“Our greatest glory consists, 
not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”

– Oliver Goldsmith          

Sometimes when we come through a rough patch in life, and feel that we are in some way responsible for the muck, we can lose precious time still stuck in that muck and lose the opportunity to fully dance with the life that is right in front of us. 

Here is a simple self-coach process we can each use to accelerate the self-love process of setting ourselves free, such that we can consistently stand up again, hearts open, and face fully into all of life.  Generate a list of answers for each set of questions in relation to the given situation:

What can I acknowledge myself for?  What did I do really well?  What am I proud of?  No matter our level of guilt or suffering, there is nearly always something here.  Sometimes, these are quite precious contributions, much appreciated by others.  So polish your own window, and immerse fully in remembering the gifts and richness that you have brought to others.

What do I need to take responsibility for? This wording is key.   Response – ability.  We have the ability to respond differently.  For each of us, we build our future out of our now.   So while this question may take us to the heart of our pain, it also has an essence of hope: it points to our ability to begin anew.

What is the hard truth about the situation?  Don’t answer this one until you’ve fully explored the two above this.  Just see where it takes you.  Sometimes this is where breakthrough lives.

What is the learning? What have I learned about myself, about others, about life?  What have I learned about what matters most? 

Finally, ask yourself this: What is the way to move now, the place to be in conscious choice, in order to best live my learning?  This is the moment we get to choose to live a new now, and to build the future we want to live, one now moment after another!

We do no favors for those we work with, live with, or love by staying stuck.  Those who truly love us want us to thrive, and want us to be able to dance fully with the joy in life, instead of moving however subtly away from what may remind us of our pain. 

We get to choose.  Leadership is about conscious choices and creating meaning.   Today is a new day.

“No man or woman (was created) even nearly perfect.  But we grow in both our virtue and our capacity to love by the testing, against the world and each other, of those weaknesses which by…grace…we can convert into strengths; and by the finding of those strengths and beauties in each other which we hardly dared suspect were there…. The glory of …(life) lies in the surprises which loving support, acceptance, and graceful forgiveness can bring forth.”

R.B. Crowell (Friends Journal, 11/74)

“The single most important decision any of us ever have to make

is whether or not to believe 


we live in a friendly universe.”

Albert Einstein 

If you need help deciding, then….

Periodically, count all your blessings.  A good friend who devotes much of her life to caring for her beloved yet disabled husband painted this picture for me: she was driving home from friends’, about 45 minutes from Sandpoint, and realized she needed to lift her own spirits, given the suffering she witnesses around her, both at home and work.  

She started counting her blessings, and when she got to town, 45 minutes later, she was still counting!     How many of us can say this?    This friend radiates joy, even though most of us would consider her lot in life quite challenging on many fronts.

With many us of us adjusting to new levels of change and challenge, we might pull a page from the playbook of friends like Judith, who have faced extraordinary challenge for a long time.

It’s a whole new take: counting all our blessings can carry us into whole new terrain – with healthy doses of grace and gratitude.  Some blessings catch us by surprise, and we may take a moment to see them as such, while others unfold with the rhythm of the sun.  Yet we can count them all.

So..when you count all your blessings,  how high can you count?

Finding Peace While Moving through Change

Walking the Labyrinth

Walking a huge labyrinth on retreat in early February on the moist western slope of the Cascades, I found myself deeply at peace, even in the midst of a sea of change. 

A non-denominational practice, walking the labyrinth has been used as spiritual practice for thousands of years.  Laid out like in a great circular pattern, a labyrinth has one path, which steadily leads into the center, then back out.  While the pattern is intricate, this is not a maze, nor a puzzle to be solved. 

As I entered the labyrinth, jaw tight and butterflies in my stomach as I contemplated multi-front change in my life, I was surprised to find how quickly I was able to allow my breath to soften, my shoulders to relax, and my mind to calm.   My thoughts were these:

This is a path of trust.  I do not have to figure out the whole picture. Life is not a problem to be solved.  My work is to be fully present, to pay attention, and to give myself fully to each step on the path in front of me.   One step at a time.

I was amazed at the speed of the shift in my mind and body.  What was so different?  How did this simple act of walking the labyrinth bring peace?

Make a conscious choice to commit to a particular path.  I made walking the labyrinth a conscious choice.  Sometimes in life, we choose a new path; sometimes it may feel like a new path has chosen us.  Regardless of the impetus though, in this moment of choosing to commit to following the path laid out, there is less struggle.  More acceptance.  Peace.  Where there may have been struggle yesterday, last night, or even moments ago, peace becomes possible.   What we thought we needed may no longer be so vital.    

Allow your body to align with the path.    To prepare, start with your breath. A complete exhale allows a full inhale, and allows our attention to drop into our centers.    Fully center into your own sensations.  We think of our bodies as closed, set containers, but for even a moment, allow yourself to be more of an open channel, a conduit of sorts, rather like a fire hose, in which energy and sensation can run. Let yourself feel the life in that energy.    If this is a stretch for you, picture the delight of a young child in motion – in a field a flowers, a snowfield, or autumn leaves.   Those boundaries of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ are a bit more blurred, yes?  We may be adults, yet this same ability to delight and ‘let in’ the wonder and energy of the world around is possible for us too… and may even be more important!

Allow your spirit to align with the path.  Feel all of the love and support that surrounds you, either through your faith, your connections with the natural world, or your relations with those dear to you in your life.  It is so easy to generate a story in which we feel alone on the path.  Yet, with the simple act of shifting attention to the arenas in life in which we do feel deep love and nurture, at any moment this sense of connectivity is available to us.  We can reconnect into this love at any moment, simply by shifting our inward attention.

Share your Freedom. When we find and nurture our own centers, it easier to live in harmony with those we care most about.   In generating this sense of freedom and connectedness in myself, this sense of a unified whole even in the face of change, I realized I could also share this with those around me.  To be more at peace in myself, I had less need to make requests that might conflict with the needs of others, and could support them in honoring their own courageous wisdom.

If you get a chance to walk a labyrinth, I’d encourage you to go for it.  See what you can generate!

What are the possibilities?

• The willingness to show up fully on the path before you,
• A centered inner peace and aliveness to carry you through,
• A deeply integrated sense of connection to what you care about…

the kind that requires just the softening

of an inward smile.

How do we access grace, this rare juncture, where the power of boldness, and the ease of effortlessness, can merge as one?

Chopping wood.  The ice cool beneath my knees, the snow has been swept clear in a wide ring, to make this chopping area, here on this northern lake.  Our sled dogs, tethered between ash trees out of a chill wind, are already curled nose under tail, burrowed for the night.

Our human team still works as dusk gathers: sawing and splitting wood, cutting through the ice for water, pitching shelters.  Three trees, brought out to the ice, each thigh diameter, will be our fuel for the night.  And so I kneel, in this quiet circle, axe in leather-mittened hands, breath frosty, and chop wood.  Each piece a reminder to bring balance, to find that still point where the block of wood will stand and wait, my hands free, to yield the axe above, and then, to let its weight do the work.

I do not have to do the work. I need only to clear the circle, find the balance, lift the axe, and then let the life force, the force of gravity, the force of seeing what is possible, render the wood in two.

Again, again, and again.

The summer sun, stored in these standing dead trees, moments ago cut and hauled by hand through deep snow onto the ice, will warm us through this sub-zero night.

Where are the places where you still effort, thinking that muscle, or force of will, is the ingredient that will open the path ahead?

As I sit, and type, this body memory, of letting the axe fall, my clear focus and its own weight all that is needed to produce the results I want, fills me with deep calm.  A kind of trust in the workings of things.    And so I remind myself: once I know the work I need to do in order to honor what I am committed to, then:

Spend more time clearing the circle.  It is difficult to chop wood in trampled, deep snow.  Clearing down to firm ice gives me an effective platform for the work at hand.  The circle gives me boundaries; others do not enter the space while I chop.  I stay more present to my work, maintain my focus, and can generate an effective rhythm.

For you, this may mean a circle of time blocked into your calendar on a regular basis.  It may mean a sign on your door redirecting others to come back at another specified window of time, or handling email only during certain windows of the day. It may mean physically clearing any distractions to be able to fully focus on the work at hand.

Take the time to generate balance and strength. I will spend far more effort trying to chop a piece of wood that is not standing steady.   I am the same way; if I am not steadied by an adequate inflow of rest, movement, creativity, and healthy connections with others, then I will not be able to stand up fully into my work.

True balance is not a luxury that we add on once we achieve success; instead it is the optimization of performance every step of the way.  By making sure that your stamina, your creativity, your connectivity with others, and your clarity of thought are readily accessible to you, then your best is always within reach.

For many, this begins with exercise.  Allow your exercise to bring in joy, not just determination.  What will lift your spirits as well strengthen your muscles and your heart?  Learn too how to relax into your exertion.   As I climb the steeper inclines of my daily hike into cedar-filled hills, I consciously relax my neck, my jaw, my shoulders, arms, and hands.     I let my quadriceps contract, and the rest of me soften into the wind-lifted trees all around me.

Allow the power of focus and alignment to do your work for you. This is likely the best lesson from chopping wood.  I can fatigue fairly quickly if I power through each stroke of the axe.    While I can split some wood this way, I will not be able to sustain chopping through the mountain of wood I need to split to keep us warm on this minus 30-degree night.  Whatever the challenge you face, take the time to step back, reflect on what matters most, and then bring all of your attention to that one thing.   Let the power of your clarity work like the weight of the axe, slicing through the extraneous, the unnecessary, the distractions, all of which we often confuse for the real thing.

So…  make space for what is important. Attend to yourself.  These will allow you to approach your work with a relaxed yet powerful focus.   You will be able to accomplish more, with less effort. Some call this “flow.” I call it grace.   Whatever the name, it is a state worth striving for.