I got these once at a leadership seminar I went to...some of them are kind of cheesy but still insightful and inspirational...the main thing I learned at this seminar, which is also reflected in these quotes, is that everything starts with ourselves. It's so easy to blame other people for our problems or conflicts, but the reality is we always play an equal role. No matter who we are or what kind of environment we're in, we are responsible for ourselves and how we react in any given situation.
Leadership:
The right & responsibilityto be talking about how to keep the organization moving forward.
More than 75% of people at work today will not tell their boss the truth because they don’t believe it is safe to do so.
You must make certain everyone understands what you are trying to do.
Never mistake lack of awareness for what is happening as resistance to change.
Diplomacy is the Art of Letting Someone Else Get Your Way.
Leadership is not about managing our environment.
It’s about managing ourselves in the midst of our environment.
To change the culture we must conform to the prevailing management culture enough to be seen as credible and non-threatening.
For every complex problem there is asolution that is simple, neat and wrong.
H.L. Mencken
Real past threats can turn into present imagined ones.
Never let your perception about what was said keep you from determining what was meant.
Are you willing to hear the problems people perceive you to be a part of?
Calm creates order and order allows us to solve problems.
People will forget what you said and what you did, but they will never forget how you made them feel.
~Maya Angelou
If we try to solve a problem without first overcoming the confusion and aggression in our own states of mind, then our efforts will only add to the problem.
Actions that neither encourage wanted behavior, nor discourage unwanted behavior:
Hinting at the truth
Beating around the bush
Hoping they will figure it out themselves
Assuming they already know
The real art of conversation is not only to say theright things in the right place, but to leave unsaid the wrong things at the tempting moment.
There is nothing so wasteful as doing with great efficiency that which doesn’t have to be done at all.
Life shrinks or expands inproportion to one’s courage.
~Anais Nin
No problem is solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.
~Albert Einstein
No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.
~Eleanor Roosevelt
He who travels fastest goes alone.
Stress is your reaction to an event, not the event itself.
It is the set of the sail, not the direction of the wind, that determines the way we go.
People don’t care how much we know until they know how much we care.
Empowerment is threatening and foreign to people who have learned through experience not to exercise personal discretion and judgment in their jobs.
~Peter Senge
Argue for your limitations and they’re yours.
~Henry Ford
We’re entitled to brood in our offices, but in groups we have a responsibility to be energetic.
When an archer misses the mark he turns to look for fault within himself.
Failure to hit the bullseye is never the fault of the target.
To improve your aim, improve yourself.
~Gilbert Arland
Monday, June 15, 2009
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Subcutaneous Mass Right Leg
There is a bump in my leg. About two inches above the knee on the outside of my right leg. It’s small but hard, about the size of the tip of my index finger, with well-defined, sharp edges, like the corner of a plastic box, or the pointy tip of a plastic pen cover. Around this same time, I also notice that a portion of my right leg, just above the knee, has decreased sensation. Like when your foot falls asleep—numb, minus the tingly feeling. Just numb.
The bump in my leg feels like a bee sting. Sometimes, I wake up at night and that little thing is burning, stinging, and throbbing. It’s a sharp pain, snatching me out of my dreams. I put my finger on it, and the object is pulsating, right on the surface of my skin, like it’s trying to tunnel its way out. Other times, it’s small and hard to locate, dwelling dormant somewhere deeper in the confines of my leg, resting perhaps.
I try to ignore it. I obsess that it’s a blood clot. My mom had a blood clot in her leg after she broke her foot, and two weeks later she had a stroke. A DVT – DEEP VEIN THROMBISIS – they called this blood clot. I don’t want to know what it is, this little bump in my leg. This little stinging bump in my leg has awakened my dormant fears, sending my mortality back to the forefront, with stinging reality. I am not getting any younger, and all things are unstable. I nurse my tender edges with things that help me forget.
But a year later, the little stinging thing is still there, and stinging a little more often…I try to keep track, but there is no pattern. Random stinging. While I’m walking. When I’m standing still. When I’m sitting in a chair. When I’m sleeping. Randomly, that little object starts stinging. Always, it is sharp enough to draw my complete attention.
Finally, I have to go see my primary physician anyway, so I tell her about the stinging bump.
“Yes, I feel it,” she says, poking at the stinging bump. “It could be a sebaceous cyst or something like that.”
She says she doesn’t have to tools to remove it, so she sends me to a surgeon.
At the surgeon’s office, I wait anxiously, anticipating the removal of my stinging bump. I fill out a health history, essentially the same form that I just updated at the office of my primary care physician. I anticipate the quick removal of my stinging bump. I wait in the lobby. I wait longer in the examination room. I keep my finger on that stinging bump, scared that I will not be able to locate it when I need to. That he won’t be able to feel it.
“It’s a lipoma,” he tells me. “Usually a type of benign fatty tumor. I don’t think I have the proper instruments here in my office,” he tells me. “I think I’ll have you come to the surgical hospital.”
I tell him about the numbness.
“That’s not related,” he says, matter-of-factly. “That’s a nerve issue. Have you hurt your back recently?”
“No,” I reply.
I am disappointed. My stinging bump has already turned into a much bigger deal than I imagined. And the surgeon has already moved the conversation on to my occupation and marital status, and within moments, his nurse has booked me an appointment for next week at the surgical hospital.
Two days prior to the procedure, a nurse calls me at home to go through yet another health history…another version of the same information that I’ve already completed for my primary care physician, again at the surgeon’s office, and now once again on the phone (why can’t these medical people have some sort of integrated database???)
I am told to arrive almost two hours prior to my actual appointment time. The surgical hospital seems more like a hotel than a hospital. A place you’d like to return to, not a place to be afraid of. A brand new building, the lobby decked out with a large flat screen TV, wireless internet, a computer station, coffee and complimentary beverages...complimentary meal vouchers for family members. I am directed to a private registration area to check in, where I sign numerous forms and receive a wristband on my right arm, and then return to the lobby.
Soon I’m called out of the lobby by a nurse who immediately introduces herself and shakes my hand. I’m shocked by this, as it is in direct opposition to most of the health care professionals I encountered during the four months my mom spent in a hospital after having a stroke, professionals who rarely introduced themselves or explained medical concepts in a way that an average person can understand.
The nurse takes me back to a staging area where she asks me what my name is, date of birth, and what I’m there for. She is the first of various nurses who, before that surgeon takes any instrument to my leg, asks me a series of questions to validate who I am and what I’m there for. She asks me if the doctor explained to me, in a way I could understand, about the procedure he was going to perform that day. She goes through some information with me on my chart, at the top of which says, “Subcutaneous mass right leg.”
After I change into a disposable gown, and put on a hat and booties, the nurse escorts me to a bed with a curtained off area and my own private flat screen TV. A new nurse now takes over, saying she will be with me throughout the surgery and recovery time, asking me several times if there’s anything I need, or if I have any questions. She explains that they will be using local anesthetic, which will be painful, but after that I will feel only some pulling or tugging in the area of the lipoma.
Finally the surgeon arrives. “That bump didn’t go away, did it?” he jokes, as he takes a black marker to the spot on my right leg where the lipoma resides. And quickly he is gone, the nurses then wheeling my bed from the staging area and into the operating room. On the way, we pass through a bustling nurse’s station and the recovery area.
In the operating room, there are now three nurses, each who has a different job. They wheel my bed up next to a narrow, elevated bed and ask me to move over. Again I’m asked who I am, my birth date, why I’m here. They put sheets over me and above me and arrange lights and do all sorts of things in preparation for the procedure.
But no matter how busy these nurses are, they never lose that personal touch. It is the job of one of these three nurses, to remain next to my head, and within my sight, at all times during the procedure. “Don’t worry,” she tells me. “Nothing will begin until you’re told, so you don’t have to worry about anything happening suddenly.”
Soon the surgeon is there, greeting me by my first name, although I cannot see him, due to the sheet that is elevated above my face.
“You’re about to feel a couple bee stings here,” he warns me.
“Ok,” the nurse next to my head says. “Now is when you get to abuse my hand,” she said, squeezing my hand hard.
And suddenly the stinging begins, in the side of my leg, moving deep and down, and I cry out, and squeeze hard...my heart beating hard and fast, like a rocket coming through my chest…my breathing heavy…my cheeks flushing red and hot.
“Can you feel that?” the surgeon asks.
“I don’t think so.” I feel some tugging, like the nurse predicted, but no pain.
“Ok, it’s out,” I hear the surgeon say, only moments later.
And it seems then, that it takes longer to patch it up than it did to remove it, as the surgeon asks me what kind of music I like and jokes with us about the musical preferences of his wife’s ex-boyfriend.
“Would you like to see it?” he asks me.
“Yes,” I reply.
It’s a small, white mass, floating in a container of clear fluid. A tiny little white thing, about the size of the tip of my index finger. Like those chunks of fake fat they show you in health class when you’re in high school.
“I don’t think it’s cancerous or anything, but I’ll send it in to the lab,” he tells me.
Moments later, they are telling me I did well, and wheeling me in to the recovery area, where yet another nurse offers me complimentary beverages and a complimentary meal from their on-site bistro restaurant. I’m already perusing the menu when the surgeon comes in to check on me, assuring me that the food here is excellent, and then he is gone…
It’s hard to believe something so small could create such a ruckus…but what a state of the art bunch of professionals they were. I’d like to go back to that hotel—I mean hospital—any time. My complimentary mandarin chicken salad was exquisite.
I can’t wait to see the bill…
The bump in my leg feels like a bee sting. Sometimes, I wake up at night and that little thing is burning, stinging, and throbbing. It’s a sharp pain, snatching me out of my dreams. I put my finger on it, and the object is pulsating, right on the surface of my skin, like it’s trying to tunnel its way out. Other times, it’s small and hard to locate, dwelling dormant somewhere deeper in the confines of my leg, resting perhaps.
I try to ignore it. I obsess that it’s a blood clot. My mom had a blood clot in her leg after she broke her foot, and two weeks later she had a stroke. A DVT – DEEP VEIN THROMBISIS – they called this blood clot. I don’t want to know what it is, this little bump in my leg. This little stinging bump in my leg has awakened my dormant fears, sending my mortality back to the forefront, with stinging reality. I am not getting any younger, and all things are unstable. I nurse my tender edges with things that help me forget.
But a year later, the little stinging thing is still there, and stinging a little more often…I try to keep track, but there is no pattern. Random stinging. While I’m walking. When I’m standing still. When I’m sitting in a chair. When I’m sleeping. Randomly, that little object starts stinging. Always, it is sharp enough to draw my complete attention.
Finally, I have to go see my primary physician anyway, so I tell her about the stinging bump.
“Yes, I feel it,” she says, poking at the stinging bump. “It could be a sebaceous cyst or something like that.”
She says she doesn’t have to tools to remove it, so she sends me to a surgeon.
At the surgeon’s office, I wait anxiously, anticipating the removal of my stinging bump. I fill out a health history, essentially the same form that I just updated at the office of my primary care physician. I anticipate the quick removal of my stinging bump. I wait in the lobby. I wait longer in the examination room. I keep my finger on that stinging bump, scared that I will not be able to locate it when I need to. That he won’t be able to feel it.
“It’s a lipoma,” he tells me. “Usually a type of benign fatty tumor. I don’t think I have the proper instruments here in my office,” he tells me. “I think I’ll have you come to the surgical hospital.”
I tell him about the numbness.
“That’s not related,” he says, matter-of-factly. “That’s a nerve issue. Have you hurt your back recently?”
“No,” I reply.
I am disappointed. My stinging bump has already turned into a much bigger deal than I imagined. And the surgeon has already moved the conversation on to my occupation and marital status, and within moments, his nurse has booked me an appointment for next week at the surgical hospital.
Two days prior to the procedure, a nurse calls me at home to go through yet another health history…another version of the same information that I’ve already completed for my primary care physician, again at the surgeon’s office, and now once again on the phone (why can’t these medical people have some sort of integrated database???)
I am told to arrive almost two hours prior to my actual appointment time. The surgical hospital seems more like a hotel than a hospital. A place you’d like to return to, not a place to be afraid of. A brand new building, the lobby decked out with a large flat screen TV, wireless internet, a computer station, coffee and complimentary beverages...complimentary meal vouchers for family members. I am directed to a private registration area to check in, where I sign numerous forms and receive a wristband on my right arm, and then return to the lobby.
Soon I’m called out of the lobby by a nurse who immediately introduces herself and shakes my hand. I’m shocked by this, as it is in direct opposition to most of the health care professionals I encountered during the four months my mom spent in a hospital after having a stroke, professionals who rarely introduced themselves or explained medical concepts in a way that an average person can understand.
The nurse takes me back to a staging area where she asks me what my name is, date of birth, and what I’m there for. She is the first of various nurses who, before that surgeon takes any instrument to my leg, asks me a series of questions to validate who I am and what I’m there for. She asks me if the doctor explained to me, in a way I could understand, about the procedure he was going to perform that day. She goes through some information with me on my chart, at the top of which says, “Subcutaneous mass right leg.”
After I change into a disposable gown, and put on a hat and booties, the nurse escorts me to a bed with a curtained off area and my own private flat screen TV. A new nurse now takes over, saying she will be with me throughout the surgery and recovery time, asking me several times if there’s anything I need, or if I have any questions. She explains that they will be using local anesthetic, which will be painful, but after that I will feel only some pulling or tugging in the area of the lipoma.
Finally the surgeon arrives. “That bump didn’t go away, did it?” he jokes, as he takes a black marker to the spot on my right leg where the lipoma resides. And quickly he is gone, the nurses then wheeling my bed from the staging area and into the operating room. On the way, we pass through a bustling nurse’s station and the recovery area.
In the operating room, there are now three nurses, each who has a different job. They wheel my bed up next to a narrow, elevated bed and ask me to move over. Again I’m asked who I am, my birth date, why I’m here. They put sheets over me and above me and arrange lights and do all sorts of things in preparation for the procedure.
But no matter how busy these nurses are, they never lose that personal touch. It is the job of one of these three nurses, to remain next to my head, and within my sight, at all times during the procedure. “Don’t worry,” she tells me. “Nothing will begin until you’re told, so you don’t have to worry about anything happening suddenly.”
Soon the surgeon is there, greeting me by my first name, although I cannot see him, due to the sheet that is elevated above my face.
“You’re about to feel a couple bee stings here,” he warns me.
“Ok,” the nurse next to my head says. “Now is when you get to abuse my hand,” she said, squeezing my hand hard.
And suddenly the stinging begins, in the side of my leg, moving deep and down, and I cry out, and squeeze hard...my heart beating hard and fast, like a rocket coming through my chest…my breathing heavy…my cheeks flushing red and hot.
“Can you feel that?” the surgeon asks.
“I don’t think so.” I feel some tugging, like the nurse predicted, but no pain.
“Ok, it’s out,” I hear the surgeon say, only moments later.
And it seems then, that it takes longer to patch it up than it did to remove it, as the surgeon asks me what kind of music I like and jokes with us about the musical preferences of his wife’s ex-boyfriend.
“Would you like to see it?” he asks me.
“Yes,” I reply.
It’s a small, white mass, floating in a container of clear fluid. A tiny little white thing, about the size of the tip of my index finger. Like those chunks of fake fat they show you in health class when you’re in high school.
“I don’t think it’s cancerous or anything, but I’ll send it in to the lab,” he tells me.
Moments later, they are telling me I did well, and wheeling me in to the recovery area, where yet another nurse offers me complimentary beverages and a complimentary meal from their on-site bistro restaurant. I’m already perusing the menu when the surgeon comes in to check on me, assuring me that the food here is excellent, and then he is gone…
It’s hard to believe something so small could create such a ruckus…but what a state of the art bunch of professionals they were. I’d like to go back to that hotel—I mean hospital—any time. My complimentary mandarin chicken salad was exquisite.
I can’t wait to see the bill…
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Ducks Crossing
I’m sitting in my living room when my cat alerts me that something more interesting than usual is going on outside. She’s perched in her lookout on the living room chair, overlooking the big window above our front yard, but her body language is more pronounced than usual, her tail flipping in agitated jerkiness, her mouth opening and closing rapidly, and her voice an unusually loud and persistent combination mewing-whine.
I look down and see a brown mother duck crossing my yard, with eight baby ducklings following close behind her in a line.
A feeling of terror quickly replaces the wonder and awe that I momentarily felt. It has been raining for two days. We live on a highway. The speed limit outside my house is 35 MPH but people never slow down. Trucks and buses and cars whiz by at all hours of the day, almost relentlessly.
Is this mother duck actually going to lead her ducklings across this highway?
I saw this duck family the other day, in the lake, over at the park that’s just through my back yard and a little beyond. Right now the park is full of RVs and carnival rides, setting up for this weekend’s festival. I can only imagine there’s a little too much activity over there right now for this young duck family, and that the mother must be leading them to the river that’s just beyond my front door highway. They are obviously too little to fly.
For a moment, as I watch her lead them through the yard and then into my neighbor’s yard just to the east, I begin to panic, wondering if I should run out there and try to save them. But suddenly I feel calm, and I realize that I might make things worse. You have to let nature take its course, I say to myself, as I watch the mother duck and all the ducklings disappear down the steep embankment of my neighbor’s yard, which leads right to the highway. You can’t try to save everything. You can’t take that on, I tell myself.
They are out of my view now, and I hold my breath for a moment, wondering if I should wait until I can see them again, and risk seeing the inevitable, or if I should just preemptively protect myself by walking away and assuming that they made it safely to the other side.
I remain at the window. I don’t know why. I need to know.
Suddenly then the mother and ducklings are in view again, the mother just crossing the yellow center line and the last of the ducklings following behind her. Just then a large SUV sounds its horn, and without slowing down, passes dangerously close to the last duckling in the line. Close enough to send the tiny duckling flying head over heels into the other lane, landing upside down, so that I can only see the white of his breast. There is no movement.
But now a car is coming in the opposite direction, directly into the path of the overturned duckling, but the car slows down and for a moment I think the car is going to stop and let him and the rest of the ducklings clear the lane. But the car lingers for only a moment and then keeps going, over the top, but without touching, the overturned duckling.
I hold my breath again for a moment, thinking, little guy, you already got two big breaks and you’re almost to the other side, when finally the overturned duckling gets up, runs to the side of the road to join his siblings, and now traffic has resumed its steady pace as the ducklings waddle up the hill on the other side of the road, all eight safely joining their mother.
Whew.
What a miracle, many times over.
Why am I writing about this?
1) Please SLOW DOWN, and be conscious and present when you’re driving. Nothing in your schedule is important enough to jeopardize or destroy animal or human life.
2) I’m reminded of the story, the duck with a human mind, from Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. Tolle observes that after two ducks get into a fight they separate and float off in opposite directions. Then they each flap their wings a few times to get rid of the surplus energy that built up during the fight. After flapping their wings they float on peacefully, as if nothing had happened.
However, if the duck had a human mind, it would probably tell itself a story such as the following:
“I can’t believe he just did that. Who does he think he is? The nerve . . . he has absolutely no consideration of others. He thinks he owns this pond. I’m sure he’s already plotting some new way to annoy me. He’s not getting away with it; I’ll show him.”
The lesson we can learn from the ducks is this: flap your wings. That is, let go of the stories you’re telling yourself and return to the only place of power: the present moment.
How does this relate to my duck story? In the past, I would have agonized over this duck crossing situation, perhaps even reacted much differently, carried it with me for days as to what I should have or could have done. Eckhart’s story reminds me that those ducks didn’t sit there telling stories about what they could do or what might happen, or how they might die; they just did what they had to do, and got back up when they got knocked down. They live in the present moment. We all have much to learn from ducks and Eckhart Tolle!
The duck with a human mind, my favorite story from Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth:
Another story from A New Earth, monks on a pilgrimage, which shows how we love to hang on to the past:
I look down and see a brown mother duck crossing my yard, with eight baby ducklings following close behind her in a line.
A feeling of terror quickly replaces the wonder and awe that I momentarily felt. It has been raining for two days. We live on a highway. The speed limit outside my house is 35 MPH but people never slow down. Trucks and buses and cars whiz by at all hours of the day, almost relentlessly.
Is this mother duck actually going to lead her ducklings across this highway?
I saw this duck family the other day, in the lake, over at the park that’s just through my back yard and a little beyond. Right now the park is full of RVs and carnival rides, setting up for this weekend’s festival. I can only imagine there’s a little too much activity over there right now for this young duck family, and that the mother must be leading them to the river that’s just beyond my front door highway. They are obviously too little to fly.
For a moment, as I watch her lead them through the yard and then into my neighbor’s yard just to the east, I begin to panic, wondering if I should run out there and try to save them. But suddenly I feel calm, and I realize that I might make things worse. You have to let nature take its course, I say to myself, as I watch the mother duck and all the ducklings disappear down the steep embankment of my neighbor’s yard, which leads right to the highway. You can’t try to save everything. You can’t take that on, I tell myself.
They are out of my view now, and I hold my breath for a moment, wondering if I should wait until I can see them again, and risk seeing the inevitable, or if I should just preemptively protect myself by walking away and assuming that they made it safely to the other side.
I remain at the window. I don’t know why. I need to know.
Suddenly then the mother and ducklings are in view again, the mother just crossing the yellow center line and the last of the ducklings following behind her. Just then a large SUV sounds its horn, and without slowing down, passes dangerously close to the last duckling in the line. Close enough to send the tiny duckling flying head over heels into the other lane, landing upside down, so that I can only see the white of his breast. There is no movement.
But now a car is coming in the opposite direction, directly into the path of the overturned duckling, but the car slows down and for a moment I think the car is going to stop and let him and the rest of the ducklings clear the lane. But the car lingers for only a moment and then keeps going, over the top, but without touching, the overturned duckling.
I hold my breath again for a moment, thinking, little guy, you already got two big breaks and you’re almost to the other side, when finally the overturned duckling gets up, runs to the side of the road to join his siblings, and now traffic has resumed its steady pace as the ducklings waddle up the hill on the other side of the road, all eight safely joining their mother.
Whew.
What a miracle, many times over.
Why am I writing about this?
1) Please SLOW DOWN, and be conscious and present when you’re driving. Nothing in your schedule is important enough to jeopardize or destroy animal or human life.
2) I’m reminded of the story, the duck with a human mind, from Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth. Tolle observes that after two ducks get into a fight they separate and float off in opposite directions. Then they each flap their wings a few times to get rid of the surplus energy that built up during the fight. After flapping their wings they float on peacefully, as if nothing had happened.
However, if the duck had a human mind, it would probably tell itself a story such as the following:
“I can’t believe he just did that. Who does he think he is? The nerve . . . he has absolutely no consideration of others. He thinks he owns this pond. I’m sure he’s already plotting some new way to annoy me. He’s not getting away with it; I’ll show him.”
The lesson we can learn from the ducks is this: flap your wings. That is, let go of the stories you’re telling yourself and return to the only place of power: the present moment.
How does this relate to my duck story? In the past, I would have agonized over this duck crossing situation, perhaps even reacted much differently, carried it with me for days as to what I should have or could have done. Eckhart’s story reminds me that those ducks didn’t sit there telling stories about what they could do or what might happen, or how they might die; they just did what they had to do, and got back up when they got knocked down. They live in the present moment. We all have much to learn from ducks and Eckhart Tolle!
The duck with a human mind, my favorite story from Eckhart Tolle’s A New Earth:
Another story from A New Earth, monks on a pilgrimage, which shows how we love to hang on to the past:
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Friday, May 22, 2009
Shining My Lantern
I got this idea for a blog while listening to a "Finding Your Spiritual Path" web cast (I've linked to the transcript; the download is a available free in iTunes in the Oprah Soul Series collection). I heard Elizabeth Lesser say the following:
I think of our inner life, our soul, as something we come into life with. It's shining, in our hearts. It's always there with us. But as we go through life, this light, which is in the lantern of who we are, our body and our psyche are this lantern around our soul light, gets covered with layers of soot, layers of conditioning. Let's say you had a really difficult childhood and you're this beautiful light that you came into the world with, the stress of your childhood, the anger you might have built up, the fear, the mistrust, it begins to dull the natural light that is inside of us. So when we say we go on a spiritual path, we're not going somewhere else. We're not going to get something we don't already have. We have to find a way to clean the sides of our lantern.
The four years that have passed since my then 60-year-old mom had a stroke and almost died have been the most difficult, heartbreaking time of my life, but also a period of intense personal growth. Not just for me, but my entire family. I have come to terms with the best and the worst in myself and others. I see that our common struggle is to keep going and yet embrace the unstable, ever changing life we are given. To find the silver lining. Most of all I hope that this is a gesture of gratitude. A means of finding our way in a challenging yet beautiful world.
I think of our inner life, our soul, as something we come into life with. It's shining, in our hearts. It's always there with us. But as we go through life, this light, which is in the lantern of who we are, our body and our psyche are this lantern around our soul light, gets covered with layers of soot, layers of conditioning. Let's say you had a really difficult childhood and you're this beautiful light that you came into the world with, the stress of your childhood, the anger you might have built up, the fear, the mistrust, it begins to dull the natural light that is inside of us. So when we say we go on a spiritual path, we're not going somewhere else. We're not going to get something we don't already have. We have to find a way to clean the sides of our lantern.
The four years that have passed since my then 60-year-old mom had a stroke and almost died have been the most difficult, heartbreaking time of my life, but also a period of intense personal growth. Not just for me, but my entire family. I have come to terms with the best and the worst in myself and others. I see that our common struggle is to keep going and yet embrace the unstable, ever changing life we are given. To find the silver lining. Most of all I hope that this is a gesture of gratitude. A means of finding our way in a challenging yet beautiful world.
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