Show Up

This weekend I opened my work email for the first time in a while. I felt a small bit of dread in anticipation of receiving a bunch of emails to handle. Instead, I was given the gift of clarity, presence, and purpose: I had emails from two students requesting assistance with a computer science project.

I had an opportunity to show up.

As a teacher, I show up for my students. Like stepping into a role on stage, showing up as a teacher is an opportunity to embody the following:

Patience Presence Passion Attentiveness

Appreciation Interest

Integrity Compassion Curiosity Creativity Flexibility Energy Responsibility

Respect

Showing up makes a difference. When I bring any one of those characteristics to my students, it impacts them whether they’re aware of it or not. They’re acknowledged, respected, supported, and cared for. They’re invited to feel safe, and that allows them to also show up in order to learn and to live.

We don’t have to show up, but it matters when we do. It matters to us, and it likely matters to others too.

For me, the toughest part of any project, journey, or task is starting. But once I take that first step, I’ve already shown up.

Showing up starts with a single step that likely requires courage, but take that step and you’ll figure out how to be effective when you get there.

Where do you show up? Where else would you like to show up?

Thank you for having the courage to show up in your life in whatever ways you already do. And thank you for considering where else you'd love to show up.

Thanks so much for reading. ❤️

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p.s. I committed to a one-year exploration through the medium of this blog. For the last 51 weeks I’ve shown up, and for me it’s been empowering, challenging, exciting, insightful, and grounding. I’m glad I’ve shown up. Thank you for giving me someone to show up for.

Keep Going

Just over two weeks ago I had a surge of fear and anxiety arise. It was a broad and general fear - I wasn’t scared of anything in particular. I felt it in my chest first, like a hardening and weighing down of my heart, then it radiated tendrils outward and into my mind.

I’m used to fear and anxiety, as I’ve written before (here and here). In fact, most mornings I wake up into a mild level of anxiety, and I’ve grown to appreciate the genius of human survival instincts that have given morning anxiety to many of us as a way to help us ensure our safety over the millennia.

But this latest fear flare-up kept poking its tendrils in for over a week. It felt dark at times, and I felt alone.

On one of my final nights of this flare-up, I had an anxious dream where I was struggling with demons. I felt that the dementor-like demons were real and that they were pulling me apart physically, emotionally, and psychologically…

I’m not enough. I’ve never been enough. There’s something wrong with me. I just can’t do it. It's too hard. I'm too scared...

It was dark, I was terrified, and it felt like I was destined to feel this way the rest of my life. The demons were woven around and within my body and mind, clouding my vision, and terrorizing me.

Then, still in my dream, I turned my head and saw between demons to one of my sons sitting on his chair at the kitchen counter. He looked at me and said, “So what, Dad? What are you going to do now?”

And in that moment my vision cleared, the fear faded, and I was myself again. The demons were no longer woven within me - they were just ideas that I had floating around in my thinking and feeling.

The hell of this dream began to dissipate the moment I saw and heard my son - of course I'll step through and work through whatever arises in the face of me being the best dad I can be. Of course I'll keep moving forward.

“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” - Winston Churchill

Keep going. This doesn’t mean to run from our fears or insecurities, to hide, or even to fight those demons. All of that perpetuates the battle.

“Keep going” means to keep our heads up. It means to continue to foster the feelings that we’re committed to feeling, like compassion, ease, love, peace of mind, and generosity. It means to continue standing in our intentions for ourselves and especially others. It means to remember who we are for ourselves, others, and the world.

“Keep going” means to trust that the heavens are always up there. It means that we are innately healthy and well, and we're only momentarily distracted from experiencing that well-being. It means that inspiration, hope, and ease will return to us soon - we don’t need to force them, they will come.

Here are a few practical things we can do when we're feeling scared of the dark:

• We can remind ourselves that the dark will fade and light will return.

• We can reach out to a trusted friend or coach who reliably sees and speaks to the possibility, power, and light within.

• We can meditate, exercise, and breathe deeply.

Darkness is the absence of light, so move towards the light, dear friend, and the darkness will fade.

Keep going, and thanks so much for reading. ❤️

Making Music

Making music with another musician is a wordless, near-thoughtless, near self-less dance. There’s a strange paradox between the experiences of making the music flow out of us and allowing the music to flow through us.

My brother-in-law makes music in the kitchen of the restaurant where he works. He orchestrates the kitchen’s operation, the process of creating meals, the creativity and surrender when he channels the flow of culinary art.

My friend Eric makes music through ceremony. He is the consummate fire tender, ritualizing our men’s group gatherings with care, love, and consideration.

My friend Pete is a musician and an educator. He brings vulnerability, creativity, and insight to his work with his students in a way that invites them to also live vulnerably, creatively, and insightfully.

We are all instruments and we’re designed to make music. It’s not music we can force, but more like music we allow to flow through us. It’s a dance where our actions are ours but seem to come from somewhere else too, somewhere more grand and more universal than from within this mortal body and mind alone.

Similarly, working with students, colleagues, families, and even ourselves is a dance. We need to both listen and create. Each engagement with another is an opportunity to participate in a divine dance with another soul, and what a profound opportunity it is!

Whatever tune you are here to play, please play it. And please allow and acknowledge the tunes coming from the rest of us. I promise to do the same.

I participated in a workshop in 2020 where I was asked early on, “What’s your art?” My initial response was "teaching," but subsequent exploration revealed a more complete answer to me: transformational conversations.

Thanks so much for listening to my song. ❤️