Category Archives: Inspiration

Holding Strengths

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What’s already good? How can we protect and strengthen that?
What could be better? How will we make it so?

I centered NaBloPoMo 2023 on these questions and set all 30 prompts/topics in advance. The idea was to take an Appreciative Inquiry approach to habit change at both the personal and collective levels. I wanted to shift focus from threats, failures, deficiencies, and shadow to people, places, and practices that thrive, uplift, and inspire. How could this mindset help us all in our current state?

From the Center for Appreciative Inquiry:

WHAT IS APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY?
Appreciative Inquiry (AI) is an energizing and inclusive process that fosters creativity through the art of positive inquiry. It builds new skills in individuals and groups, develops new leaders, encourages a culture of inquiry, and helps create shared vision and purpose by building on an organization’s core values and strengths. Perhaps, most importantly, are the outcomes that emerge during the process which provoke action, inspire commitment, and lead to results.

WHY APPRECIATIVE INQUIRY WORKS
Building upon the framework of positive psychology and human sciences, Appreciative Inquiry builds self-awareness and emotional intelligence to shift our focus, attention, and energy into exploration into opportunities and possibilities. AI does not focus on changing people, rather it invites individuals to engage in building a future they want to live in.

Appreciative Inquiry’s assumption is simple: Every human system has something that works right–things that give it life when it is vital, effective, and successful.

What I like about this approach to problem solving is the concreteness. Asking what already works, what’s not wrong or broken, requires practical, operational answers. It forces us to think and talk objectively about what is, rather than cogitate, theorize, and catastrophize about what could be. It starts from a place of strength and looks to build; it’s about what we’re for more than and before what we are against, so we can dream and design what could be instead.

At first I imagine applying this method to policy and systems collaboration. That would be great, but I don’t see it happening; people are still too negative, polarized, and adversarial for that, at least on large scales. I bet there are small organizations and groups where this strengths based approach to change actually already happens. I’d love to see more of them highlighted in the media.

For now, I think some of us may be ready and willing to apply appreciative inquiry to our existing relationships. I imagine a Blue friend and a Red friend, both wishing to connect across their differences and get closer. Both harbor curiosity about the other, even if it’s repressed. Each senses an intuitive possibility for deeper connection, and also feels stymied at how to achieve it. What if they started by considering the strengths of their relationship? Maybe those include honesty, non-judgment, good humor, and shared experiences. What if they imagined and envisioned together what an even stronger friendship would look, sound, and feel like? I get goosebumps envisioning those conversations.

What other domains of relationship would benefit from this approach to disagreement, challenge, conflict, and growth? I can think of at least a few in my life–she writes sheepishly–hello, walk the talk much? How fascinating! And here I thought this post would be boring and bland–HA!

I Hold Strengths for Us tonight, my friends: Strengths in relationship, in connection, in bond and union. Our relationships save us. I am convicted to this assertion, and I firmly believe it’s our strong relationships, especially across difference and disagreement, that will save our republic.

Holding the Activist Heart

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What are you an activist for?

What does it cost you? What does it cost others?
How does it affect your relationships with them?

At the end of your life, how do you want your activism to be remembered? What are you willing to give up for that legacy? What do you need to do to make it more likely?

Crusader
Warrior
Champion
Advocate

How do you describe your role, your leadership, and the work?

I recommended Simon Sinek’s Start With Why to someone again today.
Meaning. Purpose. Mission. Vision.
Once we find these for ourselves, we settle. We sense direction and movement, that low rumbling purr of motivated inspiration.
Optimism. Patience. Inspiration. Perseverance. Faith.
These energies flow and propel, provide momentum to overcome obstacles and setbacks. We commit. Through persistence we gain confidence, flexibility, agility, resilience. We become veteran master players of The Infinite Game. The work is endless; there will always be more to do; the ultimate goal will not be achieved in our lifetime.
And still, “That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

I know my Why, have for a while now. I root down deeply in it. I feel stable and strong, grounded and powerful. I also feel light and supple, mobile and elastic. As Sinek says, when we know our Why, we can be flexible with the How and the What. Starting with Why gives rise to creativity, connection, synergy, and possibility. To be an activist with an unassailable and still limber Why makes me more effective.

Tonight I wonder how to do activist work without an adversarial approach, without burning out, and without burning bridges. My Why is that our relationships save us. The best relationships elevate us, integrate divergence and even conflict into a fluid, complementary movement of tension and slackness, push and pull, give and take–yin and yang. What happens when my yin activism meets your yang?

I wish for all activists to express what they are For more than what they are against. I know that’s not always feasible or realistic to expect from emotional and empassioned humans. Conflict is inevitable and not inherently bad. Yet, I know we can do it better. I know activists who vehemently, even spitefully oppose others. It makes me sad and a little desperate. I know it’s not my work to oppose the adversarial activist. I must find that way of integrative flow, that relationship that allows us all to do our work side by side, respectful of one another’s humanity, holding and sharing space.

We may advocate for divergent, opposing, and conflicting causes. That is nature, and human nature risks mortal sacrifices for the ideals and values we hold most dearly. Energy, power, and forces collide. We get to decide how and whether the results are destructive or constructive. It’s never too late to change course.

Tonight I Hold Our Activist Hearts–all of them. May we choose our words, actions, and relationships from a place of humane love and connection more than anything else, and may we be at peace with our choices at the ends of our lives.

Holding Love

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from Instagram, 11/20/2024

I’m tired tonight, friends.

Husband says he sees November as stressful for me every year (for the tenth year in a row now), referring to the 30 days of daily blogging. I don’t want to admit it, but it’s at least partially true. It shows in my eating habits, I didn’t quite have my edge in the gym yesterday, and there are likely other consequences. I’m not losing sleep these last couple years, which is a drastic improvement from before. And I’m still cooking regularly now, which is also better! So it’s not bad news at all; this is good stress. It’s probably a 95% challenge, 5% threat sensation, and 10/10 meaning. It’s already two-thirds over, and I think these posts could be some of my best writing yet. Win-win-win!

One of the biggest challenges the last 20 days (starting 10/31) has been fully articulating an idea that may have only occurred to me within 12 hours of posting. I feel I have met that challenge well, and I’m proud of the output so far as it is honest and offered wholeheartedly.

My first solid idea for tonight’s post came to me while eating dinner and listening to What Is Health? by Peter Sterling. It was so exciting and also quite complex, so I procrastinated. It needs to marinate a bit more. Then the universe sent me the Instagram story in the photo above from my friend James. It reads:

Unconditional love really exists in each of us. It is part of our deep inner being. It is not so much an active emotion as a state of being. It’s not ‘I love you’ for this or that reason, not ‘I love you if you love me.’ It’s love for no reason, love without an object.” –Ram Daas

My immediate response to James: “OMG YAAAASS!!! What if we all tapped into this deep well of Agape just a little more every day!?!? [Home Alone face emoji, smiley surrounded by hearts emoji]
James replied, “Yes, what if?? What’s stopping us?”
We agreed that conversation is best saved for our next in person communion.
I shared the story on my own account with a similar admonishing question, feeling a full body rush of joy, optimism, and possibility.

We tend to think of love as an emotion. We probably experience it as such at least some of the time–a limbic sensation that comes over us and then dissipates–a signal of something to pay attention to, something that matters to us. But I learned recently that love is more of a drive, like hunger or thirst; it manifests consistently, if in waves, impelling us to behave and relate in ways that advance our own survival. Romantic love drives us to partner and procreate. Pair bonding and parental love drives us to tend to our progeny so our genes may live on for another generation. So if we think of it this way and apply it to relationships in nested scale (family unit, village, state, nation, all of humanity), how does that alter our perspective?

To me, it all suddenly feels so simple. We are all here to love one another, to help us all survive and thrive. We are all someone’s child. Many of us are someone’s sibling, someone’s parent. I hope we are all someone’s good friend. We all share this planet, this lifetime. We are all here. Now. Living. Doing our Best. So when I’m tired, I can relax and rest in this one simple idea: Love.

What if we accept Ram Daas’s premise? What if unconditional love really is part of our deep inner being? And what if we fully accepted, acknowledged, and manifested this just a little more every day? How would that feel? What would we do as a result? How would we be?
I feel at peace. I feel confident that we can figure it all out, whatever it is, ODOMOBaaT–one day, one moment, one breath at a time. I smile more. I approach people with ease and friendliness, as if any person I meet could be my next new good friend. I am my favorite self.

So I Hold Love for Us tonight, friends. It took 20 days for it to emerge this month. I wondered when and how it would come up; it was #6 on my pre-NaBlo prep list of 30 things to Hold. How does it feel when you Hold Love? Where and when is it easy and difficult? How and what do you do when it’s really hard?

What if …?