There is a lot going on in our world and much of it is not just difficult, it feels downright unbearable. There is so much conflict, violence, loss, grief, pain, and fear. There are no immediate or easy answers. In this time of extreme uncertainty, tension and devastation, it may seem strange to be talking about presence – it’s too woo-woo, it’s too Zen, and we are clearly very far from Zen in our world. Yet I believe it’s exactly the time to be talking about presence.

​It's so easy to be swept into the awfulness of war, mass shootings, and climate disasters. I get caught up in the feeling of helplessness that comes with witnessing horror. My mind goes into overdrive and my body is on high alert; I’m hyper-vigilant.

​“Change is inevitable, but transformation is by conscious choice.” – Heather Ash Amara

I re-read my January 2021 blog post as inspiration for my first blog post of 2022 (it's been a long while since I last posted) and I had weirdly forgotten how it ended – with enoughness. Wow, interesting how quickly I forget about being enough and go about my usual strivings for being better, doing more, trying harder. This is a deep rut in the road of my life that I continue to fall into. And to quote Portia Nelson’s poem Autobiography in Five Short Chapters from Chapter III –

​“… There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
       My eyes are open
       I know where I am. …”

​With open eyes I see that it all starts from enoughness.

“Never underestimate the valuable and important difference you make in every life you touch, for the impact you make today has a powerful rippling effect on every tomorrow.” – Leon Brown

With the inauguration and official (and thankfully smooth) transfer of power in the United States, I’ve been thinking about power and impact lately. What does it mean to be powerful? What is the impact of that power in the world? What is our ripple effect? As I’ve learned as a Radical Leader® we are all ALWAYS having impact – the key question is, is it the impact we WANT?! 

Power and impact live within the broader context of connection. Humans are wired for connection, as Mark Nepo says “we have an innate call to find each other and join.” This connection with ourselves, others, the universe and God forms the context for our lives and is the water where the ripples emerge. 

"It seems the closer we get to being broken open, the more rawly we experience the muscle of paradox ... inside everything that is breakable, including us, is the one unnamable thing that is unbreakable." - Mark Nepo

I wrote a post for my blog a couple of weeks ago and just didn’t put it out there – I wasn’t exactly sure why. It felt like there was something missing, it didn’t feel complete, it wasn’t ready. And I see now that there was a reason for my hesitation because the world has changed again – as I write I am listening to the constant hum of helicopters and insistent whine of sirens and I’m in a place of rawness. Layers of what I know and patterns of my life are being stripped away. With the murder of George Floyd and the ensuing protest and unrest in my city and others around the country I’m left grieving and unbalanced. This is not my pain directly and yet I feel it. This is not my experience directly and yet I’m in it. I wonder how to show up in new ways for my whole community.

"Breathe it all in, love it all out." Mary Oliver

I last blogged on 2/24/20 – that was only 40 days ago (interesting number of days!) and in that time the world has changed before my eyes; I’ve been trying to catch my breath and find my way forward and I’m thinking you might be too. As my 16-year-old son said yesterday – “I’ve never seen anything like this in my life” so true, this is a first, even in my much longer life.

For the second half of the last 40 days I’ve been “busy” – but not busy in the way I have always thought of the word. Typically, my busy is focused on the doing – meeting with clients and colleagues, gathering with friends and family, carpooling, emailing, doing or “reminding” my family members to do household chores, running from thing to thing, fitting in one more task from the list – don’t get me wrong I’ve still been doing many of these things albeit in new ways and at the same time I’ve been busy trying to make sense of what is happening. I’ve been subsumed into the chaos of my thoughts – so much to process and so much time to process and yet clarity continues to escape me.