Yesterday was a powerful day. One of those days that leaves you vibrating with energy when it’s all over.
In the morning, I was a guest in a design class in the School of Art at the University of Manitoba. My friend ‘Segun teaches design there. He’d asked me to share the manuscript for my memoir with his students, so that they could design it as one of their assignments. My visit to the classroom was for the purpose of giving them feedback on their designs, so that they have some experience in working with a client in the design process.
I expected to see design concepts on a screen. I wasn’t expecting to hold copies of MY BOOK in my hands. Wow! What an amazing feeling that was! And these weren’t ordinary designs – they were all beautiful! The students are in their third year of art school, so their talent is exceptional. Suddenly my long time dream of becoming a published author began to feel like a very real possibility.
The book (at this point, at least) is called Butterfly at the Grave. Here are some of the possibilities of what it might look like.
What felt especially powerful about the morning was the way that these students had so tenderly treated my words and ideas, honouring them with art, photography, and beautiful treatment of text. Each one of them explained the way they’d interpreted my words and translated them into art, demonstrating a real sensitivity in their approaches.
In return, I held their creations tenderly in my hands, gave them gentle (and hopefully helpful) feedback, and encouraged them in their pursuit of art.
The afternoon was similar in some ways, and yet very different. As a board member of UNPAC (a feminist organization that works to empower and advocate for women), I’d been asked to serve as a mentor for our Changemakers program. In this program, women are mentored to become leaders in their communities. The target audience is largely marginalized women who live in the inner-city.
I sat with three of the women for most of the afternoon. Throughout the course of the program, they have to work on developing some personal project that they are passionate about – either some business idea that they want to grow, or a community leadership role they want to take initiative on. I served as their advisor, giving them feedback on their ideas and helping them bring more clarity and focus to their plans.
I listened deeply, trying to give each woman the tender and honest respect and encouragement that they need. I would like nothing more than to see these women succeed in their plans.
After our smaller advisory circles, we all joined in a closing circle to offer our final thoughts for the day. There are few things I like more than sitting in a circle of women – especially when those women are talking about stepping into leadership in new ways.
I’m sure that people who saw me on the bus on my way home wondered why I was smiling the whole time.
I was smiling because I’d been touched by so many people throughout the day. First there were the students who’d tenderly held my dream in their hands (and I’d tenderly held theirs in mine), and then there were the women (most of whom have lived difficult lives where trust can not be assumed) who trusted me enough to let me hold their dreams for even a brief moment and offer ideas on how to shape them.
It all felt so very powerful.
This is the way that dreams grow. We plant seeds, add dirt, and then we have to trust other people to help us water those tender shoots when they start to grow.
This is the way that communities grow. We honour each other, give helpful feedback, take risks in trusting each other, and believe in each other’s projects.
This is the way that love grows. We share, we listen, we help, and we give, until each of us shines more beautifully than we did before.
Last week was full of teaching. LOTS of teaching. In four different subject areas.
I taught six hours of writing for public relations, six hours of effective facilitation, six hours of tools for social media visibility, and two and a half hours of creative discovery.
And in between all of that teaching, I had to create curriculum for all of those courses – from scratch. And I had to mark papers for two of the courses.
That, my friends, is some serious teaching exhaustion.
And then, on Friday evening, at the end of it all, I had to muster the energy to go on the radio to talk about some of the teaching I do (on mandalas, creativity, and community-building). By then, my head was spinning with all of the subject matter my head has been dabbling in. (To hear the interview, click here, enter March 16th at 8 pm, and then wait about 15 minutes before my interview starts.)
Needless to say, I had to spend much of the weekend recovering my energy. Fortunately, the weather was lovely, and I had a chance to wander in the woods, walk the labyrinth, do some mandala journaling outside, and have a wiener roast in celebration of my youngest daughter’s tenth birthday.
Yes, I was exhausted and needed to fill my tank, but underneath that exhaustion was an even stronger current, helping me to sustain the energy to carry on.
More than anything, I feel deeply privileged.
I am privileged:
– to be part of the learning journey of so many interesting students.
– to be able to “pay it forward” and share the wisdom that I’ve gained from many wise teachers who’ve inspired me on my own learning journey.
– to have students who come from all over the world (in one class, there are 8 countries represented) to study in Canada.
– to be able to dive deeply into topics that interest me, so that I can learn enough to inspire my students.
– to be on the receiving end of many, many stories.
– to have had so many vast and interesting experiences and learnings in my life that I can now be qualified enough to teach.
– to be able to help people find their unique paths in the world.
– to learn as much from my students as they learn from me.
– to have this much variety in my life to keep my inner “scanner” happy.
– to sit in circle with interesting people and find community in the classroom.
This is a good life.
It’s exhausting, and some days are very, very hard. But most days, it’s a privilege to teach.
This weekend, when I wasn’t wandering around outside, I finished making personalized mandala journals for the people who’ll be participating in Mandala Discovery. Happy that I soon get to connect with another circle of interesting people in yet another course, I poured a little love and goodness into each journal. It was a privilege to make special gifts for each person and know that they will soon be in my life, and I will get to sit in another circle (albeit a virtual one) and hear more stories. I only hope that receiving these journals is as special for them as making them was for me.
After finishing the journals, I edited the following video where some of the wise women who I got to learn from each week in my Creative Discovery class (that is sadly now over) share their experience. Watch it, and you will understand just how privileged I am.
“But… I don’t have coloured markers. Or pencil crayons.” Pause…
“In fact, I have nothing in my house that I can write with in any colour other than black or blue.”
That’s what I’ve heard from several of my mandala discovery clients after we’ve been through the coaching session at the beginning, we’ve identified some block or growth area they want to work on, and I’ve begun to explain a mandala process that will help them.
There’s always a note of something in their voices when they say it. Longing? Fear? Regret? Maybe even a little bit of shame?
“You can start with what you have,” I say, not wanting to push them too far outside of their comfort zone right from the start. “But at some point, I suggest you go out and buy some.”
A few days later, I get an email. “I bought coloured markers!” And sometimes (because buying coloured markers can take much more courage than one would imagine), “I had no idea what I was doing when I was standing in front of a wall full of art supplies, but I heard your voice in my head and I BOUGHT THEM!”
There is always a note of something in that simple email… Joy? Pride? Surprise? Permission?
You could say that I’m a coloured-marker-ambassador.
I believe that every home needs at least one set of coloured markers. Preferably two, or three… or more.
The more I do mandala discovery work, the more I believe in the power of coloured markers.
Coloured markers give us permission to play.
They strip away some of the seriousness that grown-up pens (in boring colours like black and blue) trap us in.
They remind us of the fun we had when we were kids, when a blank white page meant POSSIBILITY!
They help us get unstuck when we’ve been spending too much time in our left brains, trying to wrap logic and ration and order around everything.
They let us make mistakes and ignore linear paths and forget the rules and HAVE FUN!
They remind us that creativity means freedom. And freedom brings change, and from small changes, revolutions begin.
Just think of them as tiny colourful swords to be wielded in our battles against the fear gremlins.
There were many years when I didn’t have coloured markers in my house either. I thought I had to be a grown-up and put away childish things like markers and crayons and colouring books. I was a mom, a manager, a wife, an elder in my church, a board member… a serious, grown-up member of my community. Grown-ups didn’t play with coloured markers.
But then one day, after too many years of blue and black pens, I finally gave in to my silent longing and signed up for an art course. Throughout that first class, I choked back tears. Happy tears. I was in a happier place than I’d been in a long, long time. My love of colour and art and POSSIBILITIES had re-awakened.
I needed more art supplies.
I needed more swords.
And since then, I have filled my tiny office/studio with art supplies… paint, crayons, pastels, chalk, and especially markers. I have fat ones, thin ones, and medium-sized ones. I have every colour in the rainbow… and then some. I am well equipped for battle.
I do most of my journaling in colour – switching whenever the mood strikes me. I doodle, I play… and I make lots of mandalas.
And now I see it as my job to make sure other people rediscover their love of coloured markers too.
Because coloured markers – in a tiny revolutionary way – change things.
We need to stop silencing that part of us that wants to live in full colour. It’s time to stop being so darned grown up and responsible all the time!
When my friend Desiree – an amazing, bold, and creative woman, who’d forgotten just like so many of us – finally bought the markers I’d been cajoling her to get, she gave me the title of this blog post… “THIS,” she said, waving her coloured markers in front of my Skype screen, “is a revolutionary act! Buying these markers CHANGED me!”
If I do nothing more in my life than convince a few people to bring coloured markers back into their lives, then I have done well.
What are you waiting for? Go out there and buy some!
And once you’ve bought them, sign up for Mandala Discovery, and you’ll get to play with those coloured markers (and think revolutionary thoughts) every week!
My current time-waster/stress-reliever is a game called Mahjong, where tiles are stacked in various formations and the goal is to remove all of the tiles by finding matching pairs.
I’ve gotten to the point where I can win about half the games I play, but that meant a fair bit of trial and error had to take place before I could begin to understand the strategy. At first, I’d simply remove any matching pairs that appeared, hoping to get to the bottom. With that approach though, I never succeeded.
One day I had an a-ha moment while playing Mahjong.
Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.
In other words, by removing the easy tiles at the beginning instead of saving them for later when one of them might match another tile that’s more important to remove, I ruin my chances of success in the long run.
The most valuable thing to do is to remove those tiles that reveal something deeper underneath.
The more I play Mahjong, the more I realize those lessons go much beyond a simple game.
Since I started my business last year, I have been doing a lot of things. Too many things. There are lots of things I CAN do, and I’m good at many of them, so when people ask me to do them, I think “I need to make money and I need to get my name out there, so I’d better do this thing.”
I have been writing a book, editing other people’s books, tutoring people, coaching people, mentoring leaders, serving on the board of a women’s empowerment organization, teaching effective written communication, teaching writing for public relations, teaching effective facilitation, teaching emotional intelligence, facilitating community-building workshops, facilitating leadership workshops, teaching creative writing, teaching creative discovery, teaching social media skills, writing and selling ebooks on writing, wandering, leadership, and social media, serving on the organizing committee for an international women’s gathering, building a couple of websites for clients, doing mandala sessions and creating a mandala discovery course, doing a Skype interview series for a leadership gathering, hosting retreats… and… there’s more.
Some days, at the end of the week, I feel like my brain has been riding a merry-go-round for days on end. These past weeks have been especially challenging, since I’m currently teaching courses in three very different subject areas (writing for PR, effective facilitation, and creative discovery), and building a website for the event I’m helping to host this summer, and planning 2 upcoming retreats, and doing some mandala sessions. TOO MUCH!
I need to make money, I need to build my platform, and I enjoy variety, so I have a hard time saying no to the work that shows up.
Just like in the early days of playing Mahjong, I’m removing all of the tiles that appear, without consideration for whether or not they’re helping get to the deeper purpose.
Just because I can, doesn’t mean I should.
It’s time to apply that mantra to my life as well as my Mahjong board. I need more strategy. I need to trust that hanging onto some of the easy tiles will mean I’ll have them in reserve for when they help me get to the deeper stuff.
Yesterday, I took a baby step. Because of my skill-set and experience, I’d been asked to sit on the board of a really interesting organization doing international development work, mostly in Africa. It was SO tempting to say yes, since it so closely matches my values and interests and I knew I would be an asset to them and and it would give me a new circle of interesting connections. BUT I knew it would take time away from some of the other valuable work I’m committed to that’s even more closely aligned with my values and interests and long term business goal. So I made the difficult decision to say no. OOoooo… that was tough.
And I’m going to start saying no to more things, like some of the teaching that requires too much of my time and energy in areas I’m neither effective nor interested (grading papers, for example).
None of it has been a waste of time though. Just like all those practice rounds of Mahjong, before I started winning games, this past year has been incredibly valuable for me. I’ve learned so much more about what I’m good at, what I want to spend my time and energy on, and what offerings of mine people benefit the most from.
I couldn’t get here without the practice.
I couldn’t start saying no until I’d said yes a lot of times. I couldn’t find the work that was most meant for me, without a little trial and error that helped me eliminate the work that wasn’t meant for me.
Here’s what I’ve learned about myself this past year:
I love public speaking. I am often in my most happy place when I am speaking, leading, facilitating, or teaching. But I don’t really enjoy speaking on topics that don’t energize me.
I love engaging people in meaningful conversation, and I love helping them get to deeper levels of meaning. I even get energy from facilitating challenging dialogues.
I love encouraging people, but I don’t really enjoy being in a position where I have to judge their work. I’d much rather offer words of encouragement to my students and help them find their unique gifts than correct their papers and give them grades.
I love creative writing, and I enjoy teaching other people to write more creatively, but I don’t really enjoy teaching business writing.
I am a meaning-finder, a metaphor-maker, a big picture thinker and a non-dualistic processor. I thrive on creativity. I am much more comfortable outside the box than inside. I feel easily trapped when I have to teach or work in environments that feel too restrictive or systems-driven.
I can’t think of anything I love more than doing creative work (like mandalas) and encouraging others to grow in their creativity and self-discovery.
I keep going back to the personal mission statement I wrote about 10 years ago when I first started imagining this work.
“It is my mission to inspire excellence in people, to facilitate personal growth and the discovery of gifts, and to serve as a catalyst for positive change.”
It’s time to start saying no to more things so that I can say a bigger YES to my mission.
This week I woke with a new abbreviated version of my mission statement on my mind.
I am a catalyst for creativity, community, and change.
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing,
there is a field. I will meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about
language, ideas, even the phrase ‘each other’
doesn’t make any sense. – Rumi
“You know what your problem is? You’re too good at seeing both the pros and cons of every situation.” Those words came from a former boss of mine who was somewhat frustrated with me at the time (fifteen years ago) for failing to take sides on an issues. (More specifically, I was failing to take his side.)
Although they were spoken in frustration and were meant as more of an insult than a complement, I have always been grateful for those words. They’ve been some of the most clarifying and helpful words spoken to me in my own self-discovery journey. (Incidentally, that wasn’t the last time I heard similar words from a male boss.)
At the time, though I may have blushed a little at his annoyance, I had a wonderful a-ha moment about a quality I possess that is both a strength and a weakness.
I can sit comfortably in the grey zone.
I don’t need a world painted black and white, true or false, right or wrong, good or bad. Most of the time, I am more comfortable in the centre line between the yin and the yang. I like to probe the depths of both the black and the white and find the grey buried underneath.
In the past, when I’ve been in leadership positions that have required decisiveness and clear direction, this quality has been a bit of a stumbling block. Staff would sometimes get frustrated with me when I’d show up at meetings with more questions than answers. On the other hand, when I invited them into the grey zone with me, there was usually rich and deep conversation that wouldn’t have happened with a more black and white leader.
This is why I am so thoroughly enjoying the work I’m currently doing. When I teach or host conversations or work one-on-one with clients, I invite people into spaces of exploration and questions. Together we explore the beautiful shades of grey in the field beyond “wrongdoing and rightdoing”. I get to ask good questions – the kinds of questions that don’t have immediate answers and require us to practice sitting with them. In classrooms where there are strong-minded, dualistic thinkers, I invite them into the common spaces and help them find shades of truth in the other’s line of thinking. I am happiest when I have helped people poke holes through the boxes in which they’ve placed themselves and they can begin to see that there is light outside the box.
I take Jesus as my model for how to live in the grey zone and still serve as an effective leader. His greatest frustration was with the church leaders who got so lost in rules and doctrine that they didn’t leave room for grace and compassion. Jesus lead as a storyteller whose strength lay in relationships, conversation, and deep and meaningful questions. It’s ironic, isn’t it, that what we now most commonly associate with Christianity today is narrow-mindedness, when Jesus was one of the most radically open-minded leaders in history?
I’ve always found it interesting that Jesus chose to never write anything down. I’m sure he knew that writing things down would give people throughout history the excuse to turn his words into black and white proclamations.
Instead of doctrine and laws, Jesus left us with stories full of grey areas. He invited us into that field beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing.
I am sure that many of the people who resisted Jesus were just like some of my students, who express frustration that there are no clearer rules for right and wrong in the subjects I teach (eg. writing, facilitation, creativity). It’s easier to live in a world of black and white because then we know what’s expected of us and we know when we’ve crossed the lines.
But, unless you’re a police officer enforcing the law, most of the world doesn’t function that way.
We all have to live in the grey zone.
My mandala practice is one of the most beautiful ways I’ve found for living comfortably in the grey zone. Mandalas invite us out into the field that Rumi speaks of, where “the world is too full to talk about language, ideas,” and “even the phrase each other doesn’t make any sense.”
Mandalas invite us out past our linear, problem-fixing mindsets, into a circular world, where truth leads us down spiral pathways instead of straight lines. They help us shift out of the space where language and logic box us in, and into a space where colour, shapes, intuition, prayer, circle, and meditation open the sky above that field.
When I invite people into mandala conversations, we explore the shades of grey that were missing when they first looked at the issue through a black and white lens. After our conversation, they are invited to bring their questions to the mandala where the questions and the ambiguity become things of beauty rather than obstacles to be wrestled with.
I often struggle a bit when I’m describing my mandala practice for people, partly because it’s hard to describe something that engages primarily our right brains with words that reside primarily in our left brain. The grey zone doesn’t translate well in a black and white world.
But the more I do it, and the more I coach people in the process, the more I recognize its value.
We need tools that will help us find meaning in ambiguous spaces.
