As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For July 2024, the quote that centered me was: Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.  

Near the end of COVID, I became a certified mindfulness facilitator. While I sought this certification to support my facilitation work, I discovered I actually needed it for myself. There are many ways you can practice mindfulness… breathing, walking, listening, and recently as part of the Radiant Leader community I practiced with writing. The weekly host read “The Guest House” – a poem by Jalaluddin Rumi. Our practice was to listen to the poem, read the poem to ourselves out loud, and then read it to ourselves silently. After reading it, we were to select a word or phrase that caught our attention and write about it for eight minutes. This mindful practice in June led me to July’s quote.

Here are quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught my attention during the month:

• An umbrella of peace opens around me in difficult times
• I am because we are
• Live fully in my God-created body
• And you can still find peace and grow in the wild of changing times
• We find only the world we look for
• Justice is what love looks like in public
• The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper
• A God moment
• This is my story, this is my song
• Follow the energy
• When the world goes mad, become wildly kind to everyone, everyone
• There are some people who have sun inside them; They have an eternal being that sheds light and feels the sun
• Peace is the most disturbing force in the universe
• Gratitude is the gateway to grace
• The adventure we were supposed to have
• When I let my heart constantly stir like a cotton candy machine, the lighter and sweeter it becomes
• Normal, natural, not a problem

This poem stirred me. And like many mindful practices, uncomfort showed up first—the squirm. Then I resettled, re-read,  and practiced again.

I thought about who was not there and my heart ached. Then I resettled, re-read, and practiced again.

As I sat with the poem, I realized that my difficult “visitors” in life were not alone. Each complex, unwanted thing came with several more that were supportive, delightful, compassionate, and silly. This mindful moment enabled me to review my last six months and see all the bright lights around me.

Unexpected conversations. Steady friends. Surprise adventures. New connections. Moments of peace. Each visitor a nightlight, a warm glow, or a bright beacon—blessings that lit my path forward.

My mind full, I realized loss and love coexist – and it’s not just good, it’s welcome.

“… The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.”

As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For June 2024, the quote that centered me was: Create what you wish existed.  

We each exist in different large, complex systems. Work, church, school, and family to name a few. But we often forget about the most complex system in which we reside, ourselves. A mindfulness practice I participated in as a member of the Radiant Leader community brought my own system into a new focus… and just how much I can create and recreate it.

Here are quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught my attention during the month:

• Your alignment comes from your foundation
• Some how grace has found me, and I to let her in
• Just like that, your life can change with what the angels send
• Body and heart are already free and the door is wide open
• I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set attention him free
• More space
• He did not know he could not fly, so he did
• The joy of every day
• We have stopped for a moment to encounter each other, to meet, to love, to share
• No one has a hard time listening to something that is interesting
• I am enough; I can make anywhere home
• He’s one of those who knows that life is just a leap of faith; Spread your arms and hold your breath; Always trust your cape.
• To be, beyond

There I was on a Friday morning with several other Radiant Leaders on a monthly Zoom call exploring. While we often explore change and leadership, that Friday, I sat there exploring a thick, damn cold, melting ice cube that was laying in the palm of my right hand.

I explored my mind: Did I just want to drop off the call? Did others think this was odd. Why was I doing this? What if I sat here and just watched and listened? How long is this going to go on?

Since I wished to learn and be more mindful of how I show up and respond to those around me, I decided I would do the mindful practice fully and hold on to that ice cube, no matter what. I continued the practice.

I explored my body: The cold of my palm and fingers from the ice cube. The wet skin from the melt of the ice cube. The tightness of my fingers from the cold. The tenseness of my shoulders as I focused on what was happening in my hand. The warmth in other parts of my body that I sought to mentally move to my hand. My skin getting pink from the cold.

Since I wished to be more present in the big and small moments of my life, I settled in and accepted each bodily sensation. I continued the practice.

I explored disruption when the host guided us to keep the ice cube in our right hand and start to rub the pointer and thumb together in our left hand. Because of my fixation on the ice cube, it took me a minute to calibrate and get the fingers in my left hand moving – a bit like a rub your stomach and pat your head moment for me.

Since I wanted to see where all this led and how it might help me be a better me, I sat there, ice cube in my right hand and fingers rubbing in the left. I continued the practice.

I sat there with my brain and body wrestling and chatting. Unsettled busy bodies. Then space opened up between the comments, and long, calm pauses filled my system. My left fingers took away the overwhelm of the ice cube in my right, and an equilibrium occurred. My body relaxed. Controlled focus shifted to curious acceptance. I continued the practice.

Upon reflection, I learned my brain is quick to distract, discourage, and dig in (as I never thought about putting the cube down like others). I realized my body is a better radar for my system than my thoughts. I came to embrace the patience of practice. I came to understand I can create peace in my system.

What do you wish create?  

As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For May 2024 my quote was simply a word, “Align.”

I chose align partly because of its simplicity. One word. To get things in a row, organized. While there was a bit of organization that needed to be done after a year focused on caregiving, it was more than that. I felt out of alignment, like parts of me didn’t fit like they used to. A bit like a shirt shrunk in the wash or going back to college or your hometown and seeing how much you’d changed and grew since you were there but yet, still the same. Upon reflection, what I sought was inner congruence—alignment of, as one definition wrote, “your genuine essence, our deepest passions, and your unique talents.”  As I sought to align, or realign, here are the quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught my attention throughout the month:

• To perceive the world in binary is to forgo knowledge of the divine
• And then, I realized what you do with an idea—you change the world
• The work, it seems, for us is to draw sustenance from that central, eternal space without denying the experience of the storm—so to find the center and spread our battered wings is to feel the God within
• Sticky bits
• You are here to enrich the world
• Joy is a birthright
• Each of us are tiny waives on the vast ocean of bliss
• We try to prove our self-worth by what we get done, which means we always have to do more
• You are here to enrich the world
• Make it a place to play and not a final destination
• Strength and ease
• Remember who you are
• In the end, we’ll all become stories

I began my month trying some physical alignment:  yoga. I did yoga for about a year in my early twenties. Not sure what called me back to it, but the call was strong and persistent. I bought an unlimited pass for two weeks and jumped in. While there was much misalignment on the mat as I faced upside down trying to remember my right from my left, my brain was singular. Quiet and still. Yoga is the one place I cannot think of anything else. I can only do the pose and breath (and usually my breath takes reminding). This quieted brain was what my being had begged for. I bought a year-long membership.

The next opportunity to align arose at work. I suddenly had several calls on my calendar from younger co-workers I didn’t know. These calls were connectional in nature rather than about a project or task. Simply two people getting to know each other. We shared the basics – background, career journey, location, loved ones – and then shifted to personal. What they sought. Lessons I’d learned. Curious questions. Admitted secrets. Bold moves. Emotional decisions. We were not different. We were connected by a life thread – a continuum of humanness. I left these calls refreshed and smiling, reminded that wherever we are on our journey, we are all connected so it’s important to pause and simply be and align with others where the are.

Nature became my next source of alignment. After a 6-month renovation effort on my condo building, I finally got access to my back porch, OK, it’s more of a nook with a fire escape – but it’s outside. I got a small table with two chairs. I worked here in the coolness of the mornings. I read here on sunny weekend afternoons. I called my mom from here as dinner cooked. But the alignment came when I sat here. That’s it. I just sat here. I sat here as light rain fell. I sat here as the sun danced through the leaves of my neighbor’s three-story magnolia tree. I sat here in a steady breeze that rustled the leaves. I sat here and listened to and watched the birds, squirrels, and bunnies. As I sat in a stillness that extended from my bones to the soul, I recalled one of my mother’s favorite Bible verses, Matthew 6:26-27: “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you worrying add a single hour to your life?”

This month reminded me that alignment begins within, and it is a muscle that needs to be worked, stretched, and soothed.

I realized that what I needed was less out there and more in here. That taking care of and replenishing me, my being, would enable me to be more of me in the world – and that, that was what I truly sought.

Not alignment to the world, but to align to myself within it.

As I set up my calendar for the month, I select a quote I’ve found that speaks to me. I write it in my planner and leave space below it to capture phrases I hear or read that speak to me and relate to the quote. I found this practice centers me throughout the month, and helps me be more present in my conversations, meetings, and readings. For April 2024 the quote was, “The world will unlock hundreds of doors when you give this day all the courage, love, and intensity you can.”

My month ended with mom and I in North Carolina for a family funeral in the area where she and dad both grew up, just north of Charlotte. During our three-day trip we saw countless doors. Just about every Presbyterian church in a 20 mile radius and countless homes of loved ones long gone. I saw them all with new perspective… physically as I was now 5’10” vs. kid size and emotionally, 50 from vs. 15.

Here are quotes, lyrics, and phrases that that caught my attention during the month, and this trip:

• Your life so far has proven it’s possible
• Maybe we’re not here to solve it; We’re here to evolve it
• Soul work is not a high road; It’s a deep fall into an unforgiving darkness that won’t let you go until you find the song that sings you home
• I realized belonging is not something I just receive – I actively cultivate belonging through the way I see and know others
• Days like today remind me we receive what we practice
• You can’t fake the frequency
• It’s a privilege to grieve – it means you loved someone and they loved you
• If I do but one thing today may I be human sunshine for someone
• Write our story, sing your song, speak truth into the hard parts
• I never worry about the places you invite me
• There is no “we” in chocolate (or bourbon)
• One day you know what you had to do, and began
• Can we sit with it, and keep going anyway?
• Grace always finds you exactly where you are, and does not leave you where it found you

While in North Carolina I saw more than doors. I saw the potential they opened and the legacy they built.

I saw church doors in four communities that welcomed various branches of my family tree which led to a foundation of faith for generations of Oehlers, Goodnights, Reynolds, and Lipes. I saw the door of the church where my parents met at kids which led to a 59-year marriage (and me!). I road by and saw the front door of my grandmother MawMaw’s house which led to three generations of educators (principle; elementary, middle school, and high school teachers; university dean, librarian, Sunday school). I saw the front door of four small “mill houses” given by my great grandfather to each of his kids which led to hundreds of community leaders – business owners, teachers, writers, corporate executives, volunteers, fireman, policeman, pastor, and more. I delighted at the cute, well-kept door at my grandmother Nanny’s old house that led to the comfort of thousands through the pies, casseroles, and visitations made by Nanny and her descendants. Then there was the door to our favorite BBQ restaurant that led to countless family meals and laughs for 40+ years (and us luckily being able to eat their twice and take 3 pounds home!).

For me, these doors were portals that allowed me to time travel to loved ones long gone and previous versions on myself. My mind connecting a thread between them all. Every person. Every thought. Every action. Every emotion. Every hope. Every loss. Every choice. Everything separate. Everything together.

Every door both a fixed point in time and with unlimited possibilities.