Rusting Bikes in Eden

I was on a call with a client a few days ago…

(As a form of shorthand, I say I have “calls” with clients. That’s not actually what we’re doing though.

In fact, none of us is ever just having a “call” with someone. 

Instead, we are being together. Always, when together, we're being together.)

So, I was being with a client a few days ago, and while she expressed her challenging situation, she referenced rusting bikes in the front yard as evidence that things are not going well. 

If only those rusting bikes weren’t there…

What are the rusting bikes in your life, those things that shouldn't be there?

What are those objects, people, or situations that stand as evidence that your life just isn’t as good as it should be?

Go ahead, answer the question! We've all got these rusting bikes in our lives, that if it weren't for them...

That problematic relative?

That drama at work?

That receding hairline?

That nagging worry in the mind?

For my client, it was rusting bikes in the yard.

What she got during our time together, however, was that yes there are rusting bikes in the yard, and the yard is no less an Eden because of them. 

It doesn’t matter what we look at. It’s what we see when we look at it that matters.

We are specks of life on a giant rock flying through space at 66,000 mph. A star 93 million miles from us is a key source of our life and energy. And no where else in the universe have we witnessed such an abundance of life that we see all around us on Earth. Even in gutters, in alleys, and growing up between cracks in city pavement, we see beautiful life sprouting and growing. We live in Eden.

My friend was no longer seeing a junkyard. She was seeing Eden. 

Nothing changed.

Nothing needed to. 

She got that she was creating a problem in how she saw her world, and the rusting bikes were a part of the problem she created. 

It sounds simple enough, yet these insightful moments poke us out of nowhere when in an intentional and committed conversation.

My client is no longer creating those bikes as a problem. She’s creating them as evidence for a beauty and profoundness in this moment that moves aside her former judgments that “it should be another way.”

True freedom and power are a consequence of owning our always-there capacity to create what we are seeing when we look at anything. We are constantly creating, just mostly unconsciously.

The way of mastery is learning to constantly, consciously create with grace and ease.

It takes work, and oh is this work worth it.

Much Love. ❤️

Make This a Safe Space Too

I’ve got a client who has dedicated her life to creating safety, health, and wholeness for others. She’s traveled for years and worn herself thin creating these safe spaces.

In our conversation last week, however, she realized that she hasn’t been responsible for creating her own inner safe space.

A safe space is “a place where people can feel confident that they will not be exposed to discrimination, criticism, harassment, or any other emotional or physical harm.”

Are you creating that kind of space within yourself? One free of criticism and harassment? One free of emotional or physical harm?

Most educators are committed to creating a safe space for their students, but they neglect to create an inner safe space for themselves. 

This has consequences.

When I’m not safe inside, I live a life of reaction from my own trapped emotional charges.

When I move to create safe external spaces from these emotional charges, without managing my own inner space, I’m living from self-righteousness, arrogance, fear, or despair. 

This is a fundamental lack of integrity. When we live from our own unsafe inner space, we can’t help but create unsafe outer spaces - even if we’re trying really hard. 

Being responsible for creating our own inner safe space is one of the most powerful and important things we can do. It's incredibly important, and most of us never learn how to do this!

This is my work: giving teens and adults access to inner safe spaces - freedom from fear and stress - to live an inspired and all-around fulfilling life.

It starts with recognizing how messy it's gotten in there, and then making a commitment to cleaning it up.

• "Sweep before your own door." - German proverb

• "Tend to your own garden." - Voltaire

• "Clean your own room." - Jordan Peterson

• "Remove the beam from your own eye before you remove the speck from your brother’s." - the Bible

• "If you want to correct the world, first mend your own heart." - Chinese proverb

• "If you correct your mind, the rest of your life will fall into place." - Lao Tzu

• "Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." - Rumi

Much Love. ❤️

Mastery Is Made of This

I’ve been reading through a fun series of fantasy fiction novels a friend lent me. I love the insight and life wisdom that fiction can so easily put me in touch with sometimes. 

Courage. Boldness. Empowerment.

Trust. Forgiveness. Release.

Peace. Enjoyment. Love.

Those are all consequences of being on the path to mastery.

Each of us is committed to excellence in one or more areas of our lives. We’re either present to this commitment to excellence to some small or large extent, or we’ve resigned ourselves to a cynical view that we’ll never achieve that excellence.

Last night, reading the latest book in this series, I came across this line: 

“Mastery is made of mistakes.”

Isn’t that so accurate? It’s in making mistakes that we become aware of a gap between where we are and the mastery we aim to achieve.

Mastery is not hindered by mistakes. Mastery is made of mistakes.

I’m committed to mastering being - to me, this is mastering Presence, Peace, Love, Creation, and Joy. I’ve got a lifetime of mistakes behind me and in front of me to guide me along this path to mastery.

What are you committed to mastering in your life? What matters so much to you that even if you spend your life failing at it, it will be worth living your life for it?

Much Love. ❤️