Can You Wait to Get Up in the Morning?

 We could hardly wait to get up in the morning.
Wilbur Wright

 

Let's admit it, we probably don't all feel like the Wright brothers at this moment. In the last year we've all experienced a loss of some kind. Some a little easier to handle, many quite difficult. Many dreams and ambitions put on hold.

From lost friendships, to losing a steady income, to everything in-between. Each disappointment has caused us to re-think who we are, what we want to contribute, where we are heading.

Each zoom call, each email tells us a story of what people are experiencing around us. Netflix dramas are downright scary, many filled with deceit few with laughter. Some of us are craving the Hallmark movie because it is sweetly predictable. We are often underwhelmed with honesty and truth these days. 

So recently, when I encountered a youtube that I regularly follow where she shared her vulnerability of burn-out, my heart surrendered.

As a fellow creator, with a thousand ideas but only 24 hours each day, holding the responsibility of satisfying her public and her family, she told us in her video how she was doing/drowning.

Can You Wait?

Tell me, do you honestly tell anyone how you're doing? It is okay to be sad, directionless, uncomfortable. It is okay to step back and admit it. And this woman did all that in her video. 

She opened the door to honesty. She was real. She cried. She encouraged others to seek help.

It is the nature of despair that we want to hide. Regardless of who we are, we are all hiding something. (Tweet This) Fear of the expectations of our family, fear of time running out, fear of what we have invested with no or limited outcome. We are tired.

It can paralyze us. But if this fear also gives us the invitation to re-invent ourselves, to re-think our previous choices, gives us the courage to share with others who might be feeling the same, how much hope and comfort could it bring to us all?

Climbing that wall to understanding that our pain is not ours alone takes utmost courage. That others feel it too right now, knowing that we can turn to those on the other side of this experience. Is that not a gift?

Can You Wait?

In the last few weeks, I have heard from people whom I had lost contact with over the last few years. What struck me each time, was how open we have been. How we've shared our feelings of our past memories, asked important questions that showed how much we cared, and opened the door as my youtube lady did.

We stop pretending when we choose our community. For support, for understanding, and also for talking nonsense. (Tweet This)

As our time apart slowly comes to an end, let's not forget what we learned. Perhaps we can create a brighter world, with real hugs, all based on our new more open hearts.

Our fear of today is also our invitation to make a change. (Tweet This)

Stay well, stay kind.

 

 

Karaoke Tourist

KaraokeTourist CourtesyPixabay#nextpeak

She was an accomplished singer, in a church group. She played the piano with skill and feeling. But what she wanted to do is sing Karaoke. Something different. An Elvis fan, that's whose song she'd choose.

She just didn't know when or where. Surely not with her prim choir friends. Certainly not where if she was terrible, she'd have to wear her humiliation.

Then one day, she who loved road trips found her evening in a small town just steps from her motel. This was where a tourist could sing karaoke, she thought. She'd never see these people again, strangers can be so much kinder than those who have an expectation of you.

The image is one thing and the human being is another. ...

It's very hard to live up to an image. Elvis Presley

Not a drinker. But she did gulp down her red wine that day. Liquid courage, they call it. In the dim bar with just a handful of early patrons she made her way to the stage. Not her usual stage.

They clapped and cheered and sang along. A middle aged tourist belting out Elvis. How likely would they be to see this again? She caught them up in her courage and enthusiasm. Yes, she did!

She and Elvis and a bunch of strangers.

When she relayed her story to me, her eyes beamed with the pleasure of the memory. Why was it easier, I asked, to sing karaoke far away from home than in front of your friends?

Sheryl Sandberg in Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead says that many of us are hesitant to raise our hands, to stand out, to ask the important questions. Why do we behave as if we are the secondary characters in our own Life?

I was only a tourist passing through, she replied. Her bravery however, has translated itself into a renewed gusto for life. We are all just passing through Life. Why wait to be brave?

Let's not just be a tourist in our own Life, let's pick up that mike and sing! (Click to Tweet)

Find Yourself, Find Your Bliss. (Click to Tweet)

Leaving the Shore

When the time is right, you cannot not listen. When the Unknown calls your name, you will hear it. When you have nothing to lose and everything to gain, you are compelled to leave the shore.

Leaving the Shore

Maybe it's the comfort of having a few days off in a row, my mind has had a chance to unravel (in a good way), and the dreams have been re-energizing. Perhaps it's the combination of the uplifting book I'm reading, The Little Paris Bookshop and the workshops encouraging personal growth that I have just attended.

But something is changing. It's too early to be Spring in my hometown, but in talking to friends, many of us are feeling the stirrings from new frontiers beckoning our steps. Commanding us in the gentlest way to make a change.

Leaving the safety of shore is always at least a little scary. Just like in The Little Paris Bookshop, we are Monsieur Perdu and we "become as adept at avoiding thinking about --- as he was at stepping around open manholes". We learn to accommodate for others.

In my dream, I could feel the promise. Be Brave, it said. Be Bold. The time will pass as always and if you don't, you will regret. We all hear these voices. What does the voice you hear say to you? Does it ask you to go towards your dream? Does it hasten you away from the shore of safety?

I stepped into a moving stream and swam away from safety. Into the Unknown that was calling my name. I didn't see where this stream took me, but I knew in my heart that I was moving in the right direction.

We will never know what awaits us. We can prepare and plan but the mystery of what is around the corner and what it can bring to us, will no doubt be more than we can imagine, if we allow it.

Let me know if you've read this not so little book and how it might have changed your life.



The Little Paris Bookshop
Nina George




Does the voice you hear encourage you to leave the shore of safety? (Click to Tweet)

Be Bold. Be Brave. Leave the Shore to follow your dream. (Click to Tweet)

Please note that I am on page 250 of 370, if I fall out of love with this book I will report back to you!

Triumph in the Trying

What was your last brave act? How did your body react? Could you feel yourself getting bigger and more powerful?

There are times when it is difficult for some of us to walk into a crowded room of strangers. Our brave act might be putting a smile on our face and extending our hand. You might need to stand up to an overbearing parent or partner, and sometimes even to a willful child. Our bravery takes on different faces depending on where we are in our lives. Because what was an act of bravery to us at fifteen can become a part of who we are at twenty-five.

Brave Daughter, Triumph in the Trying

Look back to your first brave act.  Where did that courage come from? Answer: It came from within. Something inside you said “Go For It”, this will be worthwhile. And it was, because to this day, you remember it. And whether you were successful at your attempt or not you still remember how it felt. The triumph in the trying, I call it. You did more than the person who just didn’t try.

When I was in grade 8, I had finally saved enough to purchase a brand new guitar. Well, truth be told, I was quite awful and to this day my singing voice has not improved. I gathered a group of close friends and we auditioned for our school Spring Carnival, which was a very cool thing to do in the seventies! We did not make the cut, but boy did we have fun. I still remember fondly that event and the anticipation of success I felt on that stage.

That anticipation is how I feel each time I try something new to this day.

Each brave act, whether it happened when you were six and went to your first ballet class or at sixty-six when you wove on a loom for the first time are yours to keep. The satisfaction and the joy of doing something new becomes the momentum that gives rise to our confidence. 

Look around at the happiest people you know, my guess is that they have a wide assortment of experiences. They might work all day or raise a family but at some point in their lives they were brave enough to pick up a paint brush, run a marathon, build a house, or learn to fly.

Be brave today and every day, experience the triumph in the trying. Who knows how far you can soar.

Now tell me, what’s your first memory of being brave? Or what was your brave act for today? (Click to Tweet)