Going for a Walk in the Woods

Photo by Lukasz Szmigiel on Unsplash

I’m going to take a break. I’ve enjoyed exploring the pivotal moments of peoples’ lives. I’ve also enjoyed sharing some tools and resources that can help you understand and create those moments in your own life. Thank you for coming along on my explorations.

Now, I want to honor a longing that’s been emerging for some weeks now. I want to step back from a schedule and take time for some slow thinking and slow writing. This will be a pivot for me.

I don’t know where this change in direction will take me, but the most immediate result will be less activity here on Nine Dot Dance. I may pop in with occasional updates, or I may develop a new project to migrate to. If the latter, I’ll leave a guidepost so you can follow along.

I’m looking forward to taking the advice of Svend Brinkmann, from my last post, to “go for a walk in the woods … and think about the vastness of the cosmos.” No doubt, I will write as I journey, and I may share some of the writing as I go. Perhaps I’ll see you on the trail.

A Slice of Heaven to Offset the Burnout

Photo by Davide Cantelli on Unsplash

I’m feeling somewhat dazed these days, overloaded to the edge of burn-out with information on how to make my life and myself better. My thoughts go back, again and again, to a 2018 article in the New Yorker from By Alexandra Schwartz, “Improving Ourselves to Death: What the self-help gurus and their critics reveal about our times.”

Schwartz observes, “We are being sold on the need to upgrade all parts of ourselves, all at once, including parts that we did not previously know needed upgrading.”

She catalogs a collection of books (e.g., The Power of Habit,  SuperBetter, Smarter Better Faster) that sell us on setting goals, creating good habits, and living our life through metrics. And then reminds us, through the writings of Will Storr (Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It’s Doing to Us) that “We’re living in an age of perfectionism, and perfection is the idea that kills. … People are suffering and dying under the torture of the fantasy self they’re failing to become.”

So we’re not perfect and our fixation on getting better isn’t helping – in fact, it’s hurting us. So what’s a dyed-in-the-wool self-improvement junkie to do?

Schwartz suggests following the advice of Svend Brinkmann, in his book Stand Firm: Resisting the Self-Improvement Craze. Brinkmann sees the issue as a spiritual one, which relies on focusing outside of the self for resolution. Schwartz writes, “Brinkmann doesn’t care so much how we feel about ourselves. He cares how we act toward others. His book is concerned with morality, which tends to get short shrift in the self-improvement literature. He likes old-fashioned concepts: integrity, self-control, character, dignity, loyalty, rootedness, obligation, tradition. Above all, he exhorts us to do our duty.”

These ideas sound particularly grounding during this perfect storm of a global pandemic, economic upheaval, and social unrest.

His advice, via Schwartz: “Go for a walk in the woods … and think about the vastness of the cosmos. Go to a museum and look at art, secure in the knowledge that it will not improve you in any measurable way. Things don’t need to be of concrete use in order to have value. Put away your self-help guides, and read a novel instead.”

Sounds like heaven. I think I’ll try a slice.

Falling into a Healthy Hole

Holly’s Healthy Holes (photo by Holly Wiest)

Today I’m offering a tiny glimpse of a woman whose work I admire, but which I haven’t even tried yet. Holly Wiest, of Holly’s Healthy Holes in Omaha, makes high protein, healthy donuts. (If you can believe that!) I take it on faith (and the recommendation of my friend Susan) that the donuts are as good as they sound.

Holly tells about her “why” on her Facebook page:

It’s been a minute since I did one of those long heartfelt posts about who I am and why I make donuts. I think it’s important not only for ME to stay connected to my purpose, but to remind you of my mission… because it’s not so much about donuts, but this vision of empower[ing] you in your health goals, and story about what I’ve learned in my own health journey is really what you are really following and standing behind.⁣
⁣
Today, I could be personal training like I did during the first year and a half of growing this as a “side hustle”, because it allowed me to connect with women over something so important to me— their health and their heart (which was really an excuse for me to health coach them and talk about nutrition).⁣
⁣
I could be serving domestic beers and wings like I did when I was balancing 3 serving jobs at once to put food in my belly as I built the project. I could be cleaning hotel rooms and truck stops like I did at nights and to make extra money because I wasn’t paying myself at all.⁣
⁣
Today, I could be taking care of your disabled neighbor like I did when I was dreaming up ways to make a difference in the lives of others and serve my community. I could be supervising the youth group home like I did when I was working on my health coaching certificate and realized I needed an outlet to work with girls only, and heal the mother wound inside of myself and others. I could be filming weddings like I did in my first small business venture with my ex-husband, where I learned so much about story-telling, media, natural light and what it means to listen to your heart. I could be caretaking the infant room like I loved to do after I got home from the USMC and battled my depression and fought for my recovery from my eating disorder. I could be writing promotions and sending out mail like I did in the Marine Corps when I enlisted when I was 17 because I didn’t want my parents to be able to tell me “no” anymore and I believed I could prove everyone I was capable of anything. I could be detasling corn like I voluntarily did when I was 14, which gave me the type of work ethic I needed to start becoming the woman I am today.⁣

I often get caught in up the conversation in my mind about all the things I should or shouldn’t be doing, all the ways I procrastinate too much or allow my anxiety to stop me from taking action on the next big move. I hear the conversation charged by the idea I never did enough.

I never went to college, I don’t have any degree. In any other universe I could have chosen not to follow my fears and to let the story I was told by my anxiety, eating disorder, addiction, self doubt to allow me to not come out and play full force.

But I didn’t. I chose to use my pain as a platform and my experience as fuel to propel me toward something bigger. I chose to do the work. And every day I choose to continue pushing forward.

My mission is to LISTEN to you speak about the foods that make you feel best and light you up, EMPOWER you in that journey to make yourself stronger through you own individual ideals about food, and PROVIDE options for you to have fun and sustain the process. My hope is that I can make a difference for that little girl, that young woman, that person who needs to know what you’re doing is enough, and this story your writing can be the rock bottom you build your beautiful life on. Start the biz, sis.

There isn’t any more I can add to this, except: So glad you’re doing the thing that lights you up, Holly. You’re better for it; we’re all better for it.

Make a Tough Decision in 4 Minutes

Photo by Jens Lelie on Unsplash

Sometimes the decisions are easy: Two free tickets to Paris for a week? I’m in. You want me to serve on the clean-up committee again? No thank you. But sometimes the choice isn’t so obvious. It’s complicated or it’s an opportunity that has great possibilities for growth, but will take a real commitment of time and effort. It’s tough to make a decision when both want it and we don’t.

Dr. Kerry Ann Rockquemore, founder of the National Center for Faculty Development and Diversity, offers this 4-step process for faculty who are thinking about enrolling in the organization’s Faculty Boot Camp. It’s a simple method you can use any time you need clarity in making a decision.

The 4-Minute Method to Resolve Ambivalence

1. Get in touch with your inner wisdom. Be still, close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths through the nose. This helps you to be open to your inner self, inner wisdom, voice of God – whatever you call it.
2. Stand in the future as if you decided for something. Set a timer for two minutes. Imagine the decision has been made. You decided to go for it. Now it’s months down the road and you’ve completed the project. What does your life look like? What do your confidence, productivity, relationships, health, and emotional state look like? How do you feel about that?
3. Stand in the future as if you decided against something. Set a timer for another two minutes. Imagine the decision has been made. You decided to decline the opportunity. Now it’s months down the road and you’ve proceeded on your previous path. What does your life look like? What do your confidence, productivity, relationships, health and emotional state look like? How do you feel about that?
4. You cannot pour from an empty cup. At the end your reflections, consider which decision feels more appealing. Sometimes, yes feels better and sometimes no. And sometimes an alternative answer arises. If you aren’t able to imagine yourself in the future, it’s probably a no. If you can’t tap into your inner wisdom, where you know what’s best, that is a powerful awareness in and of itself.

And finally, my own advice if you want that last bit of reassurance you’re making the right choice: Flip a coin. Not to see whether it’s heads or tails, but to see how you feel when the decision is made for you.

For a deeper dive into the process, read Rockquemore’s article and watch her short video.

 

 

 

Is There a Place for Service?

Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan

I take in so many messages in the books and articles I read, and the social media examples I see that tell me to be great or do big things. It’s an appealing idea, that promises the rewards of recognition, accolades, perhaps even money, power, or fame. But there is another way to live. To avoid the limelight, to seek out the quiet, humble life of service. Would that be enough? Can that bring fulfillment?

I was thinking of Helen Keller recently. An author, activist, and lecturer who was deaf and blind, she traveled broadly, campaigning for causes like women’s suffrage, labor rights, socialism, antimilitarism. We know Keller and admire her spirit of determination in the face of difficult circumstances. She could be a case study for the likes of Angela Duckworth, in her best-seller, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, or for any one of a number of authors who have rediscovered the philosophies of the Stoics.

Keller lived a dynamic and high-profile life. Her passion and resolve in the face of obstacles offer the prototypical self-made story of the heroic individual that we Americans have always loved. But when I think of Helen Keller, I also think of her teacher and companion Anne Sullivan. Sullivan, whose story played out in the shadow of Keller’s, overcame many obstacles herself. Losing her sight at age five and an orphan by the age of eight, she spent her early years in an almshouse in Tewksbury, Massachusetts, that was later investigated for reports of cruelty, including sexually perverted practices and cannibalism.

Eventually, the two lives became intertwined when Sullivan was hired as a teacher by Keller’s parents. Both Keller and Sullivan wrote separately of a critical moment in their shared life when Helen first grasped the fundamental idea of language – that every object has a unique name. Here is Sullivan’s side of the story, told in a letter to her friend Sophia Hopkins:

In a previous letter I think I wrote you that “mug” and “milk” had given Helen more trouble than all the rest. She confused the nouns with the verb “drink.” She didn’t know the word for “drink,” but went through the pantomime of drinking whenever she spelled “mug” or “milk.” This morning, while she was washing, she wanted to know the name for “water.” When she wants to know the name of anything, she points to it and pats my hand. I spelled “w-a-t-e-r” and thought no more about it until after breakfast. Then it occurred to me that with the help of this new word I might succeed in straightening out the “mug-milk” difficulty. We went out to the pump-house, and I made Helen hold her mug under the spout while I pumped. As the cold water gushed forth, filling the mug, I spelled “w-a-t-e-r” in Helen’s free hand. The word coming so close upon the sensation of cold water rushing over her hand seemed to startle her. She dropped the mug and stood as one transfixed. A new light came into her face. She spelled “water” several times. Then she dropped on the ground and asked for its name and pointed to the pump and the trellis, and suddenly turning round she asked for my name. I spelled “Teacher.” Just then the nurse brought Helen’s little sister into the pump-house, and Helen spelled “baby” and pointed to the nurse. All the way back to the house she was highly excited, and learned the name of every object she touched, so that in a few hours she had added thirty new words to her vocabulary.

Keller, in her autobiography, The Story of My Life, described the moment’s significance:

I stood still, my whole attention fixed upon the motions of her fingers. Suddenly I felt a misty consciousness as of something forgotten — a thrill of returning thought; and somehow the mystery of language was revealed to me. I knew then that w-a-t-e-r meant the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand. The living word awakened my soul, gave it light, hope, set it free!

Keller’s dramatic moment of understanding could not have happened without the dedicated intention of her caring teacher. These two lives, so entwined, provide worthy examples both for those who would live a life of bold action as well as for those who would humbly serve. Perhaps in one life we may do both. But we do have a choice, and both choices are worth pursuing.

A COVID Game

Photo by David Garrido on Unsplash

Okay, we went through that crazy scramble last spring of COVID becoming real. We transitioned to working and schooling from home. We stocked our pantries and snagged whatever toilet paper we could find. We made or bought face masks. We isolated with books and Netflix, we made sourdough, and we hunkered down.,

Spring warmed to summer and the COVID hot spot in New York eased. We poked our heads out like a turtle from a shell and thought, maybe, just maybe, things might be getting back to normal.

But not so fast. The new hot spots in Florida, Texas, and Arizona are telling us to pull back on the reins. COVID is still here and we can’t just wish it away. It’s discouraging to realize that the disruption and fear will continue for who knows how long. If you’re like me, most of the time you feel like you’re managing the constant upheaval. But then the bad days come it’s hard to regain your equilibrium.

Here’s a game that can help. M.K. Mueller, author of 8 to Great: How to Take Charge of Your Life and Make Positive Changes Using an 8-Step Breakthrough Process, offered it on her podcast. It can help shift your thoughts from the negative – the worries, the frustration, and the sadness of missing all the things that bring us joy but which the pandemic has put on hold. It takes just five minutes and you can play it by yourself, with a friend, or with a group. Here’s how to play (with some paraphrasing of Mueller’s scenario):

Imagine you’re asleep in a hotel room and you’re awakened by the sound of planes overhead. They are bombing your city! Your coworker, in the next room, bangs on the door and says, “We have to get out of here!”

You run from the building and down the street, eventually running off the road into a heavily wooded area. You go into the woods and find a cave. The coworker tells you to go inside, where you’ll be safe, and wait there until the bombing stops for three days in a row. He takes off his backpack and leaves it with you.

You sit, clutching the backpack, while you wait for the bombing to stop. As daylight arrives, you see further into the cave. There’s a spring with clear water, and in the backpack you find clothes, some food and a blanket. Days pass, and as you wait, you sing every song and pray every prayer you know.

After many days, the coworker returns with more rations and tells you your family is safe. He also brings you three gifts you are so grateful for, you hug him. What are those three gifts? (Write them down fast – don’t overthink it. They should be physical gifts – not a person, nor a quality, like hope or grit.)

After he leaves, you take a bite out of a sausage he brought, and it tastes like heaven. Later that night, you sleep better than you have in weeks.

Another week goes by and the bombing continues, but you keep trusting that your friend is safe and has taken your family to a safe place.

Then one day, he visits again, and brings the very best gift imaginable. What is it?

One person who played this game said a phone, so he could talk with his loved ones. Others said a Bible, or a radio that works on batteries, or a newspaper with good news.

What gifts did you describe? As you review your list, you’ll probably discover that everything you wrote down was something you already have. The phone and newspaper and the Bible – they may even be within arm’s reach. This game reminds us to focus on what we have – those important things that really matter – rather than on what’s missing.

When so much is changing all around us, perhaps shifting our own perspective can give us just the right antidote to bring us some peace.

She Blogs for Personal Fulfilment (and Money)

Photo by Suzy Hazelwood from Pexels

 

I love a good success story. I especially love a good blogging success story. I recently found Rosemarie Groner’s Busy Budgeter site, through Ruth Soukup‘s Elite Blog Academy and “Do it Scared” podcast. It’s Rosemarie’s blogging story – not her household tips – that captures my imagination.

Rosemarie started her career as a state trooper, but when her son was born, she decided to stay at home with him. She financed this path by setting up a daycare in her home. This new way of life required that she and her husband focus on reducing their debt and cut their spending. They were, as she puts it “a financial mess. … We spent a fortune in groceries, only to let them rot in the fridge when we got busy and had to eat out. Our sink was always piled high with dishes, making it hard to cook at home, and we tried everything to stop spending so much money only to fail time and time again.”

After lots of trial and error, she and her husband developed a strategy that combined budgeting and home management. They organized their home, paid off their debt and cut their spending. She was so excited about their progress, she was telling everyone she met. Some people weren’t interested, but many were because they faced the same problems.

To get the information out more effectively, Rosemarie decided to start a blog. With a little help from Soukup’s Elite Blog Academy, she learned how to do it right and her blog took off. She’s now at 18 million readers and has been featured in Forbes, Fox Business, Motley Fool, Country Living, and Entrepreneur.

It hasn’t been all moonlight and roses. Groner has worked hard, made mistakes, and suffered setbacks, just like anyone. But her achievement is notable and worth emulating. I would be thrilled to have 18 readers myself, let alone 18 million. But hey, it’s something to work toward, right?

All You Need Is …

 

Are the comics supposed to make you cry? Thanks to Stephan Pastis, today’s answer for me is Yes.

Pearls Before Swine, by Stephan Pastis

I can’t add much to his idea except to say that, hands down, love is the best resource out there for bettering your own life or the lives of others. For those you already like and respect, it may already show up in familiar ways – a small act of kindness, a well-placed joke, a bit of genuine curiosity about how they’re doing. And there’s no reason it can’t show up in those ways for the people who are harder to like. Give it a try and see what you discover.

 

Where Are We Now?

Photo by Esther Wilhelmsson on Unsplash

So this guy did this kinda crazy thing and I love it. Dan Kois walked every block of his zip code and cataloged the house numbers. I found the story on Rob Walker’s The Art of Noticing blog, which celebrates the joy of seeing the details around you.

But anyway, back to Kois. He discovered, perhaps only after walking all 1,114 blocks of his zip code during the pandemic this spring, that “The numbers on your house do more than identify your address for the postman; deployed properly, like the perfect pair of earrings, house numbers accentuate a harmonious visual message in concert with the design around them.”

But it’s not the data gathered by Kois that intrigues. I’m with Walker, who flat out states, “What I love is the undertaking. First, because who doesn’t appreciate a crazily obsessive project like this? Second, because he came up with some pretty fun insights — from the big-picture implications of serif vs. sans serifs patterns and their associations, to smaller observations all the way down to instances of bad kerning.”

The commitment to noticing. That’s what makes this project fun, even creative. And from Kois’s casual observations came a deeper perception. “Walking every street in my ZIP code helped me truly see, for the first time, the place where I live and the people who live here.”

Keep Your Foot on the Gas

@calirock

I’m sharing this message from artist Cali Rockowitz. It came to me from a friend as we discussed what we could do to support the Black Lives Matter movement. You can find Rockowitz on Instagram at @Calirock. Be forewarned, her site has nudity and sexually explicit images. And the F-bomb.

But this message of inclusion and provocation gave me what I needed. So now I’m posting a little, reading a lot, and looking for opportunities to move forward in my own lane.

See you at the revolution!