Category Archives: mindfulness

Whatcha Doin’ Lately?

Posted on by
Reply

Summer officially began today, around 4am Eastern Time. It’s Father’s Day.
The days get shorter in the Northern Hemisphere starting now and for the next six months.
Nature’s cycles march onward.
Have I appreciated and reveled in this season so far? I think yes. How ’bout you?

No burning questions or popping epiphanies tonight, friends. Just a wonderful sense of gratitude and contentment at life. Looking, listening, and feeling around me, it’s no wonder.

The family is well overall. No acute or severe health crises, relationships are stable–what more do we need, really? Surviving major challenges and threats in both of these realms makes one appreciate when things are quiet, stable, and well.

Daughter is home, which means I’m spending more time in the ‘woods’ by the house. That means more photos for the blog, more bug bites, and learning about thrips–tiny, kiwi hair-sized bugs that live on the mulberries that grow in the neighborhood.

I posted about it on Insta the other day. 🙂

Daughter and I are also taking a pottery class together–tomorrow will be the third of five classes. I shake my head at the contrast: I last touched clay 26 years ago, before I had kids, over half my life ago. I can’t remember how long I did it, but I was there at all hours of the day and night and produced over 400 pieces. I have about four pots to show for it so far this time, and it’s been harder than I anticipated to recall the skills. Maybe I’ll just have to keep going! We still use many of the bowls I made back in 2000; hoping I can add some nice ones to the collection in 2026.

I’m very proud of the progress I’m making in the gym. 285# barbell hip thrust, 195# trap bar dead lift, and 145# barbell back squat, each for at least four reps, are my favorite accomplishments so far this year. I’m still working toward that one, good, unassisted pull up by Christmas–we shall see! And if not by Christmas or not ever, it’s okay! I can still continue to show up and practice. I finally felt worthy of adding another sticker to my water bottle:

Water bottle sticker: “Shhh… I’m doing math” next to a pile of barbell weight plates

Book writing enters the sixth month of consistent work, wow. What a labor of love, oh my gosh. It’s very much tied to my time at Ethos; my mind is clear and my mood elevated after a challenging workout surrounded by friends. The co-working space is open, bright, and also full of people I love. It’s the perfect setting to do my best reflecting and writing, and insights occur to me on each page that I don’t think would emerge any other way. I wonder if this is why I feel less driven to journal, although jar smile and snail mail writing continue at a regular, rewarding, and joyous pace. There is just something about writing that frees my soul… I wish for everybody to find something in life that feels this great!

What’s got your attention this season, friends? How does the chaos and uncertainty in our world affect you? I reflect on my privilege a lot lately, but don’t feel moved to write deeply about it here… yet. Our perspectives determine our perceptions, which influence or determine our beliefs, and thus our actions and thus our relationships, and thus our lives. So if we wish to live magnanimously, empathetically, generously, informedly, and understandingly, we must broaden our perspectives. Easier said than done, and almost always better with kind and direct guidance from others. Maybe more on this another day.

Life feels smooth and calm at the moment. I know it will not always be this way. So I pay attention and store up the positive energy. When harder times hit later, I will look back and know that I knew it and appreciated it when things were good, and that will hold me up until things are good again. Peace, friends. It’s what I wish for us all.

Embracing Our Discomfort

Posted on by
Reply

“How are you, my friend?”

Do you find yourself asking your people this more often lately?
It’s a heavier question today than in times past, no?
What are we really asking? What do we want to know (or not)?
I opened last week’s post by asking, and again today; the redundance feels important and necessary.

It’s Pride Month, and I’m seeing a lot less of the “Wishing all the homophobes a super uncomfortable month” memes now compared to last year, which I’m glad about. I thought about updating my dissent post today, but I think it still stands strong on its own:
“…The best intention of this message, I think, is solidarity and allyship. The impact may be very different. I can imagine someone who feels uncomfortable, for whatever reason, with non-cis/het identity feeling rejected, shamed, and even hated by this message. What response is this likely to engender? How does that make anything better for anyone? How does it advance the cause?
“…If we were all better at embracing our various discomforts (healthy eating, exercising more, being more honest with ourselves and others, having the hard conversations, etc.), at making it safe for one another to engage with and overcome them, how would that feel? How would our relationships and communities be? Right now we make it safe to respond to our discomforts with rage, blame, and dehumanizing. When I see people wishing discomfort on others, I’m disappointed.
“We can do better.”

A friend and I have exchanged messages about the value of discomfort, how it makes us stop and take perspective, how it shapes us and can make us better.

“A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” –unattributed

I still never wish discomfort on anyone. But I’m happy to encourage folks to embrace its inevitability and possibility for growth through it. Let us seek and engage with the worthy discomforts–those which move us through our stagnant assumptions and mental rigidities toward creativity, discovery, and deeper connection. And let’s do it together–mutually supportive and loving, striving always for better understanding, acceptance, and community through the joys and challenges of diversity and inclusion.

Embracing our discomfort often means acknowledging and facing our fears.
Fear is a legitimate and important emotion, required for survival throughout our evolution. Besides pain, is there a more uncomfortable sensation than threat and fear?
Can we recognize when our anger, righteousness, arrogance, disengagement, and even hatred are all founded on unacknowledged, limbic, or even existential fear?
Can we kindly, patiently, curiously, and humbly help one another explore and unpack it all?

How comfortable are any of us with any of this?
How much easier is it to declare categorical truths with certainty and authority, dismissing nuance and complexity, suppressing doubt, and rejecting earnest discussion and debate?

We each get to choose how we show up to our fears, how we cope with discomfort.
Sometimes all we can do is turn around and run the other way. We can deflect or armor up. They’re called ‘defense mechanisms’ for good reason, and the older I get the more I see and accept that we all have them. Each of us comes by our own honestly, and judging one another for them rarely makes anything better. Discomfort makes us squirelly at best, destructive at worst.

What if we shared our comfort with one another?

I messaged a friend last weekend:
“Reconnected with (a guy friend) recently, who is now a transitioning woman and agreed to take me to my first silent book club at a lesbian speakeasy this month! [Mentioned here last week–I’m very excited about this.]
“Omg dear one, our world is so chaotic and uncertain, and yet there is still SO MUCH GOOD in the day to day, face to face, in person connections of love and shared humanity. I hope you feel as surrounded by it as I do.”
Clearly, I feel very comfortable with gender transition.

But I know people for whom transgenderism is extremely uncomfortable, an unfathomable and existential threat to their core values and beliefs about humanity. I sense their acute distress, their stuckness, their utter helplessness to understand or accept the concept and get to peace with it–especially when a loved one discloses and transitions. I wish I could take away their sorrow and anguish. I know it’s not because they ‘hate’ transgender people or wish for anyone to repress their authentic selves. Their discomfort is not rooted in malice. And their experience far and away exceeds ‘discomfort,’ but I use this example to remind myself that humans come to any given issue or idea with a vast variety and complexity of attitudes, histories, and comfort levels.

The better we can tolerate, embrace, and process our discomfort, the stronger and more resilient we can be in the face of adversity and true threats to our survival, I think. And I wish for no one to have to do this alone.
Genuine human connection mitigates pain, suffering, and the extreme discomforts of fear, grief, and uncertainty. It is the most effective balm for what ails our hearts.

So this Pride Month and beyond, when we feel uncomfortable about something, anything, may we reach out with vulnerability and courage ahead of anger and antagonism. May our first instincts be to connect more than to judge. May we meet others’ discomfort with empathy, compassion, understanding, and patience. We can do this even in the smallest encounter, with few or even no words, with the most fleeting of looks. It takes practice. Thankfully, life presents us with the opportunity every time we meet another human.

What Holds You Up?

Posted on by
Reply
Back wall at a nail spa around 1500 N.Milwaukee in Chicago–no idea the name of the place!

How are you, my friends?

So many people struggle today. Whether it’s financial, medical, emotional, relational, or existential, life is just hard right now. It’s palpable; wellness can feel fragile and tenuous. Uncertainty, risk, agitation, and isolation loom heavily on more people’s consciousness than I have ever noticed in the past.

Even in my own bubble of prosperity and privilege, lately I notice stark and reactive vacillations in mood and serenity with smaller and smaller adversities. I think often of Strauss and Howe’s The Fourth Turning, and wonder when this individualist, revolutionary, destructive unraveling/crisis turning will finally end and we can enter the high that follows. Will it be in my lifetime? What do I do in the interim?

Connect, that’s what.

Recently TM and I picked up our friendship again after about 18 years. Our kids were friends in preschool and then our lives diverged, though we stayed very loosely connected via Facebook. Recently they commented on my post and now we’ve had two very long and deep conversations in the past month. I live for these connections! Today they helped me name an idea I have grappled with as the tension/tandem between reform and revolution. I prefer the former in general, and increasingly realize the need for and utility of the latter. In the end we agreed that both serve a purpose, and we wish for humans to be more thoughtful about how we do both. We have so much more to catch up on and discuss–our next date may be to a ‘silent book club’ at a lesbian speakeasy, woohoooooo!!

So much to attend to, everything that demands our attention, much of which we cannot even influence, let alone control. So what’s left? Our relationships, of course. Everything related to my direct connections with other humans holds me up. Find my short but mighty list below. What’s yours?

Finding, protecting, and strengthening what holds us up is not just about our own health and well-being. It’s about what we do with that well-being, when we have the bandwidth and wherewithal. Societal unravelling and crisis are inevitable, perhaps, at least according to some. But if the cycle persists, then highs and awakenings also come around, and I am convinced that these are driven strongly by those who value, practice, and lead us all in connection, who maintain our bridges across difference and conflict, who can always see our shared humanity and work to preserve it in all ways great and small. I strive to be this force of nature in this lifetime, and I thank my lucky stars every day for others I know who do the same.

Sorenettes
After our lovely discussion on the Crowns Trilogy by Nichola Tyche, my friends agreed to listen to Sierra Simon’s Priest Collection next. We met this past week and delved right in: Faith, religion, rigid social norms and the harm they do, desire, pleasure, carnality and spirituality, community, integrity, parenting, daughtering, and the future we wish and leave for our kids. I had just published my post on Never After by Alexis Hall, and now we will discuss this love story at our next meeting. Donna nailed it when she described the value of these books: They make us both feel and think deeply. They teach us more about ourselves than we knew before consuming them. They help us explore our beliefs, attitudes, assumptions, and world views. And they give us a great excuse to gather and commune.

Ethos
I lifted 195# with the trap bar this week, friends, and it felt strong and solid. I am confident I will break 200# and then some this year–whenever we do a straight 20X0 tempo again. My pull ups continue to improve also, though I am still sore for a few days after each workout. If I can get myself to practice at least once a week, I could likely get to one, good, unassisted pull up by Christmas. It’s all up to me.
But I could never do it without my people. The energy at Ethos simply makes us all better. We cheer and high five each other to our stronger, faster, healthier selves.
After class I head to the Den to write. I have made five months of steady progress on Book, and the final project continues to emerge and form in good time. I am so excited–after eleven years of blogging, my writing may yet get published in print.

Kids Home
I have adult children now, omg.
I told Daughter about the Sorenettes’ conversation, we ended up recording her response and sharing with my friends, who then responded with yet more connection and wonder. I love having an anthropologist kid! Every day we bond over esoteric sociopolitical theory and observation, as well as cat and cooking videos.
Son travels these few weeks, then comes home for a summer internship. It will be the first time he’s lived at home for more than two weeks at a time since starting college in 2022. That’s a mindbender. I cannot wait and will strive to self-regulate, to not smother him. I look forward to finding something to do that we both enjoy and brings us together.

Friends Coming to Town
Two people dear to me arrive in Chicago this week, and I will spend quality time with each. I would not miss the opportunity to gather and soak up their presence, light, and love. How did I get this lucky, to know so many amazing humans in one lifetime? And to have the chance to stay connected despite distance, stress, and all the trevails of life in our chaotic world? It’s just too good, and communion with them–just the anticipation of it–holds me up high.

Paper Projects
My desktop stationery stash has grown continually since National Card and Letter Writing Month started April 1. Every personal envelope I mail or deliver is now lined with pretty paper–so fancy! And this weekend I was reminded of the puffy paper stars origami I learned from our babysitter years ago–how did I not think to pour some into every Jar of Smiles from the beginning? I wrote a new jar for one of my friends coming this week and scattered some stars inside. It’s fun and aesthetically pleasing.
I spent last weekend also creating three sizes of origami booklets, some that fit inside smile jars, others meant to stash in pockets or bookbags. Slightly longer messages of encouragement, or places for friends to place their own thoughts and reflections.
I’ll continue to compose little love notes, cards and letters, and all forms of personal, handwritten messages to as many people as possible, for as long as I am able. I may never use all of the cardstock, stationery, tape, and paraphernalia I have accumulated over a lifetime of paper fetish, but I will die trying. And if I can bring some love, joy, beauty, and connection along the way, all the better.