Once a month, I team up with a a therapist who is a dear colleague and friend, and together, we offer a Zoom program called, “Mindfulness Moments.” People join us on the screen, and from a comfortable position in their own homes, my colleague leads us in a mindfulness exercise. I facilitate some discussion afterward, but I treasure this time because I am doing less leading and more receiving. I love her thoughtfulness and wisdom; I love to practice mindfulness and meditation alongside her.
Last night, she asked us to imagine that it’s December 31, 2024. She invited us to create a meeting between our future selves and our present selves, both feeling gratitude for the other.
I want to extend this imagination to you today. And if you, too, would like to go to a quiet place to consider this, imagine the relationship between your current self and your end-of-the-year self. What do you want that to be like? There can be gratitude, because after all, your future self is an inspiration to where your present self wants be, but your future self didn’t get there with out the work and intention of your present self.
Imagine with us… It’s December 31, 2024.
Did you travel anywhere?
Did you gain some strength?
What hobby did you finally spend more time doing?
How much self care did you give to yourself?
What were your greatest achievements that you worked so hard to begin and now are major milestones in your life?
I have a new friend, and he’s a substitute farmer. I have never considered this role, but it makes complete sense that this vocation would exist. Farmers need to step away from their land and daily grind just like anyone, but animals and crops need daily care.
This same friend has recently moved to a local farm as well. I’ve asked him a very important question:
Do you think you could help me meet a baby cow this year?
“Oh, without question,” he answered, to my glee. And friends, it’s going to be so much better than that. He went to the farmers where he lives and asked to be notified every time there’s a new baby animal because… I’m going to get to meet all of them.
2024 is going to be so cuuuute. And I’m going to have so many precious friennnds. (I’ll share pictures, I promise)
She’s not my favorite candidate for a Presidential race, but I do think that Marianne Williamson hit the ball out of the park with this beautiful quote from her book, A Return to Love: Reflections on the Principles of ‘A Course in Miracles’:
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”
And here it is in a scene from Akeelah and the Bee:
Welcome to our first installation in what I’m calling the “Neato Curiosities” series. To begin, I’d like to recommend this episode of Science Vs. They discuss ayahuasca and DMT, the molecular compound within it. They spend even more time talking about the synthetically created form of DMT and how it is being used clinically in ways that greatly improve a person’s mental health and outlook on life.
If you have time and interest, have a listen! — Renee
Every Thursday, I lead a support group over a conference call. I facilitate additional support groups as well, and those are hosted over Zoom. But this group of people likes to dial the phone and talk together all at once, so that’s how we keep it. They also playfully scold anyone who calls this a “group,” as I realize I just have above.
“Nope! Nope! We’re a family!”
They’ve decided embrace one another as chosen family. And though the framework of “chosen family” has been a part of my life for a long time — I’ve even writing a book on it; stay tuned!– they didn’t get this language from me. I never used it once with them. Still, it took form, and they have chosen that language and this way of interacting.
That vision showed up for me this week too. I dialed the number and signed in. And this is what I heard:
Happy Birthday toHappy youuuu! Birthday! to Happy! youuuuhappy to youuu to Birthdaytoouuuu Happyyyy dearrrrReneeee! toyouuuReneeeedayy! toyouuuuu!
As you’ll probably guess, I had a recent birthday, and they remembered. They sang together, all at once, and given the conference call medium, it was completely asynchronous. It was a lovely greeting.
Right now, many people are choosing and acting upon New Year’s Resolutions — most often, daily habits that they want to build over time. As we know, some of these will stick, and some will fade away.
Personally, I don’t tend to choose New Year’s Resolutions, but I do greatly appreciate the collective reset that takes place as we cross into a new calendar year. It gives us a chance to reflect, remember, express gratitude, and cast hopes for ourselves and others.
So I wonder… apart from resolutions, what might it be like to choose a guiding question? A query that can allow us to move more into what we desire or hope for our lives? Questions allow us to live in particular directions. They shape not only what we’re asking, but what we then, begin to see. Questions are great space for reflection, playing and trying things out, and of course, action.
I’m curious what you might choose. Here’s mine:
How expansive can a sense of home be? I ask this question in the direction of place. I ask it especially in the direction of people.
I am willing to be all-kinds-of-frugal this year in certain areas (living simply is a good thing in and of itself) in order to spend money to visit people I love. I want to be with my people, many of whom live all over the country. This isn’t a sense of vacationing; this is a sense of housing others and being housed. I want to host people in my home. And I have many lovely offers of people who would like to host me.
And in some of these places, I don’t only feel at home with the people I’m visiting. I also feel at home in place. Some of these cities also feel like my cities and my towns too. And I want to build that sense and that feeling. Truly,
How expansive can a sense of home be? I’m going to play with that question all year.
I’ve known that Gen Z is magic for a long time. Before yesterday, I could have told you that Gen Z has wisdom, brilliance, playfulness, and a commitment to envision and enact a better world. I could have said any of that.
But as of yesterday afternoon, I learned that Gen Z is magic in ways that are comedically precise.
When I was a kid, my friends and I used to play the game, “Guess Who?” Maybe you’ll also remember it from your childhood or from when your own kids were young. You each have a board and you have to ask questions to discover which card — i.e. which person — the other player has.
The Board Game, “Guess Who?”
We would ask things like, “Does your person have a mustache?” or “Is your person wearing a hat?”
Yesterday, I watched two of my most beloved Gen Z-ers play this game with questions like this:
“Does your person run a nonprofit?”
“Would your person get high at a natural history museum?”
“Is your person a member of the AARP?”
“Would you say your person isn’t in therapy right now, but is generally supportive of it?”
And they got the right answers again, and again, and again! How did they do that?
A bright, red strawberry, lying on the ground. Public domain image.
Happy New Year!
I don’t love to begin a new year with a post about mice and my house, but… I’ve had some. Yes, some, i.e. more than one. I suppose it’s not uncommon for them to group together like that, though I had no idea about multiples until I put out a live trap and caught two at once.
I’ve become a Mouse Uber. Now I don’t want you to think my house is just utterly infested or something. It’s not. But over the last few weeks, I’ve put that live trap in the car and taken a couple of trips to release mice at the park.
Mice have personalities, just like we do. A few weeks ago, when I opened the trap for these two, one of them stayed inside for such a long time. This mouse was checking out the scene, getting a sense of the open air and looking about in order to observe the features of its future park home. But another mouse BOLTED as soon as I opened the trap, and it super startled me.
A few days ago, I had the live trap out again (just in case, you know). I checked in the morning. While closed, I looked inside the holes to find no mouse. “Oh, good,” I thought. Just to be sure, I shook the trap gently, in case a mouse might have been in the corner out of view.
And then I saw it. There was an outline of a mouse. Time to go to the park again.
There is no money in being a Mouse Uber, by the way. But there I was, talking gently to a mouse as I drove down the street. “How long are you in town?” (Just kidding, I didn’t ask that, but I did say a few comforting things to that mouse).
Once I arrived in my destination, I pulled out the trap and put it on the ground, and because of that previously-bolted mouse, I was really scared to open the lid. I kept doing it just a little at a time. Eek! Ack! At one point, I looked down and could see enough inside.
I saw a mouse, staring up at me. I remember seeing its eyes.
“Hi there, buddy.” Eventually, I opened the trap enough and backed away in fear.
And… It was a strawberry.
Y’all, I took the bait to the park. I Ubered it down the street, talked to it gently, spent time flitting about in fear, and IT WAS A STRAWBERRY.
So funny. So sweet. (Also, literally).
We humans are pattern-seeking and pattern-making beings. Our brains do that for us. We often make meaning in this way, and we use this process to protect ourselves. Of course, this can create its own problems, too. We also often project patterns from previous experiences onto new situations and see our own fears. This is true when an outline of a strawberry looks like a mouse (I could have sworn it LOOKED up at me), or when we project our stress or trauma history onto new situations and people around us. We assume that people will feel, believe, or act in certain ways because of us. We expect situations to turn out in specific ways. We cast narratives, crafted inwardly but projected outwardly, toward circumstances that might not even be true.
We can be kind to ourselves about this (like a gentle Mouse Uber driver). Our brain is trying to protect us. But this pattern-making process can be limiting as well.
So we can pay attention, allow new narratives to form, and be open to experiences that expand us.
Smuggling Grace 