by Heather Plett | Nov 27, 2014 | Uncategorized
Last night my daughter Nikki came to my bedroom. “I broke your mug,” she said.
“Which one?” I asked.
“The orange and blue one,” she said.
“Too bad,” I said. “I like that one, but at least it’s not my favourite. I forgive you.”
A few minutes later she came back. “I was wrong,” she said. “It was the one that says ‘love more’ on it.”
“Oh dear,” I said. “That’s my favourite. But I still forgive you.”
This morning I went to the kitchen to survey the damage. Five pieces of broken pottery. Never to hold my favourite tea again.
I got out the Gorilla Glue to patch it. I knew I wouldn’t be able to drink hot tea out of it, but I thought I’d at least be able to use it as a pen holder.
And then inspiration hit. Kintsugi. The Japanese art of repairing broken ceramics with gold seams, believing that the piece is made more beautiful by its brokenness.
After the glue was dry, I coloured over the crack with gold paint. I showed Nikki. Her eyes lit up. “Oh! It’s like Japanese art now!” she said.
“Yes,” I said. “More beautiful for the wound.”
After repairing the mug, I drove Nikki to her art class at university and then headed to a coffee shop to work until meeting my client at noon. On the way to the coffee shop, I drove past the graveyard where my son is buried. Just as I was driving past, an eagle flew low in the sky over my head. Chills ran up my spine.
Since the eagle appeared to my sister and I just before Mom died, I have associated eagles with my mom’s ongoing presence in my life. When I shared the eagle story in a class I was teaching last year, an Indigenous student came to me at break and said “in my culture, we believe that eagles carry our prayers to the Creator.”
And so, in that moment in my van, I felt both my Mom’s presence and my son’s presence. And the presence of the Creator.
And my thoughts returned to my gold-painted broken mug.
“More beautiful for the wound.”
Yes, like the mug, I am more beautiful for the wound. I am more beautiful because I know the pain of grief. I am more beautiful because I have walked through deep valleys. I am more beautiful because I have learned the meaning of grace. I am more beautiful because I have let people crack my heart open. I am more beautiful because I have known deep love and immeasurable grief.
Sure, there are many days when I wish my mug were whole again, when I wish my mom and my dad and my son were still in my life, but I know the deep veins of gold their passing left in my life and for that I am grateful.
Yesterday, after I launched A Soulful Year: a mandala workbook for ending one year and welcoming another, I received one of the most beautiful pieces of feedback I’ve gotten since starting this work. Someone who’d worked through A Spiral Path recently had now purchased A Soulful Year, and said this: “Heather, I have to tell you how meaningful The Spiral Path has been for me. I find your writing so meaningful and honest – it goes way deeper than most of what I read and prompts I undertake. Thank you so much for your offerings.
Way deeper. Yes, that’s where I dare to take people who are willing. Deeper into love, deeper into their grief, deeper into lament, and deeper into life. Because I want them to experience those veins of gold that can only happen when you do deep work, acknowledging your brokenness and daring to drip molten gold into the cracks.
Early in this work, I had to occasionally fight with that voice in my head that said “If only your work wasn’t so deep, you might sell more of it and make a decent living at this. People are looking for quick fixes, easy answers, and shallow dives that make them feel good but mostly help them avoid the deep stuff. You’re always talking about grief and lament and shadows – how do you expect people to engage with that heavy stuff?”
Despite the voice of self-doubt, I stuck with it, even when it seemed my work was picking up little traction. I stuck with it because I believe in the deep work. I believe that to truly heal ourselves and heal the world, we need to be willing to take an honest look at our brokenness and to begin the hard work of making friends with our shadows.
Because the world will continue to be more and more broken if we stay in the shallow end of the pool. We’ll continue to over-consume because we’ll be looking for the quick fix that shopping gives us. We’ll continue to wound each other because we don’t recognize the way that wounded people wound people. We’ll continue to create divisions between races, between genders, and between countries, because we’ll be afraid of the kind of deep and honest conversations that are needed.
Yes, I’m willing to stay in the deep end of the pool, even if it never turns me into a millionaire. Because I believe in the transformational power of that deep vein of gold weaving through my wounds.
And I am so grateful that, now that I’ve been in this work for four years, more and more people are finding me here in the deep end. Because they believe in this work too.
Welcome to the deep end of love.
p.s. If you want to do your own deep work, check out A Soulful Year. Also, registration is now open for Mandala Discovery which starts in January.
by Heather Plett | Apr 18, 2014 | Uncategorized
“Because we realised that the person who left us did not take the sun with them or leave darkness in their place. They simply left, and with every farewell comes a hidden hope. – Paul Coelho
Three years ago, on Easter weekend, we found out my mom had cancer. It was a sombre Easter meal we shared at my brother’s house that Sunday. Mom did her best to be upbeat, playing with the grandchildren, making sure everyone was well fed and giving us all as much love as she could. We all tried to do the same, to pretend that everything was going to be okay and that we didn’t risk losing the only parent we had left.
We didn’t do a very good job of lying to ourselves, though. Beneath all of the smiles and the laughter was a river of worry that none of us could deny.
Once you’ve met death and watched it take away a member of your family, you no longer have the luxury of hanging onto the lie that “everything is going to be alright”.
Something else happened that weekend. On the two hour drive home from my brother’s house, my marriage unraveled. We had a big fight (as quietly as possible so as not to alarm the children in the back seat) and I had to speak out loud the unhappiness that was growing in me like my mom’s cancer was growing in her. It was time for drastic measures. We had to either slice out the cancer in our marriage and subject it to months of chemo (in the form of therapy) or it would die.
By now you probably know what happened to my Mom. She had surgery and months of chemo and the doctors thought they had been successful in arresting the cancer. But only three months after she’d gotten the “all-clear” (which happened a year after her diagnosis), they discovered that the cancer was still growing and was now beyond treatment. Three months later, with all of her children gathered around her, she left us to join Dad in eternity.
As for my marriage, a rather similar pattern took place. We went for months of counseling, worked on the baggage we were both carrying, learned to talk to each other with more honesty and less anger, and thought we had the cancer licked. We were happy again.
But then the cancer came back. I realized that the anger that had infected me was growing in deeper places than I’d at first admitted to myself. A deeper excavation was necessary. And so we went under the knife again, followed by more chemo.
Our marriage is still alive. Like doctors, we are using every procedure and medicine we can think of to keep it alive. We are trying – like the Japanese artists who mend broken pots with gold so that the break becomes part of the art and history of the piece and adds to its beauty – to mend our marriage with even stronger and more beautiful material than was there when the break happened.
It seems fitting (and perhaps somewhat ironic) that this year, at Easter, I am feeling hopeful again. There is resurrection, there is transformation, there is hope. The gold is beginning to set deep into the cracks and there is beauty emerging out of our brokenness.
In Pathfinder, I wrote about the value of getting lost, of tearing up the map, and trusting that the path will unfold in front of us as it should. That’s a lesson that I have to learn again and again. I want so badly to control the outcome, to fix the cancer in my mom (and now my brother), to find a simple solution for our marriage, or to, at the very least, feel like I’m holding a map in my hand that will show me the topography that’s up ahead. But I don’t get that. I never get that.
I have to let it go and lean further into trust.
In order for real transformation to happen (as we learn in Theory U, which is also shared in Pathfinder), we have to let go of the outcome and our desire to control it, let go of our preconceived notions, let go of the lens through which we view the world, and learn to sense into that which wants to emerge. Along the journey of letting go, we open our minds, open our hearts, and open our wills. Only once we’ve reached the bottom of the U, when what needed to die has been released, can the new thing emerge and begin to blossom.
My friend Laurie Foley was recently told that her cancer is in remission. As she explores what this means and what she is meant to learn from her long months of struggle, she is re-framing remission as re-mission. She’s wondering how this period of her life – the journey through the valley of the shadow of cancer – has changed her life’s mission and what God is asking of her now.
I wonder the same thing. If the cancer in my marriage is in remission (as I hope it is), then what is our re-mission as a couple? What is emerging for us that we couldn’t see before when we were blinded by the struggle? It is our hope that the three year dive into the bottom of the U has allowed something new and beautiful to grow out of the brokenness.
I share this story with you not for any sympathy or advice. I share it simply that you will know that you are not alone. If your marriage feels broken, if your community is falling apart, if your business is failing, take heart.
There is beauty that grows out of the brokenness. There is hope even in loss.
Yes it’s true that sometimes there is no stopping the cancer and someone or something dies. Your marriage may end, your best friend may die, you may lose your job or your home. We can’t change that, no matter how hard we try.
But that doesn’t mean it’s the end. It doesn’t mean you’re finished. It means that you’re finding yourself at the bottom of the U and someday, when you have let go and opened yourself up to some new possibility, the light will appear again and a new seed, planted into the compost of what has died, will begin to sprout.
In the Easter story, Christ had to give up his life on the cross before he was ready for his own re-mission. Only when his surrender was complete and death had taken him could he rise again and live out his calling to be fully God.
That story always makes me think of butterfly metamorphosis. A caterpillar must give up its caterpillar-self in the gooey mess of the chrysalis before it can emerge as a butterfly. In the same way, we have to release that which no longer serves us – let it fall broken in a heap at our feet – before we can emerge into the beauty that calls us forward.
It is my hope this Easter (whether or not the Easter story is part of your faith tradition) that you will find beauty in the brokenness, that you will recognize the value of getting lost, and that you will learn to see the light that peeks into your shadows.
And if you find yourself lost, somewhere on the journey through the U, consider joining us in the Pathfinder Circle. Your brokenness, your questions, your growth, your curiosity, and your grief will be held in a circle of grace.
by Heather Plett | Oct 9, 2013 | Beauty, circle, Compassion, Uncategorized
I am carrying a huge basket of stories that I gathered on my trip. Each day I added new stories emerging from the deep conversations I had with people in my travels through Reno, Lake Tahoe, Oakland, San Francisco, Atlanta, Asheville, and finally Lake Lanier. I want to share all of those stories with you, but some of them need to ripen in the basket a little longer before they’ll be ready to be harvested.
First of all, let me tell you that this trip was all about love. Here’s what I posted on Facebook when I first got home…
After all of my travels in five states, after all of the deep and soulful conversations, after the early morning sunrises over the lake, after the sharing circles, after the ziplining, after the skinny-dipping, after the wandering in the woods, after the cracking open of many hearts, after my talk about the courage to lead differently, after bountiful feasts from the hands of many farmers, after the laughter, after the tears, after the deep body hugs and the tenderhearted kisses… after it all fades into memory, my learning can be boiled down to the words on the mug I brought home… Love more. Love fiercely and deeply. Love courageously. Love ridiculously. Love the sky and the earth and the dogs and the caterpillars. Love the wine and the music. Love the brave hearts and the fearful hearts. Love the ones that are easy to love and those who are more difficult. Love with wild abandon. Love until your heart cracks wide open and we all see the fleshy softness inside. Love more and let yourself be loved. Don’t be afraid of love.
It might sound rather pie-in-the-sky, but it’s the ground on which I stand. Love is what let me go on this journey when so many of you supported this dream. Love is what let me connect with beautiful people all along the way. Love is what inspired me to share from my heart on stage. Love is what gave me the courage to believe I had something to share. It’s all about love.
Almost as soon as I got home from my journey, reality smacked me across the face. There’s a huge crack in our basement wall that will probably cost us thousands to fix, my aunt died of brain cancer while I was away and her funeral was yesterday, I’m dealing with a nasty bug bite that I got in Atlanta that seems to be infected and I spent yesterday evening in urgent care, and there’s a little heartbreak in my relationship with one of my daughters. Any of those things individually could have sent me into a tailspin of despair, but they didn’t. I’m okay. I’m more than okay. I am feeling strong and courageous, and – more than anything – loved.
LOVE has made me resilient. LOVE has given me courage. LOVE has given me hope.
At Patti Digh’s Design Your Life Camp at Lake Lanier last week, Maya Stein and Amy Tingle did something so breathtakingly beautiful and full of love, I found my heart breaking wide open. First of all, they’d brought their vintage trailer MAUDE (Mobile Art Unit Designed for Everyone) along to camp and they were inviting everyone to visit to make art tags to hang in a tree. Secondly, they each had vintage typewriters, and if you offered them a single word, they would each write a spontaneous poem on an index card made especially for you. They did both of these things with beauty, grace and generosity, not asking to be paid or flaunting their brand in anyone’s face – simply offering this gift to anyone who would receive it.
The first time I saw them with their typewriters, I felt a little overwhelmed – not sure I could step forward and feel worthy enough of the gift. I was intrigued, but it felt somehow vulnerable and tender to give them a word and then simply receive. I had already received so much on this journey (and even before the journey in order to make it possible) that the gremlins were saying “You’ve received enough. You had the AUDACITY to ask people to help pay for this trip. How DARE you think that you are worthy of another gift?”
When I came out of the session the next evening, though, and saw them with their typewriters again, I knew I just had to do it. I knew I was worthy. I knew, deep down in my bones, that I wanted this gift and was ready to receive it.
I stood in line and waited… and agonized over what word was the right one. I wrote one word down, but then it didn’t feel right, so I scratched it out. Just before I got to the front of the line, I knew what my word was. Resilient.
Resilient is how I feel these past couple of months as I emerge into my work in a bigger way after the hard, hard year of losing Mom, watching my husband have a heart attack, breaking my foot, and then finding out my brother has stage 4 cancer. Resilient is what I’ve been in the past, after losing dad very suddenly, having a stillborn son, and watching the man I love wrestle with depression so powerful he attempted suicide twice. Resilience is one of my strengths and it’s one of the gifts I give to my clients in this work of being real and courageous and hopeful in this broken world.
And so I stood there, tenderly and anxiously, waiting to see what they’d do with the word resilient.
What emerged floored me and broke me open.
Here’s what Amy wrote:
The Amy she mentioned is Amy Dier, who had just shared a very personal story from the stage about learning to love and trust herself and allow herself to be seen. She was a former police officer who’d gone into law enforcement partly because she’d been raped when she was a teenager. She said she’d only shared the story of her rape with 8 people before saying it aloud in this room full of 150 people. After sharing the story, she invited us all to stand in a circle and she walked around the circle, looking into our eyes, and saying to each of us one at a time “I see you.”
What Amy the poet had no way of knowing was that Amy Dier and I do indeed share a story or two – the story of surviving rape, as well as the story of learning to believe we are worthy of being seen.
The second poem, from Maya, was the perfect addition, in a way that neither poet could possibly have known.
The day after I was raped by a man who climbed through my bedroom window, I was supposed to take part in a triathlon relay race. I was going to ride 40 kilometres on my bicycle, while others did the running and swimming legs. This felt like a courageous and fierce act for me at the time, given the fact that I’d never believed I was athletic enough to be in any competition of that sort.
I never completed that bicycle ride. My body was too sore after the abuse it took at the hands of the rapist. Plus I felt a strong urge to drive home to the farm to be with my Mom and Dad.
But that doesn’t mean I didn’t get back on the bicycle, again and again and again. My whole life has been an act of getting back on that bicycle, each time I fall down. Through all of the deaths, disappointment, and tragedy in my life, I keep getting back on my bicycle – both literally and figuratively. (Ironically, I was actually on my way into the garage to go for a bike ride with my daughter when I broke my foot in Spring. Another metaphor, perhaps?)
And that brings me back to love. I get back on my bicycle because of love. I stay in a marriage that has been challenging because of love. I keep showing up for funerals because of love. I drive across the country to be with my brother after cancer surgery because of love. I sit beside my mother and watch her die because of love. I show up for my teenagers even when they’re snarly because of love. I travel across the country and sit in circle with myriads of beautiful people because of love. I coach my clients and host retreats because of love.
I do what I do because I have been given a lot of love and because I have a lot of love to give.
I pour love into everything I do. And love is what sustains me and gives me courage for this work. Because love is worth it. Love has made me who I am, and that is a beautiful thing.
The next time you need courage or resilience, remember that it starts with love. Give love and receive it and you will be able to get back on that bicycle, no matter how many times you fall.
Go ahead, love more.
by Heather Plett | Jan 7, 2013 | Uncategorized
A few days ago, I posted the above photo of a magazine cover on my Facebook page. My comment accompanying the photo was “I detest headlines like this. What’s wrong with the old me?” The photo elicited an interesting discussion about whether or not we should strive to become “new versions of ourselves”.
I’d like to explain myself further because I think this is important.
You don’t need to become a new you.
You are already the exact version of you that you should be.
Especially at this time of year, when the weight-loss and self-help marketers are trying to sell you something to start the year off “right”, you’re going to hear and see a lot of advertising that will try to convince you that you’re not good enough as you are, that you really need to change something about yourself before you’ll be loveable, that you need to be thinner before people will value you, that you need to stop smoking if you want to have any friends, that you need to wear the right clothes before anyone will notice you, etc., etc.
Don’t believe them. You are loveable just as you are. You were created to be a masterpiece-in-progress NOT a do-over.
Don’t get me wrong – I’m not opposed to self improvement and personal growth – if I were, I’d have to get rid of half the books on my bookshelves and quit doing much of my work. I’m committed to personal growth as a lifelong journey and I believe that investment in self-discovery and growth is worthwhile. BUT… I AM opposed to any kind of marketing that tries to tell you that you need to start over again and be someone you never were before.
That kind of marketing tries to sell you something based on your shame stories and the only thing they do successfully is to add to your shame stories. They want you to believe that you are not loveable unless you change something about yourself.
“The strategy of ‘shame’ is one of the most powerful marketing tools in modern times. Fear of being judged by our peers has led to billions of dollars of products being sold.”
The problem is, if you change something about yourself based solely on the “I’m not loveable” storyline in your head, there’s a good chance you’ll end up in a worse place than you started. If you’re only loveable once you lose 50 pounds, then if you fail, you’ll heap even more of the “I’m definitely not loveable because now I’m both overweight AND a failure” shame on your head, and there’s a good chance you’ll soon weigh even more than before.
The only way to make healthy change in your life is if you start with love.
You have to change the storyline to “I can love myself NOW because I am already loveable. I may not be perfect, but my Creator didn’t make a mistake when I was made. I am worthy. Just as I am.”
You have to change your motivation to “I am loveable and worthy and BECAUSE I LOVE MYSELF and trust that God loves me, I want to invest in continued growth.”
I know it’s not easy, if you’ve had an unloveable storyline playing in your head ever since your impressionable pre-teen years, to switch to a “loveable just as I am” storyline. If you really want to make a difference in your life, though, THAT’S the place where you need to invest your energy first before you buy any more weight-loss programs or self-help books.
I’m not suggesting that you become narcissistic or self-centred. I’m simply suggesting that you extend compassion and acceptance to your beautiful, flawed, wounded, unique self before you can find healing or begin to grow.
Start by going inward. Remind yourself of what your passions are, what you hunger for, what you love to do, what you’re good at, and what things make you come alive. Go back to the beginning – to what you remember about yourself as a child. What was your core beauty, right from the start, before you started to believe the lies the media fed you? Who are you when you’re at your most authentic, wild-hearted self? Who is the beautiful you at the centre when the layers of shame get peeled way?
Start by loving the person you always were and always will be. Start by forgiving yourself for carrying the shame stories and letting yourself be convinced you’re not good enough.
Start with love. THAT’s the way to get the new year off to a good start.
One other thing… Here’s something that I’ve been reminded of lately – the same goes for your relationships. If you really want to impact change in your relationships or community, you have to start from a place of unconditional love. You can’t start from the belief that “he/she must change before I can love them” or you will only create more conflict. Start by offering love and acceptance, without any strings attached.
Only in a field of love will anyone (you or the people you love) find the conditions they need to grow and change.
by Heather Plett | Aug 6, 2012 | marriage, Uncategorized
19 years of marriage
4 babies born
3 thriving daughters
1 stillborn son
1 miscarriage
3 homes
2 mortgages
5 major career changes
4 reductions in income
5 vehicles
2 university degrees
60 business trips
5 surgeries
100 soccer games
11 school Christmas concerts
7000 meals shared
2 fathers buried
2 grandmothers buried
3 cancer scares for close family
25 trips to emergency
2 summers spent in a trailer by the lake
20 tent-camping trips
1 near fatality in a tent fire
2 suicide attempts
10,000 tears
500 arguments
10 marriage counseling sessions
5000 apologies
5000 forgivenesses
100 reasons why this marriage should end
101 reasons why we should keep trying
2 broken people who said “for better or for worse”
1 imperfectly beautiful marriage
