When we ‘grow up,’ we sometimes forget those things that help us feel most vitally alive. Ironically, the higher our level of leadership, the more important it is to remember these things that help us feel like a kid again. Typically, we carry greater responsibility and have less free time, so it becomes even more vital to use that time really, really well doing things we love.

What do you love to do?  Reflect back on your entire life.  What did you love to do as a kid, as a teen, in your twenties, thirties, forties, fifties, sixties… explore every decade of your life that you have lived so far.

Make a list.  It does not matter if it is something you have not done for years. (In fact, these can be some of the best gems to unearth!)  If twenty is easy, go for 30.  Keep going till you really have to search the attic of your own memory.

• Then, take a step back and examine your list.
• When was the last time you did each of these things?
• Are they solitary, or done with others? Are they inside or outside?  Urban or wilderness?
• What patterns or similarities do you discover in the nature of these  (e.g, athletic, artistic, activist, intellectual, musical, creative, crafts, service, adventure?)
• Which of them cost money?
• Which ones would you most love to do again to truly feel fully like ‘the real you’?  (Flag these!)
• What would it take (how easy could it be) to actually do the ones you have flagged?

What simple first step you can take now to move towards your own aliveness?

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?

Remembering what is working in an organization, a team, or a relationship is a great way to help us stay connected to what we care about.

What makes you proud to be a part of your team? What does this reveal about what you value?

Where are you called on your journey?

I journeyed this weekend on a brief but deep women’s weekend retreat in the remote pine wood hills of eastern WA.    It was a worthy adventure.  

Where are you called to journey?  Cultivating leadership involves continuous cultivation of personal learning.   As leaders, many of us only lead well to the edge of our own comfort zone, so continuously stretching that zone increases the range of territory in which we can truly lead.

Over the weekend, we were immersed in creativity, myth, and metaphor, and far removed from computer connections.  Coyotes sang at night, wild turkeys grumbled to each other during the day, and the rain fell.

I was most grateful for the opportunity to paint in the warmth and glow of a wood-heated studio, my process witnessed by gifted facilitators and dear friends.  I was able to face the large, open canvas and let my life speak.  What do I love? 

Not holding any image or expectation, I simply listened. Which size brush?  Which color? Which shape?  

Gradually, I found myself reliving the last year of my inner journey – in color and emotion, unfolding under my hand and before my eyes.  At one point, surrendering to longing, I abandoned the brush, dipping my fingers into reds and yellows and allowed life force to flow through.  Layers of paint revealed greater complexity and nuance, and an emerging, maturing sense of grace.

When I was done, there was more of me.  Finally, growing up.

The reading, below, weaves into this story.  Welcomed into the retreat space with these words, I knew immediately that I wanted to share them.  However, there is a twist.    

Embarking on a year of reclaiming and growing into my own fullness, vs. searching for fulfillment in relation with another, and having recently finished the above painting of my own fullness, I initially mis-read one line.  “May the one you long for long for you”  I entered, as I typed before bed, as  “may the one you long for be you.”  Few letters, big meaning.

Hmmm.  I fell asleep in front of the fire, contemplating the possibility that perhaps life is best in when both are true.

This morning, I woke in the rain and slipped my way back down the hill to the painting studio.  I painted another painting. Or, perhaps more accurately, another painting painted me.  This is its own story.  To suffice for now though, what amazed me most, was to see, side by side, these two paintings, each representing a different read of that one line, and how potent the combination. Each, unique, complete, settled,  and whole.  And both, together, somehow more than the sum of the parts.

Where are you called on your journey?  

What will help you emerge into your own wholeness?

Where do you need to listen?

Turn up your inner radar, and read on….. (and revisit.. I’ll figure out how to post those paintings…!)

For Longing

Blessed be the longing that brought you here

And quickens your soul with wonder.

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire

That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease.

To discover the new direction your longing wants to take.

May the forms of your belonging – in love, creativity, and friendship –

Be equal to the grandeur and call of your soul.

May the one you long for long for you.

May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.

May a secret Providence guide your thoughts and nurture your feelings.

May your mind inhabit your life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.

May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.

May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.

May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

By John O’Donaghue

What are the seeds of your longing?

What is longing for you?