What is grey, cold, and rainy on the outside, and warm and challenging on the inside?

I’m holed up at a resort in the north, immersed with 13 other women in “Women of Different Tribes: What Divides Us, What Unites Us.” (www.wmfpd.com) It is four days of leadership growth – heart stretching and mind opening – as we explore how to better partner both across difference and within sameness.  While race may be the most pronounced difference in our increasingly tight circle here, we are also exploring many more.

Asking myself the question, “how can I bring my best to this work?” I landed on this answer:

 Angeles Arrien, PhD, in her book The Fourfold Way: Walking the Paths of Warrior, Teacher, Healer, and Visionary describes a four-step process that can be applied equally well to the skills of partnering, to life leadership, and organizational leadership:

Show Up. Choose to be fully present.
Pay attention to what has heart and meaning.
Tell the truth, without blame or judgment.
Be open to outcome, not attached to outcome.

When I remember to honor the wisdom of Angeles’ words, I live in faith, especially when I wrap my heart around the last one: open to outcome, not attached to outcome. Separate from any conversation of religion, this is more a faith in life itself. For me, this is deeper and richer than hope…and far more satisfying. Approached this way, life is rich adventure!

Hope vs. Faith
In hope alone, the little girl inside me wraps her fingers oh so tightly onto one dream.
She paints details, little scenes. These become real inside. I can feel them.
Yet, these are balloons too filled with air. These pop, break, fall to the ground.

Faith is a different muscle. An opening in my heart.
I do not know the details. I cannot paint them in. I can only pay attention.
Notice the clues. Follow the path. There is trust here, in my footfalls feeling trail in sometimes-dusky light, that the path is worth following.
That there will be meaning, there will be life, there will be learning, and in some unknown shape, there will be love.
There is love in faith. This is different than having faith in love. This is the way in which faith is an act of choosing an open heart.

Then love can happen
Everywhere.

Which of Angeles’ steps are you living now?

Which ones might you enter even more fully?