The Power in Nothing

Sometimes, the most powerful and productive thing we can do is nothing.

Sometimes it’s better to let a question sit in empty space, open and unanswered, rather than rushing to an answer.

Sometimes it’s more useful to allow the energy inside of us - in forms of emotion, discomfort, desire, or knowing - to just be as they are for right now.

Sometimes, it’s the right thing to let uncertainty change us rather than pushing forward to change uncertainty.

I’m someone who loves being a free agent and an active, powerful participant in my own life, and I also see the magic of waiting, sitting, and holding space for what’s present, real, unsettled, unknowable, overwhelming, and/or uncertain.

Space, emptiness, stillness, allowing, and quiet are powerful forces, and sometimes, the best medicine and most powerful catalyst for what we need in the moment.

What sort of medicine and power is your soul most yearning for right now? And what might it mean to give that to yourself?

Embracing Failure

Whenever I start to feel like a failure, I know that’s my cue to try to become even *more* of a failure - to fail harder, more often, and more consistently.

Failure is a close friend and ally to success, ingenuity, creativity, and progress, and it’s a thing that reliably moves me forward, builds capacity and resiliency, and gets energy moving.

So now whenever the thought “I’m a failure” comes up, I try to follow it with, “I sure hope so.”

Because I sincerely hope I never stop collecting failures. I hope I will always be someone who is willing to fail and ready to leap into risk and uncertainty.

So if you’re feeling bummed out by a recent failure: congratulations! You were brave and tried a thing! And making that a habit reliably leads to good things.

Embracing your Radiant Weirdness

There are few things as inspiring or catalyzing as people who are fully alive and lit up in their radiant weirdness.

To me, radiant weirdness is anything that falls outside the norms of the dominant culture, anything that causes people to look or think twice, either with disdain or interest, disapproval or curiosity, that also illuminates and inspires.

Radiant weirdness makes us feel like we’re glowing from the inside-out.  Like we’re so congruent with the truth of our being that everything sparks.

It’s the strange, unexpected oddity that makes us magnetic and interesting and lights the way into new possibility.

Whether it’s your eclectic array of hobbies, your ambitious creative project that pushes the edges, your inner complexities and contradictions, or the path you’ve chosen for yourself that makes others raise their eyebrows, if it lights you up, it’s a thing the world needs.

Radiant weirdness changes the culture.

It’s catalytic and contagious.  

It inspires a sense of possibility, opens spaces of permission, and lends courage.

And it doesn’t really matter if your radiant weirdness is different than mine.  If I see you expressing, owning, and living it, I feel it in my bones. It’s something my soul recognizes.  It’s something that creates sparks of hope, truth, and calling in my own being.

Embrace your radiant weirdness for yourself first.  And also know that when you do, you are doing a public service.  By carving out space in the culture for your realness to exist (in all of its weird, radiant complexity), you are widening the field of possibility for all of us.

So shine on, you beautiful, luminous weirdos.

Last Words + Living Well

About 3 years ago, I saw my grandmother for the last time. She was dying, so I made a trip to say goodbye. She seemed frail and closer to the edge but still very present and clear.

As I was leaving, she was able to walk me to the door, and between hugs and “I love you’s”, she told me to live a good life. These were her last words to me, and she said them twice.

Live a good life.

She didn’t give me more specific instructions or tell me what goodness meant to her. She didn’t tell me what I should prioritize in the pursuit of that goodness. She didn’t tell me to carry on the family legacy or make her proud.

She simply communicated that my life belonged to me, and it was my privilege and responsibility to make it what I wanted. This was her blessing and benediction.

I think about her, together with the rest of my ancestors. I think how I’m here now with powers they didn’t have then. I think about what it means to live in this time of change and catastrophe. I think about what it means to be a human being who lives and dies.

And I feel the imperative of living a good life. I feel how much it matters that we find delight, satisfaction, and actualization in our human experience - and that we get clear and honest about what that means for us.

So I’m passing it on: your life belongs to you. Enjoy it and make it yours.

Going Back In

What choice do we have but to keep going?

This is something I remind myself when I’m feeling frustrated by a (seemingly) impossible goal or project, slow progress, or lackluster outcomes - in my own life and/or in the collective.

When I hit a creative block, when I try something and it doesn’t work, or when I feel stuck on a project, there’s sometimes a moment when I wonder: is this the Universe finally telling me I’m a failure and it’s time to give up?

But I pull by myself back by 1) telling myself everything I know about how creativity, mastery, progress, and life work 2) asking: would quitting actually help anything? (probably not) 3) remembering that the trying itself has value.

There are times to reevaluate and change course around the details, but my intention to live a deep life means I need to keep going and always be stepping toward creativity, learning, and connection.

I think about this too in terms of our collective efforts to dismantle systems of oppression, respond to climate crisis, and build a more just society. Anyone who cares about these issues or is involved in movement work knows what it is to wrestle with despair and discouragement, to stare down impossibility and wonder where we go from here. But what would it even mean to give up on the vision?

When we’re aligned with our deepest values and moved by love, we keep going. We don’t even get to decide. We flow; we move; we engage; we connect. We find whatever hope and aliveness exist in the trying.

I’m finding more and more that living a good, deep, creative life is just a series of going’s back in, a commitment to following love to its obvious conclusion and steadfast directive:

Onward.

Clarity Through Self-Trust

{Coaching reflections, Part 2 of 5}

Coaching is about getting clear through self-trust.

We're conditioned to look outside ourselves for answers.  The dominant culture tells us clarity is found through rational analysis in which status, money, and external success are the primary values and metric points.

Coaching is a process of tuning into the slower rhythms and deeper energies of our being to reconnect with the knowing and wisdom that is available to us in that space.

It's about learning the language of our bodies and deepening our intuitive superpowers.

It's about reconnecting with a steady internal compass that helps us navigate the loud, fast, and flashy world around us and discern which of the voices (if any) competing for our attention are worthy of it.

My first step is always to get quiet and still and then know what I know in this moment.  

Because the more I welcome and allow the knowing that's already here, the more knowing opens up.  The more I listen to my body, the more it speaks and the more I understand. The more I add to my reservoirs of self-trust, the more I have to draw on when the next hard, uncertain things appears.

So what do you know in this moment?  What answers and truths are available to you in this moment through your body?

Restoring Balance and Flow in Burnout

I want to talk about burnout – those times when we burn through our attention, energy, physical capacity, and emotional labor faster than our systems can replenish these finite resources.  One of my clients calls this “feeling crispy,” which illustrates perfectly how burnout can leave us feeling like withered, ashen shells of our formerly energetic and vibrant selves.

When I feel burned out, I feel a sort of dead, numb flatness, as though my body has shut down its normal operations to in order to deal with crisis mode.  My rhythms feel out of whack, the things that normally give me energy feel lifeless and inaccessible, and my creativity, art, and spiritual practice lose their vibrancy (actually, they probably don’t, but in my state of burnout, I just can’t access it in the same way).

Burnout can show up in all sorts of ways and for all sorts of reasons, but in the end, it all comes down to giving, spending, and burning past the point of regenerative flow, balanced wellness, and baseline okayness.

And this is hard. Because often, we simply do not have enough energy to do all the things we want or need to do (or that others around us want or expect us to do). We have finite resources, and there are all sorts of factors that determine what we’re starting with in terms of energy and fuel.

And because we have limits and because life sometimes feels more like a flash-fire of frenetic fury than a peaceful stroll in the park, it can be useful to have a safety-wellness plan at the ready to address the hazards and realities of being an active, busy, engaged human in the world with limited stores of energy.

So here are some practices - through the lens of the four elements - that have been helpful for me in managing burnout and restoring my energy, groundedness, and vitality in active and fiery times.

1) Welcome watery flow (both literally and figuratively).  Water has a calming, soothing quality. Drinking water, relaxing in or near water, watching the waves, rapids, and rain, or sharing space with the vastness of the ocean can all bring this energy into our lives and alleviate some of the rigid, arid, crispy feelings that come with burnout. Allowing the watery flow of our emotions is also a supportive practice. How might you welcome whatever is flowing through you? How might you make space for feelings of frustration, annoyance, grief, and confusion? How might you invite fluidity and flow into your being? In a space of burnout, it can be super helpful to keep our life force moving and flowing however we can.  Sometimes this means resting, crying, free writing, taking a walk, or talking it out with a friend - anything to stay connected with the aliveness happening inside us through our emotions, movements, and energies.

2) Get earthy. Part of what burnout does is disconnect us from the slower rhythms of our earthy, embodied selves.  Engaging and tending to our bodies through movement, meditation, stillness, or nourishment are all ways to bring the earth element back into balance.  Other practices might include walking or sitting in nature, planting a garden, doing yoga, talking to the trees, or spending some time with your dog, cat, or houseplants.  

3) Embrace empty space.  One way to invite the air element is to create spaces of openness and emptiness where things are allowed to be unformed, unstructured, and unsettled.  Open, empty space in our schedules, our homes, our minds, and our lives allows us to rest, restore ourselves, and welcome a new possibility. Here are some ideas: look up at the sky, feel your presence in the vastness of the Universe, schedule times to do nothing.  How might you give yourself space, clear out the clutter, and let yourself rest in the open, empty mystery?

4. Engage fire in a sustainable way.  If you’re struggling with burnout, you may feel ready to be done with fire (and all things hot and burning) altogether, but fire is an elemental quality that offers essential energies for a balanced life.  So how might you burn the fires of your passion, creativity, effort, and movement in safe and supportive ways? (also being mindful of the fuel you need to support it.) What sparks of interest, adventure, and curiosity want to become more and are worthy investments of your energy?  

So I would encourage you to check-in with yourself.  Which of these elemental frequencies would be most supportive for restoring balance and flow in the midst of burnout?  How might you make space for what you need in times when you feel depleted?

To support this process, I created a meditative visualization to guide you through welcoming each of the 4 elements (with a bonus element too) as a way to discern what would be most supportive to you right now, which you can find here.

The Possibilities in Emptiness

{Coaching Reflections, Part 1 of 5}

Coaching is a process of opening up space in your mind by clearing away clutter.

It’s a lot like cleaning out your closet.  You look at what’s there, take inventory (probably finding some surprises along the way), clear away what no longer fits, tidy up the space, and then put it back together in a new way.  

When it’s all done, the newfound empty space one of the best parts.  Emptiness is inspiring. Suddenly, the space feels bigger and brighter.  Anything feels possible.

Coaching works in a similar way.  We look at the spaces in our lives and our minds (and sometimes our actual closets) to see what’s stopping up the flow of energy, crowding the space, or getting in the way of what we want.

Where is clutter creating static and chaos?  What are we holding onto that would be better for us to release?  What possibilities would step forward if they had space to move and expand?   

Because in order to create a new thing for ourselves, we need room to move.  We need clear, open spaces for our creativity to flow, for our imagination to roam, and for our intuition to deepen and expand.  

Our dominant culture fears emptiness, so we’re often encouraged to fill our lives, homes, and brains to brim.  But emptiness is a delight. It’s blank canvas for our creativity that invites mystery and possibility.

So where in your life are you craving empty, open space, and how might you create even the tiniest bit of it in your home, your mind, or your life?

Take up Space!

There’s a great scene in “Knock Down the House” – a Netflix documentary that follows 4 women running for Congress in 2018 – where Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is preparing for a debate against her opponent, Joe Crowley, the district’s incumbent of 20 years. 

She sets down her notes and says, “I need to take up space,” as she reaches out and waves her arms.  She takes a deep breath and says, “I am experienced enough to do this; I am prepared enough, mature enough, and brave enough to do this.  And this whole time, he’s going to tell me I can’t do this – that I’m small, little, young, inexperienced,” and then she extends her arms with a sharp exhale, as though she’s pushing all of that away from her.

I love this scene because moments later in the debate, you feel only the strength of her energy and presence.  You would never guess that she felt anything other than confident and ready for the moment.

I love that we see her fear, uncertainty, and vulnerability but then also see her step through all of it to claim her place on the world stage.

Watching her process reminded me that it takes copious amounts of inner work, energy management, self-talk, and intentional practice to build a capacity to command energy and take up space like that.  It takes staring down your terror, building belief, and staying devoted to your deep reasons.

For Alex, the world benefited enormously from her willingness to take up space, but it didn’t give her that permission.  Even as others encouraged her, she had to be the one to believe she deserved to be there and then step up and forward to claim it.

All of this was a reminder, inspiration, and challenge for me.  And that’s the beautiful thing about taking up space and claiming your bigness: it inspires other people to do the same.  And that is a gift for the world. 

Cultivating Devotion over Perfection

One of my best practices for overcoming my perfectionist tendencies is to cultivate a mindset of devotion.

For me, this means remembering that creativity, at its core, is about a commitment I’m making to myself and to my process of *becoming a person who creates consistently*, no matter the outcome.

So rather than getting stuck on one small part, trying to make my creations perfect, or obsessing over merits and metrics, I remember I’m *creating a body of work*. 

And a body of work requires me to keep moving, keep trying, and keep creating – in a spirit of devotion.

This gets me in a headspace of remembering that creativity is an ongoing, unfolding practice of becoming and stepping into stretchy identities (writer, artist, coach, etc.) – so if I’m creating and moving forward, this means I’m already succeeding and meeting my goals.

So when I put something out into the world and it falls flat or when I try something new and I fail or when I feel like my creative magic has disappeared, I return to this question: what am I most devoted to?  What am I trying to create for myself at the deepest level?  These questions help me find my way back to something good and true for me.

My own commitment is to live an out-loud, alive, creative life.  What’s yours?  And how it that vision guiding your life, process, and day-to-day?

Sinking into Time

I used to see time as a static, uncomplicated resource. I have 24 hours in a day, and there’s nothing more to it than that.

But lately, I’ve been exploring the depths of time.

This is the way I’m starting to see it: there is a limited width to linear time – a minute is a minute – but there’s also a depth inside of that linear time that’s available to us as a resource.

As I’m tracking my own relationship with time, I’m asking myself: is my experience of time more like sinking into something good, deep, and satisfying, or is it more like trying to outrun something (a deadline, an outcome, my own feelings)?

I’ve found I can only ever sink into time if I’m also grounded in my body. My body is my way into deep time.

It also helps to shift my focus from managing my time to managing my attention. Because in my experience, the quantity of time I have to work with matters less than the intentional focus I give and bring to what’s present.

How about you? How do you relate to time, as well as to yourself within the time you have? How do you sink into a moment and take advantage of the depths available to you there?

Confronting the Lies

I think it’s important to remember that the dominant culture we live in lies to us on a regular basis – about who we are, what’s real and what matters, how we “should” live and spend our energies, what’s within the realm of possibility, etc.

And I believe we need to name and call this out because lying and manipulation are abusive tactics (whether those abusers are people, institutions, or systems). Denying reality, deflecting responsibility, and unilaterally defining the narrative are all ways of maintaining power and control over others.

There’s also lying in the form of gaslighting, which is the strategy of using lies and manipulation to destabilize another person’s sense of reality by telling them over and over again that their perception and memory are wrong (and can’t be trusted) to create a sense of separation from their embodied knowing and inner truth (often in a very direct way, like telling someone they left the oven on when it was the abuser who turned it back on – or hiding their keys and pretending to help them look).

And because we sort of expect people to tell the truth unless they have a compelling reason not to, a steady stream of lies can be super disorienting and eventually make us question our own experience, memory, and sanity.

There are nuances to the ways abuse happens on interpersonal, institutional, and systemic levels, but a common goal of these tactics, whoever/whatever employs them, is to maintain a power dynamic of control over another person through confusion, disorientation, and disconnection.

Systems of oppression do this; capitalism does this - because if we’re confused and ungrounded, we’re easier to control and more vulnerable to suggestion because we’re seeking that equilibrium and solidity wherever we can find it after being pushed off our center.

And in such a reality, getting grounded in our bodies and developing strategies of deepening into self-trust, personal power, and embodied truth are essential (and radical) practices.

Calling out lies and manipulative tactics when we see them is an essential practice.

Telling our stories and speaking our truths are essential practices.

Seeking out support, affirmation, and connection are essential practices.

Engaging in these practices of embodiment, truth-telling, and self-trust are not only essential for our own well-being; they also disrupt systems that depend on lies and other abusive tactics to maintain the status quo and create spaces in which abuse is named, challenged, and resisted.

So when we trust and love ourselves - when we tune in to our deep, embodied knowing - we create more flourishing, not only for ourselves but also for others and for the world.

Finding Our Way Back

Getting off track is part of the process.

This is what I try to remind myself when I’m frustrated with my progress, or when I’ve fallen (yet again) into the grooves and patterns I’ve been trying to unlearn.

I remind myself that we forget so that we can remember.  And that it’s the work of going back in, returning to the practices I know work for me, and trying again that deepens transformation.

When we learn (again) what we already know, we’re building resiliency and capacity.

So there’s an opportunity in these moments of failure and frustration to remember that living a good life isn’t about doing it perfectly or always staying on track – it’s about finding our way back and developing practices of pausing, noticing, and returning to what we know in those hard moments.

So if things go awry, no need to panic!  You have what you need to take that first step back toward where you want to be.

Our Right to Imperfection

I believe we all have the right to make mistakes. Not just that we have made mistakes and will make them again, but that we have the right to make them. We have the right to not be perfect.

It’s a common abusive tactic (as I’ve seen via my DV advocacy work) to blame victims for their abuse by pointing out their mistakes as the reason for that abuse. I’ve spoken with lots of survivors who take ownership of what isn’t theirs (like responsibility for the abuse) because they’ve internalized this idea that mistakes warrant punishment, and that they’re only true, legitimate victims if they’re perfect and faultless. They talk about how they started an argument, stirred up drama, cheated, or fucked up something important – as if any of that was justification for violence.

Abusers demand perfection from their victims, but at the same time, they secretly want failure – because the mistakes are what give them justification (in their minds) for their abusive behavior. Their victim’s imperfections are a way to maintain power and control.

And one of the reasons this works so well as an abusive tactic is because of the ways our culture demands perfection from victims of abuse and violence (especially if the victim has a marginalized identity) – and demands perfection in general and punishes and shames mistakes, failures, and imperfections, rather than engaging them in a meaningful, productive, and life-affirming way.

We can take responsibility for our mistakes and do a deep accounting of behavior we regret without making that mean something about our worthiness and deservedness; we can apologize, change, and move forward without punishing ourselves, submitting to another’s authority, or subjecting ourselves to harm.

Our mistakes ask things of us and invite us into processes of reconciliation, learning, and growing, but our mistakes never strip us of our human sovereignty and should never be used as justification for harm or abuse.

When I remember I have the right to make mistakes, I feel freer to try, risk, and live big. I feel more grace toward myself and others, and more understanding and compassion around what we’re all trying to do and become in messy and imperfect circumstances.

Who Benefits?

One of my best tools for self-love is this simple question: who benefits?

I get political with my self-love. I think about everyone who benefits from my self-hatred – all the CEO’s getting rich off our collective insecurities, the systems of oppression fueled and bolstered by the lies we internalize, abusive people who manipulate our self-doubt for their own ends.

This is the way I see it: if I’m not enjoying and spending and reveling in and claiming my own aliveness, someone else is using that life-force energy for their own agenda.

And remembering this gets me back on track real quick.

Think about it: when you’re busy calling yourself a failure, criticizing your body, or telling yourself you’re not enough – where is that energy going? Not into your deep passions or desires, not into your creativity, not into your voice (which the world definitely needs, by the way).

And no shame or blame around this - it makes sense that lots of us struggle with self-love, body image, and positive self-regard. We live in toxic systems that tell us lies about ourselves and the world and do all sorts of things to turn us against ourselves and each other.

But self-love is our work. And I believe that work is one of the most important journeys we walk in this lifetime.

I don’t believe any of us are here to objectify, judge, or criticize ourselves. I believe we’re here to step into our bodies and into the current of our aliveness. We’re here to claim and enjoy and spend our life-force. We’re here to choose ourselves.

I know we’re all on this journey together, and I send all my love, support, and encouragement to my fellow travelers, along with my own commitment to never give up on this self-love quest. I hope all of you join me on that journey. 

The Power of Desire

Desire is a powerful resource, and it’s an energy I’m always trying to connect with and draw on in my own life.  I often ask myself: how’s my desire doing, and how’s my relationship with my desire doing?

Because it matters how I respond to my desire.  It matters what I do with that energy pulling me forward into what I most want.

I’ve experienced the power of channeling my desire into imagination and creation and movement, just as I’ve experienced the destruction of pushing my desire away or making my desire mean that I’ll never reach what I want, that I’m not worthy of what I most yearn for, or that my desire is pointing toward the impossible.

Desire is a powerful force – and whether that’s a force for creation and aliveness or for destruction and despair largely depends on my relationship with it and my response to it.

This is some of what I’ve found helpful in cultivating a more positive and powerful relationship with my desire:

1. Affirm and celebrate desire when it comes up.  Because it’s sort of amazing to want things and be fueled by that wanting.  My desire means I’m alive, and it’s a gift I am free to use and work with to create, grow, and deepen into my life.

1. Celebrate the ways desire has pulled you forward into beauty, creativity, and growth.  I know my desire has prompted me to do things my fear would have preferred I definitely not do: get on a plane and travel to another country alone, go on that first date, publish and share my creative work.  Without desire, none of that awesomeness would have happened.  Think back.  What has your desire done for you?

1. Get familiar with your desire.  How does it feel in your body?  What are its different shades, textures, and energies?  How does it ripple through your life?

So what do you want?  Where’s your desire pulling you next?  I hope that as you explore and lean into your own desire, you also feel into the power, possibility, and creativity that exists within it and lives within you.

Lessons from 5 Years Meditating

I remembered this week that it’s been over 5 years since I started meditating!

Meditation was something that intrigued me long before I made it a habit, but I couldnever carve out the time or summon the patience to make it happen. Until one day, I just decided it was time. And today, meditation is one of my non-negotiable daily practices.

Meditation sounds fancy (or at least, it sounded super fancy to me before I was doing it). But it’s not. It’s simple and ordinary and grounding and frustrating. It often feels like a waste of time.

My approach to meditation has changed a lot in the past 5 years, along with my reasons for doing it, but overall, this is what it gives me: an experience of my own humanness.

That experience is sometimes transcendent, sometimes boring, sometimes painful – but it’s always real, and it’s always grounding.

Because nothing gets me in touch with my raw, empty humanity as much as sitting in silence trying to settle my energy and get grounded in my body.

Looking at it now, meditation is really just a practice of pausing, noticing, experiencing, and checking in with myself (and learning not to be afraid of what I’ll find there).

And the reason I keep doing it, the reason it’s been so worthwhile, is because it deepens my capacity to be with emptiness, discomfort, and uncertainty – and helps me see and remember the truth of about myself: that I have a body, a mind, and wild collection of emotions, that I’m immensely powerful and creative; that I’m going to die (and that’s okay), and that there’s more to the nothingness and emptiness than we think.

So I’m celebrating 5 years of devotion to this practice that works for me! And I wish everyone success in finding, maintaining, and deepening into practices that give you life, joy, and goodness.

Hard Emotions as a Path to Bigness

One of the most toxic messages we've learned from the culture (speaking generally and collectively) is that we should feel good and happy 100% of the time and if we're not, something has gone terribly wrong.

I know I've fallen into this lie, and I know where it has led me: to spiritual bypassing, denial, fragmentation, and smallness.

I also know that feeling hard emotions is a powerful act of realness, self-love, and power.

Every time I do it, it reminds me I'm big enough and brave enough to do hard things and feel hard things, and this deepens my experience of life.

Of course, there are things I can do alleviate emotional suffering (mostly working through my thoughts and stories that create them), but this is always after I feel and allow what's present and real in the moment.

(And also: sometimes our emotions have no deep reason and just want to be felt so they can move on).

Embracing this both/and in my emotional life and landscape has led to so much goodness and richness because in the process, the good emotions have a deeper, vaster space to land and be absorbed in my system because there's more room for everything and everyone - the sadness and the joy, the frustration and the delight, the fear and the comfort.

And all of it together makes for a rich and deep life and a big and brave self.

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.

Power vs. Control

Power vs. Control

This was a topic that came up on a coaching call today that led to a rich discussion.

Words mean different things to different people, but to this person, control was about force, pushing, and extremes, while power was about both/and, groundedness, and capacity.

Control was about fear. Power was about love.

In a world in which we experience hard things and where there is so much beyond our control, power asks to deepen into the infinity within our own borders and reminds us that there is always possibility we can create with our own magic and within our own being.

The beautiful thing about power is that it's big enough to hold the hard stuff (whereas control seeks smallness by pushing all the bad stuff away until we too shrink into oblivion).

There is power in presence - in not abandoning ourselves when things get hard (so we won't have to experience the hard thing).

Power reminds us that there are things within us (mystery, beauty, magic, and strength) bigger than the hard experiences and emotions that are passing through.

Paradoxically, the hard stuff often reminds us of our brilliance and strength - that we can be in the both/and and find our power and aliveness in that space.