The murder of George Floyd has ignited a range of feelings. Many of us wonder what we can do…how we can engage meaningfully. I’ve been thinking about this for myself, as well as what it looks like in the big picture. Here are my thoughts.

In this time there are those of us who must uncover the truth and those who must at the same time hold a spiritual foundation in place. Those who must disrupt and expose and those who must be the roots. Those who must shine the light and those who must build the bridge. Those who struggle for every breath and those who must lead with strength and determination. Those who must sit and listen to understand and those who must teach with compassion…lessons we might by now have learned long ago.

Let the pain move you to be who you are meant to be in this world at this time. You cannot be everything. Nor can you expect that from others. Really, you cannot be any other than who you are born to be. So know what that is, and be that in its fullness.

It requires that you know yourself…that you answer this question over and over again in your life, in every situation and in all circumstances….how am I to be, what is mine to do? It is too easy to get caught up in the moment rather than to inspired by it. To be inspired is to be moved by love…it is your greatest power. To get caught up in it is to be moved by fear…the lowest and most sinister vibration.

Let the very presence of the Divine Creative Life Force in you guide you and inspire you as you engage in this world today and all days.

Much love
Paula

I’ve been wondering…what do you want to hear from your spiritual leader right now? From those you turn to, who speak not to incite fear but to inspire compassion and love. What could I say to help us stay on track, to point us toward the Divine and to give us room to consider rather than to dictate ‘the way’?

I would say the same thing now that I would have said two weeks ago, before George Floyd was murdered. I would say the same thing now that I would have said three months ago, before Covid-19 started its march. Spiritual direction doesn’t waver due to worldly conditions or circumstances. It is by its very nature foundational, applicable in all of life, the thing we can depend on, return to, find strength and solace in and use to engage in life as it stands before us…not subject to whim or fancy or grandstanding. It is true for all people all of the time.

Spiritual direction informs us of how to be in the world with a wide view and an open heart. True spiritual consciousness reveals the power of the unseen and our inextricable Oneness with all-that-is…called by many names including God, Spirit, Love, Allah, Buddha, Universal Mind. So, what would I say to you, to myself? What would I remind us? This:

There is not one soul in this world today that is separate from another. There is no ‘us and them’…there is only us. Our struggle against each other is hurting the whole of us. The lack or limitation I see in another is in me, too. The sadness, injustice, rage, inequalities, addiction, judgment and struggle are in my house, too. These vibrate and exist in waves and quarks as energies. Walls and gates are no match, neither is my tender skin.

If this is true…that we are indeed One…the message can be none other than this: Yes, you are your brother’s keeper. Yes, you are your sister’s keeper. And we are ALL brothers and sisters. Fear misguides us and leads us astray. Oneness teaches us compassion, the need for forgiveness and the power of love. Fear separates us, pits us against each other, has us scrambling to be first, to be right, to be on top. Oneness calls us to walk in all shoes, feel another’s pain and imagine their sorrow.

When we do this, over and over again, we heal ourselves and we heal the world. We heal because we change. We become enlightened. We not only know we are One but we feel it too…and we respond to the world from that place. Is there anything greater or more important for us to do? I think not.

With great love
Paula

Why do we think others will change just because we are living with COVID-19? I mean really?! All of the comments and complaints from not wearing masks to a government take-over of our civil rights. Complaining and blaming. Outrage and judgment. Well, just take a look in the mirror folks. Have you changed? With all of the calls to be more kind…have you become more kind?

We love to copy and share the quote about hate never driving out hate, only love being able to do that. We look at others and in our mind and with our words we accuse them of hate when it is exactly hate that is rising up in us. Please take another look in the mirror.

Sally Kohn, in her book The Opposite of Hate says this: “The opposite of hate is understanding.” Understanding is not agreeing. Understanding is what rises out of compassion. We need to put aside our ugly self-righteousness. It makes us small and it hides our beauty. We need to wear compassion…proudly and with great humility. We should endeavor to listen to understand. We should practice kindness no matter what.

So decide what you stand for and practice that as often as you can. Resist the temptation to set the world right. You have no power to do that. Your power is in loving and caring, compassion and understanding, and living from your heart. These have done more to bring peace and ease to humanity than anything else. If you believe it, live it. If you are uncertain how that looks…sit a while. Ask the Universe for some guidance. Listen. Go from there.

I have failed many times to be kind and compassionate. My guess is so have you. But I have not failed at the practice. I recognize my shortfall, I make an adjustment and I start again. Will you join me?

With humility
Paula

Hearing and watching the rain this morning made me feel grateful. Water falling from the sky nourishing the earth, and me comfortable and dry as if witnessing a miracle. I breathed easy and sat for a while.

After the rain, out the door for a walk…noticing the many colors of green, the newly planted azaleas seemed happy for their long drink, yellow and purple wildflowers dotting the ditch bank. Then another miracle. The magnolia trees are filled with blossoms…have you noticed? The sweet citrus smell brings an immediate smile to my face. I reach up to pull the partially open blossom closer to my nose, rainwater pouring from the cup, the sweet smell heavenly. The petals some kind of special silky white, the stamen pink tipped and delicate.

I think of snapping off this blossom to put in a bowl of water at the house so I can continue my experience. Then I decide, better to leave it and carry the miracle with me instead. Now back home, I can almost smell her beauty. Grateful for simple miracles and slowing down enough to notice them.

Breathing in and breathing out,
Paula

In my last blog, I talked about holding space for others when they are in pain. And then I started thinking about what it would be like to hold space for our very own self when we are in pain. If it is important to offer this ‘holding space’ for others, it must be just as important to offer it to ourselves. What would it look like and feel like?

I decided holding space for your own self is really about self love.
Holding this space means radical self acceptance…it means deep and genuine caring…it means staying on your own path, for you. Not to do this at the expense of others, but in order to know wholeness and to experience deep joy.

You deserve to know wholeness and to experience deep joy. Please read that again. I believe it’s really why we are here. We don’t have to wait until everything is lined up in a certain way, until we have all of our ducks in a row, enough of this or that. Even in our deepest pain we might give our self an opening.

If we dare to hold space, if we dare to extend love to our very own self through radical acceptance and genuine caring, if we dare stay on our own path even after others have fallen away, we will surely know what it means to be fully alive. What more could we possibly want?

With great love
Paula

It’s hard to be with others when they are suffering and in pain. We want so badly to relieve their pain. ‘What can I do to make it better?’, we ask them. ‘What can I do to show I care?’, we ask ourselves. We want to do something. That’s why people show up with casseroles when someone dies. Food is comfort, we reason. I can take food to the house. Something for us to do. And then we drop by, barely enter the door and off again we go…not wanting to sit with the pain and just BE.

There is another way, and that is to hold space for the other’s pain. Not to fix it…but to soothe it. Not to take it on…but to let it be. Not to make it better…but to give it warmth.

Most people really don’t expect us to make it better. They know that’s really not possible. What we all crave, I think, is to know that we’re not alone. We want to know that someone can sit with our pain. We want to feel their tender heart. This is holding space…not being the container to hold the other…but instead to be the light. To be the lightness, tenderness, understanding and compassion that fills the space in around them.

No pressure to fix what is not fixable. Only the chance and the great honor to offer light. To let the other know, without words, I see you, I hear you, I love you. Practice holding space.

With great tenderness,
Paula

I love this quote from Mark Nepo in the Book of Awakening: “Misery is a moment of suffering allowed to become everything.” Let’s face it…we all suffer. At different times in our lives things are hard, life is tough and loss is unbearable. The same is true for every single one of us. But we don’t have to let those moments become everything. We don’t have to carry our moments of suffering into the rest of our life. We can learn to be joyful once again. We can know love again. We can heal and feel whole.

The answer is not to try to avoid suffering…the answer lies in not falling into misery. We can avoid that fall with hope. Hope is not some otherworldly spiritual voodoo. Hope is simply possibility. If you can just utter to your own self…’something else is possible here’…and start to feel that, you have saddled up on hope. You don’t have to know what it is or how it will work, you just have to begin to know that ‘something else is possible here’.

Repeat it again and again…something else is possible here. Breathe deeply…something else is possible here. On your walk, with every step…something else is possible here. This is not faking it. This is shifting consciously into possibility. Sometimes it happens ever so slowly…but it happens. A tiny bit of hope changes everything.

Love always
Paula

Some people are working doubly hard during this pandemic while some of us are spending more time at home…much more time at home, unable to work. I saw a meme on Facebook something like – well you always wished for longer weekends and now look what you’ve got!

But I want to focus a minute on those who are out there making our world turn, keeping us healthy, safe and fed. This blog is a particular shout out to those who pick up our trash. Every week they show up, rain or shine, freezing cold or miserably hot and humid. In Wilmington, the two-man teams riding on the back of the truck are now limited to one man to honor social distancing rules. That means one guy does the work of two.

I read an online article in the Port City Daily by Mark Darrough about Gerald Williams. He rides on the back of a truck driven by Bobby Way. Bobby says this about having one guy instead of two on the back of his truck. “On a lot of other trucks it slows them down, but I have an exceptional guy on the back of mine.” Nice compliment and way to acknowledge a job well done.

What does Gerald have to say? “I just don’t think about it,” Williams said. “I just do it. It’s a job. I’m glad to do it; I love my job. Once you love doing a job it don’t become a job no more. It’s just like a hobby.”

I love finding wisdom from ordinary folks doing ordinary things. And while the work is ordinary I would say that Gerald’s outlook is not. I think it says a lot about who he is and how satisfied he is with his life. I bet it doesn’t really matter to Gerald what others think about him. I bet he doesn’t rely on others for his own happiness. I bet he has a healthy sense of self…he knows who he is and shows up that way every day.

Thanks Gerald, for reminding me that if I love my job, it’s really not a job anymore. And thanks for the reminder that how I show up to life makes all the difference. I appreciate it. And I appreciate the work you do everyday. Stay safe and healthy.

With gratitude
Paula

There has never been a more important time to give voice to your feelings. This doesn’t mean making someone else understand how you feel. It means to voice your feelings for you…to feel where you are in this big pause we are in. I am inviting you to consciously notice and name your feelings. Not so others understand, but so that you can be your authentic self and recognize what you need and how to accept yourself as you are.

When you are authentic and honest about how you feel, you will know when you need to be alone, ask for help, sit with it for a while, take a walk, hit the pillow, let out a wail, cry, stomp, move, nap or stare into nothing. In other words, you will be brave enough to be vulnerable, admit your struggle and let it out.

When we are brave in this way, we soften. And when we soften, the hard edge of our struggle eases…maybe just a bit. In that one tiny bit of an opening there sits the possibility of peace and grace, there sits the strength you didn’t know you had, there sits the Divine, God Itself ready to comfort and sustain you.

Give voice to how you feel. Say it, write it, name it. Let it out. Accept yourself right there. Notice the softening. Receive the light.

Always with much love
Paula

What do I do with my sadness, my pain, my frustration, my fear and discomfort? Everything in me wants it to end. Wisdom says: stay with it, grasshopper. Know it. Turn it over in your mind. Feel it in your body. Experience the depth of it. Only then will it let you go.

Don’t pretend. Don’t stuff it down. Name it and own it instead. Let it move through you. Let it wear you out until you are spent and exhausted. Somehow, I’m not quite sure how, there is a path of healing, a turn toward wholeness that happens, a single spark of hope, a return of joy and peace.

Give your pain and fear a voice. Cry out. Punch the pillow. Hit golf balls. Plant flowers. Carry water jugs. Drop to your knees. Let the tears flow.

Our sweet boy Davey left us last week. He had just had his 14th birthday on March 7th. We were both with him at the vet’s office when we said goodbye. Our house feels empty. Renee and I are both sad. We’re sitting with that. Being present to it. Taking care of ourselves. Sleeping a little more. Eating a little less. Feeling how the world is different now that he is gone. We mention how he would love to walk on the cool mornings, silently pass his favorite ‘poop spot’, miss his click, click, click on the hard floor, wondering if our cat Buddha misses him.

As time passes we’ll more often remember him with a grateful smile rather than with tears in our eyes. What grace life offers to us for the love we share…to again feel joy in our once broken heart.

Much love always
Paula