I could barely form a thought, let alone write a blog post.

I felt little down. And I felt guilty and weird about feeling let down. But then in the afternoon, coaching a writing client, we were talking about how fighting yourself never works and I thought, “That’s what I’ve been doing all day. Fighting myself for being let down and exhausted.”

So I stopped and noticed I was let down, exhausted and wanting to hide from the world. And I didn’t, as the amazing Havi says, let that impress me. I gave myself some time to cry and snuggle and just notice. And then I read Naomi who always makes me feel hopeful. Then I went to the library and got some good novels to read when I finish Kathleen Norris’s great book. And hugged Bob and the dogs a lot. And Karen sent me this blog post which also helped.

Then in my writer’s group last night, Margaret said, “I couldn’t settle today. I kept feeling something should happen.” That made me feel less alone. Which is always good.

Then she went on to say that she wished the U.S. did things like her native U.K., “There’s a moving van waiting at the back door of 10 Downing Street to take the old guy out as the new guy’s moving in at the front.”

We have to wait 74 more days give or take a day I might have lost while napping.

I have an idea: let’s not wait. As Lisa said on Twitter “Can you take this breathless moment of shared hope and exhale it into our tomorrows?”

Let’s start exhaling now.

Let’s exhale our shared hope in small and vital ways and start preparing the way for the new year. Let’s work on our courage and resilience and vision so we’re ready to be part of the change. Let’s clear out the old within ourselves, our habits, our beliefs so we can have the energy and courage to help.

Because watching history being made on Tuesday, I kept thinking, “I want to be that great, too.”  Which may sound flamingly ego-mad crazy but isn’t that what great leadership and authentic hope can do, inspire us toward our own greatness?

Let’s begin to ask my favorite question from Viktor Frankl, “What purpose can I make of my life today?” Let’s ask it everyday. Not to find the answer but to allow the question to guide us. (You know I love questions!)

Are you yearning to express your greatness?

If so, what one thing might you love and accept about yourself in this moment so your greatness can shine?

I’d be honored to hear.

And finally, that story I promised you

in what now seems like a different century about the power of moving your body.

Last year I led a weekend retreat centered around rest and inner listening and it included a fair amount of movement with the totally embodied and inspiring Camille Maurine. The participants had come hoping to recapture a spark of joy, a sense of themselves free from “shoulds” and to-do lists. The movement exercises turned out to be the most challenging part of the retreat for a number of the women—and the most life-changing.

In the first exercise, I asked the group to ask their bodies (not their minds) to show them what their everyday life felt like. The circle exploded into hopping, running, grabbing, marching, and slumping. Then we came to a pause, breathed, and noticed how this felt.

Next I asked the group, “What does your sacred pause look like?” It looked like this: graceful swaying, arms opening and extending, breath slowing and deepening. The contrast was startling. But as we continued the exercise with different questions and expressions, I saw one group member, Kit, bolt from the room and several other women who were barely moving.

At a break, I found Kit on a bench overlooking the city. “How are you?” I asked. “Scared,” she said. “It feels like there is this roar inside of me. I want to let it out, but I’m afraid what might happen if I do.” We talked about giving herself permission, being kind to herself, taking it at her own pace—the most important advice when befriending the body’s wisdom.

Walking back to my cabin later, I marveled at how convincingly real our fear can feel, how seemingly impenetrable in its accumulation. Not just a box but a fortress. I asked Camille, “What are we so afraid of?”

Consciousness is a great mystery,” Camille said. “That we can be aware of our own existence is a marvel, but consciousness is also a mixed blessing. Awareness of being alive brings awareness of death, and the more aware we are, the more we feel. Movement brings us smack into contact with that wonder and awe—through sensation, through the breath—and that can be a scary awakening.”

The retreat unfolded beautifully: movement, journaling, and silent time outdoors slowly worked miracles, peeling away our layers of fear, rushing, and self-judgment. I noticed how much younger we all looked, and how much more laughter filled the center. We were discovering how thrilling it is when we reclaim our juice for living, our very life force, when we open our arms to ourselves and abandon our somatic ruts.

After dinner on the second day, Elizabeth told me this story:

When you asked us to move the first morning, I froze. I didn’t want to look stupid or stand out. But then I had an experience that changed everything. I took a walk after our class, and the young girl who lives here joined me. We stopped to watch a horse being shod, and she brought me a handful of flowers and said, ‘I am so lucky to live here!’ As she said this, her body dipped into a squat and popped up again—spontaneous movement! I thought, ‘This child didn’t wonder how to express herself or whether it was acceptable. She just moved.’

Later, in Camille’s class, when she asked us not to move until the impulse came from within, I thought of that girl. I sat frozen for five minutes, determined not to move until my body was ready, reliving every awkward moment of my teenage years, all the times I had learned to physically shut down. When the impulse finally came, it was so exhilarating. My body was breathing me. It was like my mind was a bystander, and as I watched, it was my body telling me stories. As it finished one, I’d get quiet and still, and then another story would pour out. It was breathtaking.”

To the power of love, change, hope, courage and moving our bodies!

Related posts:

1. Comfort During Fearful Times: Getting Out the Pre-Election Jitters
2. Comfort During Fearful Times: Hope Making
3. Comfort During Fearful Times: Don’t Forget the Comfort (Doh)

My brilliant friend and Writer’s Retreat guest star Havi Brooks loving advises that the first step in taking care of yourself is to meet yourself where you are.Yeah for Havi!

For me, that usually looks like saying something like, “I so don’t want to be afraid and I so don’t want to stop and feel anything and I so want to eat donuts right now, and this being with myself never really helps anyway and why can’t I just get to doing something to make myself better right now.”

We want action!

We want to be super charged action heros. Let’s change things now.

That doesn’t work.

Why? Because when we try to move right to change, there is a fundamental rejection of ourselves, a subtle (or not so subtle) belief that what we are feeling is not okay and therefore we are not okay which means we are not lovable which means we are not safe.

Cue donuts.

A Bob Kegan aside

Bob Kegan writes about this in How the Way We Talk Can Change the Way We Work. How when we discover we believe something about the world or ourselves, a master assessment or big damn story, something like if we talk to our fear we will be annihilated or if we stand up for ourselves at work we will be fired on the spot, end up alone, broke and without even a pet to hug, we need to stay with that assessment and watch how it plays itself out in our daily lives before we do anything differently.

So here you are

And it’s might be scary and uncomfortable and itchy and twitchy and you certainly may hate the idea of being here and that’s where you start. Acknowledge the itch, the deadness, the fear of fear. Acknowledge that you might not want to slow down and check in – in fact, you’d rather eat nails or give money to McCain. Acknowledge that comfort in form of donuts or checking email or reading more blogs sounds way more more satisfying right now.

In other words, notice the resistance, the wall, the “I don’t want to whine.” You don’t have to like it!!! You just have to stop and say hey. Oh yeah. You.

Kind of subtle and so very strangely liberating.

Tell me if you do it and what happens!

Related posts:

1. Comfort During Fearful Times: It’s Not About Self-Improvement
2. A Comfort Tele-Experience:
3. Coming Home Comfort

I believe we can get to a place where we can let go of anger, fear and other negative emotions, where we are more like the Tibetan monk Matthieu Ricard writes about in Happiness then say, OJ. Simpson. The monk spent twenty-five years in Chinese labor camps where he was brought to the brink of death many times. Now free, he visited the Dalai Lama who was deeply moved by his serenity. He asked if the monk had ever been afraid during his long imprisonment and the monk answered, “I was often afraid of hating my torturer, for in doing so I would have destroyed myself.”

Gulp.

When I think about where I am far too often and where that monk is, I feel pretty friggin humble. What I do is whine too much. “Why is this happening to me?” flits through my mind far too often. I think it’s only me who has gas before her first improv class, a mouse who apparently climbed inside her fridge motor and did not live to tell the tale (oh the puns are coming now) and who wonders five times an hour what she’s doing with her life. This trait of mine is getting some love and relief by using this phrase from Radiant Mind by Peter Fenner: “I suffer, yes, but this doesn’t mean that anything is fundamentally wrong.”

When we think we are the only ones or that we are being picked on or why me, oh my gosh, we make it so much worse.

I’ll fart my way through improv tonight and maybe make a joke out of it.

More self-love resources I love:

This post from Havi from which I’m going to devise an exercise for my upcoming class in

Portland that is going to be really freeing and moving and useful, too.

For self-employed gals and guys I love Molly’s work.

And David’s is for everybody everywhere forever.

My sweetheart Bob who is so good at smiling at me when I rant and saying nothing.
Smart man.

Related posts:

1. Ah
2. And The Winner