Tag: Spiritual Development

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News from Jules | 01.03.22 | What’s Essential

What a blessing to enter the new year with such a fresh start! Bare white walls, seasoned hardwood floors, empty closet, big windows facing North and East. Just a twin bed, a side table and a dresser. Exactly the kind of easeful living I’ve been craving since the pandemic started.  

Since I wrapped up my full-time job in mid-July, I have been nomadically following the seasons. Seizing the summer days with adventures throughout the Pacific Northwest and visits to friends in Alaska, Arizona, California. Reaping the fall harvest while housesitting for a friend and helping at another friend’s letterpress shop. And now, settling into the winter stillness by housesitting for other friends’ and beginning to write again. 

Last weekend I only had the energy to set up what I immediately needed. With 90% of my stuff in a storage unit, it would seem that everything here is essential. And yet, it felt done and livable while several boxes remained unpacked. Could I let it be?

“This is a hard lifelong task, for the nature of becoming is a constant filming over of where we begin, while the nature of being is a constant erosion of what is not essential,” wrote Mark Nepo in The Book of Awakening (bold added for emphasis).

This is the hard lifelong task. 

Staying true to our “birthright integrity.”* Only reaching for what we truly need, instead of anguishing about what to do with everything. Letting go of what is not essential. 

This is my pandemic epiphany: I thrive in simplicity.

My own words reminding me:

Cut out the busy, complicated, crazy. Make room for rich, easy, integrated. When one thing flows to another. When choices are obvious. When needs are met for all. And then some. When time is irrelevant and the only place to be is here. 

The everyday journey toward integrity continues. 

I will keep practicing. 

And I’ll keep writing.

Sending weekly updates as I process life and share what I’m discovering. Because I missed being connected to each of you. Whenever the subject line draws you in and wherever the words find you—sharing wisdom as you navigate your own journey. And knowing that you’re cheering me on in my journey. We are finding our way. 

May you gravitate toward what is essential for you.

Love,
Jules

*Eloquently described by Parker Palmer in “A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life.”

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 | 03.15.2021 | Healing Reimagined Part 3

one lesson about integrity every week

Just like healing, retreat is a process. Unlike healing, retreat often feels too nourishing to conclude. But, the power of retreat is in the promise of return. 

The promise of building, of becoming what we want to be. Better yet, what we truly are. 

Not just bringing back the truth and the insights, like perfectly whole sand dollar souvenirs, but actually applying them in life. Moving forward into a new life. 

Away from the constant heartbeat of the waves crashing onto the Oregon coast and living in our human-made world of buildings, streets, cars, nonnative plants, out-of-season food. Only two weeks of being back in the city since my last retreat and yet, it’s always so easy to forget.

Our true nature. Especially our inherent adaptability—the ability to adjust to new conditions—due to a little-known process. We learned homeostasis is our internal process toward maintaining balance. A steady state. Like at the playground, standing in the middle of the Teeter Tooter until that miraculous, temporary moment when it’s even and flat. The rest of the time it wobbles up and down, is a different—maybe even more miraculous—process:

Allostasis is the process of constantly adapting by proactively “anticipating needs and preparing to satisfy them before they arise,” according to Wikipedia.

In other words, remaining stable by being variable. And maintaining stability through change, is a fundamental process through which organisms actively adjust to both predictable and unpredictable events.

This is the way our body works. This is the way an ecosystem works. This is the way the planet works. This is the way the universe works. 

Throughout the past year, I’ve written about my own revelations from when the pandemic began, when Election results finally came in, when I felt the injustice at my front door, when we started to feel hope on Inauguration Day. It’s been a huge year of growth. I will remember and carry these lessons forth especially about balance. But, will humanity?

Will we let this past year be just another newsworthy year? Going down in history:

A brief “unprecedented” interruption of what we thought was normal life. Instead of an inevitable crisis at worst, a disruptive catalyst at best. 

Was last week the anniversary of “the week our reality broke” as the New York Times wrote?

Or was it the moment, the day, the week, the year our delusion broke? From the abnormal state marked by beliefs and practices of extraction, consumption, corruption, oppression—all that is untrue.

When we awoke from our unreality. Coming back to what is true. 

Healing reimagined.

This is our opportunity, right now. As we carefully emerge this spring, we carry forth these powerful lessons from our year-long retreat and hold in our hands the promise of return. 

May you commit to your truth 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 | 03.08.2021 | Healing Reimagined Part 2

one lesson about integrity every week

Heading to the coast a week ago for my women spiritual group‘s annual two-day retreat—albeit virtual this year—and coming up on our COVID-19 anniversary, I reflected a lot on the last year.

I packed everything that needed to be released to make way for new life.

To seal the intention of adaptability. 

Because this is what happens during the winter—the last season of the natural year—to make way for the next cycle of growth. 

But, what needed to be released this winter, this retreat—and especially this year—in order to create more space for healing? For moving forward, into the future?

The short answer: Everything. But how?

I carried this immense question and a piece of very expensive chocolate with me to the edge of the foamy waves that Saturday morning. I stayed an extra second at the cusp of wet sand and nearly wet running shoes as I tossed my chocolate offering to Grandmother Ocean. 

My heartfelt ask: Show me the way. 

Her answer? The rest of the day. 

After running on the beach and a hot shower, I returned to meditate thoughtlessly beside the waves. From the far end of the beach, Neah-Kah-Nie Mountain beckoned. And so I drove to the trailhead. Traveling swiftly up and down the steep trail, I only rested at the top long enough to take my favorite feet-seascape-and-horizon photo and a sip of water. When a snowflake hit my face, I stayed an extra second in surprise and delight at the cusp of winter and nearly spring weather. Then, back to the ocean, this time for a full plunge into her salty embrace. The truth washing over me, seeping into my pores and sticking to my hair like the salt.

Just like the tides and cycles of the moon, just like our body’s allostasis, just like a nurse log’s decomposition, just like the seasons of the year. Healing is a process.

​Healing is a process of becoming whole again. A series of stages or steps. This we know: 

  1. Shock Stage: Triage
  2. Immobility Stage: Protection
  3. Growth Stage: Rebuilding
  4. Mobility Stage: Recovery

And yet, is that true?

Rebuilding: from a broken to a fixed place. From a divided to an integrated place. Either way, things returning “back to the way they were.” But, that way doesn’t exist anymore. 

Something my Dad said decades ago—a lesson shared from observing my Mom’s experiences for 33 years—filed neatly into a folder for truths I couldn’t yet grasp, until now. Retrieved last Saturday somewhere between sea level and summit, during a day of simply being one with nature, with my own nature: 

“Stop focusing on what you don’t want to be. Focus on what you DO want to be…what you are.”

That was it. Not rebuilding, just building. 

Healing reimagined. 

Later that evening, as the orange flames of our campfire illuminated the dark sands and far off horizon of the low tide, I realized:

  • I had not reflected on any of the retreat session questions, 
  • I had not organized my thoughts into reasoning,
  • I had not written anything in my retreat journal, 
  • I had not sought advice in the counsel of others,  

and yet I had the answer I needed. 

Just like healing, retreat is a process. Unlike healing, retreat often feels too nourishing to conclude. But, the power of retreat is in the promise of return. 

The promise of building, of becoming. 

May you know what you already know 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 | 03.01.2021 | Healing Reimagined Part 1

one lesson about integrity every week

Having missed it other years, I was super on top of getting my flu shot as soon as it came out in late September. By Valentine’s Day, the flu shot must have worn off because I started to feel bad while driving home from work. Dang it! The cough that appeared earlier in the afternoon wasn’t just a tickle in my throat. 

By midnight my fever was 103. I vomited all morning, then spent the day on the couch watching movies. By the next morning, I felt human again. Enough to rally and lead a four-day work retreat that week, then attend a two-day retreat the following weekend?

Yes, thank goodness! Those retreats turned out to be some of the last times indoors with coworkers and friends—not just being, but living, together. Hugging, eating, sleeping, breathing. Being without fear that the flu could lead to the ICU. 

Some anniversaries come and go. Notable but inconsequential. Another year at a job. Another birthday. 

As we approach this COVID-19 anniversary though, each preceding experience from a year ago today, feels thick with significance. 

In retrospect, we see meaning in all the crevices of the moments preceding the moment when everything changed. And it’s easier now to name all the elusive feelings that were hovering just below the surface of shock. 

Surprise, followed by confusion, followed by hope, followed by reality, followed by survival. In the case of this last year—followed by the next surprise, then the next, then the next. Actual surprises. And new surprises of things we hadn’t noticed until now. 

In all this survival, there wasn’t a lot of energy left for grief—deep sorrow, immobilizing suffering—to mourn what we didn’t know we were going to lose. And still losing. 

Defying the laws of physics, the energy to accept feels so much harder than to resist. 

To accept what happened. To accept the way things are, now. The “New Normal.” 

Except, there is no more “normal.” 

While I can’t remember a lot about holiday break during my junior year of college, I have replayed the day I dropped my Mom off at the hospital for minor surgery a million times. I dropped her off in the morning on my way to work, then surprisingly had to go back that night because she was on a ventilator in the ICU. Where she stayed for three days. Where we stayed for three days and three nights before she died. 

Eighteen years ago and yet likely so similar to the feelings and stages that 2.5 Million families have experienced over the last year (except without actually getting to be together). 

Surprise, followed by confusion, followed by hope, followed by reality, followed by survival. One that is so much harder by seeking a new normal. How is there a new normal after that?

After this last year?

There is something different. There is a new life. 

A new way of being.

Rich with gratitude, presence, vulnerability, adaptability. 

Fully accessible once the reality is accepted and we’ve mourned what we forgot we would inevitably lose. Not just people or things, but the sense of security, the sense of control, the sense of privilege—above nature, not within it.

Because things don’t stay the same. That is not the way the world works. It is dynamic, ever-changing, ever-calibrating. The ability to adjust to new conditions is adaptability. 

Heading to the coast last weekend for my women spiritual group’s annual two-day retreat—albeit virtual this year—and coming up on our COVID-19 anniversary, I reflected a lot on the last year.

I packed everything that needed to be released to make way for new life.

To seal the intention of adaptability. 

May you let the grief in and out 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 | 02.22.2021 | Tiny Perfect Things*

one lesson about integrity every week

It was not the first time that I was out on a Sabbath stroll in the woods only to hear a voice ask excitedly and surprisingly from closeby: “Jules?”

The Universe? Our magnetic forces? Similar weekending habits? 

Whatever the cause, last Saturday I serendipitously ran into this dear friend again. It was a double delight to love squint our eyes above our masks and receive what felt like a hug from the universe or a tiny perfect thing, *from a surprisingly good teen romcom if you need a light movie night. 

At that moment I knew how much I had already recovered through my sacred day of deep rest. And how burned out I had been just days before. 

From the action-packed, snowy weekend right on into the workweek, I also had virtual class or social commitments every single night. Five weeks into this kind of schedule, my routines were frayed, my rhythm was out of sync and my attitude was threadbare.

With every basic need that fell by the wayside—eating breakfast, brushing my teeth, just putting on deodorant—each new ask in service of someone else’s need chaffed like wet cotton on a rainy run. 

No was my first reaction to most texts last week, including from that dear friend.My second response was a sigh for the obligation to respond and honor the ask. 

This irritability was one of the first symptoms of my deep fatigue that I noticed. That quickly compounded into indulging and compensating. Before I knew it, I was scraping the bottom of my survival skills. Late last week I was making lists of everything as basic as sending an email. I was micromanaging my time down to four more minutes in bed before a meeting started and I had to get up. 

I could no longer cope, or deal effectively with something difficult. Life felt like a chore, a grind, a burden. Not the privilege, the gift, the miracle that it is. 

In precious minutes on the phone with one of my long-distance best friends—a nonprofit VP and mother of a toddler herself—I rattled on and on about all of my commitments. Calmly and lovingly she listened and empathized: Wow, that is a lot, especially right now. That sounds like “Vintage Jules.”

She was right. This is how I used to live all the time and what I thought was “normal” before I started practicing Sabbath six years ago. Oops!

In the excitement of starting new things in the new year, I quickly became overextended. Then with every personal or national event—a friend’s parent passing away from cancer, the insurrection followed by impeachment trials—I crossed over “vulnerability overload.”

Plus, I forgot about the persistent low-grade stress—of natural disasters from climate change, on top of the pandemic, on top of systemic racism. 

With my friends’ insights and my body’s symptoms sounding alarms, I channeled my Nonviolent Communication learnings and asked my spirit for guidance: What was I feeling? What did I truly need?

I was exhausted. I needed rest. 

Not longer hours of sleep at night or several naps. But sacred and deep rest. 

It was that simple. 

And so, I set the intention for last weekend: go back to the basics for observing Sabbath. 

No work, no plans, offline. Let my spirit lead and make my body follow. Pause all passing thoughts. Meet my every and immediate need, no questions asked, moment by moment. 

Like an instant spiritual chiropractic treatment, my routines immediately reset, my rhythm found its groove and my attitude regained perspective as I realigned to the universe. 

I saw all the tiny perfect things the day had to offer.  

Like that dear friend sitting on a bench in the park and calling out to me as I strolled by marveling at the giant trees. No need to text back or arrange a call, she was right there before me! 

From one more thing to one less thing.

Hence the double delight. 

May your spirit savor some deep, sacred rest 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 | 08.13.2018 | Where There’s a Will…

one lesson about integrity every week

A week ago, I ran in the 216-mile Cascade Lake Relay race on a team of 12 runners.

I think this was my 15th race and 8th relay race. I knew what I was getting into. So, I thought.

I knew this race was harder than most I’d done before:

  • higher elevation,
  • longer legs,
  • hotter temperatures
  • and compromised air quality due to wildfire season.

I was excited for the challenge and to cross it off my bucket list.

Once I signed up, I set up a training schedule and determined my goal: to complete the race.

And then I got injured.

Except I didn’t have months of lead time like I did for the Seattle half-marathon that I recently wrote about in my blog.

I only had eight weeks until race day to heal and be ready.

Was I being stubborn? Was I too determined? Was I stuck on a goal?

One of my friends has joked about me: “Where there’s a Will-iams, there’s a way!”

I refined my training schedule with my Physical Therapy team and focused harder on my goal: to complete the race.

But, completing the race did not mean at any cost. Success looked like running easefully, causing no harm or new injury, and recovering quickly.

When I ran the Seattle Marathon in 2008, I was nervous as hell to do it and hell bent on finishing it. I did. It was hard and it hurt a lot.

Read the story about this race in my latest blog post: When 2,364th Place is Winning.

I have learned so much since then.

This time, I increased my pace time to 12-minutes-per-mile so that I could run intervals: 4 minutes running, 1 minute walking.

A week before the race, my physical therapist gave the thumbs up on my knee.

But, it wasn’t until the day before that I knew I could successfully complete the race: temps were down, winds shifted the smoke and I knew my body could safely do it.

During my second of three legs around 4 a.m. that Saturday I was running 5.6 miles through a forested, back country road in La Pine, Oregon.

It was a brisk 35 degrees out as I inhaled the fresh pines and spotted constellations in the vast night sky as one after another runners passed by.

“Good job, keep it up,” they said.

“Thanks! Did you see that shooting star?,” I excitedly asked one who was racing by.

No response.

Well, I did.

I was following my friend’s advice from that first half-marathon: “Have fun and enjoy the moment.”

This was my favorite leg that I’ve ever run.

Besides taking in the scenery for those 67 minutes, I kept my body and mind solely focused on the task at hand: I breathed deeply and simply kicked one foot after another.

My focus was having energy to spare all the way through to my finish line.

A few stray thoughts did cross my otherwise clear-as-the-night-sky mind:

  • Since 2008, I have learned how to be more satisfied making decisions and moving on than making the perfect decision. And I am happier.
  • I am finally learning how to pace my energy and find balance, instead of doing “all or nothing.” This is being a completer.
  • ​​I have come a long way—in every way. This feels like winning.

Where there’s a will, indeed.

May you find ease this week in honoring your heart’s needs and commitments.

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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When 2,364th Place is Winning

When 2,364th Place is winning first half marathon

It isn’t a question of winning or losing—in life or in running.

The question is: Are you a  competer or a completer?

After I signed up for my first half marathon in 2008, the next thing I did was go to the library and get some running books.

If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right.

The beginner’s marathon training books had some pearls of wisdom in goal-setting that clearly apply to more than just running.

They instructed that once you’ve got a training schedule in place for running and other activities, like yoga and cycling as cross-training, then determine your goal: Are you going to be a  competer or a completer?

A competer is someone who trains for a certain pace or overall time and then seeks to beat. Perhaps seeking a personal record. This is what we think of as “winning.”

A completer is someone who seeks to reach the finish line through running, walking, hell or high water. 

Then, the most important step: setting your race goal and being satisfied with it. This is harder than it sounds.

Nine months before the race, I received an email from my friend Robyn from Boston about running the Seattle half-marathon once she had moved to town, along with her friend, E.B.

They had already run several marathons, triathalons and Ironmans.

I had not.

It turns out that training was a series of firsts:

  • every time I ran a mile farther,
  • training in the pouring rain,
  • many injuries and
  • committing to one of my most demanding goals yet.
Knowing What’s Good Enough

There are two kinds of decision-makers according to an article I read in Real Simple magazine in 2008: satisfiers and maximizers.

Satisfiers just want to make a decision and move on.

Maximizers just want to make the absolute best decision possible. This feels like winning.

Unsurprisingly, the article concluded that generally “satisfiers” are happier people through their ease of decision making.

Whereas the “maximizers” may have the occasional euphoric decision-making successes, they are generally stressed out all the time due to an acute case of perfection.

So, what does making a choice versus making the best-choice-ever-invented have to do with running?

The marathon training books say that once you decide to be a competer or a completer you have to stick to what that means.

Train with that focus in mind. And don’t change your tune once you’ve crossed the finish line.

It was my first half-marathon. There was no baseline. It would have been easy to compete with myself, set a speed target, train for it and try to crush it.

I wondered: Why was I doing this in the first place?

To see if I could do it. 

I don’t have a runner’s body. I had never run that far before. The obvious decision was to simply finish the race—to be a completer.

And yet, I kept considering options until I decided that the best decision possible was to be a completer.

What I’ve learned since then is that it’s actually really difficult to be a “completer” when you have a “maximizer” mindset.

It takes truly being satisfied with making the decision, any decision, and moving on with it, in order to complete things—come what may.

Otherwise, you’re still competing with yourself. And unless you’ve made that perfect decision and achieved the perfect outcome, you’re not actually satisfied.

Not that competing is bad. It can be very motivating. It’s just not necessary for winning.

My official race results for my first half-marathon were 2 hours and 23 minutes, putting me near the middle of my division, 472 of 840 (that would be the slow “completer” division) and overall, I came in 2,364th place.

I was thrilled to just make it to the finish line—this was winning—though noted some disappointment that I was 10 minutes slower than expected.

I was not fully satisfied even though speed had not been the goal.

The goal was to finish what I had started nine months before.

It’s the Journey, Not the Destination

I could have practically had a baby in the length of time I trained for the Seattle half-marathon I ran in November, 2008.

While I have no idea what labor is like, I imagine some of the pain I experienced during the run is somewhat akin to beginning contractions.

In fact, the whole eight-month process was pretty painful.

The day before the race I met a friend for tea at Victrola, a hip Seattle coffee shop in the Capital Hill neighborhood where my brother lived at the time.

While waiting for my friend to arrive I couldn’t help eavesdropping on the surrounding tables.

One woman said to another as she packed up her stuff, “Have a fun time with the race tomorrow!”

The other woman responded, “Yeah, right! It won’t be fun!”

So, if it sucks so much, why run a half-marathon?

It’s all about the journey.

You get to see what you’re made of.

Training for eight months was a bit unnecessary and very conservative.

The proactivity was worth it.

I was injured twice over the eight months, once throwing out my back and then again during the 220-mile Hood-to-Coast relay race, which stalled training for weeks. I was sick several weeks before the race.

And then I busted my tailbone during a soccer game the week before the race, which threatened having to call the whole thing off.

Luckily, after a few days of heavy ibuprofen intake and butt icing I was able to go for a short run without much pain, but a lot of soreness.

Perhaps it was just a preview for race day.

After a delicious carbo-loading dinner of chicken and pasta, bread and beer with my friends the night before the race, I set out my running gear and breakfast like it was the first day of school.

As tired as I was from the three-hour drive up to Seattle that day, when I hit the futon, I could not get to sleep for the life of me, just as the beginner’s running book had predicted.

It was like Christmas Eve, but more nerves than excitement.

In fact, I don’t think I had ever been that nervous in my life.

It felt like some kind of internal mixture of a flock of butterflies, a gerbil on a work-out wheel and a case of carbonated soda.

Here Goes Something

We slept in until 5:30 a.m. and then hustled to dress, eat and get a ride downtown just in time for the early start time.

It was a damp Pacific Northwest morning around 40 degrees.

But that didn’t bother the mobs of thousands of completers and competers flocking the start line.

Apparently that year had unprecedented, record-setting registration.

My stomach was in knots. There was no way we were going to make it to the bathrooms, we couldn’t even get to the start line.

A minute or two before the starting gun shot, Robyn, E.B., and I hurdled the barricade and squeezed into the crowd headed for the start line.

The gun fired and it was happening.

My competer friends set off and within a couple blocks I was left on my own.

For the first half a mile I was disgruntled that I had followed the rules and not sneaked my iPod into the race like everyone else had.

So, instead of rocking out to my running jams like Kanye West [Reminder: this was 2008], I kept myself entertained by people watching and sight seeing.

You know, just like riding the bus.

Except you’re running.

For 13.1 miles.

Over the Hills, Through the Woods

The first five- to six-miles were scenic running through downtown, over the 1-90 bridge and under the tunnel, I actually caught myself thinking, “Well, this isn’t so bad. It’s just like a long run.”

Because I had worked so hard to get to that start line I was careful to follow my friend’s advice during the race: “Have fun and enjoy the moment.”

What an amazing lesson in being present.

Throughout the race I looked around thinking, how often do I get to run down the middle of a downtown Seattle street or through an arboretum full of fall foliage or inside a freeway tunnel?

And then came the first major hill of many to come.

Less present to the surroundings, I became totally attentive to my body.

It’s probably a good thing I only learned a few weeks after the race that the Seattle Marathon is one of the harder courses, not typical for beginners.

At mile nine I tried my first GU liquid energy bar.

I needed something as miles nine to eleven through the woodsy park were deceivingly serene and totally brutal.

There were several high-school runners slightly behind me narrating all the upcoming hills. Oh joy.

I wanted to run faster to get away from them, but I couldn’t. It was taking all of my energy just to keep running.

All I could think was, “this is BS.”

At least I could look forward to my cheerleaders coming up near my brother’s house at mile eleven.

I smiled and waved at them as I passed, all the while my body felt like a used car that was blowing bolts and falling apart one piece at a time.

The last two miles were not pretty.

With pain shooting through my knees and chronic IT injuries, I ran for a few minutes, walked for a few, and then sprinted the last few hundred yard until the finish line.

If nothing else, I would finish strong.

Two hours and twenty-three minutes and I was a completer.

This was winning.

Totally Worth It

Eight months of build up, time and commitment only for the goal to be attained before brunch.

Was it worth it?

During the race, I kept thinking: “I could have sat on the couch in sweatpants watching a movie in the same amount of time that I had run 13 miles.”

But watching a movie is being a spectator to adventure.

Over that eight months, two hours and twenty-three minutes I had been living adventure.

I had tested what I was made of, had challenged what I thought was “best” and had learned that I had a lot farther to go than 13.1 miles to be truly satisfied and winning at life.

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News from Jules | 08.06.2018 | Are You Ready for Adventure?

one lesson about integrity every week

How is this going to work?

Is it going to work?

What have I gotten myself into?

The adventure has begun as soon as these questions start coming to mind.

Less cold feet or nerves, this is curiosity kicking in. Wondering what lies ahead on the known but uncertain path.

If it were more certain it’d be boring and less known it’d be scary.

This is adventure.

I happen to like adventure. Okay, love, adventure.

Not exploring the Amazon by myself kinds of adventure, but the running-a-216-mile-relay-race- on-a-team-of-10-strangers-and- 1-friend-kind like I did last weekend.

Or running a half-marathon.

After I signed up for my first half marathon in 2008, the next thing I did was go to the library and get some running books.

If I was going to do this, I was going to do it right.

The beginner’s marathon training books had some pearls of wisdom about running, and about life. Once you’ve set a training schedule, then determine your goal:

Are you going to be a  competer or a completer?

A competer is someone who trains for a certain pace or overall time and then seeks to beat. Perhaps seeking a personal record. This is what we think of as “winning.”

A completer is someone who seeks to reach the finish line through running, walking, hell or high water.

The most important step: setting your race goal and being satisfied with it.

This is harder than it sounds.

There are two kinds of decision-makers according to an article I read in Real Simple magazine in 2008:

  • Satisfiers just want to make a decision and move on.
  • Maximizers just want to make the absolute best decision possible. This feels like winning.

Unsurprisingly, the article concluded that generally “satisfiers” are happier people through their ease of decision making.

Whereas the “maximizers” may have the occasional euphoric decision-making successes, they are generally stressed out all the time due to an acute case of perfection.

For my first half-marathon adventure back in 2008, I settled on being a completer—to train and make it across the finish line.

Read the story about this adventure in my latest blog post: When 2,364th Place is Winning.

What I’ve learned since then is that it’s actually really difficult to be a “completer” when you have a “maximizer” mindset.

It takes truly being satisfied with making the decision, any decision, and moving on with it, in order to truly complete things, come what may.

Otherwise, you’re still competing with yourself. And unless you’ve made that perfect decision and achieved the perfect outcome, you’re not actually satisfied.

Not that competing is bad. It can be very motivating. It’s just not necessary for winning. 

And definitely not necessary for adventure.

What have you gotten yourself into lately? Are you ready for adventure?

Everything about that half-marathon had taken me outside my comfort zone and into my courage zone.

This is what I love about adventure: it’s fun and we learn a lot.

When we’re in our courage zone, life is an adventure.

May this week bring you to the edge of your courage zone.

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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The Practice of Becoming Whole Again

the practice of becoming whole again cracked bowl

I found a bowl in the cupboard the other day as I was transitioning my home altar from spring to summer for the Summer Solstice.

The bowl was still in 3 pieces from when I dropped it months ago.

I love this bowl. It’s one of my favorite seafoamy colors. It’s the perfect size for holding keys or change or offerings (as it is in my new altar). And it was my Mom’s.

I’m not sure why I haven’t tried to put it back together before.

Perhaps I thought it was too broken, so was saving it for a craft project?

I stocked up on super glue recently and I’ve been gleefully glueing everything back together—my trail running shoes, my faith stone—why not this bowl?

I glued two pieces together. Then the third wouldn’t fit!

Argh.

Turns out, it would have fit perfectly if I had glued all three pieces together at the same time.

Tricky but doable.

I jammed it in there the best I could. It’ll still work as an offerings bowl etc. but there’s a big jagged edge. Like a crooked scar.

Too Broken to Be Whole

When I was 20 years old and my Mom died unexpectedly, it was my heart that broke into pieces. Similarly, I set it on a shelf because I didn’t know how to deal with it.

I sort of put my heart back together, but it took me years to put the last piece in—to fully grieve, to forgive and to be whole again.

No right or wrong, just is.

And no coulda-woulda-shouldas, though I often sensed the now lesson learned that “glueing” all the pieces back together at once—as hard as that is—would create more immediate wholeness.

Tricky but doable, indeed.

After I glued the bowl back together, I shared this lesson learned on Facebook and some folks reminded me that: “In Japan they add ‘gold’ to the cracks, to highlight that the cracks are part of its history.”

Kintsugi (金継ぎ, “golden joinery”), also known as Kintsukuroi (金繕い, “golden repair”), is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with lacquer dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum, a method similar to the maki-e technique.

Becoming whole again with beautiful golden cracks.

Healing the deepest hurts

This is what it felt like happened to my heart last week when my family spread my mother’s ashes in a place that was special to us and to her—a nearby mountain she had climbed 15 times by the time she was 28 years old and started having the three of us kids.

Losing her was a sudden and deep wound. And the recovery was long and deep.

So many years later, my eyes and heart sobbed as deeply as the day her spirit left us.

As the ashes lingered on my finger tips then caught the wind in a tiny poof, I could feel the solid mountain beneath my feet.

Deep breaths. Still moments. A blessing shared out loud sealing a universal ritual in a sacred place.

“May perpetual light shine upon
the ashes of all who rest here.

May the lives they lived
unfold further in spirit.

May all their past travails
find ease in the kindness of clay.

May the remembering earth
mind every memory they brought.

May the rains from the heavens
Fall gently upon them.

May the wildflowers and grasses
Whisper their wishes into light.

May we reverence the sense of presence
in the stillness of this silent mountain.”1

The crack was painted with gold.

I was able to easily flow from this moment into the next—sharing snacks and champagne on a picnic table with the grandkids—recovered to a seemingly normal state.

This is what we patiently seek.

Really Seeing Ourselves

What all is healing in you?

Is it getting the space and attention it needs at the stage that it’s at?

We are all healing.

We all have cracks that can be painted gold.

They don’t make us stronger, but they can give us strength.

The world needs you to repair what is divided.

Healing is a process of becoming whole again.

We think of it as slow or fast, but it’s actually timeless.

Sometimes healing takes years before we reach integrity again—for us to be unimpaired, undivided.

Start The Process

Since becoming injured in a bike accident in several weeks ago I’ve been acutely aware of the stages of healing wounds:

  1. Shock Stage: Triage
  2. Immobility Stage: Protection
  3. Growth Stage: Rebuilding
  4. Mobility Stage: Recovery

That’s my own words, not the terms medical professionals use, based on how I’ve experienced them whether it’s been my body or spirit that’s been healing.

With this recent wound, I’ve watched in awe my body doing what it naturally knows how to do. My job: to stay out of the way. 

“The healing process is remarkable and complex, and it is also susceptible to interruption due to local and systemic factors…When the right healing environment is established, the body works in wondrous ways to heal and [revitalize itself].” Online Source

Now that the scabs are gone, skin grown back, bruises faded and I’m walking and running again it appears that I’m all better.

But, I’m not.

There is still pain with certain movements, fatigue from too much use and instability in my balance.

More patience, more healing.

That’s why the recovery stage is such a surprisingly difficult stage in healing. The process of returning to a normal state.

But what is a normal state?

When everything is so healed that there are no cracks, no weakness? As if it never happened?

I don’t think so.

Perhaps the normal state is when our renewed strength is challenged, yet remains stable.

This does not mean we are unbreakable. Wouldn’t that be nice?

But we are whole again.

Whole with beautiful golden cracks.

The empowering and discouraging truth

Whole doesn’t mean finished. How could it be?

There is no finished state of life.

Not for nature, not for humans.

While my knee is on the mend, I am just now moving into protection mode as the shock wears off about the financial reality and compounded debt I’ve discovered as I’ve been doing my 2017 bookkeeping and preparing taxes for the extension deadline.

We are constantly in flux between healing one thing or another.

This can be discouraging or empowering. You choose. 

It’s key to not get stuck in any stage, especially shock, like the broken pieces of bowl I left sitting on the shelf for months.

Give each stage it’s time to be, then move on.

Stuck is different than immobility. Immobility has purpose.

For instance, my knee swelled up immediately to protect itself and stabilize. Then I stopped moving for a few days to give the knee time to adjust and start rebuilding once it settled down. The swelling needed to recede in order to actually heal, so that I could move again.

Stuck is uncomfortable because you feel “broken.”

You’re not. You’re just not making progress toward wholeness.

Once you start, the healing accumulates. And so does the resilience.

You come back easier, sooner, faster.

You don’t get stuck in a stage.

You glide through the healing process with energy to spare, focusing on recovery. Recovering wholly and soulfully.

So that even amidst the continuous and constant healing process of living, you feel glued together—not broken.

1 Blessing adapted from original by John O’Donohue from To Bless the Space Between Us, a beautiful compilation of blessings to consecrate life’s transitions and heartfelt moments

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News from Jules | 07.16.2018 | I Have a Gift for You.

one lesson about integrity every week

Receiving is one of the deepest forms of presence.

This is the real gift.

Not what is received.

But the stillness of that moment beholding that what is given is exactly what is needed.

This takes an open heart and open hands.

And a little bit of sneakiness on the part of the universe, I think.

This happened to me today. Maybe it’s happening to you right now!

It’s becoming a familiar feeling. A gentle sense of delight that feels like washing your hands in perfectly warm water.

It’s been happening to me a lot lately.

More than usual?

Well, that’s a bit of a trick question, isn’t it?

One of my big takeaways from reading To Sell is Human by Daniel Pink earlier this year was:

We are always making offers. Not because we’re in constant exchange (though we are) and not because we’re transacting (what we commonly think of as “selling”) which we might be. Exchange comes with the expectation of receipt, whereas offering is part of relating: showing up in the world and seeing others, feeling connected, thus offering something you have that they need.

Offerings are constant, they’re happening all the time. A hello, a text message asking “What’s up?,” space to change lanes in heavy traffic, the last chipful of guacamole, a door being opened, undivided attention, getting treated to ice cream, an invitation to hang out, words of wisdom, or a hand-me-down dress.

That’s what happened to me today.

When I stopped by to help out with a couple things at my friends’ house, there was a note and a dress on the counter.

“Oh wow, I was just thinking this weekend how I needed more than one casual summer dress,” I beamed to myself.  

Since starting my Buy Nothing experiment in 2016 (initially a year, now going on three) I have been given many clothes.

All offered—no expectation of anything in return—though some still with expectations attached. Mostly about unburdening themselves. And usually stuff I hadn’t needed either.

Other times, like today, the offer is exactly what I need and thus delightfully received.

This is the presence.

The offer comes from a place of presence, some sensing, some whispering to make the offer.

And then the presence to receive.

But, offering can become a compulsive habit of giving, an irresistible urge, and thus an unconscious act.

These offerings are constant, they’re happening all the time.

Giving, giving, giving. These are the ones with strings attached. 

All different kinds of strings were behind my own constant giving in the past. From the sense of comfort found in leading and thus controlling to the joy of being seen for my thoughtfulness.

Leading and being thoughtful come naturally to me. That’s a gift. 

If they are used to serve, not to be served.

And, they are only part of the equation.

Following and receiving attention are the balance. Those do not come as naturally to me.

My community and especially my “pit crew” have offered so much recently. Opportunities to follow their lead.

Even before my knee injury several weeks ago, I sensed the shift this year. A season of following and receiving, of opening and connecting more deeply, embracing wholeness.

Necessary learning journeys, I’m certain. Far from comfortable.

The universe constantly offers disruption that keeps us alert and so far this summer season has been especially “helpful.” Things keep changing. Each day new information shows up. Lots of new beginnings.

So yes, I believe I have been receiving more than usual lately. And it usually feels great!

Summer is a season of connection. A time to speak from the heart.

​Say what you mean, mean what you say.

And a time to receive what ever it is you most need right now. The things you can name and say out loud and the things others are seeing and offering.

May your heart and hands lay wide open 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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