how to show up for your life

I recently read a post over at The Daily Love about the importance of showing up - for your life, your dreams, your ambitions. It got me thinking.

The instruction on TDL was to show up daily for our dreams. I like this. And I agree.  Be present with and for yourself. Be consistent, have integrity, do your thing daily.

But the instruction opened some questions for me too.

I don't know how it's done now, but when I was growing up, our teachers kept big brown spiral bound leatherette books on their desks. The books contained ledger sheets, the ledger sheets contained names and next to the names so many tiny boxes, one for each day of the school year, to be filled with checkmarks or codes which signified Present, Absent, or Tardy, Excused or Unexcused.

There were big social rewards, prizes, and public acknowledgements for having a Perfect Attendance Record - that is, showing up every day and never being Tardy. I think it was OK to have a very occasional Excused Absence for something like going to get your allergy shots or attending your grandmother's funeral. A Perfect Attendance Record was an admirable social accomplishment, something for which both teachers and other kids admired you. It was unlike the accomplishment of a Perfect Report Card, for which teachers and parents loved you, but which made you an object of suspicion and sometimes scorn among your peers.

In case you haven't already figured it out, I had a perfect report card and a very spotty attendance record.

I was an anxious child and a misfit, and I had a very difficult and often chaotic home life.
Showing Up Daily and Not Being Tardy was pretty much out of reach for me. Straight A's were not. I was smart, and I loved to be lost in books, and homework was something I could control.

For many, many years beyond my childhood, my life reflected this formative experience with Showing Up. Showing up for personal accomplishments and creations was easy. I made amazing, straight-A stuff.

Showing up in simple ways for other people, or for powerful social structures, was way harder, because of a difficult and often chaotic inner life; the ghost of my childhood home life.

Through deep healing, I have begun to learn how to show up in all the important ways in my life - I've taught myself the simple consistency and discipline that leads to the equivalent of a decent attendance record, which in turn makes the wheels of life turn more smoothly; my bills are payed and I've met my deadlines.  And I feel blessed that I learned very early in life to show up daily for my inner work and creativity, for imagination and contemplation.

I believe showing up in BOTH of these ways is key to a well-lived and artful life.
I also see that my own particular journey is perhaps not the norm. I think many of us learn early that getting all the boxes ticked in that big ledger can bring a measure of ease, and some nice social rewards. So we may go through life efficiently showing up and ticking the boxes and reaping the rewards, but then also wondering about a lack of spaciousness, an absence of passion, a subtle sense of disconnection which haunts us despite our apparently thorough consistency and integrity.

So, here's my advice: by all means tick the boxes. Keep your word, pay your taxes, do your job in the world. Do it mindfully, and with love. This is essential. But don't make the job of ticking the boxes SO BIG that your life becomes small.
Showing up is essential. But just showing up won't get you there. Be discerning about what you show up for. Be mindful of how you show up, and why. Here's what I want my Showing Up to be:

I want to practice a kind of showing up for life that opens me to the spacious beauty of being, not a showing up that distracts me with more ambitious do-do-doing.

I want to practice showing up for the true vastness of my dreams of possibility, not for the binding ambitions of my ego.

I want to practice a showing up for others that opens my deep heart of compassion and allows the pouring out of my true gifts, not a showing up that merely adds lines to my Resume of Good Deeds.

I want to create a consistency that is gorgeously rhythmic, not numbingly mechanistic.

I want to create an integrity that reflects a wholeness of heart, not just an ability to connect the dots (or tick the boxes.)

I want to practice a showing up that is deep, soft, and forgiving. 

How do you want to show up for your life?

creating a balanced life: drawing on the wisdom of the body

Hi Beautiful,

What does it really mean to you, the idea of living a balanced life? 

I think this idea of pursuing life-balance is becoming increasingly popular because we feel somehow that we have lost, or are losing our balance. As women, especially, it seems balance in life evades us.

I didn't really learn about balance in life until I became a dancer. Before that, balance seemed a static thing that I had to arrange for and think carefully about; a balanced checkbook, a balanced composition in my paintings, a balanced diet; all these things required planning and induced anxiety. With dance, I found my center of gravity, and with it, a whole new idea of balance.

I was not a very physical person before I started dancing at age 30. You could say I was cut off from my body. I was clumsy, physically uncertain, intellectual, and ever so slightly round in the shoulders. I still am all of these things, a bit, but dance has allowed me to inhabit my body in a very satisfying way, and I have gained grace, wisdom and equilibrium from this precious sense of embodiment.

So, life-balance....  Here is what my body has taught me about achieving it:

• Maintaining balance means moving & changing continually.
• Sometimes a very tiny movement is all that is needed to bring exquisite equilibrium.
• You can lose your balance by going too fast, or too slow.
• Try to HOLD TIGHT to your balance and you will surely lose it.
• Always be aware of what your gut is telling you.
• Relax, and hold everything around you in a loose & gentle focus.
• Breathe, breathe, breathe.
• A little bit of fear will keep you moving and alert. A lot of fear will bring you down.
• And this: The feeling that you are about to lose your balance is the natural hallmark of being balanced and moving at the same time.

I'll be writing more about life-balance in the coming weeks; it's an idea I'm really interested in exploring right now. There are no magic formulas, I'm sure of that, because each of us has such a unique pattern and rhythm to our days and lives - but there are some universals in the human need for emotional and spiritual eqilibrium.

Journal Prompts:

For Writing: What does balance really feel like to me? Where do I feel it in my body, and what is the sensation? When do I feel balanced in my life?

For Visual Journaling: Grab your pile of magazines and a glue stick. Find a quiet space, breathe, and search for a feeling of balance in your body. Without thinking about it too much, start tearing out pictures from the magazines that match this feeling. Create a collage from the results. What does it show you about your idea of life-balance?

10 Reasons Why I Love Living on the Island

• going to sleep to frog song and waking up to bird song
• buying fresh organic free range eggs from our neighbor for $2 a dozen
• having friends of all ages from 4 to 90
• not locking my door, ever
• the ocean - being surrounded by it
• it's like an intentional community of misfits
• harvesting oysters, clams, berries, nettles, and other beautiful wild food
• yes you can eat nettles, you just steam them first
• tall, tall trees
• dogs are allowed to come to dances
• I know everyone's story and they know mine

Artful Reminder:

Soulful, artful island RETREATS for women - make art, journal, dance, do yoga, practice deep self care, learn to celebrate the sacred in daily life - all with a group of like minded women in our forest retreat at the heart of our Gulf Island... YUM!!!!!! Read more here.

above, scenes from a recent walk. I love the plum greys of sea and sky this time of year, and the vivid green of the moss.

Oh, it is blissfully quiet here this morning! The fire is warm, I can hear that cozy occasional ping-crackle as the iron expands and the wood settles. I'm looking out over the damp meadow, quiet under a lavender sky. My daughter is taking her college entrance exams this morning, which started at the ungodly hour of 7:30 AM. She and my husband had to get up and be ready for the 6:40 ferry. I only felt a little bit guilty putting the pillow over my head until 8! Now I am enjoying a rare Saturday morning alone in the house. I made coffee (organic locally roasted fair trade espresso YUM) in my tiny one cup espresso pot that I bought at the hardware store down the street from my apartment in Florence. (This is actually a big treat, as I rarely drink coffee.) I'm burning Nag Champa. (Also a treat: my husband lived in a yoga centre for 7 years and now cannot abide the smell of incense, and it gives my daughter a headache.) I'm still in my soft fleece robe, and the dog is snoring. In an hour or so I get to go to the first yogadance class of the season. My temperament rarely allows me to experience moments of simple well-being, so I am particularly grateful for the gift and the grace of a moment like this. May you all have a wonderful weekend with many moments of well-being.

Happiness Resources

In stark contrast to yesterday's post, I want to talk about happiness today. Do you know anyone who radiates happiness? My friend L. is one of those people. The very happy photo above was taken in her garden. The food and flowers she grows and sells at the farmer's market always have a tinge of her special yummy radiance. When she sees you, she greets you with a huge (again, radiant) smile and warm hug, and says something like "hellOOO gorgeous!!!" as if you were her long lost best friend. She seems truly happy to see you. When L. has a bad hair day, she'll put on a big smile and a headband with sequined cat ears, because it's likely to cheer other people up and distract them from her hair (yes, that actually happened.) She's generous with food and compliments. She is almost always smiling.

As life goes on, the value of this attitude grows on me. Cool sophistication is less likely to draw my admiration these days: bring on the hugs and sparkly cat ears! In the interest of bringing more of a sparkly cat ears feeling into my life, I've been doing some reading about happiness, and wanted to share some of my finds with you:


I picked up The How of Happiness at the airport last spring on my way up north to teach a weekend workshop. I love airport bookstores - for some reason when I'm traveling I give myself permission to buy books I normally wouldn't. This one is a really interesting analysis of the science of happiness, along with practical suggestions for getting more happiness in your own life. Even though the prose is a bit awkward, this one has become a dog-eared bedside stand-by.










I'm reading The Happiness Project right now. It's light and fun, and sprinkled with little pearls of wisdom. It's a memoir of a year the author spent methodically researching and applying happiness strategies to her daily life, with varying degrees of success. Definitely a fun and inspiring read. Even better is the Happiness Project blog, where you can start your own happiness project.











Here, for me, is where the pursuit of happiness gains some depth and soul resonance. As in all his works, the Dalai Lama brings the message that kindness, equanimity, mindfulness, and compassion are essential to our fulfillment and sense of joy and belonging in the world. If you have not delved into Buddhist readings or the works of HH, this beautiful book is a really good place to start.












Artful Reminders:


Soulful, artful island RETREATS for women - make art, journal, dance, do yoga, practice deep self care, learn to celebrate the sacred in daily life - all with a group of like minded women in our forest retreat at the heart of our Gulf Island... YUM!!!!!! Read more here, and join the mailing list here.





Seven Keys to an Artful Life - I'm so excited about launching this on-line circle for artful living - begins February 15th! Read more here.





I'm participating in the Help Haiti Blog Challenge, brainchild of blogger Kelly Diels. Participants offer a product or service and donate the proceeds to helping in Haiti. My pledge: I make these lovely little buddha dishes, which I sell in my Etsy shop. I will donate 100% of the profits from any of my buddha dishes sold in the next 28 days to Medicins sans Frontieres for their efforts in Haiti.