The Power of Planning

I used to resist planning because I thought it was tedious, controlling, and restrictive, but I changed my mind about this recently when I began to understand planning as just another form of setting boundaries.

When it comes to creating the life I want, boundaries have taught me the non-negotiable power of “no” (as a way of saying "yes" and investing in the thing that's the priority in the moment). And when I decide ahead of time, this is essentially what I’m doing - saying no to all other possibilities except this one for right now.

When I make a plan, I’m building a fence around my most important thing (an hour writing, dinner with my sweetheart, my meditation time, etc.) and saying “no” to everything else for that allotted time.

I used to think planning would make life smaller by eliminating spontaneity and freedom when actually, it's made life deeper by bringing that freedom and spontaneity in a clearer, more focused way.

So I don’t plan everything, but I do try to plan the most important things - and make them priorities by creating space and choosing them ahead of time.

Devotion and the New Year

One of my favorite New Year’s rituals is choosing a word of the year.

There’s more to my New Year’s reflections, imaginings, and schemings than this, but I love the practice of trying to distill the energy of the 12 months ahead into a guiding word I can return to when I’ve lost the thread.

And each year, my word becomes almost eerily prophetic and finds expression and realization in ways I didn’t expect.

In 2018, my word was expansion. This year, my word is deepening.

Last year, I threw myself into life, tried new things, chased opportunities, and changed in ways and directions I couldn’t have imagined a year ago. And there was so much goodness that came of it.

This year, I feel the pull to tend to the roots – to deepen into devotion and intention, to be really clear about what matters most, remain realistic about my capacity, and live accordingly.

It’s reminding me that sometimes, life asks us to say no to some of the goodness present or available to us in order to invest in another possibility.

And sometimes devotion means stepping away from what is perfectly okay (and maybe even wonderful) because it is incongruent with the commitments we’ve chosen or the frequencies we’re committed to cultivating and amplifying in our lives now.

This has already been hard. I don’t like to pass up opportunity or let go of goodness.

But it’s been helpful to remember that I’m limiting the width in my life to amplify the depth. I’m stepping back from growing outward so I can lean into processes of growing inward.

Paradoxically, limits can set us free, and boundaries can open up spaces of infinite possibility. 
(Or at least that’s my working hypothesis for the year).

So whatever 2019 is asking of you, I hope it opens, deepens, and catalyzes you into whatever goodness awaits.

Setting Boundaries and Investing in Possibility

I think about boundaries a lot.  It’s a topic that often comes up in my workplace and with coaching clients.  And it’s something I track closely in my own life and experience: am I protecting my space and energy?  Do I have what I most need?  Am I starting to feel overwhelmed or resentful and need to readjust?

Saying no not only helps me eliminate what I do not want in life; it also fortifies the energy, experiences, and relationships I do want.  In other words, boundaries are not only a no; they are also a yes.

Boundaries not only build walls of protection around our safety and wellbeing; they can also push us into spaces of unknown, open possibility in which we’re asked to imagine, create, and seek out what we want.

In this sense, boundaries are a leap of faith.  Saying no to what is familiar and just good-enough so that we have the space to say yes to what truly dazzles and enlivens can feel like a risk.  It often is a risk.

But boundaries are investments in possibility.

And in cases like these, I try to remember that it’s okay, and actually essential, to use boundaries as tools to create empty spaces of uncertainty because those are also fertile spaces in which our dreams and desires get nourished, take root, and find ways to grow and expand into our lives.

Allowing Anger

As a sensitive empath, anger (others’ and my own) used to scare me.  It felt too loud, intense, and violent.  But my emotional excavations have revealed anger’s vital – and healing – role in naming wrongs, restoring boundaries, inspiring change, and initiating reparation.

Sometimes, I get angry with my clients at work, and lately, I’ve been trying to give myself full and intentional permission to do that.  Yes, these are people who have experienced domestic violence (and often a myriad of other traumas pertaining to abuse and oppression).  And yes, while I know that anger and frustration are common and understandable features of direct service work with folks in high-stress, crisis situations, this is still super uncomfortable.

Which is why I never used to allow it.  Also, because I believed anger was callous and cruel, a violent force wanting to take possession of my body and turn me into an abominable, havoc-wreaking monster of epic proportions.

But no, anger is just a thing we feel.

It’s a powerful energy, sure, but it need not be channeled into explosive action or hurtful judgment.  And it does have to mean wishing someone ill, making them wrong, or denying their worthiness.

Allowing anger in the context of my DV work is important because if I’m going to honor and allow the fullness of others’ humanity, I need to honor and allow my own.  Pushing away anger is really just a feeble attempt at transcendence and emotional bypassing that separates me from the people I’m with and distances me from our shared experience of messy real life.

None of this means I turn to aggression (or passive aggression, the greater temptation being that I’m from the Midwest) to express myself.  Instead, anger is my ally in forming a grounded, assertive space from which to respond and proceed.

This happened recently.  I was angry with a client and was stuck in the same room with them for over an hour.  So I poured that anger into my energetic boundary (Karla McLaren writes about this practice in her book The Language of Emotions – highly recommended) and put my focus there, which allowed me to speak and act from my soft, true center, since it was grounded in and protected by my anger-fortified boundary.

And this is usually all my anger wants from me: a stronger boundary, safe space and comfortable distance, personal power and sovereignty.  But even before any of that, I think my anger, like any feeling, just wants to be felt – and recognized as the valid (and quite ordinary) human emotion that it is.