Category Archives: Vision

Honoring Life

My mom is 90 years old, and she is in the process of dying. Her body is weakening, she has lost most of her interest in food, she spends a lot of time sleeping, and her breathing has become more shallow. I don’t know how much longer she’ll live.

I love my mom. I have been grieving her death for the past several months, since I began to really acknowledge and accept how severe her Alzheimer’s has gotten, and that so much of what made her such an amazing force in my life — her internal strength and resilience, her strong work ethic and commitment to make a difference in the world, her passion for helping people in need, the joy she got from taking care of the people she loved — is no longer apparent in the woman she is today. This is the woman who took my dad coffee in bed every morning during the 48 years that they were married until my dad passed away in 2006. She is the one who used to put my school uniform in front of the forced-air heating vent every morning when I got up and got into the shower after discovering how much I loved and delighted in putting on something that felt warm like a good embrace before heading off to school. Even as a high school student, I recall being in awe of how many people randomly approached me to tell me what a difference my mom had made in their lives. She spent countless hours for decades doing volunteer work to help Armenian refugees get settled in Southern CA. These people, and others who she willingly opened her heart and extended a helping hand to, told me that they would never be where they were if it weren’t for my mom. She had stepped in to help them when they felt scared and overwhelmed and were grieving the loss of everything that was familiar to them and she supported them to feel safe and comfortable. I vividly remember thinking that if anywhere near the number of people whose lives my mom had touched could say something similar about me, I would feel like my life had been well-lived. She inspired me and supported me and loved me with every fiber of her being — even though I wasn’t born from her womb.

I remember when her mother’s Alzheimer’s got so bad that she didn’t recognize my mom (who visited her daily) when she was standing right in front of her. As my mom’s Alzheimer’s has progressed, I have been thankful every time I called her on the phone or showed up at her door and she recognized my voice or my face. At the same time, spending time with her is like interacting with the shadow of who she used to be. She asks the same question repeatedly, only moments after I finish answering it. At least, I used to think, she’s physically healthy. And even if she doesn’t remember what just happened, or even the names of her sister’s children, at least she is able to be present, here and now. Both those things are no longer true.

Now, she is present for short glimpses, and then just seems to disappear into a fog or some faraway place. It breaks my heart to watch her body shutting down now, much as her memory has shut down progressively over the past few years. I feel at a loss of what to do to help her passing be peaceful and easy. There are moments when I am so overcome with grief and sorrow that it is all I can do to be with my own feelings of sadness and even anger and frustration. I want to drop everything and stay by her side until she dies, whenever that may be. And yet I keep hearing her voice echoing in my head from conversations through the years during which she repeatedly told me, “I don’t want to be a burden on you. I want you to live your own life and do what you need and want to do for yourself. Please don’t worry about me.” She must’ve spoken the word “burden” more than a hundred times.

So, as the tears subside, I stop to ask myself, “How can I best love and honor my mom? Really, how can I best honor and love her?” Should I stay by her side, where I have been for the past week, and put my life on hold? The people at the facility where she is living tell me she’s doing alright. She is comfortable and being well cared for. With a deep breath, I realize that the best way to honor my mom is to honor what she has always stood for and believed in: passion, joy, love, and the strength and commitment to do what needs to be done and make a difference in the world. So I kiss her gently and tell her I’ll call her soon, knowing that she’s ever present in my thoughts and will always be in my heart. “I love you, Mom,” I tell her. “I know,” she responds, “you’re my precious girl.”

Two days later, when I call her for the umpteenth time to check in on her and tell her that I’m thinking of her and I love her, she surprises me with a moment of poignant clarity. “You sound sad.” she says, as I fight to hold back the tears I can feel welling up in me. Then she says, “Everything’s going to be okay, darling mine. Everything is going to be just fine.”

What to Do When Something’s Wrong or Something’s Missing

Take a deep breath right now. Before reading on, just take a breath.

I’m going to invite you to take an honest look at something really important. I invite you to look at all the places where you are telling yourself that something’s wrong or something’s missing:

- What is wrong with you?
- What is wrong with your spouse?
- What is missing from your relationship?
- What is wrong with your job or your financial situation or your ability to provide for yourself and your family?
- What is wrong with your health?
- What’s wrong with the way your employees are doing their jobs?
- What are all those things that if you had them in your life, you’d finally be happy?
- Do you feel like you don’t have enough time or resources or love — is that’s what’s missing from your life?
- What’s wrong with our government, or the way people treat you or others, or the way we are living our lives and utilizing resources?

Let yourself feel what it feels like when you believe all of those thoughts. Really marinate in it all for a moment. Let it all sink in. What emotions do you experience? What images do you see of the past and the future? How does your body feel when you bring those thoughts front and center? How do you treat your spouse or your coworkers or your children or your parents when you believe that something’s wrong with them or what they are doing or what they want or believe? How do you treat yourself when you believe that you’re broken or not good enough or don’t have what it takes?

Now take another deep breath.

What if all of those beliefs, all of those thoughts, are just stories? What if you are just making it all up, like some grand fairytale? What if those thoughts are like clouds that float through the sky of your consciousness? What if they come and go — just like the waves that roll into the shore and recede, just like the flowers that bloom and fade, just like the emotions that you feel? What if it’s only your choice (conscious or subconscious) to hold onto them that gives them any energy or power at all? What if there’s another way?

I invite you to remember that you are constantly making meaning out of things you see or experience or even feel. Even more importantly, I invite you to remember that you actually have a choice.

You can choose to continue to do things and be with yourself and others in the way that you have, but we all know that chances are good you’ll keep getting the same results you’ve been getting. So if you’re happy with the results you’re already getting, that’s great! If it’s not broken, don’t fix it!

If you aren’t happy with your results, though, ask yourself this: what are you really committed to? Are you serving safety and comfort, or are you serving something even more deep and meaningful to you? What mission moves you and motivates you and inspires you? Here’s mine…

I inspire, support, and honor wholehearted living, courageous loving, and true connection.

Sometimes I get caught (more often than I’d like to admit during the past few months) in serving safety and comfort rather than what really matters to me. It’s like the clouds come in and I somehow forget that the sun is still there in the sky, shining as brightly as ever. I forget just because somehow I can’t see it in this moment. That’s why self-reflection and self-awareness is so important. It’s what supports us to live consciously and intentionally, rather than being driven by our habits.

As soon as I see that that is what I am doing, I wake up again to who I really am. I remember that we are all connected. I remember that I have a choice. I begin by forgiving myself for having fallen asleep, and then I look at the stories I’m making up about my boyfriend or my brother or myself, and I ask myself: are these stories serving wholehearted living, courageous loving and true connection? If not, I choose to let them go. They aren’t me, they are just a tape playing in my head. It’s a radio station that plays the same songs again and again, and they are songs I’m not interested in listening to anymore.

I choose wholehearted living, courageous loving, and true connection.

What are you choosing?

How to End Blame and Criticism

Have you ever found yourself in an argument with someone you love, wishing you could find a way through the conflict?

John Gottman (www.gottman.com), who has done a tremendous amount of research on the science of love. He claims he can predict with over 90% accuracy whether a relationship will last. He does this by analyzing the interactions of couples in his Love Lab in Seattle. What he has found is that relationships need lots of positive interactions. I’m sure you could have guessed that, but his science is more exact than simply that. He says that if the ratio of positive interactions to negative interactions is greater than 5:1, the relationship has a strong likelihood of lasting.

Criticism has an incredibly damaging effect on relationships. So, what can you do if you find yourself caught in the toxic cycle of criticizing or blaming your partner? Gay and Kathlyn Hendricks are therapists, best-selling authors, and the founders of The Hendricks Institute. Their mission is to support conscious living and conscious loving. Their two minute video on How to End Blame and Criticism:

Make a commitment to ask yourself:

I wonder what I could learn from this?
I wonder how I could be contributing this?
Why are we doing this to each other?
What am I afraid of?

May you live in wonder and love!

Laws of Success

Book on the beach

Napoleon Hill’s work and his book, Think and Grow Rich, have influenced many people within the personal development field. The basic premise is that our focus needs to be on being the type of person to whom whatever it is we are seeking naturally flows. To be successful, we must be willing to dream and pursue our dreams, with a burning desire and unwavering commitment, even in the face of adversity and failure.
What is even more compelling than Napoleon Hill’s book Think and Grow Rich, though, is his book, The Laws of Success, in which he outlines Fifteen Laws of Success. These are:

A Definite Chief Aim — a clearly defined thing you want with burning desire to accomplish or achieve or bring to the world. Hill writes, “There is some one thing that you can do better than anyone else in the world could do it. Search until you find out what this particular line of endeavor is, make it the object of your definite chief aim and them organize all your forces and attack it with the belief that you are going to win.”
Self-Confidence — In its most simple form, this is seeing the best in yourself and believing in yourself.
The Habit of Saving — Develop the habit of saving 20% of everything you earn
Initiative and Leadership — Do that which out to be done without being told to do it, develop the habit of initiative by taking some definite action each day that will carry you nearer your definite chief aim. Leadership is based on knowing your employees, knowing your business, and knowing yourself.
Imagination — Imagination is necessary to create a vision of something not yet created or present.
Enthusiasm — An enthusiastic state of mind will bring energy and momentum to what you are doing. “It is the vital force that impels action.” For more, see video 8 below.
Self-Control — Self-control is what “directs your action so that it will build up and not tear down.” Self-control is the result of thought-control, of deliberately and persistently directing your thoughts and energy in productive, supportive directions. See video 6 below for more on this.
Habit of Doing More Than Paid For — This is the habit of performing more service and better service that that for which you are paid. Think Zappos! here. As Tony Hsieh and the gang at Zappos! found, by doing more than what you are paid for, you are planting seeds that will eventually bear fruit. See video 3 below.
Pleasing Personality — This is described in detail in video 5 below.
Accurate Thought — This is the principle of seeing things as they are, and investigating rather than categorically believing all your thoughts. It requires the ability to distinguish facts from interpretation. See video 12 below.
Concentration — “The act of focusing the mind upon a given desire until ways and means for its realization have been worked out and successfully put into operation.”
Co-operation — Cooperation is what drives organized effort.
Failure — Hill says that what we term “failure” is often more accurately described as “temporary defeat”. He goes on to say that “sound character is usually the handiwork of reverses, and setbacks, and temporary defeat.” So embrace it rather than fearing it!
Tolerance — Tolerance is the path to developing positive and effective relationships with others, building bridges and furthering our world toward a state of peace.
The Golden Rule — This is the “guiding star” of the Laws of Success. Because you reap what you sow, treat others as you wish they would treat you, were the situation reversed.