One of the things I love about the process of doing interviews for this series is the great variety of stories that are emerging. Today’s story is quite different from the last one, and yet in each one there is great wisdom to be gleaned.
When I first started dreaming about leaving my job for self-employment, I picked up the book Making a Living Without a Job and I was hooked. It was the perfect thing to fuel my dream. I also started following its author, Barbara Winter, on Twitter and soon learned that she is one of the most warm and genuine people you could ever meet. When I finally left that job, I think Barbara was the first person to cheer me on, and she has been a consistent cheerleader and supporter since. Some day, I want to curl up on a couch with her and enjoy a cup of tea together.
In this video, Barbara shares her personal story of making the leap from “safe” employment to the relatively shaky ground of self-employment. (Once again, the longer video – full of all kinds of wisdom and advice – will be available once I release my e-course.)
When I first started down the path that lead me to Sophia Leadership, I started searching for other people online who were writing about feminine wisdom. Julie Daley is one of the first people whose writing drew me in. It didn’t just draw me in, it wrapped itself around me like a warm quilt that made me feel like I’d come home after a long and lonely voyage at sea. Julie is wise and beautiful and one of the most gracious and kind people I’ve met online. She exudes that grace on this video.
I could have talked to Julie for hours, and to tell you the truth, we’re already considering a follow-up interview. In this video, she shares a couple of heart-wrenching stories of when the ground was swept out from under her feet. In future installations, she’ll share more about the times she’s chosen to let go of the ground.
Once again, Julie shared much more wisdom than is on this video. That will be available once my e-course emerges. For more on that (and a collection of all of the story-sharing videos in one place) visit my e-course preview.
Over the holidays, I have been making my way through Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books by Azar Nafisi. It’s a fascinating memoir about a university professor who, after teaching in universities in Iran for a number of years and giving up out of sheer frustration because there are so many restrictions put on her and the way students are allowed to learn, begins a small private class in her home. She invites a circle of young women to study some of the classics that have been banned by an oppressive regime.
More than simply the story of a circle of women reading Jane Austen and F. Scott Fitzgerald, it is the story of how the Revolution in Iran silenced the voices of women and anyone who dared to believe something other than what the Ayatollah Komeini believed. It is about how oppression can grow in a place where there once was freedom, how more than half of the population can be silenced by the use of force and bullying. Whether or not they are Muslim, women are forced to wear veils, and are subject to inspections which ensure that they aren’t wearing any make-up, showing any hair or too much skin, or even wearing brightly coloured socks.
As the regime becomes more powerful, some young women are imprisoned, banned from university, and even executed for baring too much skin. Other women are abused or raped because they dare to speak out. One woman – a former government Minister – is tied in a sack and thrown in the river.
The thought that comes to me as I read this is… what is so dangerous about women that for so many centuries, in so many countries, they have been forced into silence? What are those in power really afraid of when they oppress women by forcing them behind veils and out of positions of power?
It’s not just Muslim countries (though those are the most obvious because of the head coverings). I’ve seen it all over the world. Some places it’s obvious, and other places it’s more subtle. In North America, for example, women appear to have great freedom, and yet if they speak too loudly they are subject to ridicule and abuse. (And not just by men – women are often the first to call a strong woman a “bitch”.)
I ask again… WHAT is so dangerous about us?
In Muslim tradition, in my understanding, it’s mostly about sensuality – women are dangerous because their bare skin causes men to fall into temptation.
But is that all? I don’t think so.
I think there’s a deep and abiding fear (all over the world) that a combination of women’s wisdom, power, sensuality, and passion could dramatically change the course of the world.
I think the old guard – both men and women who are most comfortable with masculine wisdom – are terrified that if the women’s true voice were to be heard more loudly, the world they’re comfortable with would be transformed beyond recognition.
Change is frightening – for all of us. But I think it’s absolutely necessary. I think women need to stand up and say “Look around! See the poverty, the oppression, the human slavery, the damage we’re doing to our earth. This world NEEDS changing!”
And then we need to get our hands dirty and get to work. NOT by overthrowing those who’ve lead before, but by bringing our wisdom to their tables and working with them.
What I find especially beautiful about Reading Lolita in Tehran is the reminder of the resilience of the human spirit. Despite the way that the women are being oppressed and forced to hide their beauty and strength and read literature in secret, their spirits are not crushed. Their beauty and strength is not gone – it’s just waiting to be uncovered again.
I am reminded once again of the woman I met in Bangladesh (above photo). When I motioned to her that I was interested in taking her picture, she let me, but then motioned to me to wait – she wanted me to take another one. Removing her black head covering, she revealed a colourful one underneath. THIS was the version she wanted me to see. I can’t help but wonder what she might have revealed if we’d been in the privacy of her home.
What fire lies smouldering beneath those strong eyes?
From an ad for meditation cushions, it jumped out at me.
Don’t just do something. Sit there.
Hmmm. Clever. I liked it enough to clip it out and add it to my vision board for 2011.
Yesterday, after dropping my niece off at the airport, I brought a chai latte and my journal to my son’s grave. It’s the place I often go when I need a little quiet contemplation, and it seemed right to visit on the first day of a new year.
As much as I speak with some bravado about letting joy direct my path this year, there’s a piece of me that’s still hanging onto some “oh my gosh I quit my job and I have no idea how to build a business” stress. I often wake up in the morning with a vague feeling of panic. I’m navigating a whole new world without a map, and that’s scary.
Those are the things I was thinking as I sat at Matthew’s grave. When I quit my job, I knew I’d need some transition time, and I took it. That’s what the month of October was for. I thought I could put it in a neat little box, and then on November 1st I’d be rarin’ to go. But it didn’t quite happen that way. Transition took longer than I expected. I jumped into my teaching role, but when it came to the other stuff I was planning to do, I just wasn’t finding a lot of momentum.
“Okay then, give yourself a little longer,” I thought. “Teaching is taking a lot of energy. Perhaps that’s enough for now, and then on January 1st you’ll be ready to rush full speed into a myriad of projects.”
So it was that, on January 1st, I sat at my son’s grave. “Now is the time,” I thought. “Today is the day that the momentum needs to kick into high gear.”
Sadly, though, there is still so much that isn’t clear. No lightening bolts have flashed words across the sky “this is your path, follow it and don’t deviate. Here are your ten easy steps to success.” Almost every day I think up a new project or a new direction (there is no shortage of inspiration). But after the ideas comes… nothing. No momentum, very few accomplishments, and no knock-your-socks-off clarity of direction.
I have to admit, a niggling fear keeps eating at me that I need to get better at writing business plans, and action plans, and marketing plans and goals and objectives and … well, maybe THEN – if there were an artificially constructed linear path laid out in front of me – I’d kick myself into full gear and follow it.
Into the cold wind at the grave, I whispered “Sophia God, show me some direction. Give me clarity in what I should do. I am confident that I am following a path I’ve been called to follow, and yet it still feels so unclear.”
In a moment, the wind whipped a whirlwind of snow around the grave. A spiral. Not a linear path.
After the whirlwind, the stillness. The blank slate of fresh snow like frozen waves drifting across rows and rows of graves.
And in the stillness, these words came back to me “Don’t just do something. Sit there.”
Really? That’s it? That’s the wisdom I came here to find? That’s the brave new world that January 1 is ushering in?
Inside the warmth of my vehicle, I scribbled my questions in my journal. Stillness? Is that the path I’m supposed to take?
“Yes, stillness. Stop the scurrying and worrying and hurrying. Stop the wheel-spinning and the trying too hard. Stop the striving. Stop. And wait. And listen. Pray. Meditate.”
“Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength.” (Isaiah 30)
Wisdom won’t be tied up in little boxes to be reached for and plucked along artificially constructed linear paths. Wisdom comes to us in spirals. In whirlwinds. In whispers. At gravesides. On labyrinth paths. Wisdom appears in a heart that is ready for it. In a heart that is still. In a heart that listens. A heart that waits.
And so, despite the part of me that stubbornly insists I have to be BUSY to have value, I claim this mantra. Don’t just do something. Sit there.
Not exactly a business plan. But it’s the lesson that Sophia God wants me to learn. And relearn. I will try to be a patient student.
* * *
Today, a friend shared this video of David Whyte speaking about the place of poetry in the corporate world, and this poem found me…
Lost
Stand still. The trees ahead and bushes beside you
Are not lost. Wherever you are is called Here,
And you must treat it as a powerful stranger,
Must ask permission to know it and be known.
The forest breathes. Listen. It answers,
I have made this place around you,
If you leave it you may come back again, saying Here.
No two trees are the same to Raven.
No two branches are the same to Wren.
If what a tree or a bush does is lost on you,
You are surely lost. Stand still. The forest knows
Where you are. You must let it find you.
Almost every time I do a vision board, I think “ooooh… this one is my favourite so far!” That’s how I felt last night when I completed this one. I love it. It’s the biggest one I’ve done so far (I wanted to think BIG for 2011), and it’s colourful and beautiful and MINE.
There is something so gratifying about seeing your vision appear in this way. I think it works for me for a number of reasons:
I’m a visual thinker. Give me images and vibrant colour and I’m a happy girl. I can get lost in an image without necessarily needing an explanation.
BUT I also love words. (I’m a writer, after all.) I like to flip through magazines to see which words jump out at me and offer me some frame for my life at the time.
I love to combine images and words and then watch what the combination evokes. AND I love surprises, and there are always a few of those when I put words and images together in new ways.
I am comfortable with ambiguity. I don’t need to know what every image or combination of words means when I glue it on the board. Sometimes it just speaks to me and the meaning appears later.
I like evolving, fluid structures. I don’t enjoy being hampered by boxy things like “strategic plans” or “business plans”. I prefer to watch the way my vision boards evolve, with changing colour themes, imagery, words, etc.
Some of the things I see so far in 2011’s vision board are:
running – this is the first time I’m whispering it aloud, but I really want to run a half marathon!
joy – my word for the year
growth – exceeding my limits and expanding my horizons
travel, adventure, journey (those things always seem to appear on my boards)
leadership, sacred space, wisdom
variety, options
This type of visioning speaks volumes to my Sophia heart. It’s the wisdom that flows from me when I am true to myself.
For years I tried to fit in a world where strategic planning and corporate vision statements and agendas and action items and objectives and goals felt like stiff wooden boxes that didn’t fit the soft curve of my heart. Though I became adept at adapting to that world, it never felt like my full truth.
Not that those things aren’t necessary – it’s just that they weren’t fully balanced with the wisdom of the feminine.
Now I’m looking at the world differently. I’m looking for the curves and circles, the organic ways of growing, the spaces in between the cold hard facts, the colour behind the black and white, the softness in the structure, and the joy factor.
This year, as I look ahead to my first full year of self-employment, I’m focusing on the joy factor. Instead of a business plan, I’m working on a “joy roadmap”. Instead of a vision statement, I’m creating a “joy image”. Instead of goals and objectives, I’m asking “what things will make my heart feel alive?”
Do it with me! Here are a few tips to get you started:
1. List five moments from the past year when you felt deeply joyful.
2. What was it from those moments that contributed to your joy and how can you replicate that in 2011?
3. Who were the people who surrounded you in those moments and contributed to your joy? How can you continue to surround yourself with these joy people?
4. Create a vision board, adding images and words that make you feel joyful.
5. Answer these questions:
I am joyful when…
I can bring joy to other people by…
Now go back and read your answers to the questions in #5. Are there intersections? Is it possible that the things you do that bring you joy are also the things that contribute to other people’s joy? I suspect so!
Joy is contagious. Go out there and find some. And then pass it on.
One of the things I love about the process of doing interviews for this series is the great variety of stories that are emerging. Today’s story is quite different from the last one, and yet in each one there is great wisdom to be gleaned.
by Azar Nafisi. It’s a fascinating memoir about a university professor who, after teaching in universities in Iran for a number of years and giving up out of sheer frustration because there are so many restrictions put on her and the way students are allowed to learn, begins a small private class in her home. She invites a circle of young women to study some of the classics that have been banned by an oppressive regime.
