Anne
There’s a big, beautiful avocado tree outside my window that I planted when I moved into this house 6 years ago. A tiny sapling then, it’s a large tree heavy with fruit now and, as it’s been coming into its own, I’ve been keeping a proprietary eye on the avocados and the thrushy birds who love them as much as I do.
I followed the advise of an expert and picked them as soon as the birds started pecking, easing them into the basket of my new extension pole fruit picker and lining them up on my kitchen counter – 1 green baby after the other counting in at 15 with a few more on the tree.
Since they’re fetching 4-5 dollars apiece, I scanned my storage room for a table, thought about when would be the best time to set up a stand and asked a few friends if they wanted to keep me company. No one said yes,
I took a photo of the avocados and posted it on Facebook with my dilemma – should I sell or give away my avocados. I got 28 comments. Some people were all for selling them, others felt half and half would do, several said “sell them if you need the money”, a couple voted for avocado philanthropy and one said give away what you don’t eat.
I am fortunate enough to be able to forfeit the $40-$50 selling them would put in my pocket. To feed my kids or pay the bills, I wouldn’t think twice and I’d be up on the road. But I have a hunch that selling them or giving them away is more than a question of need but of inclination, what feels right based on your values, your upbringing, your current status, your heart and your ability to generate cash in other ways.
The luxury in which I now stand is not the luxury of monetary wealth, but the luxury of avocados and coconuts and star fruit, beauty all around and well-being. I can afford to give away my avocados and the pleasure I get from doing so is worth far more than $40. That’s me.
I get that someone else might see all those avocados and think dollar signs $$$$, add the star fruit to boot, throw in some genips and pay some bills or start a fruit savings account. Payment as an exchange of energy is important and an indication of how invested someone may be in therapy, an educational program, an exercise class. We sometimes value the things we pay for more than what is offered for free. we want to get ‘our money’s worth.”
But this feels different. These are precious gifts offered to me freely by a tree and offered by me to whoever is lucky enough to cross my path or mind or both at the right time. They are given in a spirit of playful whimsy with love thrown in – like giving out roses on Valentine’s day. With my avocados I bestow a small buttery swath of green abundance on all recipients. Or at least that’s the way I like to tell the story, with a smile. And I have testimonials.
So, what’s your fruit situation? Do you have trees that bear? What do you do with the fruit that you don’t eat?
Make tarts or jams, jellies and stews with what you can? What do you do with the avocados? Do you sell them? Do you give them away? Eat them straight for days on end until they’re gone? Have a margarita party?
I just made a batch of delicious guacamole to take to a friends house. I’ll give her an avocado to have her way with and might take a couple of extra’s with me just in case –
Maybe you’ll be lucky enough to run into me – right place, ripe time, avocado time.:)
Exhausted after much mental/emotional kicking and screaming, I bump through the stages of mourning ‘what was’ toward “acceptance” or, as Byron Katie says, to “loving what is.”
Post surrender, I put my dukes down and look around. From this vantage point I have a better big picture view and can now begin to take stock, review and explore the soil in which the seeds of the next steps have been germinating.
I’m starting with a gratitude list for the perpetual bounty with which I have been, and continue to be, gifted ( not to mention the ripples) from this last magical segment of my life. The gifts are countless. They are piled under the tree of experience, some still unopened and unnoticed but many others oohed and ahed over and already incorporated into this next segment. As I think of things for which I am grateful, I give thanks and write them down. It’s a work in progress, a growing list.
I’ve also resurrected my ‘Calling in the One’ list and am revising it – adding and subtracting from my list of what I’m looking for in a long-term romantic partner. The items are not all (or even mostly) of the tall, dark, handsome variety but speak to values, integrity, a way of being in the world, and how I want to feel in the relationship. As well as looking at what was great, I’m looking at the aspects of the relationship that did not feel so good and that I didn’t like and allowing that to point me toward what would feel good and what I would now add to my list, or delete as the case may be.
Having recent, first hand, full immersion experience has high-lighted what matters most to me. Things I thought mattered don’t and things that I thought didn’t do. My priorities have shifted and I’m moving things around accordingly.
Since any relationship and all attraction is a two way street, I flip the page over and start a list of what I bring to the relationship – who I am, who I am willing to be and how I am willing to show up and treat my partner. I’m getting clearer about what I want from you and being clear about what you can expect of me.
The Course in Miracles says whatever is missing in your life is something that you are not giving, so I am careful to place qualities that I wished for on the list knowing that giving and receiving are two sides of the same coin.
This exercise is called a Strategic Attraction Plan and it can be used to attract anything and any kind of relationship into your life. Refining both aspects of the Strategic Attraction Plan (theirs and yours) is like fine tuning instruments to the frequency of the beautiful music they will make together.
Even if it’s hard to acknowledge what was good and made you happy in your previous relationship (or previous job, previous neighborhood), it’s through appreciation that you set yourself up for a step up or a step deeper and always a step in the right direction.
It is so tempting to trash the past – to say that the guy (or gal) was a jerk, the boss a monster, the location sucked etc… and that things were (are) so terrible we can’t wait to escape to where everything will be better.
When I told my coach, years ago, that I hated my job and couldn’t wait to leave I, she chided me for my negative focus and pointed out that the best way I could use the past to propel me into a positive future was by honoring the positive in the past. If I could be grateful for all the lessons from easy-peasy to white water class IV my future would be guaranteed. I got it and turned on a dime, grateful that the job I hated allowed me the flexibility to pick my daughter up from school, grocery shop between appointments, work from my laundry room, paid well and more. I realized I didn’t have to hate the past to create a great future.
And neither do you. If you can look at your past with a heart that is grateful for the good, the bad and the ugly the future will always overflow with things to look back on with a grateful heart.
Maybe it all comes down to being grateful as much as possible and aspiring to live in a perpetual state of gratitude. If we did, we’d let relationship change and transition to new jobs and locations riding on positive waves rather than pushing against in anger. Maybe our relationships would last longer and be happier if we were more grateful more of the time, for one another and the gifts we bring. Maybe gratitude really is the soil in which all good things take root.
All endings go through stages. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s 5 stages of grief apply whether one is grieving the death of a loved one, the loss of health, a break-up, relocation, loss of job or home. The Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression and Acceptance that she speaks of in her book – On Death and Dying –are all things that I have experienced since my recent break-up and what I see my clients, friends and family go through when they go through a loss of some kind.
I hadn’t seen my ex in 2 months so I was nervous on the drive to meet him. It was awkward but we had a drink and dinner, talking about this and that. I had to remember my intention of listening. Nothing earth shattering was said. No light bulbs went off. There was no discussion of resuming or rebuilding and I felt a great sadness. There had been so much possibility, so much promise, so much heart. We’d called each other soul mates and here we were with so much distance between us. It was shocking.
I missed the warm, loving connection we’d enjoyed, the easy fun we’d had together and still felt the sting of rejection, but my anger and hurt pride gave way to sorrow and compassion, for him, for me and for ‘us’.
I drove him to the parking lot where I’d parked so many times before and watched him walk away toward the stairs to the dinghy dock. He looked slight and solitary in the darkness with the street lamp his spot light. As much as I wanted to reach out and hug him, it felt like the closing scene. I was reminded of early tv’s Jimmy Durante Show where Jimmy Durante, the hook nosed big hearted Borscht Belt comedian, bid adieu to his tv audience each week by walking away from the camera down a dark alley, followed by a lonely spotlight. Just as he’s about to disappear, he turns and says, in his raspy voice, “Goodnight Mrs. Callabash, wherever you are.” It felt like closure: acceptance, letting go, the sound of a door shutting.
I drove away, back to the north side and my newly appointed home with the just power washed deck, skipping jazz at Sapphire for the comfort of chez-moi with the poodles.
While I might wish that Mr. X could have been in this picture with me, enjoying my new queen sized bed, whitewashed fridge, gleaming new faucets and me of course, I am scrubbing away, cleaning, clearing my space and upgrading my life and that’s what’s up for me right now. I am making room for myself to bloom with room to share. I’m planting seeds, getting grounded, financially stable, focused on how I want my life to be and grateful for how it is. Cultivating a state of eager anticipation, I’m healing, seeing things differently and starting to look forward to things unfolding in magical ways as I deliberately create a next chapter that I’m already proud to call my life.
I am not the only one who has suffered a loss big or small, and I’m not the only one who is mourning, regrouping and rediscovering themselves. I hope sharing my experience helps and that this poem by Derek Walcott speaks to you as it does to me.
Love After Love
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the others’ welcome.
and say, Sit here, Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
Peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
One of the things I like most about being a Life Coach is that I get to witness and play a tiny part in the transformation and change-for-the-better in the lives of the people I coach. Reporting back from the fields of their lives, my clients tell me about becoming self-sustaining and intervening to soothe their energy when in distress. Since I teach people how to soothe their disturbed energy, these success stories tell me that they are using their tool-kit of coaching resources and it’s working.
Self-sustaining people turn despair into inspiration the way ancient alchemists turned lead into gold. They know how to plug into source energy, inner guidance, higher power, God and discover that relief/salvation and light are always ours for the asking.
Popping a psychic lozenge helps stop the sputtering and fussing long enough to catch your breath and respond rather than react; climb out of the abyss rather than digging yourselves in deeper. These lozenges come in all shapes, sizes and dimensions (as in 3D). They range from connecting with our breath, placing our hands on our hearts, saying a prayer, meditating, singing a song, going to the movies, running, playing the “what if up” game and doing the ‘work’ of Byron Katie and sucking your thumb – just for starters.
There are the lozenges of music, of the sea, of color, Yoga, touch, presence. Altoids work for some; others prefer a spoonful of honey, a ginger mint or something stronger.
I am moved and delighted at the ways clients come up with to soothe their energy. One woman searched online for a version of chanting OM, played it all day, changed the channel in her mind and heart and soothed her energy. She tuned into a place of peace and well being, stilling her anxiety and monkey mind chatter.
Another client soothed her energy by choosing nourishment and balance over overwhelm. She focused on planning and preparing healthy food so she can eat well at home or on the run. When she gets stressed out she returns to her menu and to feeding herself well and everything else seems to fall into place. She is cultivating the habit of inner and outer peace and sustainability through nourishment.
Sometimes we intervene before we do what we have said we won’t, and turn down the rich dessert or the tantrum and sometimes we don’t.
It’s hard to intervene when we are really upset but that’s when it can make the most difference. If we take a deep breath, go for a walk, pull out our coaching tool kit and pray to see things differently, we can make a turbulent ride more comfortable and stay open to what the experience has to teach us.
The more we pay attention to how we feel, and act to comfort ourselves and move toward feeling better, the healthier and happier we will be and the more positive our impact will be where ever we go.
When we can calm ourselves down, be a loving parent to our inner child, shift our focus, remember that everything is working for our benefit, that this too shall pass and that all is well, the happier we are and the more we can sustain it because it’s an inside job and we have the tools and the know how to keep it going.
One habit that sustains me and soothes my energy is taking a deep breath. I inhale love, light, well-being and golden light and I exhale sorrow, tension discomfort and distress. I do it often. It’s free; anyone can do it and it works.
Here’s to soothing your energy, responding rather than reacting and being deliberate creators of wonderful lives rather than victims of fate.
I’m basking in the after glow of a wonderful weekend on Cape Cod. I whole-heartily enjoyed the flora, fauna and folk of New England. Everywhere I turned I saw hydrangeas so blue you’d think they couldn’t be real, roses, peonies, lily’s of all varieties, red maples and vegetable gardens where I munched on snap peas off the vine and picked a salad for 15. I saw squirrels, a tortoise, a possum (north America’s only marsupial), ducks and a robin redbreast – all to a sound track of crows, woodpeckers and other flying warblers. After walking and talking on rocky beaches, we swam in the cold, greenish water of the north Atlantic and in the warmer, squishy bottomed, fresh water of a nearby lake.
The purpose of the trip was to join a group of women who were in Vassar College’s class of ’69, Vassar’s last all women’s class. We gather each year at the end of June, descending on large clapboard Cape Cod home that has been in the family since the 1800’s. Here we reconnect, eat, drink, swim and be merry arriving from California, Florida, Wisconsin, Chicago, Boston, Pennsylvania, Quebec, upstate New York, Beirut and the Virgin Islands. This year there were 15 of us sleeping on couches and blow up mattresses and in all the bedrooms of the sprawling house.
We are a powerful group of women – no strangers to fame, fortune, great accomplishment and success of all kinds. We are also no strangers to the ups and down of relationships, careers, health, parenthood, love, loss, finances and the grace to share the journey.
One of us, who has been honored for contributions in her field, told us the institution she is connected with has commissioned an artist to paint her portrait. She described sitting for it and showed us a photo. There she is, in a formal setting, sitting at her desk. She pointed out the details that she had wanted included: a photo of her first, now deceased, husband; a small porcelain pig sitting on her desk (she collects pigs), a Celtic symbol of woman power, a shelf of books written by her mentor and various other personal details that matter to her. It was a beautiful painting. The artist had captured his subject’s natural loving radiance. She glowed. When I mentioned this, she nodded.
I wondered how I would want to be painted. What would I want in my portrait? Where would I want to be? Which people, things, and symbols would I want to include and what would I wear? Would I be sitting, standing, paddle boarding? I know there would be a violin, the sea, my dogs, Lily, a sailboat and more. I hope that I would glow.
How would you want to be painted? If you could pick a handful of details to go in your painting – what would they be? How does the world see you, how do you want to be seen and, more importantly, how do you see yourself?
In Barcelona several years ago, I went to the Fondacion Miro – a museum dedicated to the work of Joan Miro (April 20,1893 – December 25,1983), a world renowned Spanish Catalan painter, sculptor, and ceramist from Barcelona. Toward the end of his long life and career, he painted large white canvases on which he placed a small assortment of symbols, always a combination of – the sun, a blue sky, a flower/woman/ and a star. Each painting was different but all contained each of these four elements as though he had distilled everything in the world down to this.
As with thinking about my portrait I wondered then what elements would be left if I distilled my life down to 4 or 5 things. What would be on my canvas would also be in my portrait.
No one is painting a portrait of me, yet, and I’m not sure that I’m going to get around to painting my homage to Joan Mire on canvas, yet thinking about my short list of symbols, like asking what I’d want included in my portrait, helps me hone in on what I love and who I truly am.
What’s left after everything else evaporates? What are the gold nuggets after a lifetime of panning in the stream? How do you get to the essence of a person – of you?
I am asking myself, my clients and you to imagine that someone wants to paint your portrait and that you get to decide how you will be portrayed – will you be a Picasso or a Renoir or a ????