Changing Everything

May 24, 2021 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality

If you want to learn about a culture, listen to the stories.

If you want to change a culture, change the stories.

This quote by Michael Margolis speaks volumes. It can be thought of on a wide-scale level: our culture, as a whole. But it is equally applicable and important at an individual level.

Maybe most concisely stated like this:

If you want to change, change your stories.

 

When I began working with the ancient, sacred stories I love, I became crystal clear about what made me crazy and super-frustrated with how their stories had been told over thousands of years: Deeply-ingrained patterns layered onto the page and in between the lines that shamed women who had opinions or used their voice, that believed women to be dangerous who were different, that kept women contained so that they did not disrupt systems of (or persons with) power.

When I looked closer still, something else became crystal clear: what made me crazy and super-frustrated with their stories was exactly what made me feel the same about my own.

MY story was made up of deeply-ingrained patterned beliefs that found me withholding my opinions and quieting my voice, opting to not be different (and certainly not dangerous), to not disrupt the system or upset the apple cart; instead, to play by the rules, be good, stay inside the lines.

That had to change. I had to change. Everything had to change.

 

Truth-be-told, I found it far easier to change stories that are thousands of years old, than to do the same with my own. I could endlessly talk about Eve (which I continue to do) – praising her for eating the fruit, listening to the serpent, following her desire, and honoring her own wisdom. But to do that for myself? To tell and live that story? Much, much harder. And…ongoing; a life’s work, to be sure.

As I’ve remained committed to reimagining, retelling, and redeeming ancient, sacred stories, I’ve worked to do the same for myself. And I’ve learned a few things along the way:

  • The stories we’ve been told, the way they’ve been told, live deep within us. Sometimes for good; sometimes, not so much. 

  • Those stories (and the lessons within) turn into the stories we tell ourselves – the inner-voice that constantly reminds us we are too much, not enough, potentially both. 

  • When we listen to these stories, name them, acknowledge them honestly, and choose to change them, we can then begin the work and practice of telling and living the stories we desire and deserve. 

Every bit of this is sacred practice; responsibility, privilege, and gift. It’s also the most important thing we can possibly do.

 

When we change our stories, we change everything.

 

And perhaps it’s dangerous and disruptive to say so, but changing everything is what matters most, what’s required of us, what we’re called to – for ourselves and for our world.

May it be so.

 

*****

 

The process and practice I have developed with ancient, sacred stories (and my own) is probably the most concise way for me to describe what my 1:1 work is about: inviting you to name the stories that have made you you, then helping you reimagine and rewrite them in ways that empower, embolden, and, well, change everything!

I currently have space for new clients. Book a free, 30-minute call with me. No pressure or obligation – just a chance to chat (which I’d LOVE).

 

*****

 

Photo by S O C I A L . C U T on Unsplash

Steps that count vs. counting steps

May 3, 2021 | Hope & Encouragement, My sort-of Sermons, Sovereignty, Women's Wisdom

I have an Apple Watch that I rarely wear. It enables me to count my steps which, on good days, encourages me, but on less-than-good ones has me feeling less-than-good about myself, even though I did take steps, did actually move, did get up from my desk at least a few times! Still, it’s this latter reality that keeps me from wearing the watch at all.

I don’t like feeling like the steps I have taken don’t count. 

It strikes me that courage is a lot like this:

On good days, I’m more than happy to count all the ways that I’ve demonstrated it, held fast to it, remained committed. I can see the ways in which it is moving me toward my goals…and then some. But on less-than-good days I can’t take much pleasure in any steps…even though they absolutely exist because they don’t seem like enough, I’ve not taken enough of them, they’re not spectacular or Watch-worthy!

*sigh*

We often feel like courage has to be ginormous, amazing, bigger than life, cliff-jumping-esque. Certainly, such displays and experiences of courage do exist. But if they become the standard (like the bare-minimum of 10k steps), we become disheartened by anything less; worse, we become disappointed in ourselves.

So, what’s the alternative? What’s the non-Apple-Watch version of courage?

Any step at all matters, even (and maybe especially) the tiniest and most incremental.

Tiny steps of courage make an amazing difference and enable the kind of ongoing movement, transformation, and change you desire and deserve.

An example:

I used to get super-irritated at myself when I wouldn’t just say what I actually felt, speak my mind, tell my truth. I spent an inordinate amount of time in my head – spinning about with thoughts like:

  • If I say what I actually think and feel, all hell will break loose. (But wait! This IS what I think and feel! Shouldn’t I be able to express that, no matter what?)
  • They won’t be able to handle it – or me. (If they can’t handle me, why is that my problem?)
  • It’s only going to make things worse; I need to figure out another way through this issue or problem or reality. (Why am I still deliberating about this? Really?!?)

And this spinning, this craziness? Milliseconds. The list was far longer, believe me – and endlessly on repeat.

One day I decided to experiment with something, just a little thing, the tiniest promise to myself:

Just one time today, you will tell the truth. Just one time today you will align your inner thoughts with your outer words/actions. Just once. That’s all. Nothing more is required. 

Amazingly, I did it! And miracle of miracles, the world did not come crashing down around me. Some days were harder than others, to be sure, but still, I survived them. And even more amazing? Over time I realized that I my capacity to demonstrate courage was building, getting stronger – like a muscle. Those tiniest of steps began to add up. And what at one time had looked like an uncrossable chasm, eventually just required one more tiny step to now be on the other side.

What if you experimented? What if you made a promise to yourself? What if you chose the tiniest, seemingly inconsequential step and then repeated it day after day after day?

That, dear friends, takes courage.

That, dear friends, IS courage.

Any step at all matters, even (and maybe especially) the tiniest and most incremental. 

And when you choose to take those steps, even (and maybe especially) honor them and yourself over and over again? That, dear friends, is sovereignty.

May it be so. 

Amelia Earhart. Agency. Taking action.

Apr 26, 2021 | My sort-of Sermons, Sovereignty, Women's Voice & Power

Amelia Mary Earhart was born July 24, 1897. In her short life, she was the first female aviator to fly solo across the Atlantic Ocean and set many other records. She wrote best-selling books about her flying experiences. And she was instrumental in the formation of The Ninety Nines, an organization of female pilots. After disappearing on July 2, 1937, she was declared dead on January 5, 1939.

As if all that weren’t notable enough, there’s this quote of hers:

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity. The fears are paper tigers. You can do anything you decide to do. You can act to change and control your life; and the procedure, the process is its own reward.

Wow.

 

The word I use for this is “agency” – not only knowing I can choose but actually doing the choosing itself, acting on the decision, taking action.

We have agency. But oh, how tempting to believe otherwise.

I’m a perfect case study.

I love to deliberate, to consider all the options, to weigh every pro and con, to journal, to reflect, to be curious, to wonder if I have enough data or resources or wisdom, and to then take every bit of all that pondering (and all that it subsequently invites) as permission to keep my head in the clouds instead of landing the damn plane. 

But as long as I circle, as long as I allow myself to stay in deliberation, I don’t take action.

And why would I choose such a thing?

Easy: fear.

(I’ll keep speaking for myself, but I’m guessing you can relate.)

I fear that if I not only listen to, but actually trust and act on the wisdom that is mine (not all the perseverating, but the deeper know-that-I-know-that-I-know voice within) there will be an onslaught of risks, costs, and consequences that will show up and undoubtedly subsume me. Disaster will befall. Relationships will crumble. The world will come to an end.

Yep. That sounds about right for starters.

Of course there will be risks and costs and consequences to actually trusting and acting on my wisdom! That is always the way of it! It inevitably leads me into brand new territory, change, and transformation. (Which means that people, systems, and institutions around me will have to change, too. Yikes: more risks and costs and consequences!)

What if the awareness of risks and costs and consequences was the very thing that compelled our actions – instead of stopping them?

The best case study?

Back to Amelia Earhart. I’m thinking she was pretty clear on the risks and that those were the very things that kept her going instead of holding her back; that compelled her instead of stopped her.

Right.

So, bottom line?

Amelia Earhart invites you (and me) to choose – and then act on that choice; to decide – and then act on that decision; to acknowledge and USE the agency that’s yours.

Amelia Earhart invites you (and me) to land the damn plane. Or maybe start flying it in the first place! To push the boundaries, the limits, any and every restraint that’s kept you grounded. Say what you feel, what you mean, what you know. Trust your voice (and your wisdom), your creativity, your value, your worth. Be completely, fully, authentically you – all the time.

May it be so. 

 

Wisdom does as Wisdom says

Apr 19, 2021 | My sort-of Sermons, Sovereignty, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power, Women's Wisdom

Women hold all the wisdom they could ever need, that the planet could ever need, that the world so desperately needs.

 

With that bold a statement as start, why then, do we so rarely trust ourselves? Why do we, individually and collectively, know the pain and trauma and anger and mess-of-it-all that we do? Why is the world not already changed, or at least changing faster?

I won’t speak for you, but I am pretty clear on my own answer to these questions:

There’s a vast and painful difference between hearing our wisdom and actually trusting it, between knowing what we know and acting on what we know, between what wisdom says and what wisdom does. 

Why?

We hear our intuition, that know-that-we-know-that-we-know voice within. It’s clear. It’s decisive. It has a very strong opinion! But instead of going with it, making choices in alignment with such, saying a clear “yes” or “no,” we waffle.

And why?

Because to trust our wisdom, to act on it, will – inevitably – have risks, costs, and consequences.

We’re afraid of those.

When fear shows up, the tendency is rife to try and find other wisdom; something that does not have risks, costs, or consequences attached. Which usually means we repress our own knowing and default to the wisdom around us. We look to and lean on those people/institutions/powers (translate white and male) that promise to keep us safe as long as we don’t step out of line, don’t speak our truth, don’t speak at all.

I can type these words because they have been true about me. Decades of growing up in the shadow of the church and an authoritative wisdom that I was not to question. Self-esteem that was shaped by the glorification of self-sacrifice on the one hand and shame on the other (NOT a good combination). And a way of being in the world that was determined by anything/everything other than my own knowing and intuition.

But inevitably, a day came when the gap between what I heard/knew and who I was required to be, grew too wide. I could no longer bridge it with more comprome and compliance. I had to act on my wisdom, to trust it, to trust myself. No matter what.

And no surprise: risks, costs, and consequences abounded!

But there were benefits I couldn’t have imagined, as well: empowerment, discernment, clarity, hope. Even more, the establishment of a baseline: Oh, this is what my wisdom sounds like, feels like, looks like!

Believe me, I’m far from perfect at this. But I have come a long way, have let a lot go, have lost a lot along the way, and have gained far more.

It is a powerful thing: a woman’s wisdom. Following through on it? Life-changing. World-changing. And then some. 

How about for you? (Just a few questions to ponder, journal through, and if you’re up for it, DM me your answers! I’d love to hear: truly.)

  • What would be different in your relationships, your sense of self, your work in the world, if you could consistently hear and trust your wisdom?

  • What is compromise, compliance, and not acting on your wisdom costing you?

  • What might happen if you allowed risk, cost, and consequence to be the very discernment tools that tell you you can trust your wisdom?

  • What is the change you most deeply desire for our world? (Your wisdom already knows what to do. What if you did what it said?)

It has always been needed: women’s wisdom.

And it has always been present.

Now it’s up to us to bring the two together…

…to be women who listen to and trust ourselves. On our own behalf. On behalf of the planet. On behalf of a world that so desperately needs us to not just know, but to “be” and most of all, to do.

 

May it be so.

 

If your stories could talk…

Apr 11, 2021 | My sort-of Sermons, Spirituality

A number of years ago I learned about intertextuality.

It is how one text speaks to or shapes another; how seemingly distinct texts can be in relationship with one another.

Here’s an example: three books stacked together in my home:

  • Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte is the powerful story of a womans moral and spiritual development in 1st-person prose.
  • Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton captures the spirit of a city (and our humanity) through photography.
  • Women is a collection of 170 photographs by Annie Leibovitz with an accompanying essay by Susan Sontag.

If they could talk to each other, imagine the dinner party conversation they’d have.

Jane Eyre and Bronte would talk with Liebowitz and Sontag about all that has changed (and hasn’t) in women’s perceptions of themselves. Stanton would jump in and speak of particular images he took where those very perceptions were what he saw through his lens – and sometimes just the opposite. Sontag, a brilliant critic, would draw everyone’s attention to the larger themes and constructs present in all three of their texts: what we see, what we don’t see, what that says about us.

There would be no end to the things they could discuss! All the ways in which their perspectives and protagonists and photographs and prose would overlap and intertwine. This is intertextuality. You have this kind of dinner party taking place in your life all the time: texts and stories that operate in exactly the same way – overlapping and intertwined and endlessly speaking.

But let’s be honest: we work pretty hard to keep everything compartmentalized and separate. More than opposite ends of the dinner table, we often put our texts and stories in completely different rooms in the house. As example:

  • Your teenage years.
  • Your current Netflix binge.
  • The predominat way in which you “show up” at work.

These are not all at the table together, right? Chances are high that you are pretty determined to keep your teenage self as far away from your work self as you can. Still, let’s acknowledge, shall we, that the two are completely interconnected?

It’s possible that you are pretty sure your viewing habits on Netflix have nothing to do with your past or present. But when you apply the rules of intertextuality (even imagining such) you see they have much in common, much to discuss, and infinite overlap in the most curious and complicated of ways.

It’s possible – and probable – that things can get even more complicated (and noisy) when you add in “guests” like cultural background, family of origin, organized religion, socio-economic status, politics, any number of things that have a tendency to bump into one another at parties, at dinner tables, and certainly within.

I’m not necessarily suggesting that you try to figure out how these particular “texts” speak to one another. (OK. I am actually suggesting that…) More than the details of being a teenager, watching Netflix, and going to work, this is my point:

 

It is necessary and profoundly healing to see the way in which the texts and stories of your life talk to each other all the time.

 

Want another three to consider?

  • The stories you were told growing up.
  • The stories you tell yourself (you know: that endless chatter in your head…)
  • The cultural stories and messaging you injest via social media, all media, the water in which we swim every damn day.

Again, picture the dinner party: Hansel and Gretle, Cinderella, even Eve are making polite and sometimes pointed conversation with your endlessly-chattering inner critic who you know so well. That inner voice, a bit on the defensive, is being assuaged by the latest IG Influencer or targeted FB ad – sitting there in all their slick beauty and endless promise. And later, IG and FB chat away with your childhood stories; their not-so hidden agenda of either reinforcing or rejecting what you’ve believed and held on to all these years.

It’s true: intertextuality is *simply* a conceptual framework; but the stories and texts that are yours (conscious and not, known and unknown) are far more. They are real. They are active. And they shape every bit of who you have been, who you are, and who you will yet become.

Intertextuality, looked at another way, is considering – with depth, compassion, and curiosity – all that makes you who you are: the stories you are proud of and those you try to hide or wish you could evade. It offers you a way of looking at the complexity of your own life – the influences, the influencers, the pain, the joy, the harm, the hope – all of it speaking and speaking and speaking. Because at the end of the day…

You ARE your stories. And they are interacting with each other all the time, whether you take a seat at that imagined dinner table, or not.

So…why not pull up a chair?

 

  • Listen closely to your own texts, your own stories. They usher you into the wisdom and courage that is (already) yours; all that you long to experience and express.
  • Pay close attention to the stories you’ve been told. They help you better understand the stories you continue to tell yourself.
  • Determine, with great intention, the stories you will give credence to, will listen to, will allow and endorse. They create the world  you live in, the one we live in together, the one that is ours to nurture and heal.

None of this is easy. And as you know, few things that are of value rarely are. You are of value, though – worthy of any and every effort on your own behalf. So this is the question to ask again and again and again:

If my stories could talk (which they can and are), what do they have to say?

 

(If nothing else, look at the books on your shelves. Pick a few that are sitting side-by-side, and imagine what they talk about when you’re asleep, what they have to say about you while you sleep and what they hope for you when you’re wide awake. All. So. Delicious.)

Hearing Voices

Apr 5, 2021 | My sort-of Sermons, Sacred Stories, Spirituality, Women's Voice & Power

I am neck-deep in manuscript-writing these days. This book, my book, this thing I’ve been nurturing and holding and holding back for years (and years and years) is now making its way into the world. Much like labor, I can’t stop it now – nor do I want to.  

The section I’m working on currently tells the story of a young woman whose life was violently, brutally ended.

I don’t like the story at all.

I wish it didn’t exist.

There’s no justification of it, no making sense of it.

And though I might wish to just ignore it – to dismiss it as one more piece of evidence against the text within which it’s found – that only perpetuates her harm. Which isn’t acceptable to me.

It is in telling women’s stories – even and maybe especially the most painful ones – that we invite the healing we desire and deserve.

When I calm myself down, at least for a bit, about the injustice and senselessness and violence, I can hear a different voice; I can hear hers. The one that was snuffed out. The one that was permanently silenced. The one we’ve rarely-if-ever bothered to listen to. The one that I imagine she’d speak on our behalf if only we could and would hear.

This is what I believe she’d say:

  • Fear is not your birthright.
  • Do not hold back – no matter the danger or risk.
  • Pursue what brings you life.

I am clear that these three statements are, indeed, the wisdom she longs for all of us to embody – in honor of her sacrifice, in honor of her story, in honor of her, and most of all, in honor of the life and story that is ours.

I am clear that were we to follow these three statements as gospel, it would be our own healing and that of our world that we would enable, invite, witness, and proclaim.

And I am clear that if I were I to imagine her saying even a bit more, it would sound a little something like this:

I’m right about this! Fear is not your birthright. But courage is. Write. Speak. Say. Do. Be. Say “yes.” Say “no.” Quit. Continue. Decide. Whisper. Roar. Love. 

Risk is a given. To try and mitigate it, lessen it, create a balance sheet to show you exactly what might happen if you move this way or that is not the the least bit practical nor remotely close to your destiny. Do not hold back. Let risk and danger be the signs that you are moving in the right direction. And then read the paragraph above over again so that you can remember that fear is not your birthright.

Learn from me. Let my life (and death) offer you invaluable perspective. Cherish every moment. Pursue all that is yours, all that awaits you, all that exists within and around you, all that you desire and deserve. And then read the two paragraphs above over again so that you can remember that fear is not your birthright and you must NOT hold back, no matter the danger or risk!

Of course we wish that stories like hers did not exist, then or now. We must rage (rightly and justifiably) against violence. And in the midst of both, we must honor the voices that can no longer speak, the stories that are rarely if ever told.

We must use our own voices and live our own stories in ways that are courageous and risky and full of life.

 

And when we do? Well, Jepthah’s Daughter smiles and says “Thank you.” Oh, and this:

Read the three paragraphs above over again? And then maybe a few more times? 

With her wisdom as rubric, encouragement, and hope, I labor on – knowing and trusting that the imagined words of even one ancient, sacred young woman might strengthen you in the labor that is yours, in the story that is yours, in all that is yours to birth and live and heal.

May it be so.