by Heather Plett | Mar 22, 2010 | Uncategorized
I always enjoy it when I’m doing public speaking and I get introduced by someone who knows me fairly well. You find out new things about who you are when you hear yourself described by someone else.
The same is true when someone writes an article about you. My friend Stephanie used to be a work associate but is now a freelance writer, and she recently wrote a profile piece about me (and two other women in leadership) for an International Women’s Day feature in a small Christian publication. Here’s her take on me… (if you click on it, you should be able to see a larger version.)
by Heather Plett | Mar 20, 2010 | Uncategorized
It’s been just over a week since surgery, and I am feeling remarkably good. Still a little tender, and I tire easily, so I can’t do much yet, but I am in good spirits and can at least leave the house now and then. On doctor’s orders, I’ll be taking another week off work, but I have to admit that it feels a little like guilty pleasure to be sitting around doing nothing and feeling this good rather than working. But hey – why would I disobey doctor’s orders? This week I’m hoping to do some writing and painting, now that I can sit up for longer periods of time.
As much as I’m feeling good, I’ll be honest with you – there are some things I’m really, REALLY looking forward to:
- Sleeping on my side again. Oh my – this sleeping on my back thing is really getting old!
- Movement. Almost any kind of movement. Too much rest is not good for the body, and I swear my back and joints scream at me every morning “PLEASE MOVE US! SOON!”
- Getting the stitches out. Friday. Yay!
- Going for long walks in the Spring sunshine.
- Running. I was really starting to enjoy the treadmill, and now that I have less flopping, I think I’ll buy some good runners and try running outside!
- Buying a new bathing suit! Yes, it’s true – that is the FIRST time I’ve ever looked forward to something that has always been a pure but necessary evil. Bathing suits just aren’t made for women with watermelon jugs.
- Shopping for pretty bras! No more ugly functional over-the-shoulder-boulder-holders! Woot! I’m going to Victoria Secret and buying the prettiest, most frivolous bra I can find! Polka dots, frills, whatever! Just because I can.
- Riding my bike. It’s been lovely Spring weather around here and I am envious of people who ride past my window. I want to be on my bike in the worst way.
- Buying button-up shirts. When the “preparing for surgery” note told me to wear a button-up shirt so that it was easy to put on afterwards, I had to really dig for one. When the buttons have a tendency of popping, you just give up on button-ups and wear a lot of t-shirts and sweaters. But I’m buyin’ some! Soon!
- Yoga, dance – any kind of movement that will no longer be restricted by the extra weight I was carrying in the front.
- Having a bra burning party! I don’t know when or where yet, but I intend to burn those babies and I want my friends around cheering me on! If I can make it work, it may even be a pajama party. Any ideas?
- Less self-consciousness. Less self-criticism. Less disappointment when I look at photos of myself.
- Better posture. Marcel has already commented that I’m holding myself straighter and that will only get better when there’s no more discomfort.
I’m still overweight, and I’m not foolish enough to believe that this will resolve all of my body issues, but I already feel so much better now that I’m at least a little better proportioned. The best is yet to come!
by Heather Plett | Mar 18, 2010 | Uncategorized
(not the river I stood by this morning, but another river I've learned from)
This morning I went to see the river. I’d barely left the house all week and needed to sit with Mother Nature for awhile. Water calls me. Always.
This time it wasn’t the mighty Red River that flows close to my house. It was the smaller Seine a little further away.
A week ago it was frozen. Today it was surging with Spring thaw. I stood on a small man-made water weir, mesmorized by the churning water a few feet below me.
The nature of a river can be boiled down to one word. Flow. If it didn’t flow, it wouldn’t be a river. To fulfill its purpose – its calling – it must flow. At all costs. It might sit frozen for a few months (just like the cocoon in yesterday’s post), but when the Spring comes, it returns to the only thing it knows – flowing.
The water weir presents a challenge for the otherwise sleepy little river. How will it get past this barrier? By rising, that’s how. By building up enough volume and strength to flow over top of the wall in front of it.
If the river ceased to follow its very nature and let the obstacles win, it would become a stagnant pond, no longer able to sustain life. Or it would flood the farmland and wreak havoc with the life forces around it that depend on its reliability.
“What about me?” I thought. “How do I respond when the Spring thaw calls me to come out of hibernation and bring forth life? And what do I do when obstacles get in the way? Obstacles like fear, uncertainty, or criticism? Do I cease to follow the path I feel called to? Do I stagnate and forget how to sustain life? Do I flood the land with negative energy and disappoint the people whom I’m called to help? Or do I gather my strength and rise even higher than I was before?”
Just before I walked back to my car, I heard the river whisper “Flow, baby, flow.”
by Heather Plett | Mar 16, 2010 | Beauty, beginnings, fearless, journey, Uncategorized
I’m writing this from my little cocoon on the couch. The big picture window lets me catch glimpses of the outside world, but until I am sufficiently healed from my breast reduction surgery, I remain mostly indoors, in this position, with a few good wisdom books, some green tea, my journal, my laptop, and a box of tissues within reach.
The last time I remember cocooning like this was in September 2000. I was in the hospital for a few weeks hoping the baby I carried would remain in his little cocoon long enough to emerge a beautiful strong butterfly. He didn’t, but that doesn’t mean a butterfly didn’t emerge. It was a transformative time for me, Marcel, and our family. Transformation that was brought on largely because of those three weeks I sat in the quiet little retreat space that my hospital room had become, holding space for the son who would never breathe but would change my world.
During that time, my friend Stephanie gifted me with a story about how a butterfly had become a beloved symbol for a woman who had gone through the loss of her dad. She also gave me a butterfly clip that I wore until I left the hospital. Amazingly, after that day, butterflies started showing up everywhere, including my 5th floor hospital window.
Even after I left the hospital without Matthew, butterflies served as a regular reminder of my son and the way that he had changed me. The following Mother’s Day, while we ate lunch outside with our family, an amazingly friendly butterfly, with one flawed wing, landed on the heads of almost everyone at the table. It was my son, coming to bless us on Mother’s Day.
This week, I’m cocooning again. I was resistant at first, wishing for the time to pass, wishing for friends to visit, wishing I could at least accomplish something. But then I listened to Jen Lee’s simple but wise podcast about how sometimes, when it looks like nothing’s happening, the truth is that everything’s happening. When Jen talked about the transformation that happens when she’s busy taking a nap, it triggered a deep, resounding “YES!” in me, and soon I was relishing my quiet little cocoon on the couch.
The thoughts that came after Jen’s podcast sent me to my bookshelf for an old friend. More than 20 years ago, a beloved teacher/mentor I had at the time, gifted me with “Hope for the Flowers“, a transformative little picture book about a young caterpillar who, after trying repeatedly to “reach the sky” by climbing to the top of a “pillar of caterpillars”, learns to give in to his true nature, climb up on a branch and spin a cocoon. Only once he is willing to take that risk and just be still is he ready to be transformed into the butterfly he is meant to become.
Re-reading that book for the umpteenth time reminded me of how valuable it had been, nearly 10 years ago, to pause from clamouring up my own “pillar of caterpillars”, and rest in my little cocoon with my unborn son as my spiritual guide.
With rather uncanny timing (isn’t that often how these things happen?) I stumbled on Lianne’s lovely (and free!) e-book that asks the provocative question “What is dying to be born?” I haven’t been able to stop thinking about that question since I read through the book. (It’s beautiful and full of so much goodness!)
Wow! What is it that has to die in me in order to let something else be born? What do I have to be willing to abandon in this cocoon in order to emerge the butterfly I am meant to become?
Last year was a restless year. Despite a great job and lots of goodness in my life, I was full of some deep dissatisfaction. Try as I might, I couldn’t find the right way to FIX it. I tried some new things, took some new paths, restled with demons, but still the dissatisfaction lingered.
Until… well, until I was willing to do two of the things I’d been avoiding. Rest. And wait.
I haven’t quite figured out what is dying to be born in my life, but I know that I won’t figure it out with restless clamouring, trying to reach the sky.
I’m giving in, and spinning my cocoon. Some day soon, the body that I chose to transform through surgery, will carry me through the deeper transformation into my butterfly life.
by Heather Plett | Mar 14, 2010 | Beauty
“A life without delight is only half a life.”
“In order to become attentive to beauty, we need to rediscover the art of reverence.”
“If we attempt to own beauty, we corrupt it.”
“The call to the creative life is a call to dignity, to a life of vulnerability and adventure and the call to a life that exquisite excitement and indeed ecstasy will often visit.”
“We have a sacred responsibility to encourage and illuminate all that is inherently good and special in each other.”
“It is a wonderful day in a life when one is finally able to stand before the long, deep mirror of one’s own reflection and view oneself with appreciation, acceptance, and forgiveness.”
“Your strange and restless uniqueness is an intimate expression of God and who you are says something of who God is.”
“Rather than trying to set out like some isolated cosmonaut in search of God, maybe the secret is to let God find you.”
(Just a few of the things I underlined in “Beauty: Rediscovering the True Sources of Compassion, Serenity, and Hope” by John O’Donohue.)
