especially for all you creative, high-achievers out there. It’s a vain and futile attempt to attain the unattainable. 

And guess what?

It’s impossible. Perfectionism is an overt, egoic striving to fill a covert, bleeding insecurity. If we’re really honest, perfection is just a scared man’s game.

I write these words with emboldened authority only because I’ve had a lifelong, enmeshed relationship with perfectionism. I don’t know the magic potion I sipped on so early in life to fuel the flame, but boy was it potent. I’ve been incredibly judgy and hard on myself from day one. 

As a complex and sensitive kid (read: dramatic), being understood and well-received always took precedence. Acceptance, personal significance, and value were—and still are—my drug.  I know, classic Enneagram four move.  

The temptation is always: “I’m doing pretty good, but something’s missing.” This kind of thinking has kept me double bound in the fetal position of literal and figurative dark corners in life many times. 

Anne Lamott is spot on:

“Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life.”

For creatives especially, this phenomenon is mass genocide. I believe this is because ideas and concepts are birthed in our thinking mind, which can be an absolutely lovely place to be. We have a brilliant idea for a lyric, a new workflow, a painting, a proposal, and we run with it, executing it immediately and seamlessly, right? Bam…so easy.

Wrong. My experience as a writer and working with other creatives is this: that brilliant little idea gets locked up in the thinking mind, stewing and marinating in all kinds of saucy possibility and grandeur, so much so that it never even sees the light of day. 

Our minds are meant to be the sacred birthplace of ideas. Our minds were not meant to indefinitely house them, ultimately squeezing the life and breath out with quenching fumes of perfectionism. Social media doesn’t make this pursuit any easier as we get caught up in comparison games with people we don’t even know posting highlight reels from their otherwise normal life.  

This can lead to such worthlessness and defeat, we either want to numb out somehow (drugs, booze, sex, shopping, busyness, work, what have you) or we abandon our creative calling all together. This is around the time therapy sounds like a promising option.

David Foster Wallace said it this way, “Perfectionism is very dangerous. Because of course if your fidelity to perfectionism is too high, you never do anything.”

I suspect you want to do great things: to be seen, known, and truly loved.  I do too.  The only problem is, this requires tons of courage…and vulnerability.  Perfectionism doesn’t leave much room for them. 

What if we could aim for better instead of perfect?  To slowly build on the baby steps of gradual improvement—choosing the next best thing? This type of growth mindset leaves room for the successes, the failures, and the stalls.  Best of all, you hold the keys to your life, not some elusive, phony version of you.  

This week, what would it look like to choose better over perfect?