by Heather Plett | Jan 2, 2011 | Joy, Sophia, Wisdom
From an ad for meditation cushions, it jumped out at me.
Don’t just do something. Sit there.
Hmmm. Clever. I liked it enough to clip it out and add it to my vision board for 2011.
Yesterday, after dropping my niece off at the airport, I brought a chai latte and my journal to my son’s grave. It’s the place I often go when I need a little quiet contemplation, and it seemed right to visit on the first day of a new year.
As much as I speak with some bravado about letting joy direct my path this year, there’s a piece of me that’s still hanging onto some “oh my gosh I quit my job and I have no idea how to build a business” stress. I often wake up in the morning with a vague feeling of panic. I’m navigating a whole new world without a map, and that’s scary.
Those are the things I was thinking as I sat at Matthew’s grave. When I quit my job, I knew I’d need some transition time, and I took it. That’s what the month of October was for. I thought I could put it in a neat little box, and then on November 1st I’d be rarin’ to go. But it didn’t quite happen that way. Transition took longer than I expected. I jumped into my teaching role, but when it came to the other stuff I was planning to do, I just wasn’t finding a lot of momentum.
“Okay then, give yourself a little longer,” I thought. “Teaching is taking a lot of energy. Perhaps that’s enough for now, and then on January 1st you’ll be ready to rush full speed into a myriad of projects.”
So it was that, on January 1st, I sat at my son’s grave. “Now is the time,” I thought. “Today is the day that the momentum needs to kick into high gear.”
Sadly, though, there is still so much that isn’t clear. No lightening bolts have flashed words across the sky “this is your path, follow it and don’t deviate. Here are your ten easy steps to success.” Almost every day I think up a new project or a new direction (there is no shortage of inspiration). But after the ideas comes… nothing. No momentum, very few accomplishments, and no knock-your-socks-off clarity of direction.
I have to admit, a niggling fear keeps eating at me that I need to get better at writing business plans, and action plans, and marketing plans and goals and objectives and … well, maybe THEN – if there were an artificially constructed linear path laid out in front of me – I’d kick myself into full gear and follow it.
Into the cold wind at the grave, I whispered “Sophia God, show me some direction. Give me clarity in what I should do. I am confident that I am following a path I’ve been called to follow, and yet it still feels so unclear.”
In a moment, the wind whipped a whirlwind of snow around the grave. A spiral. Not a linear path.
After the whirlwind, the stillness. The blank slate of fresh snow like frozen waves drifting across rows and rows of graves.
And in the stillness, these words came back to me “Don’t just do something. Sit there.”
Really? That’s it? That’s the wisdom I came here to find? That’s the brave new world that January 1 is ushering in?
Inside the warmth of my vehicle, I scribbled my questions in my journal. Stillness? Is that the path I’m supposed to take?
“Yes, stillness. Stop the scurrying and worrying and hurrying. Stop the wheel-spinning and the trying too hard. Stop the striving. Stop. And wait. And listen. Pray. Meditate.”
“Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength.” (Isaiah 30)
Wisdom won’t be tied up in little boxes to be reached for and plucked along artificially constructed linear paths. Wisdom comes to us in spirals. In whirlwinds. In whispers. At gravesides. On labyrinth paths. Wisdom appears in a heart that is ready for it. In a heart that is still. In a heart that listens. A heart that waits.
And so, despite the part of me that stubbornly insists I have to be BUSY to have value, I claim this mantra. Don’t just do something. Sit there.
Not exactly a business plan. But it’s the lesson that Sophia God wants me to learn. And relearn. I will try to be a patient student.
* * *
Today, a friend shared this video of David Whyte speaking about the place of poetry in the corporate world, and this poem found me…
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
David Wagoner
by Heather Plett | Jan 1, 2011 | Blessing, Uncategorized
On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.
And when your eyes
Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.
When the canvas frays
In the curragh of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To bring you safely home.
May the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.
And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.
– John O’Donohue
by Heather Plett | Dec 31, 2010 | Creativity, Joy, Leadership, Sophia
Vision board for 2011
Almost every time I do a vision board, I think “ooooh… this one is my favourite so far!” That’s how I felt last night when I completed this one. I love it. It’s the biggest one I’ve done so far (I wanted to think BIG for 2011), and it’s colourful and beautiful and MINE.
There is something so gratifying about seeing your vision appear in this way. I think it works for me for a number of reasons:
- I’m a visual thinker. Give me images and vibrant colour and I’m a happy girl. I can get lost in an image without necessarily needing an explanation.
- BUT I also love words. (I’m a writer, after all.) I like to flip through magazines to see which words jump out at me and offer me some frame for my life at the time.
- I love to combine images and words and then watch what the combination evokes. AND I love surprises, and there are always a few of those when I put words and images together in new ways.
- I am comfortable with ambiguity. I don’t need to know what every image or combination of words means when I glue it on the board. Sometimes it just speaks to me and the meaning appears later.
- I like evolving, fluid structures. I don’t enjoy being hampered by boxy things like “strategic plans” or “business plans”. I prefer to watch the way my vision boards evolve, with changing colour themes, imagery, words, etc.
Some of the things I see so far in 2011’s vision board are:
- running – this is the first time I’m whispering it aloud, but I really want to run a half marathon!
- joy – my word for the year
- growth – exceeding my limits and expanding my horizons
- travel, adventure, journey (those things always seem to appear on my boards)
- leadership, sacred space, wisdom
- variety, options
This type of visioning speaks volumes to my Sophia heart. It’s the wisdom that flows from me when I am true to myself.
For years I tried to fit in a world where strategic planning and corporate vision statements and agendas and action items and objectives and goals felt like stiff wooden boxes that didn’t fit the soft curve of my heart. Though I became adept at adapting to that world, it never felt like my full truth.
Not that those things aren’t necessary – it’s just that they weren’t fully balanced with the wisdom of the feminine.
Now I’m looking at the world differently. I’m looking for the curves and circles, the organic ways of growing, the spaces in between the cold hard facts, the colour behind the black and white, the softness in the structure, and the joy factor.
This year, as I look ahead to my first full year of self-employment, I’m focusing on the joy factor. Instead of a business plan, I’m working on a “joy roadmap”. Instead of a vision statement, I’m creating a “joy image”. Instead of goals and objectives, I’m asking “what things will make my heart feel alive?”
Do it with me! Here are a few tips to get you started:
1. List five moments from the past year when you felt deeply joyful.
2. What was it from those moments that contributed to your joy and how can you replicate that in 2011?
3. Who were the people who surrounded you in those moments and contributed to your joy? How can you continue to surround yourself with these joy people?
4. Create a vision board, adding images and words that make you feel joyful.
5. Answer these questions:
- I am joyful when…
- I can bring joy to other people by…
Now go back and read your answers to the questions in #5. Are there intersections? Is it possible that the things you do that bring you joy are also the things that contribute to other people’s joy? I suspect so!
Joy is contagious. Go out there and find some. And then pass it on.
by Heather Plett | Dec 30, 2010 | Joy
I marvel at you all
the way you have grown
into such
beautiful
intelligent
unique
funny
creative
remarkable
individuals
I delight in
your silliness
your kindness
your wisdom
your gentleness
your energy
your hopefulness
I want so much for you
a world filled with beauty
a life filled with hope
a future full of possibilities
buckets full of peace and contentment
and fulfillment and goodness
I hope that, in your life, you will
shower the world with your giftedness
find beauty wherever you walk
seek justice
love mercy
walk humbly with your God
go ahead
be silly
be brave
be scared
be hopeful
be weak
be authentic
just be.
be yourself
and remember
you are loved
you are special
you are needed
you are gifted
you are strong
and you have each other
and us, the ones who walk before you
by Heather Plett | Dec 29, 2010 | Joy
I’m choosing JOY this year.
I’m choosing to focus my energy on what brings JOY into my life.
I’m choosing to surround myself with my JOY people.
I’m choosing to build my business around what brings JOY to myself and others instead of just what makes the most strategic sense.
I’m choosing to bring more JOY into the way I parent my children.
I’m choosing to seek JOY in my marriage.
I’m choosing to extend JOY to the people I teach and mentor.
I’m choosing to let go of the things that get in the way of JOY.
I’m letting JOY be the filter through which I make decisions.
As I mentioned in my last post, this past year has had more than its fair share of heaviness and sadness and change. Indeed, all of those things have contributed to my continued growth and transformation. But at the end of the year, I realized that it had been a long, long time since I had done anything simply for the pure joy of it. It had been a long, long time since I’d remembered to embrace silliness.
So, this past month, I have been busy “embracing the silly“. I bought an elephant teapot and a pair of mis-matched socks. I’ve been watching a lot of silly movies and TV shows on Netflix. I haven’t read a single “smart book”, but have devoured several novels. I let you, my readers, help me name my elephant tea pot. I dove into some fun craft projects, and I got a very fun and silly winter hat from a sister-in-law who wanted to help me in my quest for silly.
In 2011, I want the shift to be more permanent. I’m ready to move forward through the heaviness of transformation into the joy of new beginnings. I’m ready to dance in the sunlight, to laugh out loud, to wear my silly mis-matched socks, to watch more silly movies, to catch snowflakes on my tongue, to dive headlong into work that brings me joy, and to teach classes that make me giddy with the anticipation of offering joy to my students.
In 2011, I choose JOY!
