Questioning Thoughts

Or “It Ain’t True, Darlin’ ”

It shouldn’t have bothered me. My excuse is that I was tired and stressed and helping with that particular project was one of the things I’d enjoyed the most about this volunteer gig. So when, for maybe the third time, I was told I wasn’t needed to help anymore, I decided I was being dismissed because I was too slow, not as accurate as I thought, and so forth.

dinosaur costumes

A bit later I laughed at myself. This was a classic example of letting other’s words get me down. In retrospect, I didn’t even know if their words were about me. Perhaps the whole project was already under control (it certainly worked in the end). Perhaps the organizers were feeling stressed and saying “no” made them feel more in control. Shoot – maybe I threatened them (that has happened, not sure why). 

One of the hardest things to understand is that what we think about things isn’t actually real. It is just what our mind is saying about whatever the “fact” or event is. Our minds process what’s happening so we can make sense of it and to keep us safe. My default response to what I hear as negative comments is an explanation of why I’m inadequate. Inadequacy is my default safe place. While that sounds negative, think about it. For me, even though I think I’d like to be seen as fabulous, I’ve never been physically harmed when I’ve felt inadequate.

Perhaps your default is to be right or self-righteous. Whatever your default response, it is a feeling that helps you feel comfortable. It feels safe and familiar, even if part of you wishes you reacted differently. For me feeling inadequate may not be pleasant, but it is a familiar place that has kept me out of trouble and helped me fit in for as long as I can remember.  

Another default response for some people can seem like the opposite of this. Perhaps you push boundaries beyond any reasonable expectation. Danger reminds you that you’re alive. For you, it’s safer to place yourself in situations where life seems disposable—on your own terms. 

Maybe anything new is simply seen as “dangerous.” And so welcomed. Or, as a classic defense, something to be rejected.

None of these responses are bad or wrong or unusual. But learning to see thoughts as thoughts, with no intrinsic reality, can be very freeing. When I can notice the “inadequate” conversation, I’m free to question it and change it to showing me as competent, interesting, and curious. To hear alternative versions of things we are sure we absolutely know are true helps us see that, just maybe, we can look at that truth a bit differently. 

tree

There are several tools and reflections available to explore this. Perhaps one of the best known is The Work from Byron Katie. What she does is so simple that some find it threatening, feel manipulated, and dismiss her. Basically, what she says is that if thoughts are causing you pain, question them. Whatever truth there is in what happened, in this minute you have choices on how you look at those thoughts and, by extension, the events you’re thinking about. Here is the link to what she calls The Work, which is based on four questions:
Is it true? 
Can you absolutely know it’s true?
How do you react, what happens, when you believe that thought? 
Who would you be without that thought? 

The answers to these questions are followed by simple, non-judgmental curiosity about “turnarounds” where you consider what may be true when you reverse the thought.

Rising Strong cover

More recently, I finally read Brené Brown’s book Rising Strong: how the ability to reset transforms the way we live, love, parent, and lead. This book was a gift I received from someone over seven years ago that initially I resisted reading. (My mind had these thoughts that for me the book wasn’t useful.). This book also helps us look at how we relate to our thoughts – plus how we form thoughts and can change them. Brown looks at this challenge from a more experiential direction than Katie.  Brown’s discussion includes exploring our default responses.

On a lighter, or at least different, note, I’ve always wanted to have people (originally I was thinking of teenagers, but now think anyone) play with just retelling their truth by creating an alternative, if imagined, story. Preferably I imagine the absurd such as picturing my colleagues in my initial “they don’t want me” scenario actually answering a completely different question, seeing me as an alien, or being given a pro forma script where they were forced to say no. Elves and fairies or more serious notes describing some of the personal things they might be experiencing, such as illness, could also be in the mix.

A few years ago, I was part of a writing workshop led by Martha Beck. I don’t remember what the assignment and prompt was, but this poem was the product and worth sharing for the last three lines.

It Ain’t True, Darlin’

They’re only words within our head
Our thoughts are just opinion bred
Yours only tell me more of you
Or mine shows that my sight’s askew.

For scorn is just an itch that’s grown
So we won’t see the hurt we’ve sown
Or a belief we think will save
Us from a fault we really crave.

So if you truly seek to be
The one that in your heart you see
Let loose and sing with me this song
And laugh at life and dance along

Remember this is always true:

Your thoughts aren’t me
And mine aren’t you!

Have you questioned your thoughts? If you’re willing to share, I would love to hear from you.

_______________________-

Notes from the top. All images by Spirit Moxie:

Photo from the part of the volunteer gig that did work. “Dinosaur Wrangler”
Tree on the grounds of where I learned about The Work (Ojia, CA)
Screenshot of Rising Strong cover on our Kindle – an Amazon Spirit Moxie link

A friend has actually set “It’ Ain’t True Darlin'” to music as “Word Dance.” When there’s a working recorded version, we’ll share!

Breadcrumbs

Yes, breadcrumbs. How do you know you’re on the right path? How do you get back? Plus what do you do if something eats these markers that you so carefully placed or someone left or drags them to one side?

Breadccrumbs

One of my challenges as I seek to live in the present is that occasionally even I feel impatient. It’s all very well to have a history of relationships, books read and written, three months in Thailand, and a dramatic move to Portland by living in a place of doing without doing. But sometimes I just want a guarantee of results. I want them now! Or at least a promise that now will happen soon.

That’s where the breadcrumbs come in. 

Oh, I could make a long to-do list. I could get myself tired with trivia. I could start a new exercise regime, attend more classes, and get a part-time job. Hustle! That’s the word. If I hustle, I’ll be able to see that I’m getting somewhere.

But I’m pretty sure that in the long run it won’t be somewhere that I want to go. I’ve done that before and while I do believe that everything we do is important and gets used, my experience certainly hasn’t followed any kind of a straight line to those books I want to read and write and places I want to live. 

Plus, the dramatic fall and bout with cancer that prompted this “just being” life both said, “Ah, excuse me, B, but this body is saying hustling is not for you.” It was a pretty strong message. But sometimes, it’s so easy to forget.

This is why, if your version of doing only what is given to you to do right now, which is my shorthand phrase for living like this, has you feeling a bit anxious, I recommend looking for breadcrumbs. These are tiny hints that the Universe (whatever you call it) is paying attention to your true self, whoever that is. 

For me breadcrumbs become most clearly visible in conversations. The guy at the bar who was in Portland for work, just needed to talk, and decided I should meet him for breakfast the next morning at the “best breakfast on the island” place I mentioned. I was willing to be stood up, but he was there, paid for my breakfast, and afterwards headed to the airport and home. He was not destined to be the new love my life. I was under no illusions that he would be. But I saw a breadcrumb indicating that, yes, a relationship is out there. 

jjazz ensemble and organ

I’ve been missing music and, to some degree, having difficulty finding new communities. A 21 year old at another bar (a good place to sit when solo) told me where to go for jazz. I haven’t been there yet, but last Sunday I found myself at a fabulous jazz mass and in connection with two people I knew in Cincinnati, one of whom I had no clue lived in Portland.

And so it goes. Reminders of connections. Gifts for new adventures such as the visitor from Alabama who somehow enhanced my relationship with Portland’s food trucks — even though I safely ate a burger, with guacamole and jalapeños on it, and salad at yet another bar. (I do go other places, but bars have just been successful connection spots!) 

There are also breadcrumbs that are not related to conversation, like the bag of dark chocolate with almonds completely in the wrong place at Costco. But it was where I would find it as the perfect treat so I would have something sweet in the house. It’s the dog I’m watching sleeping partly on my foot as I type this.

Another thing about breadcrumbs: usually we are impatient about the wrong things. Sometimes the direction is unexpected. From a place of presence, one can go anywhere and anything is possible.

It is finding myself writing this when there are other projects I, perhaps, “should,” by conventional standards, be working on. But apparently what I actually should be doing now is writing this. This writing is what this moment wants to encompass. Not really a doing. Just a happening or an “is.” “Not doing” isn’t sitting still, unless of course it is.

One needs the reminder of breadcrumbs to realize that some will be laid down and disappear – or otherwise not be visible. You just have to trust that they’re there. And if “nothing” is the answer when you ask “what should I be doing right now?” enjoy it. This shirt feels pretty good. The view is beautiful. Everything now is well.


_________________________

All photos by Spirit Moxie. From the top

Breadcrumbs
The Theodicy Jazz Collective and the organ at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral (Portland, Oregon, USA)
Often a dog moves from sitting on your foot onto your lap

Believe in Magic

Tree and star at night

“Magic?” We had just finished one of Spirit Moxie’s Corner of Calm* sessions and, when someone asked how it had gone, I replied that it was “magical.” During the session, I’d experienced deep connection while watching others embrace calm. It even contributed to healing for someone thousands of miles away. Through a technology that sometimes seems like it could happen only in science fiction, a real a sense of connection is possible. 

But at least one person who had been at the session and heard the comment said, “Magical? How?” The idea of magic made no sense to her at all. 

What is magic? And why in the world should believing in it make a difference?
When I looked at the idea of magic, I wondered how it differed from manifestation and miracles. Clearly, they are all intertwined because in all three concrete things happen outside of our usual experience. When I posted the question on Facebook, one person flippantly responded, “Well, they all begin with M.” 

But generally most agreed that the three were not the same, although there was no consensus on definition. Memory also has me exploring the definitions for these words while journaling, but apparently it was just memory and not something I did. So, in a new attempt, I’m offering this: 

Manifestation is a response to a concrete wish or desire. Sometimes it is a deliberate long term longing coming true — like my moving to the West Coast. Sometimes it is something incidental — like my winding up in a Zoom room with someone I had been hoping to meet or your finding that unlikely perfect parking spot. 

A miracle is a desired result that’s “impossible.” Healings — and there are many documented — are the classic examples. The cancer that’s completely gone before any treatment or the person who should never have been able to walk again strolling through the door. When catastrophe strikes, it’s a miracle when a child is found unharmed in the burned or otherwise destroyed building.

But magic? I think magic is when something happens that is unsought, unlikely, and unexpected (although welcome). Plus “good” magic always has a hint of wonder or delight to it. (In stories, magic can also be evil. But not the magic we’re considering in this Conversation.) Magic could be the sleight of hand in a magic show or my surprised feelings when connecting for Corner of Calm. But it is even more evident when you find something you didn’t know you were looking for until it appeared. Often, it’s hard to pin down. 

In searching for an example, I remembered the Valentine’s Day night when I was wandering around solo, and I stopped by a local bar.  There I was told to go to the performance hall where the end of a concert was going on, and the jazz group performing closed their show with Herbie Hancock’s Watermelon Man, which was my deceased partner’s and my theme song. I’d never heard anyone play Watermelon Man without it being requested. As a bonus the bar owner, who I thought was busy doing closing stuff, suddenly appeared to dance to it with me. Pure magic all around on Valentine’s Day!  

That may be the main point of magic. To believe in magic opens you to another dimension of experience and possibility. And experience and possibility are at the heart of changing the world. In movies and games, magic is often a portal to something unimaginable. In life, believing magic be possible makes it possible to believe in and see the unimaginable. 

Even the words “magic” and “magical” are fun and intriguing. They make us smile. Maybe magic is just how you look at things. Maybe believing in magic allows magic to happen.

Often it is the unbelievable and the impossible that lead to innovation, change, possibility, and a true difference to appear. Or so I believe and have seen.

Are you open to magic? Where have you found it?

________________________
From the top:

Great Basin National Park — National Park Service
*Corner of Calm — a half hour sitting in calm and silence – YouTube sample

Return Shopping Carts

A lot of the things we talk about as “little things that can change the world” is head stuff: “Be Willing to Be Wrong;” “Don’t Take Things Personally.” But remember, when we began looking at these Spirit Moxie Conversations about “little things,” we emphasized physical action. Our first “little thing” post was “Use Revolving Doors”! Really. It is what we do, as well as who and how we are, that makes a huge difference.

Shopping carts in corral

I’m suspicious that maybe returning shopping carts at the grocery store and, now, at many big chain stores is a particularly United States problem. People rushing out of a store with a week or month’s worth of stuff, packing it into their SUV, and driving off after just pushing their shopping carts toward the end of their parking spaces is a scene from US suburbia. 

OK, so you don’t do that. But why is “return shopping carts” such an important little thing to do? 

Loose shopping carts cause accidents. Some literally run away and crash into cars. They have hit people. Loose shopping carts create more work for store associates, but note they do not create more jobs. There are still people who come outside and bring these carts into the store when they are safely in their corrals. 

carts by bus stop

Just because you are using a shopping cart is not an excuse to take it home. Over a million shopping carts are stolen every year. You see them on the street, in apartment complexes, and in yards. It costs a store between $100 to $400 to replace one. This averages out to an extra $10,000 a  year or so reducing your favorite store’s bottom line. Those costs are passed along to you and everyone else that shops there. (Stats compliments of Google.)

Wallet with quarter

As an example consider Aldi a Germany-based grocery store chain popular as a no-frills alternative in the United States. At these stores, customers pay a quarter (US$.25) to use a cart and then get the quarter back when the cart is returned. This helps the returning part but doesn’t decrease theft. Some people think that the quarter gives them the right to keep a couple hundred dollars’ worth of equipment. 

So, part of this post considers how our actions affect the economy vs our convenience. An earlier post asking for examples of such actions was  famously sparse. We simply don’t think that way. Writing this Conversation suggests other ideas of positive ways to support the economy and environment to me, but I don’t want to have it all be about my ideas. I want your thoughts. Add a comment to this post. Or post in the Moxie Movers Facebook group. Or write your own post. Send it to me at info@spiritmoxie.com

There’s a “shopping cart theory” that went viral. That theory says you can determine someone’s moral character by whether they return shopping carts. Yes, there are arguments about whether this is true.  But I think it is true that returning shopping carts is “a little thing that can change the world.” Thoughts? What would you add?

__________________________

All photos are by Spirit Moxie

From the top:
Shopping carts at a corral at a Fred Meyer grocery store
Target carts left by a bus stop
A quarter or twenty-five cents

Don’t Take Things Personally

Of all the little things that can change you and the world, this might indeed be number one. Personal here seems to almost always mean criticism, although when we’re lucky, it is instead validation. Either way, taking words and actions personally gets entwined in our thoughts and emotions.

classroom cartoon

It’s all very well to be told not to take things personally, but we’re completely wired to do just that. After all, to relate everything to ourselves is one of the keys to surviving. I, myself, am prone to seek approval about how I look and what I do and to think that such approval is essential to my well being. Perhaps it is. But when we look at this “don’t take things personally” statement, which I hear from many people I consider wise, I need to wonder whether I’m wrong. In other word, maybe other people’s reactions to me aren’t the best way to be validated. 

Really, Sedgwick? How can this be true? 

Let’s look at some big picture examples of people’s reactions to comments and actions. Often (I’m willing to allow it isn’t 100% true) when we personally react negatively to someone, that reaction is be a reflection of something we don’t like about ourselves. If I’m honest, there is always something, maybe a fear, that somehow I might do whatever that negative thing is. I might look frumpy, be inconsiderate, overreact, or ruin something for someone else, too. So doesn’t it follow that other’s reactions to us can be in some way a reflection of themselves? That means that what they say is really about them.

Of course our reaction to others does affect them, and their reactions affect us. We really are energetically wired to one another whether we want to be or not. This is basic brain science. Our brains are wired to keep us safe. How others react to us and to their environment affects our own area of safety.* So how can those interactions not be personal?

So, what’s going on when I tell strangers that I like their hair? Is their reaction about me or a reflection of them? Perhaps the person I’ve complimented just looks at me as if I have two heads. Or ignores me. Perhaps they smile. Their reaction isn’t the point. The point is, for our purposes here, that I noticed and liked something much more than how they received my compliment. The point is that I remembered to share something I appreciated with someone else. And so, when I get a compliment about me, that compliment is really about them, which doesn’t mean I can’t enjoy it. Their words just aren’t, when I really pay attention, essential to my happiness or self image.

On the other side, what if I’m told by someone to keep my voice down? Am I too loud? The most useful response is that their comment is simply information. I can take their words as criticism and beat myself up about them, which doesn’t help anyone, or I can hear their words as simply something I need to pay attention to. Or not. Maybe I decide loud is appropriate right then. Their words are their reaction, not my action.

If you don’t like my shirt and I do or you don’t understand my writing and someone else loves it or no one loves it, but what I write makes sense to me, is that negative response criticism? Is the critique about me? Well, if I’m trying to communicate, their words are probably useful information. But words don’t have a value judgement component unless I give that value to them.  

The truth is that people don’t think about us. Really. Or if they do think about us, their thoughts bolster their standards of how the world should show up; their expectations of how we should act and what we should look like. Again, look at your own obsessions about others actions or appearance. 

Journals

I’m a mom who gets into critical mode about those I love. But really, all I can do is love them. Any change will or won’t happen through them. All I can do is be me. I can donate or volunteer for a cause, but the impact of those actions is nothing I can control. As I said yesterday (really), “I’ve learned the only person I can change is myself.” I can feel reassured that change is possible because I have changed.  I’ve read my old journals, which is a little mind blowing, and, in my mind, proves that it must be possible for others to change as well. But change is in the other person’s court, so to speak. It won’t occur because of anything I do or say. 

Two quotations that challenged me on this topic are:

“The way that other people judge me is none of my business.” – Martha Beck

“It’s not your job to like me, it’s mine.” – Byron Katie

Always remember quote Liz Gilbert

A Google search on this idea provides books and multiple quotations, so I’m not sure where it originated, but if I’m honest, “what others think of me is none of my business” is freeing. Maybe frustrating. Certainly challenging. A work in progress.

So, play with not taking things personally. Can you see it as a little way to change the world?  Can you explore it as a big way to change yours?

_____________________

Notes: *7 1/2 Lessons About the Brain by Lisa Feldman Barrett

Images from the top:
Cartoon from For Redemption Press One… by Bill Martin (Cincinnati: Forward Movement) – out of print
40 years of B’s Journals (some missing?) – Spirit Moxie
Quotation from Big Magic: creative living beyond fear by Elizabeth Gilbert

(All book links are Spirit Moxie’s links to Amazon . They don’t affect the cost of the books)

Moving into 2022

When you realize 2022 is pronounced 2020, too.

After the drama, isolation, and challenges of 2021, I am seeing a lot of  cartoons and memes questioning whether a new year is welcome or not. The year 2020 collapsed around us and, when we looked forward to 2021, the New Year didn’t embrace us with a clean slate, but rather held us in unease, isolation, and, for many, illness. When light finally flickered in the distance, it was inconsistent. And it still is.

But we will flip our calendars, and they will say “2022.” How do we step, or tip-toe, into the new year in a way that supports how we want to be and what we dream of doing? A new year is always a bit uncertain, but 2022 seems to be asserting that one can’t actually know anything. 

Is this really true? As some of you are beginning to appreciate, I am currently called to a place of “just being” and “not doing.” This is perhaps not the best place from which to offer unsought advice about planning — although it does allow for dreaming. Indeed, in other years, my suggestion on entering the new year has been to name one’s dreams

I’m still sure that resolutions are a recipe for New Year’s failure. As I sit here I find myself trying to remember what I really wanted for 2021 as I watch others explore their hopes for 2022. 

View of Mt. Hood

So I just reread my introduction to 2021. There it is. My underlying place, dream, or feeling was for “expansiveness,” which sounds appropriately vague. However, in looking back through my posts my place of not doing, but rather simply being, has allowed my 2016 dream of moving to the West Coast to dramatically materialize. Plus, at least intellectually, the move relates to the yearning I wrote about in that 2021 introduction for Spirit Moxie to expand its influence. How will this continue to unfold? I don’t know yet.

For 2022, I have been honored to watch my friend Cindy wrestle with her plan for the new year. Unlike me, but perhaps like you, she likes lists, but knows if she is too specific in her list of goals they will run her rather than support her. Plus she has reminded me about claiming a word for the New Year. In 2016, I offered “dream” as a word – and while the dream’s mentioned didn’t all happen in that year, they pretty much have all happened since then. Cindy’s word for 2021 was “patience,” perhaps essential for many as we addressed or didn’t address COVID. For 2022, she is considering “balance” as her word. As an all or nothing kind of person, balance, for her sounds challenging, comforting, and supportive. 

I’ve been living with the word “dream” for a long time. But this year, having given up concrete goals, my word is “curious.” I’m curious about how things are for you, what my new life will look like, what’s next for Sprit Moxie. I’m curious about my next breathe. I’m sprinkling this curiosity with “joy” and “delight,” words which offer me comfort and challenge as I continue to claim gratitude and positivity.* These are intentions rather than goals and feel supportive.

Happy 2022

Take some time for yourself. What supports you? Lists? Dreams? Intentions? Plans? Goals? Responsibilities? A combination? Remember, this is something that nurtures you, not what you think you should be doing. What challenges and comforts you? What helps you feel freer? It will be different for you. Unique. Not Cindy’s or mine.

Now claim what you see. Give thanks for who and what you are. Know that 2022 is yours. 

_____________________________________________________

*I’m including a link here to a very short video on ‘pronoia” that was the introduction to December 2021’s Corner of Calm. Pronoia is the belief everything is working in your favor.

Images from the top:

2022 Meme — adapted by Spirit Moxie
B’s new view of Mt. Hood, Oregon, USA — Spirit Moxie
Happy 2022 — Canva

Talk to Others

“Oh, I’m a writer. How would you answer the question, ‘what little thing would make a difference if everyone did it?’” 

new pedicure

I’m exploring another part of the United States to see if I’m supposed to live there. One of my tests of a city is to get a manicure. This place, around the corner from where I’m staying, lured me in with a great sandwich board that listed low prices that were probably true once. My nail tech, who was chatty and thorough and doing all the get to know you inquiries such as “what do you do?”, thoughtfully looked at my question. “People just need to talk to each other. Like you wished the woman who just left a good day. And our conversation here.” (She admitted to having been shy as a child— a sharp contrast to this outgoing woman who managed this salon.) 

So, I’ve been thinking about her suggestion and am realizing she was right. It’s so obvious that “talking to people” really hadn’t been on my list of little things we can do to change the world. 

A few days ago I set out to finally meet some people here (a MeetUp event) and somehow got on the wrong streetcar. Which meant that I never did connect with the group, despite the fairly generous meeting time. I even went to a local brewery where they were supposed to be gathering after the event. Nope. No one was there by that name or description. Finally, because all the tables were taken, I asked if I could sit down where there was only one person so I could put down my beer and try texting. “Ah,” the young woman said. “I’ve been watching you. Sure.” The text was answered to say the MeetUp host wasn’t there, but my new table mate and I talked as I finally got something to eat. I learned she was becoming a physician assistant and she ended up hearing about Spirit Moxie, reading some of my poems, and following Spirit Moxie on Instagram. Little things that were exactly right for the evening. 

Peaches

Yes “talk to people” is related to listening to each other as we’ve written elsewhere, but where and how does a simple question or just a comment change things? “Where is the recycling place?” “Do you know if that door is unlocked?” “Love your hair.” “Would you pick out three peaches for me?” as a request at the farmer’s market. (FYI – think I got better quality that way too.) 

On a bigger scale talking also helps us find truth and clarity. That’s a gentle way of saying that gossip hurts everyone and that we make assumptions in all of our relationships. Our words, our questions, our willingness to acknowledge to ourselves that we can be wrong, inform our own integrity which, I think, is integral to our health and wholeness.

trees and a dog

Why add “to people” in this little thing? Personally, I probably talk to animals more than people (which is one reason I have a story of a goat following me in New Orleans). Plus, I talk to trees (a poetry book on this will be available soon), and, when frustrated, I argue with inanimate objects such as my computer. People are harder to talk to unless I already know them — and even then I am often just polite about it with some sort of superficial greeting. However, when I do really talk (and listen), magic happens.

What happens when you don’t talk to others? What did you really, really want that you didn’t receive simply because you didn’t ask? Is there a place within your own integrity that says, “If only I’d said something” about a situation? I’m mixed on some of the last piece because I’ve sometimes said something, and it was the wrong something. But I know we have to at least acknowledge these times to ourselves.When did you stay unclear about a situation because of not talking? 

Exploring actually talking (remember I know almost no one where I am right now) has changed the way I look at my interactions and really has made my life easier. It’s presented a possible new place to live, got the TV where I’m staying to work, and made shopping more straightforward. It’s also allowed a bartender to share his love of wine, let someone else rhapsodize on their love of trees, and provoked an exchange about current writing projects. All in the past few days. 

So watch. Listen. Talk. Obvious or not, see how what you say changes how the world shows up for you and your place in it, and how those words seem to affect those around you. 

_________________________________

All photos by Spirit Moxie

The new pedicure
Peaches
Trees and a dog

Intertwined

How does your life fit together? Are work, family, and friends in separate silos, a triangle you try to adjust to fit your week? Or do they somehow integrate into a whole so that social and work commitments merge, and perhaps the piece that gets neglected is you? Or maybe it all balances, a perfect helix or multiple strands of a helix that is somehow one thing.

As some of you know, my life doesn’t go in straight lines. For example, I’ve lived in unconventional locations and still wander almost anywhere I’m invited and randomly engage with the unexpected interests of friends.

Spirit Moxie emerged from my claiming myself as a writer even though the vision of Spirit Moxie is of things we can do together to change the world. That seems to me to be fairly clear. In my search for self (who I am as opposed to who everyone else wants me to be), I learned that wisdom found in our bodies knows the answers to who we really are. So, I started listening to my body, a process that got bludgeoned into me through a mild concussion and an easily treated form of leukemia (but, still, I was sick enough to scare my doctors). From those two events I realized that I was called to a place of presence that moved from presence to “just being.” And, yes, I wrote about it all. 

But what does “just being,” besides as a Conversation topic, have to do with Spirit Moxie? What does that have to do with “changing the world?” 

The question also is, “what have I learned about just being as well as where, if anywhere, does it become part of how together we change the world?” I feel like I’m being repetitious. But this conundrum has been haunting me.

Moxie Moves on coffee table

Well, the book (Moxie Moves: 10 easy ways to make a powerful difference), which was partly written to explain Spirit Moxie, is on reflection, an invitation to community and, by extension, presence. We can’t create change together, for instance, without truly listening to each other, refraining from littering (imposing) emotions and ideologies as well as things, and keeping our word which are three of the ten “ways” expanded in the book. Moxie Moves was possible only through multiple contributions that happened, so it seemed to me, because those helping produce the book also believed we could create change together. All of this is a witness to presence — theirs with me and mine with them.

“Just being” is a place of claiming “now.” There is a stillness. And while it is a very interesting and beautiful space, there isn’t a lot of deliberate action. It’s a place where there is almost always ease and, for me, appreciation and curiosity. But why would anyone want that? And, again, what does it have to do with Spirit Moxie? 

dpg sitting

I talk about “just being” as a place of not doing. But from that place of not deliberately doing, this Conversation is getting written, Moxie Moves was published, and I got to live in Thailand for a few months. I’ve been calm during COVID and created a way to help others claim calm, which, is called Corner of Calm. As I write this, Corner of Calm has been “going” for half a year. I finally have an opportunity to do some dog training (a forgotten bucket list item). And there is a new vanity poetry book coming out “soon,” also through a community of friends. This is a partial list from the past two years of concrete “things” that happened without deliberately doing, almost all of which involved community. I realized that having things happen without hard work , living through the past two years in calm, and effortlessly engaging with new communities, may indeed be useful to others.

tree branch

I’m pretty sure this place of being is something one can learn. I see it as a place of empowered productivity through calm, ease, and purpose. Purpose for Spirit Moxie and how you are in the world. Calm and ease through presence. Sounds like “being” may indeed be integral to the whole Spirit Moxie picture. Presence may mean that people would have to change their relationship to time. They would need to be openminded. They would sometimes be wrong. They would, in the process, embrace their own integrity. And thereby learn to “be.” All of which are, again, integral to our change the world premise. I get giddy thinking about it. 

How do you see this inter-relationship relate to you? And as I asked at the beginning, how do various aspects of your life intertwine? How do they fit together? Does your life make you happy? Are you happy with your life? Is there freedom in the separation of its parts? Or are the parts competing for time and attention? Do your pieces or strands interrelate and affect who we are as a collective? Does all of this fit with who and what you want to be for the world?
I would love to have time for a walk or a cup of coffee or both so we could talk. But comments work, too. 

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I’ve been very privileged to share some of this Conversation around what Spirit Moxie is and who I am in a few podcasts this year. Here is a list with general notes about the podcasts. See if any sound engaging to you. They were all fun for me and all challenged me to think in new ways. All links are to Spotify unless otherwise noted.

More about me than I usually share elicited by JR’s passion for podcasts. WV UnCommon Place  hosted by JR Sparrow

Book publishing – and addressing overwhelm – The Author’s Workshop – Francis Mbunya (only available as a Facebook live on his page)

A discussion of Spirit Moxie. The Stephen Ivey Show hosted by Stephen T. Ivey

An illuminating conversation that produced new challenges and ideas. Kirsty, who broadcasts from Scotland, always is thoughtful and highlights small businesses, poetry, and non-profits. She actually used one of my poems so the portion of the show related to Spirit Moxie begins at 14:12 minutes into the recording. The conversation focuses on the book Moxie Moves. Fancy a Blether? hosted by Kirsty Louise

My first podcast interview. SheBlurbs hosted by Brook Wright

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Photos from the top:

Moxie Moves on porch — Mary Barr Rhodes
“Sit!” — Spirit Moxie
Tree (poetry book hint) — Spirit Moxie

Conversation

Recently, a friend was worried about an upcoming visit with some relatives, saying “Their politics and worldview are quite different from ours, and I don’t want to react to one of their side-comments without being mindful of possible consequences.  Not sure how many times I can steer the conversation to the weather.”  Have you been in a similar situation? 

B with glass of beer

Or maybe, you have a date with your spouse or someone else you know very well. In the middle of dinner, you realize that this isn’t intimate quiet, but rather ,you actually haven’t said anything for 10 minutes and it feels a bit dull and embarrassing. . 

Or, you meet someone at a party. Perhaps it is someone you really don’t know that well. (If you’re like me, you aren’t even sure of their name.) What do you say? 

group sitting outside

It is these situations that always lead me back to Spirit Moxie. Really. Any of the “little things that can change the world” [original list] work very well as a topic. And often the response to the subject will catch you off guard. When I was working on the book Moxie Moves (and, yes, all “10 ways to make a powerful difference” work as conversation starters), I was talking about “be litter free.” And I really was talking about litter—you know, that stuff on the ground people drop and throw. But the three others in the car with me immediately started discussing how we litter one another with expectations and negative ideas. Wow! Plus, recently, as another response to the book, I was being interviewed and the host responded to #6 “Listen.” In the book, I make the distinction between listening and actually hearing the other person. “Why,” my host said, “as you say [I did?], is it important to be heard?” That question evoked a whole new Conversation post called “Being Heard.”

This is all fine for me. These are often my go-to conversation gambits, along with “What’s new?,” which for some reason throws a lot of people into defense mode. It is fine for me to say that there are easily more than one hundred fairly non-threatening and engaging topics that can matter-of-factly be explored. It‘s what I write about. But what about you? What topics would you really, really like other people’s opinions about? What are you seeing as challenges for which you could use some insight? 

Note cards with topics

It’s very tempting to offer a list. But it would be my list. So, I’m curious. If you stop and think for a minute, is there a topic that might seem to be from day-to-day life that you dare begin, ask about, or simply mention as a path or challenge?

I have a weakness for conversations about ideas—along with personal blind spots when I focus on an idea. Only yesterday, I was talking with a new friend, “I’m working on a post about conversation.” “With others or with yourself?” she asked. Oh, my!

Bam. A whole new road to explore! How do you talk to yourself? Can you get over the self-criticism, the shoulds and musts that barrage many of our minds most of the time? Have you tried focusing on and talking to yourself about what brings you delight or happiness or joy? Could you change “should” to “want” or “might try” or, even, “am expected to, but do I really want to?” Do you dare say to yourself, “I love you.” And mean it?

My friend visiting her relatives probably should not introduce the topic “vote” if politics causes tension. But what about “sleep” or “play”? Could you ask, if you really know someone, “what conversations do you have with yourself?”

Right now, my internal conversations revolve around allowing things to unfold in their own time (“just being”) and, at least this week, daring to be wrong. But if we get together, I’ll ask, “what’s new?” and “what does it mean to be litter free?”

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Links have been provided to previous Spirit Moxie Conversation posts and to the Spirit Moxie website as reminders and as conversation!

All photos by Spirit Moxie. From the top:

B thinking what to talk about when out with a friend
The last party attended. The conversation was mainly around shared history.
Note cards of little things that can change the world

Delight

Be grateful. 

We repeatedly run into references, share links and memes, and seek out the statistics around the benefits of being thankful. Gratitude changes how we experience the world, promotes happiness, and increases effectiveness. And that’s just for starters, so they say.

hanging basked on tree

Recently I’ve been thinking about an advanced form of gratitude, with no statistics and no predictability such as you get with my usual suggested exercise of listing five things you are grateful for. We’ve practiced those, or at least been told we should practice them. However, as I’ve been “doing my gratitude practice,” which sounds almost boring as a mandate (although it really isn’t when one does it), I’ve realized the words “thanks” and “grateful” are limiting in day to day experiences. 

There is another dimension, an expansion if you will. I am grateful for rain. We “need” it. I won’t have to water our new forsythias. In some parts of the country, people are simply thankful that water flows into reservoirs and streams or that the forest has an extra layer of dampness. But is “grateful” the right word for our feeling of thanks for how a Spring rain smells? Or how raindrops sound on the roof? The distinction I’m now making is that while I may be grateful I can hear and smell the rain, when I actually notice the sound and smell of rain I’m really experiencing delight. Loving the smell. Enjoying the sound.

By paying attention, you can begin to play with delight as a distinction. As you notice what is happening on top of, so to speak, your gratitude, you can actually claim delight. Try this as an extended practice of noticing or as a component of being present. What are the elements of something you like that take you beyond just being thankful for whatever it is in itself?

Hanging aprons

Once you start playing with the word delight, you will find that sometimes an experience of it will just appear. You are just walking along or cruising the internet or cooking dinner. Suddenly you feel a lightness in your heart or you smile in unexpected happiness. This delight catches you off guard. This is the delight you can’t scientifically look for as a verbal distinction as we did in the above paragraph. Why did I feel delight when I noticed my housemate’s artist aprons hanging on the door? They suddenly just brought joy. Or walking by a neighbor’s yard and seeing her planter on a tree. Was it inviting summer? And mushrooms? There they were! And the feeling wasn’t there when I found some others to photograph as an image for this post. (Later I did find one of the original ones and that is the picture I am using.) Or cruising Facebook and learning that a baby platypus is sometimes called a puggle, a word to delight in all by itself, even if a bit of research gives “puggle” some other uses and platypus babies some other names.

Mushroom in grass

As you continue to notice, you might discover delight can go deeper. On one of my first Uber rides in over a year, my driver took a small morsel of food out and explained it was the right time to break his fast for Ramadan. This was unexpected and I felt honored to be a witness, to be included in this multi-cultural world. In one action my world expanded. And I was delighted.

In the past few months I’ve heard many people say that they seek joy. One way to claim joy is to be open to it showing up (it really is that simple). Since I’ve started this distinction about delight, I’ve been pleasantly caught off guard. For me, a component of delight is joy. And it goes both ways. Feeling joy is one way I recognized delight and so name it. 

A lightness of heart. Being suddenly brought to a standstill. A smile. What “symptoms” do you associate with delight? Think about it. Where did you last find delight? Was it unexpected? Recognizing and claiming delight is one of the unsung features of being present, calm, and productive. 

I’d love to know how you experience delight. For me, right now, just exploring how we encounter it is well, a delight! 

Join me.

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All photos by Spirit Moxie. From the top:

Basket on neighbor’s tree
Artist aprons on door
Unexpected mushroom