How do you decide?

 "Oh no!" my husband gasps, looking down at his phone sitting next to his breakfast. "The guy that hosted the party for John and Laura tested positive for COVID!"

"I'm so sorry." I say, quickly adding, "But the party was outside, and you were masked, and stayed something like 30 minutes. We'll be fine."

"But I've worked so hard to make sure not to bring anything home. I could never forgive myself" . . . he trails off and looks guilty.

"Yes you have been careful and look at me, not vaccinated yet, but still alive. I credit you."

Then his brow tightens and he looks straight into my eyes. "I knew I shouldn't go. Remember, I told you before I went I knew I shouldn't go."

Unconditional and fearless in impossible times

Not since elementary school's duck-and-cover drills have I felt such a sense of dread. Duck-and-cover was the public school program that prepared us all for an "atomic attack." It was a time in my young life when I learned about insomnia and chronic worry, usually in the dark of the night. Usually counting the decades and years left in my life. The Bogeyman was my night-time companion from his place in the far corner of the living room, which I could see through the hallway from my bed. 

Today's delights are tomorrow's expectations

"Ugh, mumble, mumble," I hear my sweetie climbing the stairs from the garage, his arms loaded with groceries.

"What say?" says me, "You didn't love your grocery experience this morning?"

"They've already changed some things around, and the new guy isn't as friendly. He wasn't much help."

"And the new guy isn't Michael." I submit my summation.

"Yes, he isn't Michael," he concedes.

My occasional living nightmare goes something like this

I get overwhelmed. The alien enters my body. I shut down. I hunker down. I am unable to communicate my shutdown. I feel guilty. I am unable to receive communication from others while I'm shut down. I feel guilty. I hunker down. Time goes by. Sometimes the others stop trying. I'm thinking about Dorothy, Jani and Jeannine. Three amazing women I lost in the last 20 years because in today's terms, I ghosted them. I just stopped calling and picking up. 

Cultivating Change

2016 was a pretty awful year for me. I couldn't look away from a spiteful election though it made me physically ill. My Gate 57, which often allows me to spot a scoundrel in the room first, made me afraid for the Earth. I feared a president that saw the planet as a commodity, and viewed climate catastrophe as a hoax, would make things worse for the environment for decades to come. You see, I hail from a clan of unapologetic dirt worshippers. Oregonians. My elders all worked their city lots--Mom with her roses, Nana and her dahlias and Auntie Grace doting on sweet peas. I joked that Mom, who worked as a hair stylist until she was 77, couldn't stop herself standing on her feet at work for 10 hours and then mow and rake and fond over backyard flowerbeds another 10. Mom judged others by whether or not their lawn was mowed AND edged. 

Unconditional and fearless

I first learned about "differentiation" reading David Schnarch's Passionate Marriage a couple of decades ago. The word itself came from the field of mathematics in the 1600s--think Isaac Newton. Over time, its meaning expanded into the fields of geology and biology. Schnarch's psycho-social perspective repurposed the word to describe the progressive, internal interplay of humans between autonomy (separation) and connection (togetherness). Schnarch is a sex therapist. Differentiation, however, goes far deeper as a practice than a remedy for a couple's sexual gridlock.

Differentiation is the ability to hang on to your unique self and what you need, even when those around you, including those you love, disagree. Differentiation is navigating your own boat and allowing others around you to navigate theirs. As long as we sail down life's river maintaining status in our own vessel, the trip can be smooth. If we find ourselves climbing onto the boat of another to adjust their navigation (control how they feel or travel the journey, or blame them for how we feel), we create a hazard. it's time to step back, climb back on our own deck and reflect on why we feel the need to navigate for others. There's plenty of work to be done on our own boat. In the end, differentiation is a gentle push for us to be all we can be by being who we are, and occasionally growing up and out of obsolete ways of being, especially in our relationships.

Energy's powerful influence on parent/child relationships and child development

"N-o-o-o-o," she screams as my daughter finally grabs her and carries her out of the playroom. "N-o-o-o-o, I don't want to go. I want to stay with Nana. N-o-o-o-o-o," she screams as she they drive away. This is the scene every week for a year and a half, once my granddaughter begins to exercise her voice. The predictable, worsening scene wears on my daughter, and fractures our relationship. The child never wants to leave what she is doing, and especially when leaving here. Their altercations are breathtaking. It often takes me a day to recover. 

The mosaic matrix* that is Human Design

I spent the morning preparing for a Zoom podcast to be recorded early Thursday morning. Right light, height, site, right color shirt. My headset works so I can make my contribution to a clean recording. I am ready to talk about the chapter I wrote for a book about Human Design. 

Stop Overworking and Start Overflowing: 25 Ways to Transform Your Life Using Human Design, a Brave Healer Productions publication featuring 24 author transformation stories, quickly became an Amazon #1 Bestseller. These first-person tales attempt to explain the unexplainable--progress through the mosaic matrix that is energy transformation. The true value of the book will be if we have been able to convey to readers the subtle/small/gigantic/simple and complex ways energy changes and transforms over time. Our early readers seem to think so.

And every day I step toward reconciling with myself, the better I get. The better life gets.

I am grateful every day to those who have seen me through the transformation of this sweet journey.

*mosaic--a picture or pattern produced by arranging together small colored pieces of hard material, such as stone, tile, or glass; matrix--rectangular arrays of numbers, symbols, or expressions, arranged in rows and columns.

Even when we're smart and really trying

Those of you moving from the honeymoon stage with Human Design where you found out how really cool you are, and are now taking steps to return to your true energy (by moving beyond your conditioning), please be kind to yourself. Even when we're smart and really trying, change is hard.

You already have a full life, with people around that count on you for for all kinds of things. Sometimes changes in us are met with resistance from those same people. It’s realistic to assume there will be push-back when we change. It works best if when we talk about it, we are unconditional to ourself and others (no matter what), and fearless (accepting and standing in our own energy).

Human Design is unconditional and fearless

Human Design is the ultimate tool of differentiation. Differentiation is the ability to hang on to our unique selves and what we need, even when those around us, including those we love, disagree. Differentiation is navigating our own boat and allowing others around us to navigate theirs. If we find ourselves trying to climb in others' boats (control how they feel or act, or blame them for how we feel), it’s important to retreat to the important work below our own deck. In the end, differentiation is a gentle push for us to be all we can be, and occasionally grow up and out of obsolete ways of being. When we attempt to differentiate, and talk to each other about our needs, it’s important to do so with two intentions.

Flowing with true-self energy--Human Design

I met Will at his office on Bainbridge Island in Washington State, a 3-hour train ride from Portland. Tall and thin with a stubble of beard, I employed him to introduce me to my spirit guides. It's true. I was driven to him by the dream and recommendation of a trusted writer friend who, much to my amazement, retold a vision I had in a sweat lodge some months before in a dream he had the night before.

Will did not reveal nor gather my spirit guides at my side. He had his own agenda, conjured in a few deep breaths and long gazes with penetrating blue eyes. He described for me the archives and journals he saw lined up around at my feet, lessons and counsel at the ready, and asked why I was caged in black rod iron. He asked what was holding me back from sharing my knowledge and know-how. He asked if I knew I had unique energy. He asked if I had heard of Human Design. He said I should call  a woman in Olympia, who Will believed could help reveal to me the "Manifestor" he could see--the destiny, it turns out the neutrino field sealed at my birth. I'm a sucker for an intriguing portal, especially when it has quantum physics at its core. I had to know more.

Speak your truth . . . but

be unconditional (with self and the others) and fearless (based on your true energy).

Working from inside out

Using your internal knowing to figure out where to go and what to do

Some revelations are a long time coming, though the word "knowing" itself connotes a sort of sky-opening-angel-singing moment of brilliance. Mine started at the University of Oregon with one of my favorite faculty members and accomplished writer, Robert Sylwester. As a writing coach he urged me to “Write about what you know.” I knew then it was a nugget meant to direct my craft, but I assumed at that point it was my job to go out and learn stuff so I could know enough to write. It’s taken me decades to figure out what a profound piece of advice he proposed.