Welcome 2024

Posted on January 4, 2024 by Sally B.

Remember who you are.

upside down one way sign This year I struggled with a post about the new year, which is why this post is early in the year, but not at the very beginning. I reread all the former end of/beginning of year Spirit Moxie Conversations. (I suggest the core 1916 post “Dream” and last year’s “Foundations.”) I wrote a lot of rough drafts about “unease,” which is hardly the most positive word for 2023. Plus, it wasn’t entirely true. Then, on a New Year’s Eve flight to visit my son and his family, I understood. Besides wondering why travel always freed me, I realized I’d stopped claiming who I am at my core. And that was the source of the unease I felt.

Have you forgotten who you are? Has the chatter in your head become so loud that you’ve also forgotten your beauty, resilience, and general fabulousness, which, by the way, are three things I know are true about you?

The first clue I had that I’d forgotten was my reaction to a challenge from Amanda Fuel as part of a finance game in which I’m participating. What percentage of my life is determined and guided by me and what percentage is guided or manifested by the magic of the Universe/God/Chance (choose your phrase)? She was working on a 55%/45% relationship for herself. I’ve heard 10%/90% as well and vice versa. If you find these percentages useful, play with them. How much of the determining factors do you bring and how much do you want to happen to you through forces outside of you?

Thinking about this, I realized that what meant the most to me wasn’t percentages, but recognizing that there is a partnership between the two. Somehow, for me, that partnership had been shaken and become unstable. While I have had dreams and goals, somehow they had become just words I’d written. In other words, to be effective, I needed to actively remember who I was and who I am so the Universe (or whomever) could do its magic.

clouds from plane window The second piece to help you remember: I kind of dare you to try. It is an exercise I love that apparently pushes people’s buttons. Ask someone — using these exact words — “Tell me how I’m fabulous.” You can ask me that question when you see me in person. Or, send me a private message. There’s two parts to this apparently very vulnerable question: 1) You learn things about yourself you’ve never noticed before and 2) It’s a gift to the person being asked. To look at you that way and share is exciting, interesting, and bonding for the person responding. We love the challenge to ourselves to look at you this way. Plus, we’ve been wanting you to know! So my request to ask me is pretty much all self-interest!*

Who you are at your core is what to bring into 2024. Your own greatness. Your job, if you will, is to remember that that greatness is there. Yes, include those dreams. Use the word “goals” if you prefer. It’s fun if some of them are huge and some are tiny. Share those too.

The world needs you exactly as you are right now. Yes, you’ll change. But breathe into now, the you of early 2024. And, in the next step you take, breath into that you too.

Thank you!

_______________________________________

*I I know I got this exercise from someone else, but haven’t been able to find it again.

All images by Spirit Moxie:
Upside down sign: Is this how the end of the year felt?
View on the New Year’s Eve flight

The Problem of Change

Posted on October 25, 2023 by Sally B.

Butterfly on leaf Spirit Moxie is now 10 years old, and many of the ideas we introduced in 2013 have become commonplace. Our central concept focuses on the power of positive change, but when we look around, it feels as if, rather than becoming more positive, the world has become darker: politics uglier, the environment more fragile, people less connected, and information and news increasingly unreliable. We have the tools to correct this. There are actions and mindsets to help prevent these problems! So why do they still exist?

First of all, even though we cheer the idea of change, we are programmed to resist it. Perhaps it’s stating the obvious, but our brains are wired for survival. However “wrong” or uncomfortable conditions are, if we didn’t die during any of what has happened or through our personal actions or experiences, our brain view the status quo safe. Note: you didn’t die. I know this because you’re reading this. So while this may sound simplistic, even though change might sound good, we naturally resist it.

Quite apart from what we consider positive action, this orientation shows up in everything from not brushing our teeth as often as we should to forgetting to put on our seatbelt to not using the gym. Often it isn’t a case of will power or remembering, but just a result of our having done just fine in the past. Why risk something different?

An extension of this reason to resist change is that change can be threatening. Change, by definition, means that things will be different. It takes us to unknown places.

What’s interesting is that we seldom consciously see any of this. Let’s consider a few more of our default places when our actions and possible change collide. First we really like ease. There are different versions of ease for different people, but if rinsing out the bottle so it can be safely recycled isn’t your norm, it is much easier to just throw the bottle in the trash. For some people. it is easier to drop something onto the ground than to walk two feet to the trash can. We might deplore waste yet never bring our own reusable bags to the store. I’m pretty sure most of these are United States examples, but these instances of ease involve anything that you’ve always done.Why should you change? It’s more comfortable to keep doing what you always have done? What examples can you see others doing? We usually don’t see them when we do them ourselves.

The flip side of this is that many of us are programmed to think that something can’t be effective unless it is difficult. Spirit Moxie talks about doing “little things to change the world.” What’s dramatic or sexy about those as actions? Many of us figure that unless we’re curing world hunger, negotiating for peace, and evening out the economy on a national level, it isn’t worth talking about. If getting up at 5 am to get more done is a sign of being pro active, a little thing called “sleep*,” which we say here is one of the things that changes the world, can be completely discounted. This might be a bit of hyperbole, but for example, while I celebrate (in my mind) every time a server in a restaurant doesn’t give me a straw, my son rolls his eyes and discounts it. Why should something that little matter?

Something else that almost certainly hinders change is our excessive attention to what isn’t working. One of the best and most insidious example is our constant preoccupation with the media. There’s an apparently common belief that binge watching the news makes us accountable. I’m not talking about being informed. But hours of casual attention gives energy to much we don’t want to fuel. Balance this. When the media hungry are not being fed (watched and interacted with), it is increasing hard to justify the expense of giving them free publicity. Plus for many people, whether within the news, the neighborhood, the environment, or their friends and family, whatever isn’t working is their preferred topic of conversation. Why Joe and Mary are having a hard time because Sue is into drugs is seen as much more intense and interesting than that Sam got a Fulbright. Lamenting political options is more important than really engaging in helpful responses to issues. Etc.

Finally, when we know something is true, we don’t question it. Usually we can’t even see an alternative. But if in fact, a contrasting fact or varying viewpoint is even hinted about, and we do hear it, we certainly don’t weigh it and are often offended that anyone could be that blind, inconsiderate, stupid, or, to be honest, wrong. This eliminates positive change by default. We extend this to how we evaluate change. At some level, we could very easily be using artificial markers or evaluating their implications incorrectly. Is 20 people at the bus stop with bags of food from the Saturday free food program hosted near my house a sign of poverty, of the need for redistribution of resources, of people taking advantage of others, or of hope for better nutrition in the city? If one of those is your truth, that is what you see. If all those are new, you probably thought “of course.” And you almost certainly can come up with others I haven’t considered. A final part of this is to remember that, with the internet, falsehoods enter this mix and are received as unquestioned truth almost instantly.

So we’re wired for the security of our history, for perceived safety, for ease and the validation of hard work, and by our personal understanding of things, however we came by them. When positive change is happening, both globally and even personally, we quite possibly may simply not notice.

For Spirit Moxie, the force that makes positive change possible is an understanding of chaos. Remember that whenever you dare do a little thing to change the world, and others do too, you begin creating conditions where larger, almost certainly unexpected, change becomes possible. So reread where we began.

Meanwhile hold, however lightly, that perhaps there is positive energy. That change is possible. And that you make a difference!

___________________________

Butterfly – picture by Spirit Moxie (or at least it was in our photos!)

*”Sleep” is included in Moxie Moves:10 easy ways to make a powerful difference – (Cincinnati: Spirit Moxie, 2019) -Amazon link

Spirit

Posted on June 5, 2023 by Sally B.

“So, what do you mean when you say, ‘spirit’?” I’d come late to a MeetUp and, having grabbed a drink, unexpectedly found myself in an in-depth conversation about Spirit Moxie. I get asked about “moxie” all the time, but for me, in this religiously neutral crowd, this was a first. Not sure what I answered, but now realize truly answering feels important.

Sunset with trees “Spirit,” for me, is multi-faceted and ranges from the energy at a football game to serious conversations on theology. But perhaps the most basic place for the word and idea comes from the way people describe being human as “body, mind, and spirit.” Do you say this? If so, what does it mean to you? When one simply looks up the definition of “spirit,” or, to be precise, looks it up in the dictionary on my phone, the very first definition is “the principle of conscious life; the vital principle in humans, animating the body or mediating between body and soul.” Hmmm. So, in some way, our spirit is what makes us conscious of our humanity and of our existence.

On a theological note, you have probably heard of the Trinity as a way of describing God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Books have been written about this and debates have raged largely resulting in all kind of confusion.

Rocks, sky, scrub tree What I want to suggest here is a perspective I’m pretty sure I didn’t come up with on my own, but I can’t trace it to a source. Simply put, how humans talk about God and the energy that image embodies changes about every 2,000 years. We have the time of the Old Testament or BCE (Before the Common Era) which describes god in a fairly hierarchical way (the Father). Then comes the more personal connection personified in the figure of Jesus that has affected a good portion of the world, whatever your religious beliefs are, during the past 2,000 years or so. It is reflected in Western calendar dating and has been the root cause of multiple wars and atrocities. This pattern now has us entering a new 2000 years as the time of the Spirit. Because all transitions are gradual (and often violent) you can see this in things such as “The Age of Aquarius,” which gained popularity through the musical Hair in the 1960s (although what is really trippy is that we are apparently entering that age now if you believe Google and Wikipedia).

Sunset, winter sky We can see truth in this idea of our being in a time of the Spirit as we listen to some of the current spiritually based (there’s that darn word “spirit’ again) coaches and writers. One example is Martha Beck’s work, particularly in her novel Diana, Herself and in her training of “Wayfarers,” i.e., people seeking to navigate wild times with their own wild self and who feel a call to serve others in their confusion and fear. We see this in the work of Eckhart Tolle as he talks about being present and alive. And we see this in how people are connecting around conversations about shared energy, making a difference, and claiming hope despite environmental and political stresses. When you are with a thoughtful group of people, listen to the conversations related to personal growth or other kinds of energy. They are glimpses of the Spirit at work.

We see this movement in Spirit Moxie as we continue, since 2013, to claim hope, embrace what we value as ourselves, and explore how this celebrates the connections among us.

Confused? Most of what you see depends on what you are looking for. So where might you see Spirit, however defined, working now?

___________________________
All photos by Teresa O’Bryant
From the top:
Sunset
Wolf Creek Valley Overlook
Winter Sky

Foundations

Posted on January 4, 2023 by Sally B.

Welcome to 2023!

Those who have read my previous posts for a new year have been invited to dream, choose a word or phrase to guide us, and otherwise embrace the year we’re entering (even 2021 with all its uncertainty). I still believe that all these activities are useful, empowering, and, often, engaging. But now that this new year has begun, let’s pause once more and claim the best for it slightly differently.

This year, I sense that there is more power in beginning with a three-part template. First, truly claim the power of gratitude. Second, dare to stand firmly as who you are rather than in some idealistic version you’ll magically become by next December. Finally, yes, restate and re-envision your dreams — and connect them to gratitude.

Picture of puzzle OK, but how does this really work in practice? Begin with, “What am I grateful for that occurred in 2022?.” What brought delight? Did you catch glimpses of joy? Then share those experiences! If you’re stuck, just naming that you made it to a new year is a great beginning. I’ve met new friends. I am actually cooking again fairly regularly. A health scare was easily resolved thanks to my community and great doctors. And I could go on: the demand that Corner of Calm continue; finishing a puzzle before I left from my Christmas visit to family.

You may have had some terrible, terrible things happen during the past year. Acknowledge that. Then look for tiny things to give thanks for if you can’t find big ones. This isn’t a Pollyanna-ish exercise. Set a timer for five minutes, get as still as you can, and write down whatever gratitude you see. Share one or two in the comments (sharing gives gratitude power). Post on Facebook. Send me an email. Knowing there was good in 2022, however hard or easy it is to find it, lays a base. It’s the difference between, “Prove yourself stupid time marker!” vs “I can see glimpses of what can be good in a year! Interesting.”

The second piece of our New Year’s claiming is you. Yes, You! One of the phrases I heard a lot last year was the deceptively simple statement, “You are enough.” If you really want to mess with what we believe, we can add in my claim that you’re perfect. What? I know both of those statements anger our critical minds, but reread what I wrote about “perfect” before you get all defensive. Neither of these statements means we can’t and won’t change. What happens is that we become even more who we are. I really do know you are awesome and it is crucial to a wonderful new year that you see it, too.

Dog on lap Here are a couple of exercises that can help. For me they involve writing, but a conversation with a really good friend or an activity that involves some other means of expression (drawing? making up a song? going on a thoughtful walk?) works, too. Name 5 to 10 of your gifts. I would guess that a couple of them even got stronger last year. I, for example, have bonded more with animals. None of these gifts have to be huge (although I would bet some are). “Calm during COVID” is still one of mine. If you really can’t think of anything, it might be useful to start keeping a list of compliments. I’m not sure from whom I got that exercise, but I have a place to write down “chill” when that was applied to me. Just the word. Some of you may have more physical things to name as gifts, although I would hope most of those (“my business took off”) were in your gratitude list.

It is from this place of naming who you are, even if others don’t always see it, that we bring strength to the third part. Dream and vision. Plan if you must (as someone not linear, I truly forget that often you are), but don’t set those plans in stone. What we want are destinations and some eagerness to take steps towards them. But it isn’t the steps we are naming here. It isn’t “I’m losing weight.” Or even a particular weight number. But to be able to say, “I’m truly happy with my body.” Not, “I’ll be debt free,” but “I live in true abundance.” Not even, “I want better experiences,’ but “I know delight.” Name the end, not the means. As Mike Dooley says, you set your GPS and then move. If we head the wrong way with a GPS, we are redirected.

Finally, as part of this visioning, give thanks for your dreams right now. I give thanks for my body. I delight in what I have and do. I know joy. Fuel. A stillness and foundation full of momentum. Paradox.

Gruet champagne bottle I’m not sure what images work for you as you enter this new year, but I know that you can only embrace them as yourself. And yourself is fabulous. Right now. I see that. Plus, remember that the groundwork from last year supports the vision for this one.

I toasted my new year with champagne bubbles and, today, I might do it again with herb tea. You?

Welcome to 2023!

___________________________
All photos by Spirit Moxie. From the top:

Puzzle finished over Christmas
Dog on my lap
New Year’s bubbles

Masquerade

Posted on November 11, 2022 by Sally B.

One of my favorite things is seeing something and am I’m certain I know what it is, but then having it turn out to be something completely different than what I thought. The insect that looks like a leaf is the classic. Or the leaf that looks like almost anything else: a small animal; a dog turd; a hole. Recently I saw a rock that looked like a hiding cat (actually frustrating because I was looking for the cat), a bird that looked like a valve on a pipe (or maybe vice versa), and a leaf that looked like a piece of food thrown on the ground.

Plus all this occurred at the time of year when people dress up. Usually “masquerade” is associated with Mardi Gras, but isn’t that also what we do for Halloween? Or in those Santa Claus beer crawls? You get to be that zombie fairy vampire* or the Ninja representative of death or a random dude in need of a costume. For weeks online and in random bars, you hear, “What are you going to be?” Parents ask their children. Adults ask their friends.

When I was juggling parenting, working, and other roles that came with “being human” in my 20s, I talked about “playing.” So, at the teacher/parent meeting, I’d play parent. At a spouse’s work event, I’d play spouse, etc. It didn’t mean, as members of a counseling group I attended thought, that I wasn’t always a mom and a spouse. It just meant, to me at the time, that I put on that role in a deliberate way for the occasion. My counseling buddies would have not have appreciated the fact that the word “person” comes from a Latin word that includes “mask” in its definition. Masks are integral who we are.

But what does this have to do with being present or changing the world, which I think are the two main reasons you’re reading this? That and curiosity. The point I’m emphasizing here is that you can’t truly masquerade as someone else unless you know who you really are. I’m sharing a Halloween picture of me last year with my granddaughter. I wanted to go trick or treating with her and family norms demanded a costume. I did not want to spend a lot on a costume, so, as shown in this picture, I’m a rumpled man (never could get a great name for the costume), who knows she’s a grandparent, cheapskate, parent (my son was along too), and tourist (in a new part, for me, of San Francisco). I was a lot of other things too. A user of public transit by choice and not default. Present to the energy and moods of an eight-year-old. Not interested in candy much personally. Grateful when people appreciated that I too was in costume. Amenable to any plans. Maybe these are surface traits, but my awareness of them allowed the afternoon/early evening to unfold smoothly and enjoyably.

One of the best challenges I’ve read recently is to list what you’re good at. Not what needs to be fixed. So what are those traits? Do you use them, in a positive way, as masks integral to you as a person or do you hide those traits or lurk behind them?

Who are you? What do you love about yourself? And what masks do you put on — physically, mentally, or emotionally just for fun? Do these masks add or expand that self? Claim and play!

__________________________________

From the top:

Praying Mantis — Sid Mosdell

*Street Poem that helped inspire this post by Sam Bones/streetpoetsam of Inspired Type

Zombie Fairies

They are very friendly, actually
Flitting here and there
From tree to tree and flower to flower
And they are especially attracted
to little girls in pink that play piano

They don’t leave a trail of blood, tho’
The only way you know you’re bitten
Is by the trail of glitter on the side of your neck.
(see image for proper formatting)

Trick or Treaters — Spirit Moxie

Breadcrumbs

Posted on June 27, 2022 by Sally B.

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?

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.

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

Moving into 2022

Posted on January 2, 2022 by Sally B.

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.

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.

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

Intertwined

Posted on September 6, 2021 by Sally B.

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.

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?

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.

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.

________________________

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

_______________________________

Photos from the top:

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

Conversation

Posted on July 22, 2021 by Sally B.

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?

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?

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?

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?”

__________________________________________________

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

Tech Support

Posted on May 6, 2021 by Sally B.

You’re on deadline: have five (ok, maybe more like 10) windows open on your computer; you’re using the calculator on your phone; and suddenly, everything freezes. Everything. The computer is even fighting being turned off.

“Stupid technology!” And after messing for 20 minutes with this computer key combination and that hack that doesn’t work, making a never-answered call to your software’s support team, and discovering the app you need now won’t even load on your phone, you turn on the TV, open a book, or go to bed. “@#!*#”

Last week, having discovered that a podcast I was on had gone live a week early, which meant posting the last Conversation post I shared while handling two other deadlines and exploring several good ideas demanding equal time, I finally went to send a link to the aforementioned Spirit Moxie post to my podcast host. The link that had worked beautifully all day now read, “this website does not exist, perhaps you misspelled it” — or something to that effect. For. My. Entire. Website. A tweet to my web provider Bluehost, whom I’ve seen responding on Twitter, yielded crickets, as they say. (Just for the record, they are usually wonderfully reliable and supportive.)

And then I remembered.

One of my tenets is that while disasters might happen, overall the universe supports you, things work in your favor, and my electronic devices have my best interests at heart. Really! “Right, B,” you’re saying. “That makes no sense at all.” But bear with me and look at those incidents from another angle. My electronics may be saying I need sleep. Or maybe exercise, food, or a break. Or to think about something before I actually share it. Almost always when I respect that whatever just isn’t going to work right now, that same something is fine a few hours later, the next day, or after I do what my mind and body needs to refresh or rethink. Somehow deadlines are still met. Clients and friends are still happy.

Because the universe has a sense of humor, just as I finished writing this, my friend Lynne casually updated her operating system right before a major client deadline. After three days of patiently dealing with unresponsive support people at Adobe, she finally found someone who agreed that her InDesign files, which wouldn’t open, were not corrupt (and so were sent to the client) and that yes, perhaps she did need to update her computer, something she knew, but didn’t want to be reminded about quite so dramatically. Everyone’s response to things is different, and I’m not at all sure she will think her tech supports her. But it might.

The point of this Conversation is to remind you to breathe, to be present. Now. What unlikely (to you) things in your life do support you if you let them? I could list some, but I’d like to hear where your mind and experience takes you. So, share in the comments.

And, yes, I did go to bed. Right before I turned off the light I checked www.spiritmoxie.com on my phone. It was fine.

________________________________________

All photos by Spirit Moxie. From the top:

Computer working on Being Heard
Error message
B’s phone

Spirit Moxie

Little Things That Can Change the World

Category Archives: Asides