Category Archives: Inspiration

Refining the Personal Vision Statement

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NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

“I, Cathy Cheng, living and working at my highest and best, am Honest, Curious, Generous, Humble, and Kind, so that I can cultivate the best possible relationships with and between all people.”

How does this statement land?  On me, not on you.  Well, maybe a little on you—is this how you experience me at my highest and best?  The personal vision statement is just that—personal.  It’s my own beacon to navigate life’s storms.  But what good is it if it’s only for me?  Shouldn’t it also be the light I emanate  to make my best contributions in this one brief existence? 

Thanks to Braver Angels pal Sharon Kristjanson and her Engaging With Difference class, I have protected time these two months to spelunk this inner work.  Sweet!  Though I have had a Why statement for a while, it’s high time to test and refine it.  How does it hold up when relationships get really hard?  What does it mean to be honest all the time?  To be generous and humble when I’m tempted not to?  What is the shadow side of curiosity?

It’s deep work, but not necessarily heavy. I’m not drafting a final life mantra for my headstone. I’m noodling with a saying that fits at the same time like my most comfy pajama pants and my most flattering black dress. I am my own best seamstress, taking in and letting out as my relational habitus changes over time and experience. I’m always me, with evolving roles, tasks, and projects. Playing lightly and lovingly with words, purpose, and meaning, in whatever context surrounds me, with a trusty journal and smooth-writing pen…this is an ideal weeknight! Adaptive. Resourceful. Connected. Possibility. Oh yeah, this is gonna be awesome.

Ode to Teachers

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NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

How is Son?  Who is Son?  What can I tell you about Son?

Zoom parent teacher conferences are the bomb!!  From the comfort of my own office chair, I met with four of Son’s teachers today and had the most efficient yet meaningful conversations in recent memory. No driving around campus looking for parking, forgetting my school ID in the car, and rushing through the maze of hallways trying to find the right classrooms.  And the teachers, OMG, God bless ‘em. 

They moved everything online back in the spring—heroic.   All summer they prepared for at least three separate and equally challenging contingencies for fall, and at least one department completely reinvented the entire year’s curriculum (all hail PE teachers!).  On Back to School Night I could practically palpate the passion and love for their calling, even in two dimensions and from afar.  I jumped at the chance to talk to them again.

German Teacher assigned literature on coping with change, encouraging students to develop a habit of self-reflection and -regulation through adversity—in a second language—a compound life practice in flexibility.  English Teacher cheers thoughtful dissent and cogent argument.  And Physics Professor and I chatted for 30 minutes on everything from Son’s kinetic tendencies to food as medicine, to intrinsic and extrinsic drivers of longevity, to herd immunity manifestos and how to interpret them. 

Teachers yearn to know their students personally.  Their primary objective and source of fulfillment is the growth and development of young minds toward an infinite future of creativity and independence.  Their enthusiasm is infectious, their feedback to parents invaluable.  Gratitude for all teachers, mine included, moved me deeply today.  May we lift this profound appreciation every day, and uphold all educators accordingly.

Two Drops from the Firehose

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NaBloPoMo 2020 – Today’s Lesson

Friends, my firehose of learning gushed forcefully all week, and I’m exhausted in that really satisfied, saturated way.  Rather than trying to gulp directly in the path of deluge tonight, I looked for the drops that fell lightly, right from the nozzle.  Of all the things I read, heard, discussed, applied, and discerned, what stood out most?  Here’s what I found:

First, an article my friend posted and quoted tonight, which resonated deeply:

I believe the entire Jewish enterprise, with Talmud as its core spiritual practice, was designed to create…a person who is profoundly empathic, deeply connected to others, and radically loving; challenging rather than compliant, more disposed to resistance than obedience, active rather than passive; bold, courageous, and risk-taking when necessary; who can not only tolerate but appreciate and navigate uncertainty, paradox, and contradiction—because life is that way; who can appreciate and deal with complexity—because life is complex—rather than retreat into the need for and illusion of simplicity; who is resilient and can hold their truths lightly; and who walks through the world bringing the insights from their lived life experience to bear as a critique on a world which needs to be repaired precisely in those ways.

… It was designed to and must be utilized again to create people courageous enough to bring their svara, their moral intuition—refined and shaped by their learning—to bear on the world around them in such a way as to create a liberatory world in which all people can thrive in freedom and dignity, without barriers to being able to live out their fully human selves. And I believe that becoming that kind of person is a radical act of resistance. 

Hallelujah.

Second, Brené Brown’s podcast grounds and graces me lately.  This weekend, treat yourself to the profound and empowering message of Elizabeth Lesser, author of Cassandra Speaks, the next book in my Audible queue.  In addition to explaining the Tend and Befriend stress response and the real meaning of power, Lesser points to the necessary inner work required to really change the world:

It’s Friday the 13th.  COVID spreads like wildfire across the country, two weeks before Thanksgiving.

Let us take care of each other.  Judge less.  Listen more.  And MASK UP.

Onward.