This weekend I ran across a quote from a novelist from Phyllis Bottome who wrote

“She had developed a passionate longing for making other people comfortable at her own expense.” “She succeeded in getting other people into armchairs…with nothing left for herself but something small and spiky in a corner.”

Much to ponder on that one. Much to ponder.

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Philippians 4:6-7  do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

How often do you stop to pray about that which has stolen your peace?

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Where will your journeys take you today?

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Each period of living I am aware that the choices I make, the things I believe about those choices are very connected to the life I create. Some choices we make almost as if we are in auto-pilot and often it is those choices that have the most effect on our lives.

There are big choices like what person we will choose to be friends with, influenced by, or enter into partnership. Then there are the small ones as to how we will respond to others, what we will put into our bodies throughout the day, and what we will wear or if we’ll say “I love you” to folks we care about as they pass by…

You know what I’ve found?

It isn’t the big choices that usually make the difference…

It’s the little ones.

Our “auto pilot” choices have so much impact on our daily lives. The habits of peace, of giving, of kindness, or self-discipline  in the small things add up to making the big pictures in our lives happen.

My house didn’t happen by one day of organization or disorganization. It happened by thousands of tiny choices  my busy family and I made over the course of time. Your health, my health is the same way. We don’t become ill or healthy by one choice by but thousands of choices carried out over time that may have been as simple as did we choose to walk today or did we have that extra serving of something fabulous.

The popular thing to that media and our own minds try to tell us “it’s beyond my control” excusing ourselves from whatever we’re facing.(and of course the secondary message is “buy this so you can feel better honey” ) That silly statement “It’s beyond my control”  also invites us to blame others, shame ourselves, and think that past choices are permanent.

The truth  however is most things that we seek are within our control …we can learn, let go, engage, or re-do

We simply have to choose.

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Part 2 Every day folks are crowding into the station looking for their train. People try every day to get through the train museum. Some lovingly look at all the pretty historical things or the horrors of their lives. Many get stuck in room one or two and never ever ride the train of their present moment. They are too busy looking at the now artificial scenes of their lives. They cannot move past them, good or bad, and they cannot get to their next destination until they give up holding onto the velvet rope of their past.  Pasts are often like meals eaten, they may cause indigestion or have been remembered fondly, but either way, they won’t fuel, or feed the body past the time they were eaten. Whether or not we allow them to feed or cause frenzy to the mind is our choice. What are you doing to plan for your trip? What are you feeding yourself and your mind about your success? What are you ruminating on? Will you envision yourself as you are? Will you only focus on what was? Will you realize that different outcomes require different actions? What about the tracks? Will you take the time to make sure that the train you enter is the one that goes to your destination?

So many people working on the train of success do not take the time to even understand where it is they wished to go.

What does your next destination look like? You know traveling does not require ONE destination. We can enjoy each part of the journey along the way. Perhaps this part of your journey isn’t even close to where you seek to be while you travel, but today you’re ready to change what is before you. Make a few more adjustments to your packing, plan a bit more about how you’d like to feel, experience comfort in your travels, or cut back to what is more meaningful, as Allyson Lewis would say, for the journey you’re ready to take at this juncture of your life.

Where are you going? What are you doing now? When do you want to be who you are seeking to be? Why not today?  Of course you may need a few stops for fuel, resources, and supplies, but what journey doesn’t require a few preparations and changes? Why not begin gathering the maps, plans, and information required to find the train that you want to engage. The journey is yours, even if you seek to make it where you are, with what you have before you.

Are you on-track for change? I would imagine that if you take five minutes to write 3 things you’d like to do differently or have more consistently in your life in these areas, you’ll know a little bit more where the journey lies…

On an every day basis I would like to experience these feelings:

When I look in the mirror, I would like to take responsibility to:

In my friendships and relationships the values I seek to experience and uphold are those of :

The pace I prefer to live on a daily basis is faster, slower, more scenic or less….than the journey I am ready to take:

I will choose to not deal with these three things very shortly in my life:

If I were to change one thing that I personally have complete control of today and could do so in 30 minutes or less, it would be…

I need to get better at doing (3 things) in my daily life:

You will have questions and answers of your own, but perhaps taking time to sit quietly outside the busy, noisy room of your life, you may find answers you didn’t even realize you’re saying over and over to yourself.

Are you listening?

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The earliest movies were filmed in black and white with no sound. A pianist was employed to provide the melodies to add dramatic flair to the story.of your train? The tunes he or she played set the stage for the audience to swoon softly into each other during sweet scenes, or sit on edge awaiting the darkness to show up when dramatic moments were to occur. Our hearts and minds are wired to do the same thing if we are in tune with what peace feels like in our spirits. Christ talked about the Comforter he would send..they were not just words, those who follow Christ have the Holy Ghost to guide them, to listen, to lead them. Our real time media world rarely pauses on its own so that many of us even slow down enough to notice, but taking the time to identify and experience what peace looks like is a powerful tool. Wisdom whispers there, in that place of peace. Some of us have been so busy our whole lives that when peace is experienced, it is a rare thing. In this world to learn the discipline of peace is a destination few even know exist.

One of the gifts that Christ mentioned often as he prepared to return to his place in heaven,  is that he is giving us a spirit of peace.  Peace I leave you. What is that? How does it come into play in our daily lives? What part of life is peaceful? Where is the source of that peace? Our internal dialogue is present each moment of our lives, what we listen to, what we choose to hear, how we engage with that voice affects how we perceive the view from our train. How we fuel our engines, how we hear our scenes and identify who and what is what vastly affects our experience.

What music are you hiring the pianist on your train to play? What words are you applying to your focus on life? On success? On living? On relationships. My brother once said to me that he got through a very difficult period of his life by removing the words all, every, and never from his vocabulary.  The temptation was to say “I cannot deal with this the rest of my life” yet if he simply tried to get through that day, that hour, and sometimes that minute, he in fact did.

In my life the issue hasn’t been about learning to tolerate or survive one day, or moment, it is about learning to recognize when those one days repeat themselves, or the moments come time and time again. Skills to handle life matter, but skills outside their known systems rarely work. Systems matter and if you’re on a system of behaviors, beliefs, or habits that keep returning to the same experience, you might want to deal with recognizing what is causing that to revolve in and out of your life. What skills are missing or misapplied? The reverse is true too, if the damsel tied up on the tracks about to be hit by the train or the hero of our train scene says to themselves,”I’m not screaming for help, I’m not asking anyone for anything” and the rescuer says “I’m not doing the rescue today” there are times that the choice to not engage with impending indicators will in fact, end badly.. The hero will lose his occupational reputation, and your life movie will not end happily. Some of us even set up the scene to play the damsel in distress AND the engineer…and boy, that scene can cause some edge of seat moments in your life, for you can’t be driving your train and tied up at the same time. Some impending disasters must be dealt with….making the choice to not deal with them is a choice too, but it comes at a cost…and personally, I don’t prefer death by my own train. When one begins to listen, really listen, to what is happening inside our hearts and minds, like the pianist in the black and white movies, there is an inner rhythm that sheperds us to a place of preparation, a knowing to “look out”  “slow down” or “hurry”, a supernatural voice that not only councils, but protects and empowers as well.

What if every single time change occurred, the music you choose to listen to in your head, the very words you responded to the event in your head said  “whatever this is, it is going to be something to learn from and the experience will work for my good.” Could you turn up your music, the hopeful and the alarmed to ignore what’s going on in the scenes of your train? Would you end up in Beautiful Life if the road signs continually say you’re headed to the state of Disastrous Living? Train engines are powerful things, yet if not cared for properly they are as fragile as a china vase. They require fuel, directives, support, and maintenance. From time to time they require the engineer and station master to simply stop and realign the parts or replace what doesn’t work. Does your heart and mind receive the attention and protection that an engineer gives to the boiler? After all, if what fuels the train isn’t fed, the engine will stop eventually, and if stopped long enough, not only will the steam dry out, the boiler will cool down, and it will take so much more than a little coal, or wood to rekindle the movement forward again. Regular stops are necessary and trains don’t run twenty four hours a day without maintenance, rest, and routes being planned.  Our lives are like that too. If we keep pushing, refueling, working harder without stopping, our lives eventually burn too hot or begin to have the inability to contain the fires that we, ourselves, continued to set and stoke.

What music are you choosing to hear? What pulse are you listening to? How are the engine sounds and dramatic rhythms of the your life train signaling to you that something is struggling, accelerating, or needing to be attended? Have you ignored the sounds of your inner and outer environment so long that it would take a whistle blow to get you to hear the impending disaster is almost before you?

Today I’d like for you to listen to the sounds of your train, where are the sounds coming from? What do they say to you? What would their message mean if you listened to their signals?

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The last few weeks I have been thinking and re-thinking a statement made to me. The statement was “We all expect something from every relationship, the sooner we disclose to ourselves what each action is intended to create in our lives, the more at peace we become…as we become cognizant of our true motives and have more ownership of who we are”

Hmmm

My first response was “that is pretty calculating” but as I’ve evaluated and watched myself and others, we do often have unspoken yet expected expectations throughout our days.

What are your thoughts?

Addition: 7/2/12

As a Christian believer I believe that our gifts are intended for the service of others, it took me a long long time to be okay with being a successful business person who was paid for her efforts in using the gifts that come so naturally to me. However, this season I have learned that the gift is the good stewardship of their funds, the integrity of my work, and the intent of bringing value to a client’s’ projects that makes their choice to pay me allowable, acceptable to me…for a workman IS worth her wages and work I do.  That same good stewardship of funds received will allow me to help others in more ways.  Seems silly doesn’t it …but that revelation was indeed one I have struggled with for years…I love giving to give…yet money is indeed a necessary tool.

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This week my first cousin, Bill Geddie, was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Emmy’s. Bill, slightly older than my two older brothers, and his brother Morgan, were the boys of my childhood summers.All of them four to ten years older than me, I have had reason to look up to them my whole life….and that is a blessing. Bill is married to Barbara Geddie, a former newscaster, and they have raised two amazing daughters.

Bill’s father, Ivan Geddie was my late mother’s brother.  We were privileged as children to have parents who wanted us to know our cousins though we lived 6-8 hours away.  Summer visits and holidays we were gathered. The gentlemen brothers and cousins have made us all proud…as fathers, husbands, and as professionals who care deeply about what they all do.  Well done Bill. Mom would have been so very proud.

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Routines of being a mom, step mom, business owner and wife can sometimes choke out the very life out of me. Management is the name of the game at the ages our children are and our business clients depend upon my juggling skills. It becomes easy to take care of taking care of others needs and slowly stop taking care of your own.

Without vision, the people perish the Bible says.  I have come to learn a different truth that also is true.  When vision is always about tomorrow, today is sacrificed and today is a mighty important day…its the one we have. God honors planning, and I personally and professionally am all about creating vision boards, pragmatic scope and sequences to goals, but I also believe in the power of living fully present where you are. This moment.

I think many of us are raised to be considerate about our work ethics. We were drilled on steadfastness and doing a good job, but did we remember the part of about celebrating or resting? Or that our gifts used in our daily life would be a life of service that delights us to share them?  I work with many business owners and professionals who come with productivity needs in their life. They are seeking help to do more with better acumen, learning systems to express success or simply want me to improve their bottom line.  My question is often “for what?”

Sometimes the silence gets deafening.

Too often everyone is in “achieve next goal” mode and the goal is completion.

Again at that point I ask “for what?”"Why?”

The immediate answers are to “make more money”, “create more time”, “enlarge our company” or to “pay off my bills.” A little probing and I am reminded of Pete Wilson’s book Empty Promises, that they have bought the lie that life begins when….

The last nine months we’ve been birthing a child of a different sort in our household.  Like all babies, its still fragile and requires  regular feeding by hand, but our child is the concept of “this is the life we have, this one, today, let’s make the most of it.”

No more “when we…..” as the only source of when we verbally or physically allow ourselves to have vision and celebration for how we will live, but to each week identify and talk about the life we ARE living and how to find more of what we want in our personal lives now.

More rest, More time with friends, more picking ice cream we like instead of plain vanilla.

How many of the choices we make are based on not giving ourselves permission to do what we are fully capable of doing, having, being right this moment where we are, with what we own already?

Whew, I am guilty of that one. Last year on a business trip I savored a cup of just so coffee, enjoyed a just so muffin and particularly enjoyed the texture and look of the cup and saucer of the serving dishes. A friend asked “Why don’t you do that at home?”

My immediate rule minder came up and said in my head “That’s for special trip treats”

and I called myself out on it.

Why.

Do you have a rule minder in your head that leaps out like a teacher with a sharp ruler when you think of choices in your life.  You know the rules of childhood or experience that try to define that you aren’t allowed….

maybe your rules were that only xyz got to do that… pretty girls, thin girls, rich girls…but the thing you aren’t allowing isn’t tied to those qualifiers at all.

Like having your particular brand or flavor of coffee at home, each morning when you’re writing at your desk.

Or taking a bath with a preferred soap, because after all, you can choose that and it doesn’t cost a dime more.

Or recognizing that if you’re craving more time with like minded friends, its as simple as saying “hey come over”

What are you not allowing yourself to be, to have, or to engage with today? Les and I have really worked for 9 months on breaking down beliefs we didn’t realize we were living. We’ve worked on focusing more on a vision of a life lived right now, where we are, with what we have, or want to have less of…

After all, today is the day we have, and I’m beginning to truly appreciate taking time to envision what it can be today…not keeping my focus on “someday when….” or “after I….”

It’s simply amazing what can  happen when you give yourself permission.

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It’s the beginning of summer visitation for our two youngest children. Each year they spend about six weeks with their other parents in another state. Today we’ve just said goodbye as the older of the two set out to drive them to another state.  This is an important time for them, and for Les and I. We want them to be close to their natural dad and Les and I as a couple enjoy the time without children in our marriage as well.

What do you do to celebrate your marriage? Yourself if you’re not married? What makes life special for you?

For us its simple down time together. We’ll garden, declutter, I’ll cook a few special meals, we’re more likely to dance in the kitchen on the way to finishing dinner preparations and there might be a surprise treat or three while they are gone and we can focus more on our relationship.

Blended family visitations are important…and they don’t have to be devastation…they can simply allow for a different kind of week….and experiences for all of us.

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