Category Archives: Trust30

Trust 30: Day 3: Close Friends

The world is powered by passionate people, powerful ideas, and fearless action. What’s one strong belief you possess that isn’t shared by your closest friends or family? What inspires this belief, and what have you done to actively live it?

I don’t think I could have a “closest friend” that didn’t share my “strong beliefs.”  Family, maybe, because you can’t pick your family (sadly), but close friends?  What are close friends if not people who share your strong beliefs?
And what would be examples of strong beliefs, anyway?   God or no God?   Fracking or No fracking? Democrat or Republican? Pro Life or Pro Choice? Carnivore or Vegetarian?
If I held a strong belief that was not shared by my “closest friends”  could they really be my “closest friends?”
This is a curiously worded prompt.
Let me take out the word “closest” then, and just say “friends,” because I definitely have friends who don’t share a lot of my strong beliefs.  What happens in these relationships is that we decide, consciously or unconsciously, that because of other stellar qualities that we truly DO admire about one another, we will “just not go there” when these “divisive” issues come up.
This allows us to fully enjoy each other’s humor, or generosity, or kindness, or whatever, and overlook the heavy things that divide us.
This makes the relationship much more pleasant, but it’s not anything like the deep, rich, fudgy-deliciousness of relationships with our “close” friends– those with whom we share a Zeitgeist, a worldview, the same priorities, the same hopes and dreams and enthusiasms.  With those “close friends” we can be who we really are and relax and enjoy each other and come into our fullness as human beings.
Lately, this Marcellus Shale fracking issue is not only creating cracks in the bedrock of the earth, but in some of my relationships that had formerly been of the rich, gooey variety and have now switched over to the happy, but “shallow” side.  A big schism has opened up between us.
Before, we would “cuddle up” together. Now I find myself “yelling over” this issue to them “way over there.” A deep crevasse has grown between us.
It was not a deliberate decision on my part to do this. It just “happened” as a result of my attachment to my “strong belief” in the complete wrong-headedness and irresponsibility of this activity fueled by nothing but corporate greed and stupidity masking as “the need for energy-independence” and their inability to see things the way I do.
I frequently ask myself: Why the hell isn’t everyone seeing this when it is so CLEAR to me?  What don’t they see things the way I do?
And then I laugh hysterically.  hahahahahahahaha.
Because this is the 25 Million Dollar question, isn’t it? This is the cause of all wars and strife and disagreements in the world from time immemorial, isn’t it?  “Why can’t everybody else see things MY WAY (i.e. the correct, the right, the sane, the rational, the responsible, the compassionate and intelligent way??)

I find myself surprisingly okay with having these shallow, careful relationships with people who I have to pussyfoot around when this topic comes up.  Turns out I’m a good pussyfooter.  We talk about the things we have in common, and avoid the giant elephant in the room.

But when panic wakes me up in the middle of the night, or when I’ve read one too many emails or articles, and I am sweating and worrying and ready to put the house on the market, close up the studio and bolt, I curl up with my “close friends” and we comfort each other, and sooth each other, and support each other.

And it will be with these people that I will link arms and walk  into the future, while all the others disappear into the mist.

Trust 30, Day 2:The Day in One Sentence

If ‘the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tracks,’ then it is more genuine to be present today than to recount yesterdays. How would you describe today using only one sentence? Tell today’s sentence to one other person. Repeat each day.

Today I stood on my head on the newly installed wall-to-wall carpeting in the yoga/computer room and loved the upside down color of it.

Trust 30: Day 1: 15 Minutes to Live

I have just signed a pledge for the  Trust 30 Challenge, so for the next 30 days, I will be blogging in response to whatever the prompt of the day happens to be.  Today’s was a doozey, and it took more time (and words) than I am happy about. Hopefully, in the coming days I will be able to make quicker work of them.

Trust 30: Entry One

Gwen Bell – 15 Minutes to Live

We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. – Ralph Waldo Emerson

You just discovered you have fifteen minutes to live.

1. Set a timer for fifteen minutes.

 

2. Write the story that has to be written.

(Author: Gwen Bell)

 

I am totally speechless in the face of this challenge.  What if it were really the case? 15 minutes left?

Here’s what I would like to say to whoever is present:

Although my life was rich in many ways, and I did a few good things, I also end this ride with some regrets.  My premier regret is my timidity.  I wish I had been braver, I wish I would have risked more, I wish I could have dumped my old conditioning and realized sooner that I always had full control of my life.

As I have been driving around town this week looking at houses bent and dented and crushed by fallen trees from the recent wind storm, and pitying the people whose lives have been so disrupted by this mess, I have also been so very grateful not to have had to endure those pitying eyes myself.

I have deep, nauseating childhood memories of being pitied, and these memories still make me feel heavy and sad and afraid.

This fear of pity has made me timid and wimpish my whole life; it has held me back from doing the things I most wanted. It’s been my electric fence, and I totally believed I would die from its Zap.

So here’s what I want to say to anyone who will listen before I clock out: Be audacious!  Risk ridicule and pity and laughter and pointing and snickering and sneering and downright disapproval.  Go out into the world and do the thing you most fear doing.

The only thing you need to have in order to do this brave  “thing” is a deep bank account of Core Happiness.   If you are lucky enough to have someone open you an account early in your life, with a minimum deposit of respect, love and care, and then have them teach you how to invest that self-love, self-respect and self-care wisely in other people and worthy endeavors, you will be end up rich beyond your wildest dreams.

I learned the truth of this watching my mother live her life. My mother’s own minimum balance was all counterfeit.  She tried to finance her life on fake money.  It fooled a lot of people for a long time and it got her pretty far, but they soon found out that they couldn’t “spend” what they got from her because she was poor; she had nothing.  She was never there for them because she had no self-love, never practiced self-care  and had no self-respect.   She looked like the real deal, but if you tried to spend what she gave you, her checks bounced.

By some miracle, by the time I hit my 20s I had come into a little cache of real “happiness” money. It didn’t come from her, but I picked up a little here and a little there by associating with, and watching and learning from “rich” people: teachers, parents of my friends, and a few relatives.

And then when my daughter was born, suddenly my little “minimum balance account” started to miraculously double and triple in value.  I emptied my happiness account into that little girl, and in turn, she quadrupled my investment.   My daughter taught me the art of “Investing.” And by the time she was 3 or 4, I was overflowing in happiness.  I was a millionaire!

Now I end my life having lived the last 30 years of it totally off my “love and happiness” investment dividends.  I have so much happiness banked now, that I can afford to give it to everyone I encounter, my family, friends, yoga students, as well as random strangers. And best of all, I can never be “robbed.”

So here, in this last 15 minutes of my life, I bequeath all of my happiness to my family and my friends and my yoga students. I just ask that anyone who has received happiness from me, set up one other person with a minimum balance account and teach them the Art of Investing. (You invest by giving it all away!)

So I realize that I started this by regretting my timidity, and encouraging every one to be brave and take risks, so if this turns out not to be my last 15 minutes, but just a little “fire drill” I hope it has reminded me that I need to make it my life’s mission, for as long as I have left, to break this timidity tether, to wake up and realize that I am brave, that the looks of other people are not really pity, they could be love or concern.

And I hope that I have enough time left to learn to withstand the zap, clear the fence and not burden the people I most love with a legacy of timidity and fear, but leave them with an example of audacity, happiness and love.