Month: September 2020

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News from Jules | 09.28.20 | You Keep Going

one lesson about integrity every week

Teachers come into our lives in all forms. Sometimes they guide us through a series of insights, sometimes it’s a just-in-time encounter. That right person at that right time for that lesson. If we’re paying attention, we’ll always find the guidance we need. 

Over 15 years of practice and too many moves, I’ve collected favorite yoga teachers all over Portland. I stay in touch with many of them on Instagram — liking, tagging, sharing inspiration. I recently sent an article about how Fall is So Yin: Embracing Autumn Energy to one of my favorite yin yoga teachers in a direct message. Inspired, we set the intention to actually meet up in person around the Fall Equinox and learn what the harvest might have in store.

If the rains came, if the smoke cleared, if the fates aligned. 

Apparently the fates were very aligned. 

When we met up at the beach in Hood River, we were excited to be outside and together. Chatting about our week so far, we realized that the day before (on the actual Equinox) we both did the very same hike — within 30 minutes of each other! 

Clearly we were meant to be in the same place at the same time.

Giggling about the synchronicity and the muck between our toes, we launched the rental Stand-Up Paddleboards into the murky waters of the Columbia River, then both awkwardly stood up and started to paddle. This was her second time, my sixth.

Having paddled on the Columbia before, I felt confident and quickly sliced the oar through the still water. I chatted for several minutes uninterrupted. No response. Odd.

I looked back and saw her way behind, swerving from side to side. I stopped to wait. Finally she caught up. I wondered out loud, “Which end of your board is in the front?” 

“I don’t know,” she replied with a laugh. 

Sure enough, we realized that the fin (the rudder) was in front. She was essentially going in circles. No wonder it was so hard and she wasn’t getting very far!!

I learned this was the way life had felt all year for her (and certainly so many others). A storyline I knew well, most recently from 2018, with many lessons learned about making one’s way through really tough questions:

If you’re following the calling, why don’t things work out?

How do you feed your body and feed your soul? 

When do you give up?

You don’t give up. You keep going. 

The goofy SUP mistake reinforced a lesson she had already learned: Listening to the call and faithfully following is important. But, it needs to be aligned to its purpose. 

This is the way we keep moving, straight forward. 

This was the first and the last time I would see her this year — I learned she was moving back home to Pennsylvania to regroup. To keep going. 

Maybe one day we will practice together again. Until then we are on the journey together, in spirit and on Instagram.

May you show up as both the teacher and the student this week.

Love, 
Jules

I share a lesson learned about integrity every Monday. Sign up for delivery right to your inbox. Want more? There’s lots more lessons learned here on my blog, so have fun exploring and commenting about your own insights! 

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News from Jules | 09.21.20 | Now is the Time

one lesson about integrity every week

There won’t be an obvious shift when it happens. At least not one that we are attuned to.

Not like the rapid descent of light into darkness, casting a shadow across the whole country, that many of us saw during the total solar eclipse in 2018. 

And yet there will be a balancing of the light and darkness during the Fall Equinox (Sept. 22 where I live). There will be 12 hours of day, 12 hours of night. This moment marks the half-way point of the “natural year.” It’s a very powerful time. 

But, we’re only half-way there? It’s the mucky middle. How is that powerful? 

Because it is ripe with opportunity. 

The end has not yet come to fruition. If we stop for just a moment. If we focus and pay close attention, we know what’s working so far. And what isn’t. There is plenty of time to make adjustments. 

In a way, it’s only the beginning. Considering the first half as experiments with best laid plans, then we actually know what we’re working with now. Detaching from the idea and aligning with the reality. Seeing things the way they really are. What’s actually realistic. 

Here’s what I noticed this spring and summer: the more that I aligned to the truth of “what is,” the less I struggled.The trade-offs were less painful, the rewards were more enjoyable. 

Life was simply easier. 

Life is simple. 

And I thrive in simplicity. Not in the complex, complicated, and optimized tendencies I’ve had toward everything, more and better.

Now is the time for change.  

As we enter this new season — the second half of this cycle around the sun — What are you harvesting? What have you learned? Knowing what you know now, what will you do differently?

May you allow your true nature to show up this week. 

Love,
Jules

I share a lesson learned about integrity every Monday. Sign up for delivery right to your inbox. Want more? There’s lots more lessons learned here on my blog, so have fun exploring and commenting about your own insights! 

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News from Jules | 09.14.20 | Say Yes to Your Choices*

one lesson about integrity every week

As wildfires swept through Oregon and our neighbors, Washington and California, during the past week, pain and grief are being expressed through blame. 

Pointing fingers, especially at Mother Nature, at the wind, at the flames, at the trees, even at the underbrush.

Pointing fingers everywhere except here. 

Last month while at the Oregon Coast, I spent a whole day meditating on responsibility. Since this word is often dripping with shame, blame, judgement and guilt, I prefer to think of in the words of my former spiritual director: responsibility is the ability to respond. 

That day, as the blood started dripping down my heel and the pain registered, my first thought was: Darn volcanic rock! My second thought was: Gah, these flimsy sandals!

I hobbled a few more steps, still focused on exploring the secret entrance to Neptune Beach. But then, I remembered my mission for the day:

“Spend today believing you are totally responsible for everything that has happened in your life so far. Just for today you can’t blame anyone for anything.”

This was my daily assignment from 48 Days to the Work You Love by Dan Miller and was actually why I was wearing those flimsy, red leather Salt Water Sandals.

I have a defining memory from my childhood that includes different red sandals, which I took off during family therapy and refused to put back on. The therapist told my parents to leave my shoes behind. I was five-years-old already, but I still knew how to throw a tantrum and hold a grudge. A few years ago, I reflected on why this memory was so vivid.

I recognized how I felt wronged, mistreated, ultimately hurt. I also understood how much I contributed to the situation and intensified my own pain. So, I bought new red Salt Water Sandals for myself. Now, instead of “putting my big girl pants on,” I put on my little girl shoes when I need a reminder to take ownership over my life. 

Old habits die hard. This is why we keep practicing. 

Now more than ever, we all need to take responsibility for our choices. We are hurting ourselves. We are intensifying the suffering. No one and nothing is doing this to us. 

That doesn’t mean we need to be perfect. We simply need to own our choices. And fix them, when needed. 

This is the ability to respond.

When I blamed the cut on the rock and then on my shoes, it came from that same place of feeling wronged, of being hurt — by something else. As soon as I snapped out of that denial and back to reality I immediately felt better. Yes, I chose to wear those shoes. And I chose to scramble on those jagged rocks. 

So, I stopped and sat down. I opened my backpack and I used my First Aid Kit to bandage the wound. The responsibility wasn’t a burden. It was empowering!

And the sooner I acknowledged reality, the quicker it was resolved. 

I continued exploring for the rest of the day with peace of mind — believing I was totally responsible for everything that happened in my life. 

May you say Yes to your choices* this week. 

Love,
Jules

*This is a favorite phrase and mantra from Dance Church, a fun and inclusive approach to dancing together at home (via livestream with option to donate) that I’m doing every Wednesday during Quarantine! 

I share a lesson learned about integrity every Monday. Sign up for delivery right to your inbox. Want more? There’s lots more lessons learned here on my blog, so have fun exploring and commenting about your own insights! 

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News from Jules | 09.07.20 | Are We There Yet?

one lesson about integrity every week

I debated about writing to you since it’s a holiday. Though it is a potentially significant week in the journey.  So, it’ll keep it brief. 

No, we are not there yet. I am not there yet.

But, we are making progress.  

When I reframed my own unemployment as a Sabbatical, I gained a reason to Carpe Diem, instead of just being in limbo. It was not to create meaning, but infuse purpose. Writing is where I weave meaning into the process. These are the ways I cope, or deal effectively with something difficult.

I saw the vision, I set the goals and then off I went:

  • studying a career development book,
  • tackling my personal finance projects,  
  • training aggressively toward my Timberline Trail trek around Mt. Hood, accomplished a couple weeks ago. 

So, with many of these goals complete, I was surprised last week. I felt sad and a bit disoriented that I was not going back to work yet. Apparently, in claiming the Sabbatical mindset, I also subconsciously attached a timeframe of seven weeks: July 19 through Labor Day. I forgot that life is actually open-ended right now. 

Tired of the persistence, of the optimism, of the journey itself. Ready for something better. 

Just like a kid in the middle seat on a long road trip, I wondered out loud: Are we there yet?

Sound familiar? With COVID-19, with the Presidential Election, with systemic racism, with climate change. These are the biggies right now, but the list goes on for the whole and for each of us personally. 

Unfortunately, I have no truths to tell about when we will be there. Or when I will be there. 

I do know we are here and not there. We are making progress. We can get there. 

And we need more snacks. 

May you find simple ways to keep going this week. 

Love,
Jules

I share a lesson learned about integrity every Monday. Sign up for delivery right to your inbox. Want more? There’s lots more lessons learned here on my blog, so have fun exploring and commenting about your own insights! 

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News from Jules | 08.31.20 | This Wild Ambition

one lesson about integrity every week

I have a vague memory of a mouthful of thick, chalky dust. But, I was 4, just about to turn 5, that summer of 1987. So, the photos are much clearer than the memories. 

After a week camping in the woods, I hiked 6 whole miles beside my Mom down from a lake in the Wallowa mountain range. My first hiking personal record. Of course, with those little legs, it probably took six hours, or more! And then in the home stretch, my tired legs tripped on a root. I face planted on the trail. In the photo, I am covered in dust from head to toe. No smile. Just a hardcore hiker’s stare.

As soon as I could hold my head up, I was in my parents’ pack and outside — rain or shine, hot or cold. 

Growing up in the outdoors, I knew it wasn’t easy, it took work to be out there. Bugs, cuts, splinters, sunburns, fatigue, rain — a lot of it sucked. And then there were breathtaking rewards like lakes, wildflowers, mountains, fresh air, space. All together, it added up to adventure. Or so I thought. But, I was missing the point. 

It wasn’t just about the adventure, the thrill and the challenge of outdoor recreation. I was being actively raised to have a relationship with nature. What I now see as one of the greatest gifts a parent can give, besides life, safety and love. 

And in this relationship with nature a connection to my own spirit, and thus my own sense of spirituality. 

Just as my parents had grown theirs after they uprooted from Boston and transplanted to Oregon in 1972. Immediately falling in love with Mt. Hood and everything at the next level, they spent the next six years before kids seeking their highest potential — physically, mentally and spiritually. 

They may have felt the same awe as I do now:

  • Being dwarfed by giant Sequoias and Redwoods in old growth forests.
  • Seeing Mt. Rainier peaking out from the clouds in the distance.
  • Sitting beside the lapping waves, always ebbing and flowing as they touch the rocky shore.
  • Watching hermit crabs tickle an anemone while crawling around a tide pool. 

This profound thought has echoed with me for weeks: Nature just knows. It just is. It just exists. None of it has an “identity.”

None of it is studying career and life discernment workbooks, wondering how to live out its calling. This “enlightened” human thing some of us do. It makes this thing we hold so sacred, our individual identity, seem well, mundane. 

Yes, every part of nature has beauty, purpose, meaning of each its own, though its significance is not in simply being, but in contributing to the greater whole. 

Today is my birthday. A day some cultures see as an opportunity for a fresh sense of identity. More than a marker of years, it represents a self-identified mastery of being. Just so, a few years ago I started using my favorite nickname, Jules, all the time. 

Personal, loving, connected. It felt more “me” than Julie ever did.  

I’ve spent my life seeking personal significance through my own self-expression. Ironically, as I’ve settled into being Jules “full-time,” I’ve released some of the need for a distinctive identity. 

Today I am humbled by the bigger quest: Becoming one with all — mind, body and spirit aligned within. And without. Not just relating to nature, but being as an equal and raising our children to live this way from the start. 

This is where my heart is at as I enter a new year: with wild ambitions of living more deeply in harmony with nature, with all others, and with my own nature. And intuiting how to make these truths more accessible to all. 

May you feel peace this week by treating every day as a fresh start. 

Love,
Jules

I share a lesson learned about integrity every Monday. Sign up for delivery right to your inbox. Want more? There’s lots more lessons learned here on my blog, so have fun exploring and commenting about your own insights! 

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