Staying In Your Own Lane

Over the week and perhaps especially today, I have observed myself drawing on scenes and interviews I’ve taken in of the Olympics and using them as grist for the reflective and metaphoric mill. The ideas of “focusing on your own game,” “running your own race,” and “staying in your own lane” were popular ones from my reflections over the past 24 hours and seemed to weave themselves into conversations I’ve had with others. These ideas come in part from an interview I listened to yesterday where strategies for running the kind of track races in which each person is assigned to and must stay in their own lane on the track were discussed. The interviewee explained how the athletes have practiced these races so many times, how they “know their times” (that is, how fast they can run), and that their task now, at these types of events, is not to worry about what other competitors are doing but to focus instead on their own lane, running their own race, aiming to perform up to or compete with their own personal bests.

This leads me to mention a book I’ve been reading this summer, The Answer to How is Yes, by Peter Block (2002). In it, he asks one to consider first the question “what matters?” rather than to bypass it and immediately jump to the question how–how do I do this or that, achieve this or that, solve x or y or get from point z to n? It is not a book against problem-solving and action but it is a book that encourages one to consider questions such as: is this the right problem to be trying to solve? Is this meaningful or important (and to me)? What is meaningful and important? What matters? What do I value?

Coming back to the race strategy, we might ask: am I running my own race or someone else’s? What do I want my race to be? What is my lane about? We might also remember the journey we are taking in our lane is ours. It is real and it matters.

At one point, Peter Block mentions the questions: “What is the transformation in me that is required?” and “What courage is required of me right now?” (p. 21). Also, “what measurement would have meaning to me?” (p. 23). I have heard some athletes speak of having faced significant challenges over the past four years–whether because of significant personal injury (such as broken bones) or interpersonal tragedy or loss. For some, getting to the Olympics was measurement enough, a meaningful accomplishment; aiming for a medal, though desirable, was not highly meaningful or the only goal or source of satisfaction. What measurement would have meaning for me? is a question I really like–not because I am gung-ho about measurement and certainly not about valuing people based on particular scores or number oriented results but because it invites each of us to consider, again, what is meaningful to me, in the context of everything else.

Sadly, I know that what can feel meaningful to a person can also lead them into all sorts of problems and traps. I am thinking of students I have worked with who have believed that a mark of 90 or more and no less is what has meaning to them. The trap here is often though that their belief, fear, and sometimes experience, based on how they have been treated by others, is that without the achievement of that marker, they are not of worth or value. The question of what measurement has meaning to me gets us closer to considering our own lane, assessing our values and directions and being guided more by that than swept along by what other people say or are doing in their lanes but it can still, of course, have pitfalls for us depending on our experiences thus far and vulnerabilities.

For those of you who have been watching–or participating–in the summer Olympics, I wonder what reflections you have had? What metaphors and ideas may have been presenting themselves to you?

Ebb and ____

Here we have a quick photo from today–strategically angled not for artistic merit but to avoid getting the dead squirrel into the shot–although coming to the end of writing the post and reading back through, I am wondering now if maybe I should have aimed to leave it in, to embrace that, too.

I share the photo here with thoughts in mind about cycle, rhythm, season, change, ebb, flow, swell, recede, wax, wane. Of the latter, it’s as if you cannot say one without the other: ebb pulls out from the tongue flow, wax attracts to pen wane. Try conjuring up rise without fall landing right behind on the runway; say up and in comes down. Scroll back a few posts and you will find a photo of daffodils in my yard that had just begun to bloom. Today the daffodils have long-faded from view and astillbe and sweet william, among others, are at center stage. This moment-by-moment changing, rising, falling, bursting, sag and wilt is always happening, always present, always everywhere. So I think it is with our journey: the ebbs and flows, rises and falls. It is all a part of the way.

I learned with much sadness earlier this week that Oliver Schroer died July 3rd, 2008.

There is life then death and also there is death then life.

I am thinking of the falling times people go through, the quiet times, the wilting times–and the emergence that so often comes after that: times of going inward, then going outward–the waxing and waning that David Whyte so powerfully talks about. In his talk, The Poetry of Self-Compassion (a cd I would highly recommend), he invites the listener to embrace it all: both the waxing and the waning, the highs and the lows, our strengths and all our seeming imperfections–and he suggests, essentially, that there is something very powerful in doing that. It seems to me that to walk with it all is the lifeblood of authenticity: to walk with acceptance, honesty, and tenacity leaning into pain, loss, confusion and into the richness of who you are, the wonder that is around you, and the deeply personal and positive contributions you can make.

I am holding in this moment Oliver’s death, the reality and inevitability of death, the plant in my yard I’ve longed named, Droopy, who is just beginning to bloom, and the laughter of a child.

On the Chalkboard June 17, 2008

Everyone you meet comes with a story… You might never know when you walk into a room whether someone has had an invasive procedure, bad news or good news. You must just arrive open–to the situation and the individual before you. That is presence. That stance allows [a person] to be heard.

–Suzanne Darley

from: The Expressive Art Activity Book: A Resource for Professionals, p. 44, by S. Darley and W. Heath, (c) 2008.

A Mini Holiday

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of spending time in a toy store. I was on a mission to find an adult-sized hula hoop and had been told this was the place to go. Mission accomplished. I was also looking to find a badminton racquet or two and birdies to supplement my collection. This took me wandering throughout the store. I loved the outdoor games and toys section. This made me miss working at an outdoor centre and camps. There are so many fun things to do outside and toys to play with! I love to play–for me the simple things are just fine. Playing catch in any number of ways, tossing a flying disc around, badminton without a net, horseshoes… Last night, friends were over for a potluck. Sitting in the backyard over good food and conversation, playing catch, badminton (with some raquets that ended up not working too well) was wonderful. The trip to the toy store and subsequent play felt like a mini-vacation–something I haven’t had enough of for quite some time and also crave. On the topic of nourishment and sustenance, it seems to me we need this so much. I look forward to the next gathering for outdoor visiting and play. For those of you in Kingston wanting to practice your hula hooping finesse or play catch with one of those velcro mitts, stop by or drop me a line!

Olive Oil, Fizzy Pop

While purchasing groceries yesterday, there was an older gentleman standing in line behind me. He had grey hair, a grey moustache that curved up at the ends and a combination of grocery cart items that intrigued me. His purchase consisted of approximately half a dozen 2 litre bottles of pop (something like sprite with lemon flavour) and approximately half a dozen 750 mL to 1 L bottles of extra-virgin olive oil. Nothing more, nothing less. I couldn’t help but wonder: what was the story that went along with that? Your thoughts?

Welcome June!

Today is the first day of June. We are now well into spring and will arrive in summer before the month is through. I have found myself drawn outside repeatedly over the past month, wanting to be outside sitting sipping tea in the sun, eating meals outside, playing, hanging out laundry, or working in the garden. Some days have been so beautiful, they have felt intoxicating–in the delightful, non-alcoholic sense of the word. I enjoy and love aspects of all the seasons: fall, winter, spring, summer; and I am currently really enjoying spring: the resurgence of colour into the visual landscape, the wonderful sights and smells of plants, bicycling again, and wearing skirts (at least, on occasion, … we’ve still had a lot of chilly days). When I look at the current state of my garden or the state it was in two weeks ago, with the tulips in full bloom, the forget-me-nots’ dazzling iridescence, I have reminded myself to enjoy it exactly as it is right now and to try to settle into that, instead of residing more in the realm of anticipation of the next interesting thing to come. There is nothing wrong with the latter, that excited and interested antcipation; however, I am also acutely aware that the garden season can feel very short, that before I know it, I’ll be observing the last blooms of the year, and eating local farmers’ fall harvests, so I would like to also make sure I that savour each morsel of the experience, and to aim to experience the full experience of the garden and the season as it is today, as it is in the moment I find myself in.

Five Breaths

My invitation to you today is this:

Pause.
In this moment, where you are, as you are.
Notice the sound and feel of your own breath breathing.
Tune in.

What sounds do you hear right now?

What colours do you see around you? What shapes? What textures?

Notice the feel of air on your skin.

Take 5 breaths here while still, while listening, while tuning in…