by Heather Plett | Sep 2, 2014 | growth, journey
There’s something about September – the way it hovers in between seasons, reminding us of what we’re leaving and what is yet to come.
I always feel a mix of emotions at this time of year.
I feel the melancholy of summer ending. I feel the sadness over school starting again (mixed with a little joy that I’ll have a quiet house again). I feel the dread of winter just around the corner.
I also feel the delight over the weather shifting and the vibrant colours showing up on the landscape.
When I’m honest with myself, I have to admit that I love September. It’s probably one of my favourite months. I don’t love the heat and I don’t love the cold and September is usually just right.
And yet… I don’t always let myself love it. I get caught up in the rush of trying to get the girls back to school and I get mired in that sinking feeling of winter coming and I forget to pause long enough to really appreciate the way the weather has shifted into a more gentle warmth with cooling evenings and the way the trees are adorning themselves in orange and yellow and red.
I love long walks in crunching leaves. I love campfires on cool evenings. I love the quality of light at this time of year. I love slipping on a sweater when the weather begins to cool.
Despite the melancholy it brings, I truly love September.
But… there’s something else about this time of year that I don’t love.
It’s the season when death feels close at hand.
There’s a pattern in my family. Most of the births happen in the first half of the year, and most of the deaths happen in the second. My dad, my mom, my son, my father-in-law, and most of my grandparents – they all died between August and November.
And so this time of year comes with reminders of all that I’ve lost.
And this time, September brings with it the possibility of another loss. My oldest brother, who’s been battling cancer for over a year, with multiple surgeries and lots of chemo, has been told the cancer is growing again and there may not be anything they can do. He was told he may have only months to live. (And then, a few days later, he was told they’ll probably make one last ditch effort to save him through surgery.)
When I let myself think of the possibility of losing him, desperation closes my throat and it’s suddenly painful to breathe and impossible to swallow. NO! Death can’t take another member of my family! It’s too soon! I NEED him! It’s not even two years since Mom left us. Please God NO! He’s my big brother. He’s always been a rock in the storm, a solid place to land – as dependable as the earth beneath my feet. I need something dependable in my life. He JUST. CAN’T. GO.
And then I realize… it’s just like September. If I focus only on the fact that I might lose my brother, I’ll forget to live in the now. I’ll forget to see the beauty. I’ll forget to laugh at the jokes he sends, forget to appreciate all that he’s been in my life, forget to recognize what a gift it’s been to grow up in a family so full of love, faith, humour, and wisdom.
If I rush through September, lamenting the summer that’s been and dreading the winter that’s coming, I’ll miss this month that I love so much. If I rush through my life, feeling sorry for myself over all that I’ve lost and dreading the losses yet to come, I’ll miss everything that makes my life so good and beautiful.
I don’t want to miss September. I want to be present for what’s here. Now.
Winter might be hard and long, but right now is beautiful. Right now the sun is painting the tips of the trees with gold. Right now the birds are still singing, the butterflies are still dancing, and the sun is still warming my skin. Right now I have friends who invite me to campfires in teepees and other friends who don’t mind walking through the English gardens in the rain with me. Right now I have daughters who make me laugh. Right now I have a brother walking a courageous path through cancer, who’s crazy in love with his family, and I get to be part of that big love.
Right now is all I need.
If you want to be more present for what’s here right now, you might like Fall Reflections: A Mindfulness Journal.
by Heather Plett | Aug 29, 2014 | mandala, Uncategorized
This is a re-share from back in February. I’m bringing it forward again, partly because Mandala Discovery starts again September 1st, and partly because the topic seems timely for some of the things going on in the world around us right now.
Last week I attended a vigil for two people whose bodies had been found in the river. Both were First Nations. Both were living marginalized lives, victims of generations of injustice. One was a homeless man who struggled with addiction. He was known in our city as the Homeless Hero because he’d saved two people from drowning a few years before his own life ended in the same river. The other was a 15 year-old-girl who ran away from a foster home, was exploited and then murdered.
At the same time, in the U.S., the passionate response to a young black man’s death at the hands of the police in Ferguson continues to remind us that the world does not treat all young men equally.
As a woman born into white privilege, I did not “earn” better treatment than any of these three people did, and yet it is almost certain that I would have been treated better in almost every circumstance than any of these three people were. It’s not fair, and I can feel helpless in the face of it and choose to hide my head in the sand and pretend it doesn’t matter, or I can choose to be awake to what I see, choose to be honest about where the problems are, and choose to own my lineage with all its flaws and imbalances.
We all have our historic stories that feed into who we are and how we walk in the world. I come from a Mennonite heritage, and so I carry with me the roots of pacifism and stories of the abuse my ancestors faced in Russia because of it. Those stories may feel far away, and yet they are part of who I am.
If you want to explore your own roots, here’s a Mandala Journal process that might help you do that.
If this feels meaningful to you and you’d like to receive a prompt like this in your inbox once a day for 30 days, sign up for Mandala Discovery, starting September 1st.
Where Your Roots Grow
A couple of years ago, I had the privilege of participating in a healing circle for people who’d been impacted by residential schools in our country. This is a tragic chapter of Canada’s history in which Aboriginal children were taken from their families and placed in boarding schools where they were denied their own cultural practices and language, and many were physically and emotionally abused.
A few of the people in the circle had been students at residential schools, but more of them had been raised by parents who were forced to attend residential schools. And then there were those of us who didn’t have residential schools in our blood line, but knew that we were impacted nonetheless, because our community members were impacted and because we were raised as white Canadians with a colonial history. Some of our ancestors undoubtedly shared in the guilt of this injustice.
As we listened to the stories shared around the circle, it was clear that all of us carried both the wounds and the wounding of our ancestors. It was especially apparent in those who’d been raised with parents who’d been in residential schools. Some of them spoke of alcoholism, family abuse, cultural neglect, and other stories that clearly left deep wounds in their collective psyche.
Whatever our roots are – whether we were raised in a lineage of oppressed or oppressors, religious or agnostic, poverty or wealth – we all carry the stories of our ancestors with us.
Our roots reach much deeper into the soil of our family’s past than we ever fully understand. We are impacted by the history that happened in our bloodline long before we were conceived and born into this world.
Bethany Webster talks about the importance of healing the mother wound. “The mother wound is the pain of being a woman passed down through generations of women in patriarchal cultures. And it includes the dysfunctional coping mechanisms that are used to process that pain.” The mother wound manifests itself in our lives as shame, comparison, the feeling that we need to stay small, allowing ourselves to be mistreated by others, and self-sabotage. If we do not heal it, she says, we continue to pass this wound down through the generations.
We must also consider the ways in which patriarchy has impacted men. As Richard Rohr says, “After 20 years of working with men on retreats and rites of passage, in spiritual direction, and even in prison, it has sadly become clear to me how trapped the typical Western male feels. He is trapped inside, with almost no inner universe of deep meaning to heal him or guide him.” Men have to come to terms with their own wounds and often have little support to find healing for them.
These stories that we carry from our past – that we are not worthy, that we need to stay small, that we are not allowed to show emotion, that our cultures don’t have as much value as that of our colonizers, or that we are not allowed to do anything that goes against our religion for fear of hell – they are the soil in which our roots grow. If that soil is not fertile and nurturing, our growth is impaired and we never reach our full potential.
Imagine, though, that through an alchemical process, these stories can be healed and transformed and can become the fertile soil we need for healthy growth. Imagine that they can provide rich fertilizer to feed our roots and make our branches grow and our fruit to be plump and sweet.
We can transform these stories. They do not need to keep us small. They do not need to hold us back from what we can become.
Through much inner work – whether that looks like therapy, journaling, dance, meditation, mandala-making, or any other form of self-discovery and healing – we can cultivate those stories and stir them like a compost heap until they become the richest of fertilizer. This is not easy work, and it is not short-term work, but it is necessary work. The world needs us to heal and the world needs us to grow strong and true.
After reading the article by Bethany Webster, about the need to heal the Mother Wound, I wrote a letter to my mom. She died last year, so she won’t read it on this earth, but I still felt like there were some things I needed to say to her. I acknowledged the way that she had been wounded (by losing her mother when she was six, for example) and forgave her for the way that those wounds were passed on to me. I thanked her for the love she poured on me and my siblings despite the deep wounds she carried. Writing the letter felt significant – like I had begun to heal something for both myself and for her. There is more work to do, but every step toward healing is a step in the right direction.
Consider what Charles Eisenstein says about how our healing can contribute to the world’s healing (in “The More Beautiful World Our Hearts Know is Possible”):
“When I see how my friend R. has, in the face of near-impossible odds, so profoundly healed from being abused as a child, I think, ‘If she can heal, it means that millions like her can too; and her healing smooths the path for them.’
“Sometimes I take it even a step further. One time at a men’s retreat one of the participants showed us burn scars on his penis, the result of cigarette burns administered by a foster parent when he was five years old to punish him. The man was going through a powerful process of release and forgiveness. In a flash, I perceived that his reason for being here on Earth was to receive and heal from this wound, as an act of world-changing service to us all. I said to him, ‘J., if you accomplish nothing else this lifetime but to heal from this, you will have done the world a great service.’ The truth of that was palpable to all present.”
Eisenstein goes on to talk about scientific research into “morphic resonance” in nature – the concept that once something happens somewhere, it induces the same thing to happen elsewhere. Some substances, for example, are reliably liquid for many years until suddenly, around the world, they begin to crystallize. It is not clear why it happens, when these substance are not in contact with each other or exposed to the same environment, but it seems that a change to one begins to result in changes to others. In the same way, he says, the healing of one person can lead to the healing of others, even if those people never meet.
Transforming your stories into rich soil so that you can grow strong is necessary not only for you, but for the world.
Your Roots Mandala
Imagine you are a tree, firmly rooted in the stories of your past. Some of these stories are conscious for you (memories from childhood) and some are less conscious but you are impacted by them nonetheless.
Begin by drawing a large circle. In the centre of the circle, draw a small circle that represents the trunk of a tree. Reaching out from that trunk into the fertile soil around it, draw the roots of that tree. (Imagine you are looking down on the tree from above and can only see that part of the tree that is underground, not the branches or leaves.)
Between the roots, write down stories that are part of your past. Start with the stories that you know have impacted you and your growth in both positive and negative ways. Your religious upbringing, your father’s temper, your mother’s insecurity, your grandmother’s way of making you feel special, your birth order, your childhood abuse, etc. Do not censor yourself – if a story shows up, there’s a good chance it had an impact on you whether or not you recognize it. (There is no right or wrong way to do this – your stories are your own and you know what matters to you.)
Reach further back. What are the stories that impacted your lineage before you were born? Your family’s displacement from the country they called home, your grandmother’s abusive marriage, your ancestors’ connection to colonialism or oppression, your grandfather’s death when your mother was small.
Write them all down. Some of them may bring up pain, and some may bring up positive memories. Some may have a clear impact on your life, and some you may not fully understand until a much later date. They are all part of your narrative and they are all part of the soil in which your roots dig for nourishment.
With a black pencil crayon, shade over the stories you have written, imagining that all of them are now becoming part of the compost that helps you grow. Whether good or bad, those stories are your soil.
Note: This exercise may bring up a lot of mixed emotions for you. It may feel like a little bit of healing, or it may feel like you’ve opened a wound that is still raw. That’s all part of the healing process. Sit with whatever comes up and do not try to suppress it. If you need to, do some further journaling to explore what came up, or find someone you trust that you can talk to about this.
You can find a downloadable pdf of this lesson here.
Did you find this useful? Consider signing up for the September 2014 offering of Mandala Discovery: 30 Days of Mandala Journaling. You’ll get 30 more like this.
by Heather Plett | Aug 27, 2014 | Community, growth, Leadership, Uncategorized
Nobody told me about the loneliness.
Nobody told me that growth can leave you feeling like you’ve stepped out onto a dock all alone and nobody’s there to reach out a hand to steady you when the waves come. Nobody mentioned that the friends who surrounded you on the shore can feel suddenly distant and unavailable.
Nobody talks about it because you’re supposed to be able to figure this stuff out. You’re supposed to know how to get your sea legs, how to walk without wobbling. You’re supposed to be independent in this new growth of yours and not need people as much as you did before.
Nobody talks about it and so you don’t talk about it either. Because you don’t want to be the only one standing out there looking lost and bewildered while everyone else stands confidently. There’s some shame in turning back to those friends on the shore and saying “Look, I’ve grown… but I’m lonely.” There’s even more shame in looking across at the other docks at the people who’ve also grown but seem so much more sure-footed and saying “Ummm… I know we’re supposed to figure this stuff out on our own, but I’m feeling a little lost. Can you come over here for awhile and hold me until I get my sea legs?”
It’s happened to me every time there’s been growth in my life.
The first time loneliness really hit me was when I became a mother. Suddenly all my single friends no longer understood what I was going through and they were still busy doing what single people do while I was fumbling my way through diapers and sleepless nights. I didn’t know how to make new friends in this foreign world of motherhood, and I was pretty sure all the other moms must have been privy to some insider knowledge about how to do this motherhood thing that I didn’t have. I was afraid to admit how lost I was. I remember tentatively reaching out to one mom and trying to admit how I was feeling and she looked at me with what I interpreted as judgement for how inept I was, but was probably a look of understanding mixed with her own fear of admitting how lost she was. I was more reluctant to reach out again after that.
The next time the loneliness hit me was only a couple of years later when I became a senior manager for the first time. Suddenly I was set apart from all of the colleagues and friends that had been my peers just days before. Suddenly I wasn’t let in on the office gossip anymore or invited to the after-work drink dates quite as often. I was a leader now – I was supposed to be self-sufficient and confident and I wasn’t supposed to admit that I was in over my head and really needed some friends to remind me what I was capable of.
Once again, I didn’t know where to turn. I tried to reach out to other managers to form a support group or conversation circle, but there was little reception. They were either too busy trying to maintain their confident leader personas or they’d found other ways of getting the support they needed.
It took a long time, but gradually I found a little support. I started having lunch dates with my friend Susan, one of the only other senior managers I could find who was willing to be vulnerable enough to admit that she didn’t have this leadership stuff all figured out. And then one day I found myself at Authentic Leadership in Action Summer Institute where the opening speaker invited our vulnerability and fear and curiosity and suddenly I realized I was among like-minded people who weren’t afraid to admit that they don’t always know what they’re doing. Suddenly I knew I’d found my tribe.
Not long after that, I went for training in The Circle Way, and the same thing happened. People sat in circle and cracked their hearts open and I knew that I had found my home.
What I realized, around the same time, is that this loneliness is not isolated to career-related growth. It can happen when you change your religious beliefs or leave a faith community or tradition. It can happen when you change your priorities or leave broken relationships. It can happen any time you take a step onto a dock that’s unfamiliar to the people who were standing with you on the shore. You leave people behind, often before you know where to find the next community.
By the time my next major growth curve came along, I was more prepared for the loneliness. When I started teaching, I knew that, once again, I’d be set apart from the other people in the room, wouldn’t be let in on the inside jokes, and would always be seen as “other”. Fortunately, I knew where to turn to when the loneliness came. I’d found my tribe. I had support. The loneliness was fleeting.
The same was true when I launched my own business. I was no longer going in to an office where I could enjoy the camaraderie of coworkers and, though I felt some isolation in that, I knew how to find support in my online circles. My friend Desiree was launching her business at the same time, stepping out onto her own dock, and so we had weekly Skype chats to help each other get our sea legs. Sometimes we cried, sometimes we gave each other tough love, and sometimes we celebrated. There were other people too. I was no longer afraid to be vulnerable and authentic. I found support and I offered it.
I haven’t forgotten the early days, though. I haven’t forgotten what it was like to be out there on the dock all alone. I haven’t forgotten how hard it was to reach out and admit that I was scared.
That’s why I now make a conscious effort to turn around and look for people who are stepping out on their own docks behind me. I watch for them and when I see them stumble I reach out a hand to steady them. I don’t want them to feel lonely. I don’t want them to feel like they can’t admit how scary this big new step is. I want them to feel supported.
I want to encourage them to give themselves permission to be vulnerable.
“I’m not a teacher: only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead – ahead of myself as well as you.” – George Bernard Shaw
Trust me – it’s much easier to grow when you give yourself permission to admit how lost and alone you feel. It’s much easier to find your sea legs if you reach out for a hand to steady you. Sure it’s scary, but it’s worth it. And the surprising thing that I’ve discovered is that reaching out for support is actually a sign of strength rather than a sign of weakness.
Several years ago, I took my daughter Maddy to see a 3D version of Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. She was pretty young at the time and it was her first 3D movie, so she was in awe of how the screen was coming alive. Each time something would fly at her, she’d reach out to try to grab it. It didn’t seem to bother her that she never got her hands on anything.
With a grin splitting her face, she turned to me and said “Reach out Mom! It’s way better when you reach out!” I smiled back, started reaching out, and she was right – it was WAY better.
And so I say the same to you. “Reach out friend! It’s way better when you reach out.” Reach out for support. Reach out for kindness. Reach out for someone to hold you up when your knees give out.
And then, when you’re ready, reach out for the next person behind you who needs the same support.
Also, if you are one of those people stepping out onto the dock and you’re feeling lost and alone and you’re pretty sure everyone else is more confident than you, I’ve created a coaching program just for you. I want to help.
by Heather Plett | Aug 18, 2014 | connection, Creativity, journey, writing
In honour of the release of Fall Reflections: A mindfulness journal, I’m sharing these ten tips. For some who are just beginning a journal writing practice, they may offer a place to start. For others they may offer enhancement to an ongoing practice.
1. Start with the facts, then move to the feelings. Begin by describing the details of your day. What did you do, who did you see? As you write, consider how you responded emotionally to whatever happened.
2. Try a stream-of-consciousness style of writing. Just write the next thing that comes to mind. If you’re writing about the conversation you had with your mom, for example, a question might suddenly come to mind about something your mom said. Write it down. Don’t censor. Just write.
3. Keep it simple and don’t edit. Your journal is not a place to prove you should be the next poet laureate. It’s about the process, not the product. Use simple language, and write what comes to mind rather than over-thinking what words to use.
4. Keep the “shoulds” out of it. Your journal is a place to be honest with yourself, not a place to try to reform yourself into what you think you should be. Simply write how you feel and what you think rather than filtering it with what you think you SHOULD think or feel. There’s enough of that self-filtering when you talk to others and it doesn’t belong in a journal that’s meant for your eyes only.
5. When you’re trying to work through internal conflict, try writing a dialogue with yourself. If, for example, there’s part of you that wants to go on a trip and another part of you that thinks it’s a bad idea, write as though those are two separate people having a conversation back and forth.
6. If the blank page scares you, use journal prompts to help you get started. Fall Reflections or Summer Lovin’ might be a good place to start. Or you could choose to start each day’s entry with the same simple journal prompt such as “My wish for today is…” or “Five words to describe this day are…” or “The things I want to remember about this day are…”
7. Try keeping a list every day. It could be a list of ten things you’re grateful for each day. Or five ways that you were kind to others. Or three ways that you stood up for yourself. Consider what would help you in your personal growth (gratitude, confidence, courage) and create a list prompt around that theme.
8. Find a routine that works for you. Some people write morning pages (filling 3 pages with stream-of-consciousness) every day. Others set aside half an hour each day for journal-writing. Sometimes I suggest to my coaching clients that they simply sit with a pen in their hand for ten minutes each day and see what emerges. (If it’s just doodling some days, that’s perfectly fine!) You have to find what works best for you, or you won’t sustain it.
9. Find the right pen and journal combination that works for you. I love sturdy, attractive journals, and so I give myself permission to splurge a little each time I buy a new one. I also love to write in colour (and change colours on a whim) so I write with fine tip Sharpie markers. You, on the other hand, may love expensive pens but are content with the kind of notebook you used in elementary school. Experiment until you find what makes you happy.
10. Take your journal with you. You never know when you’ll want to write things down, so it’s a good idea to carry it with you on the bus, to the coffee shop, on a trip – wherever you go. If your journal is too big, consider having a smaller secondary notebook in your purse or backpack.
Finally, just be yourself and write what you want to write. There is no wrong way to do this! Just start wherever you are, write in your very own style, and don’t do it to please anyone else but yourself.
p.s. For only $10, you can download Fall Reflections and you’ll have 60 journal prompts to get you started. If you want to go even deeper with your writing, my next Openhearted Writing Circle will be October 4, 2014.
by Heather Plett | Aug 14, 2014 | Uncategorized
There is much being said in the media and in our social media feeds about suicide and mental illness. Some of it is pure lament, some of it is an attempt at having more open conversations about these hard things, some of it is honest sharing about what it’s like to be on the precipice, and some of it is completely wrongheaded and cruel.
And then there is the stuff in between the good and the bad – those feeble (and admittedly often wrong-headed) attempts to be helpful, to fix this and somehow put the world back in order. To convince those in the darkness that we really want them to live.
“Suicide is selfish.” “Choose life.” “Choose joy.” “Think of the people you’re leaving behind.”
For those who’ve been anywhere near the place where Robin Williams was earlier this week, these statements can trigger you and do exactly the opposite of what they’re meant to accomplish. You know how useless it is to assume you really have any rational choice when the darkness takes over your mind. You know you can’t just “snap out of it”. You know you’re not really being selfish when you’ve become convinced the world would be a better place without you.
As one of those people who’s said some of those wrong things in her life… can you please find it in your heart to forgive us? Forgive us, but don’t let us off the hook. Tell us what we should say instead. Tell us how we should show up for you. Tell us how we can show our love in helpful ways.
Because some of us are desperate. Some of us are standing on the shore, holding the only thing we think might be a lifeline, making every feeble attempt we can to toss it into the raging current to pull you back to shore.
Sometimes we throw the wrong lifeline and we hit you on the head instead.
When my beloved first slipped into the darkness that had no name, I had no idea how to handle it. Five months pregnant with our first child, and completely unprepared and ill-equipped to support someone who didn’t himself understand what he was going through, I can tell you this… I said a whole lot of wrong things.
I tried to bargain with him. I tried to make him feel guilty. I tried tough love. I tried anger. I tried desperation. I tried dropping him off at an overnight care facility. I tried hiring the best psychologist I could find. I even tried to hide the phone when I thought he was making the wrong choice and then threw it at him and ran away when I realized I had no control over the situation. Yes, I threw things.
And then the next day, after I’d spent the day driving all over the countryside trying to find him, when he was lying in the hospital bed about to be wheeled into surgery to try to save the life he’d tried to end, I STILL said the wrong thing. Instead of saying “I’m so glad you’re alive. I love you.” I said “Why did you try to leave me? How could you do this to me and our baby?”
Because I didn’t know what else to say to convince him to stay. Because I didn’t want to be alone.
Fifteen years later, when he slipped back into the darkness, we thought we were better prepared. We thought he couldn’t possibly slip so far again. We got help. He talked to the right people. He promised he would never, ever try to end his life again.
And then one day I was rushing him to the hospital in another desperate attempt to save the life he tried to end. Again.
And STILL I said the wrong things. Because I was angry. Because I was desperate. Because I didn’t know better. Because I loved him.
Despite all of my mistakes, he found a way to forgive me. And he got better. And he worked, once again, at staring his demons in the face. And we worked at patching our marriage back together.
Because in all of that – in all of my blundering attempts to help him – he saw that it was love that made me do it. And in the mix of the wrong things, I also said some right things. And he says now that I saved his life.
It might happen again – to him or to someone I love. (Please God NO!) And I’ll probably still say some of the wrong things. Hopefully I’ll also say more right things than wrong. Hopefully love will be strong enough to tip the scales.
So I beg you – if you are one of those people being triggered by the wrong things being said – please help us. Please let us know where to stand and where to throw the rope. I know you can’t communicate it in the middle of your darkness, or you would. But if you’re currently not in the darkness and remember what it’s like, talk to us. Tell us what people said that were the right things. Tell us how to love you.
Because we love you. And we’re desperate.
