I've never been good at goodbye

In the wee hours of this morning I find myself thinking about silence and the space it provides for the voices of the soul to speak.

This morning a quote from a movie emerges from my thoughts. It's from one of the most moving scenes I've ever watched--a scene from Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey. Yes, those animal movies will get you every time! The two dogs and cat are making their journey across the landscape trying to get back to their human family. As they are crossing a train yard Shadow, the wise, old Golden Retriever, falls into a hole and injures his leg. He is unable to climb back up out from the hole. Chance, the young, exuberant American Bulldog, encourages him to not give up now! But, Shadow is just too old and now he is injured--it looks like he's not going to make it up out of the slippery sides of the hole he is now trapped in.

Shadow then imparts to the young Chance some of the most insightful words of wisdom I've ever heard:

"You've learned all you need to know, Chance. Now all you need to learn is how to say goodbye."

It's a heart-wrenching scene--I sobbed upon hearing these words. I've always hated goodbyes! But in spite of my tears I recognized how profound and graceful Shadow's words were.

Of course, that scene makes the ending of the movie all the more moving as we discover that Shadow does miraculously escape from the hole and still makes his way home to rejoin the family just a half-second after they've all had the realization that he wasn't able to survive the journey. Yep--you guessed it--more tears for me! I have no shame in being moved--even by a Disney movie!

Goodbyes, hellos, tears of grief, tears of joy....sometimes they are all so intricately intertwined. I'm feeling a lot of that these days. I've always been gifted and being able to laugh and cry simultaneously--I think both are important if one wishes to experience the very fullness of life. I'm wrestling with what it all means for me. The deepest joys often bring that very same depth of grief--this doesn't seem like a very fair trade-off. Shall I then seek a life that is more shallow so that it might not hurt as much? Of course that's a ridiculous notion to me, but the argument does have its merits!

I found this video clip while searching for the scene I described above. While it's not exactly what I was originally looking for, I wept upon encountering it and felt moved to include it here. Even in our goodbyes we are never really alone. And sometimes goodbyes aren't really "goodbye"....but just "see you in a little bit."

My birthday speech

On the eve of my birthday, I think it's appropriate to share some thoughts about my life that have been on my mind recently.

As many of those who are in closest proximity to me know, this year has been one of incredible growth for me--in more ways than I can count. As a result, it is with immense gratitude that I am able to report that, although I definitely still have a lot of living left to do, I find that I have reached a place in my life in which I finally feel like if I happened to die tomorrow, I would die with the contentment that my life--though still short in many respects--has been full and complete in the ways that are most important. I wonder how many people are able to say that.

I still have many goals and dreams for the days ahead, and I don't plan on slowing down anytime soon. But, I still felt moved to share this new peace in my life and to extend a heartfelt thank you to all those who have touched my life from the biggest to smallest of ways--every bit of it counts and has made me who I am today. I've been incredibly blessed with an amazing family and wonderful friendships and acquaintances, and there's not a day that goes by that I'm not mindful of this. I will be celebrating all of you on my birthday, as I wouldn't now be "ME" without all of you first being "YOU".

Thank you. And I pray that each of you will also come to know this peace that passes all understanding, if you have not tasted it already.

What's Your Story?

We live by the stories we tell.
~Elie Wiesel, holocaust survivor

My pastor shared these words in her Christmas Eve sermon, and immediately I wrote them down as they struck a chord in me. I find this phrase filled with all kinds of meaning. I think it speaks true whether we are talking about external stories, or internal stories. By external stories I am referring to those stories that occur outside of us--the histories and tales we hear from those around us. Sometimes we hear these external stories live, as they are happening. Other stories have been passed on for years, decades...even centuries or longer.

By internal stories I am talking about those stories that make up who we are. They are not just a literal history, as I believe we are all much more than that. Our stories are also our thoughts, our voices, our feelings, our secrets, our desires, our fears, our loves, our dislikes, our tragedies, our celebrations....everything about us that makes up the essence of who we are. Everything that shapes us.

Sometimes the line between external stories and internal stories is quite fuzzy. Some external stories receive such prominence in our lives that we begin to incorporate pieces of those stories into our very selves. They become external truths with which we feel such a meaningful connection that we begin to internalize them and make them part of our own story.

This is why I think this concept of "living by the stories we tell" is so powerful. It's not just about repeating the stories that we've had told to us--the stories of our faith and traditions, the stories of our ancestors, the stories of our "people" (whoever those may be). But, it's also about recognizing the power that storytelling has over our lives even when we don't realize we are in fact telling stories. So many of the stories we tell are so subtle that we don't even recognize them as such.

When I heard these words by Wiesel, they reminded me immediately of another of my favorite quotes:

"To be deprived of one's story is the most ruthless form of oppression."
~T.E. Clarke

If we live by the stories we tell, it is not far-fetched to consider that we sometimes die by the stories that are left untold. To silence someone--to deny them their voice--is probably one of the most destructive weapons you can use against the human spirit. I think in particular of individuals who find themselves trapped under a heavy blanket of silence with secrets they find far too shameful to share. To be deprived of one's story causes alienation and isolation. To kill someone's voice is like depriving oxygen to their human spirit. You might as well be suffocating them with a pillow shoved in their face.

For the past year I have worked alongside many homeless people. I've witnessed the pain of alienation and isolation that many of them have experienced as a result of losing their voice in society. Apart from the obvious need of having their basic needs met, I still recognize that for many of them, their simplest of all needs is just to have someone there who is willing to listen--to hear their story. To be deprived of one's story is not only oppressive, it's dehumanizing.

The other key point that stands out for me with this idea of living by the stories we tell is the fact that it matters absolutely what kind of stories we are telling. There are stories that are affirming and there are stories that are damaging. When we don't recognize the power of storytelling in our lives we are all the more susceptible to the destructiveness of telling damaging stories. When we grow to recognize what stories we are telling--both the external and the internal stories--we start to become empowered and more in control of influencing and choosing what kinds of stories we want to live by.

In many ways this past year, for me, has been a time of paying more attention to myself as a storyteller. The past few years have taken me through some major life changes--just about any life change one could imagine--and this journey has taken me to many different places and provided me with many new stories. As I learn new stories about myself I find myself recognizing that some of the older stories have now run their course and are ready to come to an end. As I hear new stories I get energized and inspired and find myself thinking ahead to what new chapters or sequels lie ahead. Some of these will be external stories, and I simply have to wait for what's in store, but others are internal stories--stories in which I am the writer and the narrator and the protagonist. Well, okay, I admit in some stories I am still the antagonist as well, but that's what makes a good drama!

As I examine the current expression of my life and am proud and humbled and exhilarated by the fact that I am finally living my most authentic story, I recognize that I've arrived here by wrestling with all of those endless texts, scribbling out multiple rough drafts, throwing the crap stories in the wastebasket (while practicing my hoops with crumpled paper balls), and ultimately recognizing that I am the one with the power to change my story and make it what I want it to be. I know I've shared it before, but this is one of the stories I have been focused on for quite some time:

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you've imagined."
~Henry David Thoreau

I attribute the place I am at right now directly to all the blood, sweat and tears I have poured out throughout my fitness journey. I recognized before I took the very first step on this journey that my goal was not simply about losing weight--I had the literal premonition that it was the magic formula that was going to allow me to take control and make my life exactly what I wanted it to be.

I made up my own quote the other day as a spin-off of the Thoreau quote: "To make all your dreams come true, you first need the courage to dream them."

Be brave, write down all your dreams, and embrace your role as the storyteller. End the stories that don't need to be told anymore. Write new chapters for the stories that need changing. Begin new stories where you have felt that restless longing.

That's what I've been doing while I've been busy busting my ass at the gym. I'm finally living the life I imagined, and this is only the beginning.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

A People Mover and a Wounded Feeler

I recently set my sights on a particular identity I want to claim for myself: I want to be a People Mover! A few weeks ago, I received an email from a friend who shared comments on how much I move her; this email prompted me to recognize an overwhelming sense of call to this particular mission. I want to be a People Mover! Indeed, this is something I find quite rewarding. I love to share words that touch people--that move them. Perhaps this is simply because I, myself, love to be moved. Affected. To move someone is to touch them emotionally in some way. I've always been a tactile person--yet, I never recognized how that also stretches out into the emotional realm for me. If I can move you, I can know that I am reaching out and touching you...making a human connection.

My sense of calling as a People Mover has been reinforced throughout the past year, particularly through the ways in which I have found myself serving as a source of inspiration for many friends, loved ones, and acquaintances by the success of my endeavors on my fitness journey. This has been an amazing gift for me--knowing that all my hard work, focus, discipline, and success have not only brought about life-changing results for me, but they also extend out beyond me in such a way that others can somehow share in the fruits of my labors. As a People Mover, I see how the choices I make in my own life help me to serve as a cheerleader for others as I inspire them to join me along the way on this amazing journey of life. What a remarkable gift and an incredible honor this has been. While I am excited to share my passion with others, I am also quite humbled.

Earlier this week, I encountered a lovely quote from one of my favorite spiritual sages:

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand."
~Henri Nouwen

Ah, yes, that sounds like Nouwen...the "Wounded Healer" himself. In one of his most well-known books, The Wounded Healer, Nouwen shares this wisdom: "In our own woundedness we can become a source of life for others."

Nouwen was a Wounded Healer. This new inspiration by his words instantly moved me to claim another new identity for myself: I want to be a Wounded Feeler! As I encountered this new (to me) quote by Nouwen, I recognized myself in the words...my longing to willingly take on the pain of others, to share their pain and touch their wounds with a warm and tender hand. I saw myself in these words so clearly because I had just days prior expressed my heart-felt love to a friend using amazingly similar words. Just as I wish to reach out and touch others--make a human connection--through attempting to move them, I also wish to do so by reaching out and touching them through standing in solidarity with them in their moments of pain, or grief, or heartache....or any other human emotion, really. Sure, I will happily share in your joy, as well! But, truly, I find that it's the willingness to be fully present with another human being in those places in which they are the most vulnerable, the most delicate, the most in need of feeling the touch of grace, to be the most meaningfully intimate and rewarding experiences in life. It is an honor to be invited into such places. And a blessing for me when someone welcomes my own tears on their behalf. I suppose it's probably the most personal gift I could offer another human being. Actually, this reminds me of another amazing quote I encountered today:

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief...and unspeakable love."
~Washington Irving

Ultimately, I realize that my goals of becoming a People Mover and a Wounded Feeler are also a reflection of entering into a period in my life in which I am freely loving myself in a much more all-encompassing way than I've done so before. It is this genuine love of self, and my awareness of the ways in which God wants to use me to touch the world that allow me to fully embrace this calling. In turn, I am finding my life to be infused with a refreshingly new sense of passion and energy as I feel more alive than ever and enthusiastic about my future.

Of course, I wouldn't know how to be a People Mover and a Wounded Feeler without having first been touched by others who reflect these particular gifts. My heart is grateful to the many people in my life who have helped reveal these insights through their own willingness to share themselves with me. Thank you for moving me...and for feeling me.

Warning: Things in this mirror may be larger than they appear!

I've known for quite some time that I'm an oxymoron. I'm a complex mix of many seemingly contradictory qualities or essences...a little bit of yin and yang of everything.

Recently, however, I've finally been coming face to face with yet another truth about myself: I'm also quite an optical illusion. Sometimes I am genuinely surprised and taken aback when I'm engaging with someone (usually someone new in my life, but not always) and I find they have somehow completely missed the "real" me. I'm surprised because I always try in my own way to simply be a very genuine person....and my expectations have been that surely this genuine-ness would find its way to the surface and magically reveal the true essence of "Kristy" to the world around me. I thought genuine-ness was the magic knife that cut through everything....the light that would serve as a sort of spotlight on reflecting my true self to the world. I am finally learning that an important piece has been missing. I've been keeping too much of myself to myself!

This past year has been monumental for me in many respects. Although I've always been a very self-reflective person and intentionally pursued paths which promised continued growth in my life, this year, in particular, has been filled with many key growth spurts. Most of these growth spurts occurred as a result of direct encounters with new people in my life...visitors who met me in a face-to-face exchange, held out their hand before me, and placed in my hand another piece to the puzzle....the puzzle that serves as the very roadmap leading me to the place to which I am trying to go.

Where is it I am trying to go, you ask?

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."
~Henry David Thoreau

And on my way there, I am trying to visit this place:

"Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
~Howard Thurman

Actually, it's the coming alive part that has really been the most important aspect of the journey--I hadn't realized how much I'd not been living. You can't live the life you have imagined if your aren't even living yet!

Don't get me wrong....I've for the most part had a very good life. Some ups and downs along the way just like any other average human being, but overall I feel I've been plenty blessed in my lifetime. But, I recognized life was not yet everything it could be, and that's something I've been working hard on the last few years....the momentum building as time goes on.

So, back to these puzzle pieces that my fellow life travelers have been handing to me. I liken my experience in receiving each of these pieces back to the story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden....when they eat of the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and "their eyes were opened." Although I'm not trying to draw comparisons about my current experiences with the concept of "sin" as it fits within the Adam and Eve story, I do find the "eyes opening" imagery to be quite descriptive in what I've experienced during each of these puzzle piece encounters. I am very much an experiential learner, and during each of these experiences my eyes literally opened up wider as new doors opened up before me, doors that led both to key new insights about myself and to new visions of the world around me. Each of these pieces has been crucial to leading me closer to the life I imagine....and I've recognized God's amazing grace wrapped around each piece as it's handed to me. Life just keeps getting better.

So, my latest self-awareness as being an optical illusion came about more as a follow-up to one of these puzzle-piece encounters. It came about as I wondered why it felt like I keep finding myself in moments when it seems I am running two minutes behind my own life. I keep missing trains that go by, as I am left waving my ticket in the air while the train fades off into the horizon ahead.

Then I had one of those moments where I woke up one day and realized I am not the person I say that I am. I suddenly realized while I talk about the importance of honesty and transparency in my life...I really don't offer this. Sure, it is indeed important to me and I value it wholeheartedly, just like being genuine.....but I suddenly realized this still doesn't mean I offer this. It suddenly dawned on me, in a very necessary and concrete way, that as an internal processor.....I am hardly transparent at all. As an internal processor I am completely honest and transparent and genuine on the INSIDE....but that looks so much different on the outside.

Suddenly it started to make all the more sense why people keep "missing" the real me: because I am slow to make her available to people. Not by any conscious intention. I've always known that it often takes time for people to get to know me...but I wasn't sure how to go about changing that. As I understood myself, I just thought that being a deeper person meant that it required others to be willing and patient enough in taking the time to get down into those deeper layers with me if they wanted to really get to know me. But now I am finally uncovering the pieces I needed to find that will enable me to be more fully present in the world as a more authentic version of myself in the here and now. I'm uncovering the pieces I needed to find in order to make sense of HOW I'm supposed to go about getting to where I've wanted to be for oh-so-long. I simply need to stop keeping too much of myself to myself! It's amazing how simple it feels when the pieces have been revealed. But I'm an experiential learner, and I just needed to have the right experience that opened the right door.

So my new intention is this: to more actively share with others about what I am thinking, as a way of being more present in the moment with people and sharing more of my true self with them. I realize, for me, that what I am "thinking" is not necessarily as simple as a concrete thought passing through my mind of which I consciously decide yay or nay whether to share aloud. As an internal processor, some of my "thinking" occurs in the very depths of my soul....and often not in clear, articulate form. Still, I recognize that there IS some sort of a small voice inside there that is fairly consistently calling out lines--lines which I am suddenly more conscious of....and realize that these are just as important to share with others in crucial moments if I am to have any hope of living the life that I imagine.

In doing so, I hope to repair the optical illusion situation I have managed to create for myself. So, lookout world: as objects in this mirror may be larger than they appear! I may look quiet and sweet and gentle on the outside....but there's a whole lot of passion just a-waitin' to be unleashed! I'm done keeping myself to myself...I want to share my passion with the world....hopefully in ways that will move and inspire others.

A secret key

"Our strength grows out of our weakness."
~Ralph Waldo Emerson

I ran across this quote somewhere online this morning--I think in an email--and immediately it spoke to me. It's so true! This is the reality I am living right now! I very recently discovered that the very things I considered to be my "weaknesses" were actually simply the shadow side of those things I most covet in myself--my true strengths. I recognized that in order to give the one up, I would have to also hand over the other--and I immediately and adamantly put my foot down and said, "There's no way in hell I am giving that up!!"

This new insight gave me the fresh new perspective I needed to finally bust my way through inner obstacles that I've wrestled with for years trying to overcome.

This past year I have overcome several hurdles of various sorts in my life. I would like to share a very important secret with you now. For, I see that the very key to unlocking each of these gates has been exactly the same for all of them: Acceptance.

Try it! What do you find yourself wrestling or struggling with in your life, currently? Where do you find yourself pouring in endless amounts of energy seemingly to no avail? This is a sure clue that you are likely stuck in an endless self-defeating loop of wrestling against yourself. Stop for a moment and consider what it would be like to just accept this thing against which you are struggling. What word of grace do you need to hear in this moment? Is it something internal or external that needs accepting? Keep in mind, the accepting I am talking about is one that should leave you feeling free and actually more empowered, not one that leads to feelings of resignation or defeat. Genuine acceptance should lead to a greater feeling of wholeness, rather than division.

Acceptance, by the way, is not the final destination. It is the step from which we leap forth into our future. By accepting things are just as they should be, in the here and now, I am now free to leap fearlessly into the life I truly imagine that awaits me just ahead. Who's with me?

Being present in the moment

I've been sick this week. It's been quite frustrating. I just rejoined the gym and want to be working out--can't do that. I'm overwhelmed at work, and not able to function at full capacity while being sick. My enthusiasm for the new year, and all the amazing things going on in and around my life is being thwarted by the fact that I feel absolutely crappy.

I am not severely sick, by any means, but because of the timing of it, with all the crazy busy-ness of December and the holidays....and still feeling overwhelmed with a number of responsibilities at work AND at home....I've reached the level of sickness that turns into home-sickness. It's a reminder to me that I'm still somewhat in exile--my life isn't where I want it to be. I'm not living in the place I want to be living, it's not really "home" to me. I'm in bed, sick, and I want to cry like a baby and whine, "I want to go home...."

Where is home? I think it's true what they say: home is where the heart is. I think of what my heart wants, and indeed, that is the very comfort that comes to mind as I lay here in bed longing for "home."

Tomorrow I will put my eternal optimist hat back on and go back to being more-than-content with where I am in my life; but, for today I am going to let myself just be present with the sadness as I long for the home my heart desires. In the end, I think these moments are just as important in spurring ourselves towards authentic joy.