Category Archives: gratitude

Revel in the Awesomeness

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What’s really awesome for you lately?

I had such an endearing conversation with a friend this week.  A new empty nester, he reflected on this new perspective.  Having spent so much time and energy focused joyfully and lovingly on his children the last couple of decades, he now has some of that time and energy ‘back’, to do with what he chooses.  And it seems he chooses in part to appreciate the awesomeness of his life a bit more.  Fabulous marriage, meaningful and fulfilling careers for both him and his wife, a chance to make a positive difference in the world around him, and happy, healthy kids.  Yay! 

I absolutely love hearing people revel in awesomeness, don’t you?  Is it not totally inspiring?  When was the last time you looked around and truly appreciated the goodness all around you?  It’s a vulnerable act, if we’re honest.  Too often it feels like tempting fate, ‘jinxing it’, to call out all that is going so well, so right.  So we keep joy at bay, we keep striving, always looking for how it could all be better.  Huh.

What happens when we allow awesomeness to envelope us, penetrate us, move us? 

I think the first thing we get is a deep sense of wonder.  How could it be so good?  How is it even possible?  And it doesn’t even have to be anything big.  I have a cold—fever, congestion, headache, fatigue, body aches, mental fog.  And yet I can hydrate, medicate, and slow down, and still work (not in person!) and take care of the family.  The parameters for normal operation in the human body are remarkably narrow.  And yet multiple systems can be widely deranged, and we not only survive, we function at about 90% or better for the most part.  What an amazingly evolved machine, with perfectly orchestrated and automatically, effortlessly effective redundancies!  HOW AWESOME!? 

For me, from wonder grows gratitude.  Some people can’t actually tolerate a cold so well, but I can.  Some people don’t have access to excellent healthcare, but I do.  Some people don’t have the marriage, career, and kids that my friend and I have—but we do.  And we are grateful.  We don’t have to feel shame or guilt for having it ‘better’ than anyone else.  Everybody has their challenges in life, us included.  And still, counting our blessings is a great way to get perspective in any time, hard or easy.

Gratitude, then, is the fountain from which generosity springs.  I wrote about this in 2015:

When I feel grateful, there is enough. I am enough. Even just saying the word, seeing it on the screen, brings me to a more peaceful state of mind and body. It brings to mind the people in my life—my parents, husband, children, friends, colleagues. I recall instances when someone went above and beyond to help me, or when they thought of me and took to the time to call or write. I feel humble. I feel connected.  I want to share what I have with others.

When we truly revel in awesomeness, then allow wonder to infiltrate our psyche, then bask luxuriously in deep gratitude, how can we help but wish for everybody to have what we have, to feel what we feel?  If I can have all this, when life is this abundant, how can I help but share?

Finally, I believe reveling in awesomeness is the seedbed for my activist heart.  I have much and I strive to share freely.  I wish for everybody with much to share with those who have much less.  I wish for our culture and society to make it easier, through policy, for all to have more than enough, for that to be the default.  These days I have cynicism-optimism whiplash at ever higher speed and intensity.  I see so much self-absorption, biting competition, and scarcity thinking.  Sometimes I just want to shake people and yell, “Look UP!  We have so much potential for good here, if we only choose to see it!”  But I realize folks don’t always appreciate this approach.  So for now I can simply revel out loud for myself, in all the awesomeness I experience every day.  And like my friend did, I can share the light I see—emanate it—and I can keep making a difference starting from there.

Share Your Platform

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Hey friends!  I’ve recorded a screen video!  To many of you this may seem no big deal.  But it’s a huge milestone for Luddite me, and who knows when I ever would have tried it if not for Ozan Varol!  Readers of this blog know how much I admire Ozan, a rocket scientist, law professor, all-around benevolent contrarian, and generous sharer of his platform.  …And now you can get a tour of his Inner Circle site from yours truly!

I first found Ozan on my Facebook feed when he wrote about changing people’s minds. It resonated with me immediately. So of course I downloaded his free e-book, signed up for the Weekly Contrarian newsletter, and binge-listened to his Famous Failures podcast. Ozan pointed me to some of my favorite books of 2019, such as Insight by Tasha Eurich and Sex At Dawn by Chris Ryan and Cacilda Jetha.

Throughout 2019 Ozan grew and connected his community of readers.  Christina, Renu, Judith and I participated in the first ever Idea Lab (as they are now known), where three of us each shared a project and we all coached one another through ideas, process, and execution.  Ozan launched the Inner Circle maybe a year ago.  Here readers (I consider us all impending friends) connect around more ideas, projects, challenges, and common interests.  Ozan floats concepts for future blogs, shares resources that spark his curiosity, and generally stimulates thoughtful and wide-ranging collaboration from all over the world.  And oh, my gosh, the people I’m meeting!!

Dr. Karen Shue has recently joined and I really want know better this writer, neuropsychologist, and all around curious being who maintains three websites, see here, here, and here.

Tony Coretto, an apparent modern-day Renaissance man, writes about building the life you want, and he has built quite a life, from what I can tell.

What I appreciate the most about Ozan is how he leads by example.  He grounds his questions in curiosity and openness.  His comments encourage, and also challenge us to broaden our perspectives, as he broadens his own by inviting diverse viewpoints with respect and non-judgment.  There is no shortage of nonconforming views on any given community forum thread.  And yet I never feel animosity or confrontation, not even close.  Opinions are offered, not espoused.  IC folks come to learn, share, commune, and grow, because we see Ozan doing it right along with us.

When Ozan invited me to record the Inner Circle walkthrough video, I had no idea how to do it.  I asked my Facebook friends, and Don came through with Screencast-o-matic.  So user friendly, even I could figure it out in a morning!  It took only three tries, and voila, a viable, extemporaneous tour of a site I love!  And now I have a fun new skill—my horizon is widened and I seek new ventures in which to practice and grow.  Ozan gave such a kind shout out to me and this blog in the walkthrough invitation email.  And now I’m invited to host a community call around a topic of my choice.  Holy cow!  I am so humbled and grateful for it all.

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I have a mentor at work, who supports me similarly.  So often he has introduced me to other organizational leaders, setting up calls and meetings to share ideas and initiatives.  His introduction affords me some instant ‘street cred’ with people who would not otherwise care to know me.  I don’t take this lightly, and I am beyond appreciative. 

How can I make the most of these most generous opportunities?  How can I be worthy of the possibilities?  It’s not that I feel unworthy; I understand that Ozan and my mentor see real potential in me and want to help me develop it.  I just don’t want to waste a shred of these openhanded gifts.  They lift me.  How can I pay it forward?

What do you do when someone elevates you like this?

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In these intensely surreal and existentially trying times, people all around me express helplessness.  How can any of us, individually, exert any meaningful agency to change anything for the better when everything everywhere is so colossally out of control?

I believe we can always help.  Each of us occupies a sphere of influence; our attitudes and actions ripple out indirectly many layers beyond.  So, one way I can elevate more people is by sharing my own platform, small as it is (yet).  I used to feel sheepish when much of any post was someone else’s words.  Not so anymore.  When I find pieces that speak to me, that resonate and integrate with my core values and my cause, why not amplify widely? 

Maybe I have some valuable street cred to share, too.

Witnessing

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So much suffering, friends—everywhere, all the time, every day.  It’s overwhelming. 

Our current circumstances feel like the most distressing case of sensory overload I have ever experienced:  intense, prolonged, and complicated.  Paradoxically, I also often feel like my head and heart could explode from sheer hopefulness—at no other time in my life have I felt so much potential for meaningful, positive collective change.  We stand on the knife edge of a continental divide of sorts, simultaneously overlooking the worst and best extremes of humanity.

People. Are. Losing it. 

Patients with underlying anxiety and depression are increasingly agitated and even combative, at home and in the clinic.  They threaten themselves and/or office staff, sometimes with mortal results.  Lifelong friendships are ending from irreconcilable differences over politics, ideology, and disagreements over social distancing and masking, among other things.  People lash out in rage at the slightest, often innocent provocations.  We doom scroll on social media, amplifying and reverberating (mis)information in our echo chambers, driving ourselves to the cliff’s edge of sanity with fear, fury, and hatred.

I watch it unfold before my eyes, escalating in the past few weeks.  I have joked for a while that the world may end in my lifetime; now it feels less and less like a joke. 

How we do process it all?  How do we get through?

Physicians, therapists, nurses, and many other professionals make a living watching and listening to people through their suffering.  Often we cannot cure people’s problems; sometimes it feels like we can’t even help.  But the truth is we can always help—all of us.

By simply being present to someone in pain, we help.   By not looking or running away, by sitting and facing them full on, we help.  By allowing, even embracing our own discomfort, and holding safe, quiet space for another’s suffering, we help.  We know this because when we suffer, the loving presence of others is what heals us first.

I cannot take away your depression or anxiety.  I cannot create a stronger social support network for you.  I cannot get you a job, bring back your deceased loved one, make the pandemic go away, or stop the next police officer from profiling your son by his skin color.  But I can sit with you in your grief.  I can stand in solidarity with you and advocate for our common cause.  Most importantly, I can take good care of myself so I can keep showing up for you and all those who may need to lean on me from time to time.  I have those who let me lean on them sometimes, too, and I make sure to thank them often.

To witness means to see.  The best witnesses make us feel seen, heard, understood, accepted, and loved, no matter what.  This is what we can do for one another right now.  It is the highest calling of humanity, to take care of each and every other as ourselves.  It is an infinite rather than a finite calculation.  Love shared is multiplied, not divided.  Caring for you feeds me too, whereas disconnecting from you costs me more than I know, and diminishes us all.

“Although the tale of human experience is certainly universal, it contains unique elements for each us and we continue the art of storytelling, both verbally and nonverbally, each and every day. While some stories are sweeter than others, all long for the benefit and necessity of a witness, for a witness assures us that our stories are heard, contained, and transcend time; for it can be said that one is never truly forgotten when one is shared and carried in the hearts of others.” –Kristi Pikiewicz, PhD

The only way out is through. The best way through is together.