Living generously

Dr. Kelly Flanagan wrote a beautiful piece recently about what the experience of acceptance, grace, generosity does for us:

This is the brilliance of grace: it welcomes our darkness into the light and does nothing to it, knowing that it doesn’t have to, because darkness thrives on hiddenness, and it’s at the mercy of the light. Light drives out darkness, not the other way around.

When we no longer have to push our darkness back down beneath layers of shame our darkness doesn’t stand a chance.

What about the other side of that equation? What does it mean to be the person providing that acceptance and generosity?

Individually, we have to nurture generosity in ourselves.

I believe the drive to live generously lives in most people. We want to be the gracious host, the good friend, the pocket of grace in a condemning world.

It takes work; even people we love, know, and trust can be brutal, crabby, just plain difficult, never mind extending generosity to the stranger, the person outside our tribe, the one from somewhere else who has nothing to offer us and no relations with us to oblige our indulgence.

Taking care of ourselves, rest, exercise, connecting with people who treat us well and care for us, and taking time daily to be with and experience what moves and inspires us creates a space in ourselves that allows us to live with generosity.

Collectively, we can create pockets of grace too.

There are so many examples of communities and organizations countering the trend towards criminalizing homelessness. It's important to recognize them too. I was struck recently by a story about RainCity Housing, a Vancouver nonprofit, worked with an ad agency to create benches that double as emergency shelter for "rough sleepers", with advertising that provides information on the shelter.

Another law attempting to criminalize homelessness, this one a Los Angeles ban on people sleeping in cars, has been struck down by a federal appeals court on the grounds it would open the door to discriminatory treatment against the poor.

Dr. Flanagan said

I can tell you now, grace isn’t just acceptance of the status quo. Grace contains the status quo—all of our struggle and pain and mess—and embraces us and values us anyway. Grace demands that nothing be changed for love and connection to happen, and that kind of love has power.

The power to accept people where they are, especially when it's outside our cultural comfort zone, is a power we can wield to help them begin again. Amazing stuff.

The importance of test runs. Plus, the shirt.

10 mile marathon course "test run" yesterday. Which went really well! Except for one thing, which reminded me why test runs are important.

Ah, the new shoes. Love them! Purple, sparkly, and unfortunately left a blood blister on my right foot. Which is why new shoes should be broken in gradually (I knew that), and why test runs are important.

This applies to everything we do, whether you're doing a job interview, managing a big project, swatching with your knitting before doing that big project, or running a long race. Give yourself some test runs! Here are some other reasons:

• They build confidence. Every performer knows that the only way to get a handle on nervousness (or sheer terror) associated with doing something new, important, or in front of a whole lotta people is to do it. This applies to everything we do: the more you practice (especially if you can do it in a lower-stakes setting, like a practice run), the more confident you will feel on the big day.
• They orient you. Getting a lay of the land before-hand, how the course will run, gives you one less distraction.
• Gives you time to fail. And fail. And begin again. Shorter runs, practice sessions, smaller-stakes projects are lower-cost opportunities to fail, be stupid (whether from poor planning or, um, new shoes). “If you can remove all fears and go one step at a time, you will find things that will guide you along the way,” said Tobias van Schneider, product designer for Spotify. “You will learn new things, absorb new information, meet people, get feedback, see demand in different areas — new doors will open up for you.”

Test runs are a gift you give yourself.

Run with me!

Also, officially unveiling the race shirt! You know, the one I'll put your name (or your company's logo) on if you donate to Lazarus House on my fundraising page:

I'll be adding the name of my blog and the LH logo to my shirt shortly, but there's plenty of room for your name! What are you waiting for?

Shout-out  to my first two donors, Blaine Richards and Kristi Loar! Thank you for your generous support of Lazarus House, and for running with me in September!

Impossible Conditions

Whatever you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible. - Doris Lessing

The hot, humid is here. That means running gets hard (just like February when it was 10F). So I have to start over, slow down, dress different, pay attention to water.

I ran through this winter's impossible conditions because my friends were, every Saturday, and I wanted to run with them more.

Conditions are going to be impossible. Find something you want more, and start anyway.

Running rocks and the merciless blank page

The blank page can be merciless. One of my favorite writers on creativity and performance is Todd Henry, author of Die Empty. In his blog, Todd writes about cultivating the practice of being alone with your thoughts every day.

About fifteen years ago, I heard a friend say that the best practice he’d ever developed was plopping down in a chair first thing in the morning with a notebook and staring at the wall. I thought he was out of his mind until I started doing the same thing. It’s amazing how many thoughts pass through your mind, slipping just beneath the level of your consciousness simply because you aren’t listening for them.

But what do you do when you sit with your thoughts and, well, you don’t have any? What if you reach and There’s. Just. Nothing. There.

Very tempting to give up, to give in to the demands of the day’s busy-ness. For some, mornings are not a quiet, tranquil time to gather thoughts and begin again. They bring anxiety and the bustle of activity, getting kids off to school and not being late for work and remembering the mountain of undone tasks and unmet deadlines.

Celebrate the Habit

One key to making it work is to learn how to enjoy and even celebrate that daily process, regardless of the outcome. Because building the habit itself is useful.

Over time, habit trumps the "monkey mind", creates the structure and space for productive work. A lot of times you can’t see the change. But it’s happening.

Starting a run is a blank page. It can be merciless. There are lots of crappy, just ok, not inspiring at all runs. But they all count. So if you can find a way to enjoy, savor or celebrate each one you will build a habit, and it will stick.

When my teenage son wanted to take up running, I encouraged him to pick up a rock at the end of each run. The rock represented his run for the day. They went into a flower pot on our porch so he could see, over time, the pile growing.

With his usual creativity, he soon took to picking his running rock very seriously – on good days the rocks were smooth and shiny, others were jagged and heavy. It wasn’t too long before he could see a pretty good pile of rocks in the pot. And when the time came for his first 5K, he was ready.

Learn to enjoy the habit, and the habit will become its own reward. The goal isn’t some distant achievement, but the process itself. - Leo Babauta, Zen Habits

Unpredictable

Who "makes it through" tragedy and difficulty? A talented web dev colleague of mine, Eric Meyer, has been writing through the unspeakable tragedy of the loss of their six year old daughter. I am grateful for the gift of his beautiful writing in the midst of this wretched time.

Extreme events place immense, sometimes overwhelming stress on relationships. There isn't really a formula for who makes it through. "It isn’t strength that keeps a couple together in the face of crisis. It’s having the luck to remain compatible under the most extreme pressures. Like any complex interaction between two complex systems, the outcome is fundamentally unpredictable."