A Good Day to Dance, A Good Day to Weep
~ The glory and the difficulty of the human incarnation A dear childhood friend of my daughter’s, a young man I have known and loved for a long time, died a few days ago. It was a sudden death, and tragic. I do not really know what is tragic and what is not; and when people who love him refer to the death as a tragedy, it gives dignity to who he was, and to the depth of our loss. It came to me, deep in my heart, that there was a way to honour him and his mother, and his father too, who...
Read MoreUnwinding the Past ~ The Healing Medicine of True Apology
I have been interested, for a long time, in what it actually takes to heal the past. Not just to stuff it away and pretend that it’s gone, but to actually dissolve its power over us. As William Faulkner famously said, “The past is not dead. It’s not even past.” Easy to say, “Let it go, start again, it’s new moment.” Not so easy to actually inhabit the fresh bright energy in this radical place of new beginnings. Transforming our relationship with the past is the way we...
Read MoreThe Offering of Love ~ A wilder, deeper embrace
There is a possibility for us as humans, that I call ‘the way of love’. It asks us to learn how to give and receive love, the way that we breathe air, in and out. It’s a way known to very few of us, in our families, in our culture, in our world. It’s a way that has to be learned, practiced, committed to, very deeply. And it’s a way that asks us to unlearn the old ways of un-love, of judgment, of separation, and self abandonment. It helps to lay a clear foundation...
Read MoreWe Got Lucky ~ What every moment offers us
I had a bad day this week. It was a day of struggle and self judgment. The kind of day when you feel powerless, trapped inside the stories of the mind. The ruthless logic of my intellect had me pinned to the wall. The story of failure, of missing the boat, was loud and persistent. I saw myself repeating the same tragic mental and emotional habits of my parents, perpetuating the traumatic imprints of my whole ancestral line. Emerging from weeks of wild fire smoke, the infinite bright beauty of...
Read MoreA Global Course Correction ~ The Liberating Power of “I Can’t”
“We are coming down to earth, we will not arrive intact.” -Bayo Akomolafe A powerful and effective coach does not always encourage people to feel “I can.” This is not what real empowerment is. Our true power springs from a deeper place. It comes from our humility, and the courage we find to face our shadows and our limitations, as well as our gifts and our brilliance. When a client says to me, “I can’t do this by myself,” I feel my heart breathe a sigh of relief, as I say to...
Read MoreA Whole New Rhythm… and a new Earth
The times are urgent, let us slow down Bayo Akomolafe Eckhart Tolle speaks about a new Earth; I see that new Earth arising from a whole new rhythm that we begin to embody in our human lives. When times are as challenging, disruptive and chaotic as they are these days, the sense of urgency becomes acute. It can so easily activate our sympathetic nervous system: the impulse to fight or flee. If we don’t find ways to integrate these energies, our nervous system puts on what Stephen Porges...
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