by Heather Plett | Mar 2, 2011 | journey, Leadership, Uncategorized
Christina Baldwin teaches the power of circle and story
When I look back on the year, I recognize three major transformative moments when I was immersed in such amazing learning that it changed my life. Those three learning events are available to you in one way or another and I thought I’d tell you about them in case you’re interested.
1. ALIA Summer Institute: Wow. I hardly know what to say about ALIA. It is a transformative experience like few others. If you are interested in impacting social change and you want to immerse yourself in big ideas, surround yourself with big thinkers, and spend time imagining what big things you can do in your life, this is the place for you. It’s hard to define it exactly – it’s a combination of conference, retreat, and intensive workshop. ALIA is one of a kind in its approach. These are people who know something about holistic learning. At the summer institute, you will spend time in meditation, body movement, art & creativity, and deep learning of all kinds. You’ll meet people who are transforming the world through contemplative juggling, aikido, meditative painting, music, and a whole lot of other fun and interesting things. This year, I’m very excited about the fact that I’m doing some work for the ALIA team and so I’m getting to know them better AND I’ll be attending in June.
2. Teach Now Program – Another WOW. I don’t sign up for a lot of online courses, because I tend to prefer in person learning where I can engage in more meaningful conversations, but Teach Now is a BIG exception. I signed up and I listened to every single call and every podcast – sometimes more than once. I still have all of the interviews on my iPod and often listen to them when I’m running because they are just so full of wisdom. This is AMAZING stuff. If you are doing (or dreaming of doing) any kind of teaching, you really should check it out, because few other things have had as much impact on my teaching practice as this course. Here’s a quote from the note I sent to Jen & Michele after Teach Now: “Because of Teach Now, I have been bold enough to be a different kind of teacher than most of my students have had experience with before. I am daring to encourage them to learn FIRST to write from their hearts and THEN to learn to write technically for future PR jobs.” Click the link above to sign up for the free call – you won’t regret it. (p.s. I liked it so much, I’m planning to sign up for a second round!)
3. The Listening Well – A Circle & Story Workshop – WOW again. (How lucky I’ve been to have three wows in one year!) For years and years I’ve been dreaming of taking a workshop with Christina Baldwin. Ten years ago, I first came across her work when I was in a really difficult place in my leadership journey, and it felt like someone had lit a candle in a dark place for me. Her books on Circle and Story resonate so closely with the deep longings of my heart. Attending the workshop just after quitting my job and jumping into a brand new place in which I dream of doing work similar to what Christina is doing was perfect timing and a dream come true. I can’t recommend her work strongly enough. If you can’t make it to one of her workshops, at least check out one
of
her
books
.
by Heather Plett | Jan 26, 2011 | practice, running, Uncategorized
This morning, I increased my running time and programmed it accordingly into the timer on my ipod. When I run, gentle Tibetan bells ring in my ears to tell me when my running interval is over, and then (when my 2 minute walk time is over) when it’s time to kick it into gear again.
On my second ten minute running interval, it seemed to be taking forever for the bells to ring. I was getting pretty tired, and a cramp started under my rib cage.
“Oh my gosh!” I thought, “surely it shouldn’t be this hard to add just one minute to my time!” I kept running though, determined to complete the interval.
Eventually, I started to wonder about the timer. I took my ipod out of my pocket. Surprise, surprise! The bell hadn’t rung and I’d run right through my rest time and all the way to the end of the third interval! Twenty-two minutes without stopping!
Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised that I had much greater capacity than I thought I did. Apparently, I’m not running to my full potential.
When I started running back in June, I could barely survive the one minute run, two minute walk intervals. Now I can run 22 minutes and not pass out at the end! I felt great!
Lately a few people have asked “what are you training for?” – as though there’s no good reason to take up running other than training for a specific goal. Others ask about weight loss – as though it’s only about accomplishing some improvement in my body.
In answer to the first question, I have been known to say, rather sheepishly “well, I’d like to run the half marathon in June, if possible.” It seems to satisfy their goal-oriented mind-set. In answer to the second question, I have – equally sheepishly – said something about “every little bit helps”. Neither answer feels like my full truth though.
What I’d like to say is, “I’m training to be more fully alive. I’m training to be more fully myself.”
THAT’S what it’s about. When I run, I am energized, alive, and full of creative, spiritual energy. I am present in my body and my mind. I delight in the sweat and adrenalin and I feel like I am coming more fully into what it means to be me. I am connected to God and to nature and to what it means to be alive in the universe.
That’s why I like the word “practice” rather than “training”. Training is about achieving a goal. When my running becomes my practice, on the other hand, it isn’t about reaching goals, striving to be an award-winning athlete, or becoming a thinner version of myself. It’s about adopting running as one of the practices that helps me grow and learn and stretch and meditate and think and create and just be fully alive.
I love the word “practice”. I especially like it when it’s attached to the things we do – running practice, yoga practice, dance practice, writing practice, photography practice, meditation practice – even medical practice and law practice. It’s not necessarily about perfecting these things (though we do strive to get better at them), it’s about being present in them and growing more fully into the person they help us to be. It’s about doing them because we love them and know the value they bring to our lives.
Our culture (especially our masculine-driven business world) tends to be goal oriented and product oriented. We need to see evidence of success, production, completion, victory, and graduation. But most of the time, completion is the least important part of the process. Often (perhaps always?) true success is in how well we commit to the practice and how much we are committed to being life-long learners and practitioners.
Practice is a perfect Sophia word. Feminine wisdom helps us separate ourselves from the outcome and sit more comfortably with the process. It helps us be more present with God and with nature and let our practice change us and change each other.
It’s not that outcomes aren’t important – it’s just that often the process IS the greatest outcome.
by Heather Plett | Dec 27, 2010 | Birthing Sophia
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions. I don’t like making promises to myself that I’m sure to break.
For the last two years, however, I have been choosing a word for the year – something that sets my intention for a direction I want to head. Two years ago, I chose “fearless”, because I was in a place where I knew that I was letting fear hold too much power in my life. Sure enough, when you set an intention like that, the challenges show up to test your resolve. I was brought face to face with a lot of fears, some of which I met with the necessary courage, but some of which got the better of me.
Last year, because “fearless” had brought up a few too many big issues, I thought I’d be more gentle with myself, and simply accept what was meant to come. I chose “journey” as my word for 2010.
Little did I know just how far the journey would take me.
First there was the journey to a new way of being in my body. After years of contemplating it, I finally went for breast reduction surgery. I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about deliberately changing my body in such a dramatic (and really rather violent) way, but in the end it was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I have been granted a new freedom, with less of a burden on my shoulders, more opportunity to wear the kinds of clothes I wanted to wear, and improved posture that made me feel better about the way I carried myself in the world.
The most beautiful outcome of my surgery has been that I have discovered a joy in running. I run at least 3 times a week, and it has become about so much more than simply seeking a more healthy body. When I run, I meditate, pray, and open space for my mind to explore beautiful possibilities. A lot of wonderful ideas come to me when I run.
A few months after my surgery, the journey took me (and my family) down an extremely rocky road. While I was in Chicago at a conference, my dear husband had a serious breakdown. I came home, hoping it would turn around, but it didn’t. His mind went to that ugly place that mental illness takes you, and when he couldn’t find peace, he attempted suicide.
Fortunately, the suicide attempt was unsuccessful, but we still had a rocky road to navigate on the way back to health. Trying to balance the needs of three daughters with the needs of a husband in the psychiatric ward is one of the heaviest burdens I have ever been called on to bear.
We all survived, however, and Marcel was soon on his way back to stability and health. Our daughters, too, showed strength and resilience, and before long, we felt like we had finally reached a smooth place on the road.
In June, I spent a life-changing week at ALIA (Authentic Leadership in Action) in Halifax. It was there that the seeds of Sophia Leadership began to sprout.
Summer was a good time for us. We camped, we went on road trips to soccer tournaments, and we spent a delightful, relaxed week at a borrowed cabin by the lake.
In the summer, I did what I’d been longing to do for about a year and a half, and that’s when the journey became really interesting. I handed in my notice at work. It was one of the scariest things to do, knowing we didn’t really have the financial security we needed to raise a family, but somehow it just felt right.
In one of those delightful moments of serendipity, within minutes of coming to the conclusion (together with Marcel) that it was time to give my notice, I got an email from the university inviting me to teach three courses in the coming year. It was just the sign I needed to convince me that I would be able to thrive in self-employment.
In October, I left my job and started a brand new journey into self-employment. The month of October was my transition/sabbatical month, and so I spent my time relaxing, reading, and meditating. Possibly my favourite moment of the year was when I traveled to Ontario to attend a circle/story workshop with one of my heroes, Christina Baldwin.
Since then, I have finished teaching my first course, and discovered that I LOVE to teach. I’ve also done some freelance writing, started this new blog, created my business website, joined the board of UNPAC, met with a lot of people, and explored a lot of possibilities.
This new self-employment journey is so many things rolled into one – it is exciting, challenging, fun, nerve-wracking, discouraging, frustrating, delightful, confusing, overwhelming, and freeing.
I wish I could say that now, three months after I left my job, I have it all figured out. But that would be a bald-faced lie. There is so much of this that still feels so frustratingly ambiguous and sometimes I beat myself up for not having more focused. At the same time, though, there are so many beautiful possibilities opening up that I know that it’s better not to trap myself into a narrow framework that will end up leaving me feel trapped.
One thing is for sure – given the way the last two years have gone, I am being very careful what word I choose for 2011! More on that later.
by Heather Plett | Nov 30, 2010 | Intuition
1. Life is messy. We can’t clean it up with “easy steps”.
2. There are no simple roadmaps to success. Come to think of it, “success” might not be what we’re after.
3. Your path will always look different from mine. You may have six steps, while I have seventeen. And in the end, we’ll arrive at different places anyway, so what’s the point in counting steps?
4. Sometimes, the destination changes on the way there.
5. The joy of living is in the journey. “Ten easy steps” implies that it’s all about the destination.
6. If they’re so darn easy, does that mean I’m a failure if I just can’t get them right?
7. I’m ornery. I don’t like following rules.
8. I’m also a wanderer. I generally find a way to deviate from the path – throw in an extra step or two, just for variation.
9. When I read “ten easy steps” in the headline, I generally think “writer/blogger trying to take the short route to easy money”.
10. I prefer circles and swirls (just look at my header, for example) to straight lines. Perhaps I’ll write “a circular guide to success”. Hmmm…
11. (You KNEW I was too ornery to leave this at 10, didn’t you?) “Ten easy steps” leaves out the power of intuition, the beauty of being led by Spirit, and the joy of discovery along the way.
by Heather Plett | Feb 4, 2010 | journey, Uncategorized
The wonderful response to my last post reminded me of two really important things about human nature:
- We all want to find our tribes – those people who understand us and don’t turn us away for being different.
- We all (at least I think it’s safe to make a generalization) feel like mis-fits now and then. NONE of us fit cleanly into the categories, boxes, labels, etc. that the experts say we should.
Isn’t that the great thing about the internet, though? We get to find people who understand us. We get to put out tentative little feelers and have people connect to them. (Yes, I believe that they are real connections.) We get to form tribes that might not naturally happen in the circles where we find our real live bodies. (‘Course, some of my favourite readers are my flesh and blood tribe – lucky me – so I get the best of both worlds here.)
Judging from the response, many of the readers of this blog feel like they’re the same kind of mis-fit as I am. Which makes me wonder – are bloggers disproportionately scanners and/or creators, or is it just that we tend to attract like-minded people and that’s what drew you to my blog in the first place (or me to yours – whichever happened first)?
I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot in the last few days. First of all, when I re-launched my blog on its own URL last week I found myself thinking “What is this blog’s reason for being? What makes it unique or of any value? Is it just a place for me to sound-off about my life or is there a deeper reason for why I’m putting this stuff out there?”
Then yesterday I was interviewed by my friend Stephanie for an article on women in leadership and she asked me some fairly pointed questions about why I put my life out there into cyber-world in the way that I do. What do I get out of it as a woman in leadership?
With all this contemplation and the fun interaction on the last post, I came to the conclusion that I am here because this blog has helped me find my tribe. I have found people to connect with. People who understand my idiosyncrasies and connect with me because they have idiosyncrasies of their own. People who value my stories and support me through the tough spots. People who will be kind to me and share their own vulnerability when I talk about personal stuff like breast reduction surgery. People who will cheer me on when I try new things. People who will offer different perspectives when I develop a bad case of tunnel vision. And (perhaps most importantly) people who don’t mind hanging around and watching me fumble through new art forms, writing, parenting, etc.
And in the middle of all that thinking, I had an epiphany.
I have found a tribe of fumblers.
It’s true, isn’t it? We are all fumbling for words, fumbling for truth, fumbling for beauty, fumbling for wisdom, fumbling for art, fumbling for friendship, fumbling for peace, fumbling for significance, fumbling for faith, fumbling for connection, fumbling for meaning, fumbling for justice, fumbling for hope.
I have always been a fumbler. I like to try new things, explore new ways of doing things, take pictures, paint things, write stuff, go on adventures, offer friendship, teach people stuff… but most of the time, I’m just fumbling my way through. I’m not an expert on anything, and even when I get recognition for things people think I know, I feel like saying “hey – I’m just a fumbler like you! I don’t really know what I’m doing, but you can come and fumble with me!”
This is not an expert blog where you’ll find advice on how to live your best life, how to maximize your assets, how to find true happiness, how to move past the blocks in your life, or how to make a pile of money the easy way. You won’t find ten easy steps toward ANYTHING around here (unless it’s tongue-in-cheek).
But if you’re a fumbler, you’re more than welcome to join my tribe!
There’s a great line in a Bruce Cockburn song that says “come all you stumblers who believe love rules, stand up and let it shine”. Hopefully Bruce won’t mind if I tweak it a little for selfish purposes and say “come all you fumblers who believe love rules, stand up and let it shine!”
If you’re a member of my fumbling tribe, stand up and let it shine in the comment box! You are all welcome here!
