mighty lessons

When my father died in May my heart seemed to split wide open.  I was in the midst of separating from my husband, as well as moving to a new house.  My kids, caught in the middle. Then suddenly I was on a plane flying across the country to be with my family in Newfoundland.  Looking back on those days in May I scarce know how I survived.  At a time when I needed someone to lean on I was the most alone I had ever been in my life.  We can go for years feeling that things remain the same and then within the space of a few days reality shifts and we are forever changed.

Somehow I stumbled into June.  The kids and I began our life in a new house, getting used to the changes. I am in awe of my body now because each day I was able to keep going and it never failed me. One day at a time.  June became July and July gave way to August.  And here I am today.  Slowly the heart ache subsides and life around me takes on the visage of normal.  I am learning to go forward.  For the first time in almost 30 years I am not in a relationship.  And while I thought I would leap into the experience it has taken some getting used-to, some adjustment and courage.  My father told me once that he thought I was a very strong person.  He also told me that being able to support myself was important in life because there are no guarantees.  I wonder if he saw something in me that drew that comment to his mind.  For here I am living out the "no guarantee" scenario.

So what does this story have to do with building a business?  Well, it's more about building a life.  We all come to our work and daily engagements with multiple shades of experience.  We are not one-dimensional, and really how boring would that be?  I look back upon May as a month of mighty lessons.  And the most important one came from my father.  He took his exit much as he lived his life, quietly, faithfully and without a fuss.  He died as he lived, with honor and blessings.  My father did not amass great financial fortune in his life but he lived with the kind of abundance and love that most of us yearn for but rarely find.  Not one day of his life did he owe money.  He never had a mortgage or a car loan or any kind of credit.  He never knew a day of debt.  He loved my mother with his whole heart and created a life that was happy, family-centered and rich in joyous gatherings.  He focused on what mattered, never veering from that, and always working hard to support it.  And therein lies the wisdom.  To focus on what matters most in all that we do.  To reaffirm our "why" when we wake up each day.  I believe that if we do that, focus on what matters,  anything and everything is possible.

go with the flow

My daughter has been saying all summer that she is just "going with the flow."  She is 16 and a rather dramatic, live-with flair, intense, ambitious teenager so this is a departure from the norm for her.  She decided that after a year of stress in her life and being very demanding of herself that she would loosen up, be more relaxed, and simply go with the flow.  She recommended it to me.  She thought her much older, type A, driven, must-be-busy mom needed to stop taking life so seriously.

It is true.  I wake up every day thinking of what I need to do.  My entire morning routine is over-shadowed by my thoughts of what must be accomplished.  But lately I have been trying something new.  I spend at least 10-15 minutes of my morning quietly reflecting while I sip my coffee.  When my thoughts try to race towards creating a checklist for the day, I refrain.  I sit very still and simply enjoy the quietness of my house and the solitude.  I think of all the things I am grateful for in my life especially the blessings of love and friendship.  I practice listening inwardly.  It is my coffee meditation time.  My listen to God time.  My "go with the flow" time, as my daughter says.  For instead of pushing ahead into my day I am taking time to reconnect with the flow of life that runs peacefully within all of us.  We simply need to look within to find it, waiting there for us in the hushed silence of our spiritual being.

If my daughter read this she would be telling me by now that I have taken this "go with the flow" thing too far.  I would have gone a little too "Oprah" for her.  I can hear her say, "There's mom, off on her personal 'Eat, Pray, Love' experience again!  And that may be true.  I am a middle-aged woman seeking her true meaning of life, with enough life-lessons to know that I will never find myself out there in the world.  Been there, done that.  Nope, I am doing the inside job now.  It took me 48 years to figure that out, but by golly I have arrived.  Whatever happens in the second half of my life will be created from the inside out.  I realize this is not a revelation.  Lots of people know this.  I have been reading books for years that teach this very message.  It's just that I am finally doing it.  I am finally taking the time for reflection, meditation and silence.  It is my version of going with the flow.

All things in life require the thinking first and then the doing.  And it is in the doing that we discover that the answers we were seeking were within us all along.