Acceptance and Action

"Acceptance is the answer to all of our problems"
"Accept the things I cannot change"
"Let go or be dragged"
"Drop the rope"
"Surrender"

AND THEN WHAT?!



FIRST, ACCEPT THINGS EXACTLY AS THEY ARE, WITHOUT JUDGMENT OF YOUR FEELINGS. NOTICE YOUR ANGER, DISAPPOINTMENT, FEAR, LISTEN TO WHAT YOUR BODY IS TRYING TO TELL YOU. My beloved professor, Alex Onno, would remind us that symptoms were post cards from the soul, and that whatever is happening in our body is important information. We are often quick to push away, judge, or reject whatever we are feeling. Just listen and notice. How about a little self compassion? Don't know what that is, read my post in January on being compassionate with yourself. The old adage is true, you gotta love yourself before you can love another.



For me, the big lesson in creating change means complete acceptance of things exactly the way they are. Before I start making judgments about the way I think things should be or how this wasn't how I hoped it to be, I remind myself that I am "exactly where I am suppose to be". In my spiritual practice this means that I turn it over to God, I quit trying to run the show, and I cultivate a little more faith. I do not do this without resistance, I often struggle and stay stuck, but I keep trying and I am rewarded with the gift of deeper understanding about myself and the presence of God.



Oh, I never answered the "then what part." I will post about solution focused action next. This is your first challenge in acceptance.

Compassion Fatigue and Vicarious Trauma

Compassion Fatigue: Seeking a Hidden Wholeness By David J. Powell, PhD
(Article slightly adapted by Haley Lowe to fit the work of JRA Parole Counselors)

Most Parole Counselors come into the field with a strong sense of calling, the desire to be of service to others. Yes, there are some who become Parole Counselors out of intellectual interest, to make a living, or because others encouraged them to do so. Yet, most feel a strong pull to somehow take their gifts and attributes and make themselves an instrument of service and healing in a world of suffering. Given what brought us into the field, we at times find ourselves caught in the stark contradiction between our hearts and the reality of our work life.

Ironically, Parole Counselors are blessed to have a front row seat on suffering, to life’s greatest dramas, and to see people get well. Somehow, though, over time, the joy of counseling begins to elude us. It is as if we were invited to a great banquet and sometime during the meal we realize that we’re eating grass, with an accompanying feeling of dryness and tiredness.

John, an alcohol and drug abuse Counselor, says, “I thought I came into counseling for the right reasons. At first I loved seeing patients. But the longer I am in the field, the harder it is to care. The joy seems to have gone out of my job. I don’t know how much longer I can do this. Should I get out of counseling as many of my colleagues are doing? I want to find a way of overcoming my burnout. I can’t keep going on like this. I don’t want to see any more clients.”

If you have ever said the following or (similar) words to yourself, you are not alone: “Hey, this is not what I wanted, not what brought me into the field. I spend all my time doing paperwork and not seeing clients. The money I make isn’t compensation enough for all that it takes out of me. When I do get to my counseling sessions, I feel drained by my patients. I go home with nothing left to give to my family, let alone myself. I want to get out.”

The helping professions risk losing many skilled and compassionate healers at the height of their catalytic powers because the life has gone out of their work. Here is the critical question you should ask yourself: Knowing what I now know about counseling, would I enter the field again?

If not, how could this have happened, given the zeal you once felt when you entered the field? Why have so many Parole Counselors, who felt such a sense of calling, been driven from their work? What can be done to replenish the deep internal reservoir that helpers need to sustain a lifetime of service? How do we help the helper to help others help themselves?

The nature of the problem,counseling is a demanding job. We are under enormous strain today with increased client loads, less funding, more complex diagnoses and problems encountered regulations and administrative demands, and less time with patients. Most explanations of these issues are about external forces impinging on our practices:

• Health care has become a big business, and seems to be only about the bottom line, high tech and low touch.
• Regulations and requirements take precedence over caring and counseling. We’re drowning in paperwork mandated by funding sources. (According to a CSAT Study in 2003, the average alcohol and drug abuse Parole Counselor spends 20 percent — one day a week — on paperwork. Most Parole Counselors tell me that is an underestimation of the time they actually spend on forms and files).
• If new funds are found for the field, most of the increased dollars go to higher administrative costs and technology. Salaries of Parole Counselors and caregivers actually seem to be going down relative to increased demands and the cost of living.
• We are asked to do more with less, serving on a 24/7 basis, to provide “fast food” psychiatry and counseling.
• The stress of being part of other persons’ problems is a staggering responsibility that at times seems unbearable.

We can and should direct our energies to the systemic problems, but the front-line practitioner may feel helpless to change the system. Some simply withdraw, care less, or get out of the field entirely. Some adopt holistic practices or self-pay systems that avoid third-party reimbursement requirements. Most just complain or suffer in silence. The problems seem so vast that most of us simply do not know what to do.

Seeking a hidden wholeness
Although there may be an external crisis in health care in America (a crisis “of the head”), we need to address the “crisis of the heart” in health care providers. We seem to experience too little joy, love and kindness to sustain the hearts of those who serve. When the heart lacks nutrients caused by blockages, the heart closes down and causes pain. Most caregivers live with another form of pain, caused by blockages of love to their heart. And before you can aid another in healing their pain, you have to heal your own. For if we do not transform our pain, we transmit it.

Yes, we need to work to improve the health care system. But we also need to look within, to become resilient again, and to rediscover what gives us joy, meaning and hope in what we do. We need time for reflection, to listen again deeply and authentically, to the silent singing of our hearts. We need to redevelop our innate capacity for compassion — to be an open-hearted presence for someone in his/her suffering.

We are well trained technically. But when it comes to the hatching of our hearts, our “spiritual training,” our development has been greatly lacking. These problems cannot be solved by systemic changes alone, nor by external means. You see, counseling skills can be taught, but a compassionate heart can only be caught. The journey to find that hidden wholeness starts individually. We each need to attend to our inner life, to be more and more human, more ourselves, to reclaim a sense of calling and an attitude of sacredness toward the healing arts. So, doctor, first heal yourself!

The great writer and theologian Henri Nouwen said, “… a deep understanding of your pain makes it possible for you to convert your weakness into strength and to offer your experience as a source of healing to those who are often lost in the darkness of their own misunderstood sufferings.” It is indeed through our pain and suffering that we are better able to serve others. Carl Rogers once said, “Expertise cures but healing comes from our shared experiences and wounds. Before every session, take a moment to remember your humanity. There is nothing a person has experienced that I can’t share because I too have experienced pain and suffering in my life.”

However, this is just the opposite of what we want to do when we are tired and rusted out. (I don’t think Parole Counselors burn out, they rust out. Burnout happens when you put a pot on the stove and there is too much fire under it. That’s not what happens to Parole Counselors. Instead, we lose our fire, our passion, and rust out.) We want to run away from the intense fire of our jobs, when in fact, we ought to rush into the fire by sharing with the patients their pain and suffering. In Buddhism, this is called “tonglen,” taking on the pain of others. Remember the scene in the movie, The Green Mile, when the big prisoner takes on the pain of others? That’s what we need to do — walk into the fire of pain, risking nothing less than everything.

There is an old Chinese story of a master potter who worked his entire life to find the right glaze for his work. He tried year after year to find the perfect finish for his pottery. Finally, in desperation, he walked into the hot kiln himself. When his apprentice came by and removed the pots in the kiln he found them covered in the most beautiful glaze, aglow with the spectacular glow. To find that glaze the potter had to give all of himself and walk into the intensity of the baking fire. How does one have the courage, or foolishness, to walk into the fire of passionate work when our natural desire is to go in the opposite direction? The subtitle of this article, “in search of a hidden wholeness,” comes from Thomas Merton’s classic phrase, “there is in all things….a hidden wholeness and the title of Parker Palmer’s latest book, A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey toward an undivided life (2004).

How does one find that hidden wholeness? It comes from listening to that still small voice within each of us that speaks the truth about me, my work and my world. Wholeness does not mean perfection: it means embracing brokenness as an integral part of life. You do not have to be perfect to be a Parole Counselor. In fact, the opposite is true: it is your wounds and suffering that gives you an understanding of another’s pain.

Years ago there was a popular book entitled I’m OK, You’re OK. The title might have helped sell books but it was not good philosophy, for you’re not OK, but that’s OK. Knowing this gives us a sense of hope that human wholeness — mine, yours, and ours — need not be a utopian dream, but can be lived out in the gritty reality of life, amidst all of its pain and suffering, amidst its 10,000 joys and 10,000 sorrows.

How do we listen to that still small voice amidst the din of daily “doing?” First, we do not have to do this listening for the still small voice alone. Nor, does it come simply in solitude. We can hear it through meditation, guided imagery, poetry, art, journaling, self-reflection, small and large group discussion, solitude and community. People need opportunities to tell their stories — much like what happens at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting — and to listen and be touched by others. We should not do this inner work alone. There is a lovely Buddhist term, kalyanamitra, which is interpreted as “good friends,” or soul friends, who travel together and aid one another along their healing, spiritual path. There is an African expression that two antelope travel together so one can wipe the dust from each other’s eyes. Who is walking along with you today?

Another term for what Parole Counselors need to find their hidden wholeness is through “deep listening,” from one to another. What we need is another person or persons who can shift from fixing or doing for one another, to simply being present with another.

To continue to live a life in service to others, we need to re-find our soul that is longing to be heard, that speaks softly when it is drowned out by the noise of our busy personal and professional lives. We need an opportunity to slow down, to re-find what it was that brought us into the counseling field in the first place. We need to belong, to be-our-longing. What is it that you long to be today? What is awaiting you in life?

David Whyte expresses this well in his poem “Self-Portrait:”

“It doesn’t interest me if there is one God or many gods
I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned.
If you know despair or can see it in others.
I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you.
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying this is where I stand.
I want to know if you know
How to melt into that fierce heat of living
Falling toward the center of your longing.
I want to know if you are willing to live,
Day by day, with the consequence of love
And the bitter unwanted passion of your sure defeat.
I have heard, in that fierce embrace, even the gods speak of God.”

Once we have experiences that deep listening ourselves, then we can display deep listening, caring and compassion with our patients. But, to get there, we must remember that a Parole Counselor cannot take a client to a place he/she has not been. Again, in the words of Carl Rogers, “Counselors can’t counsel from beyond whom they have become.”

To paraphrase Parker Palmer again, “We heal out of who we are.”

The antidote for tirednessDo you feel tired and rusted out today? Do you feel like you need a really long vacation, perhaps to a deserted island somewhere? Benedictine monk David Stendl-Rast said the antidote for tired may not be rest but wholeheartedness. Rest is good! We all need times of relaxation and re-creation. But, after we go on vacation and return refreshed, a month later we have already lost whatever gain we made. Instead, longer-term gain comes from finding what brings us peace and joy. What gives us meaning and purpose at work? When it is all said and done, when you have seen your last client, how do you want to be remembered? What do you want said about you as a Parole Counselor? Usually, Counselors’ responses are fairly simple to this question and they say, “I want to be thought of as a caring, compassionate person, a skilled helper.”

If this is what we would like when it’s all over (and believe me, some day your work as a Parole Counselor will end), what are we waiting for? We need to live that life of caring and compassion today, risking all. T.S. Elliott in The Four Quartets, says that this calls for risking nothing less than life itself.

What is the antidote for the tiredness you feel today? Yes, take a vacation when needed. But more importantly, find your wholeness, what gives you joy. Wendell Berry describes this fork in the road so well when he writes, “It may be when we no longer know what to do, we have come to our real work, and that when we no longer know which way to go, we have begun our real journey.”
David J. Powell, Ph.D., President, International Center for Health Concerns, Inc., is an internationally recognized lecturer and trainer, and author of Clinical Supervision in Alcohol and Drug Abuse Counseling. His most recent book is Playing Life’s Second Half: A Man’s Guide for Turning Success into Significance. For further
information, contact djpowell2@yahoo.com or www.ichc-us.org.

References
Palmer, Parker. A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2004.
This article is published in Counselor,The Magazine for Addiction Professionals, February 2006, v.7, n.1, pp.36-39.

Ways to Increase Self-Compassion

Ask yourself:
• What would a mother say to her child if she wanted the child to grow and develop?
• How will I learn and grow if it’s not OK to make mistakes?
• Can I feel my feelings of pain without getting lost in the drama or storyline of my situation?
• Can I fully accept this moment and these emotions as they are without suppressing, resisting or avoiding?
• Isn’t it true that I am not the only one going through such difficult times and that all people experience things like this, or worse, at some point in their lives?

More tips for increasing self-compassion, a self-quiz and suggested readings are at Dr. Kristin Neff’s self-compassion Web site.

My Family of Origin Letter from my Father (posthumously)

The following is a letter from my father; I believe it was written in 1994. It was in response to a letter I wrote him following a confrontation we had following a visit. I witnessed him berate and criticize my older brother and I froze. When he finished going off on my brother, I saw red, and I went from freeze to fight. I had never confronted an adult before (I was 23) and I was trembling after the encounter, and cried from a place of deep pain I could not understand at the time. For many years I thought of my father as an angry man with a bad temper, quick to explode and criticize. In a way, I kept my distance. He was also a highly intelligent man with many stories and dreams. In his mid-fifties, shortly after he wrote this letter, he changed, he started to let go of his anger and began to soften. He was introspective, kind, and thoughtful. He was always quick to say he loved me and how proud he was of me.

In graduate school we were encouraged to conduct family of origin interviews with our family members as a way to better understand how we think and feel are influenced by an emotional system that has its roots in our families’ multigenerational history. Since my father passed away in 2005 I was not able to interview him. Our faculty described a process of conducting graveside visits and others ways to do this work with those who have passed. In the end of my second year I found a letter from my father, and when read from the perspective of a family of origin letter, it is incredibly prolific and deeply moving. My father may not have known who Murray Bowen was, but he surely understood the multigenerational transmission process and the role our family of origin plays in our lives.

THE LETTER

4/22 7 p.m.

My Dearest Haley,

Just arrived back to Bend. Your letter was most welcomed. It brought tears! Yes, we are one, yes we are extremely sensitive. Once again you are the one who sees, the one who understands. If you had known your grandmother better you’d better understand me. Your mother can tell you about my mom.

As it turns out I also have the “great genetic’ link to my father. Please try to understand that when you see the polar sides of me it’s due to being part of two opposite types!

You, my darling Haley, are the extension of the John Lowe curse! Painfully expressive! Blunt in truthfulness! Caring till it creates anger! But, but, do not fear for the future! It is assured! You will surely bear the pain of others if only from being able to sense it! Do not assume personal responsibility for it all! Contribute where you are able! The saying is “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need!” Also, and this is from the incredible gift you gave me at xmas, “the pain of love be sweeter far than all other pleasures are!” I love the book. There are quotes to cover almost ever situation, any subject. Thank you once more for your perception and thoughtfulness. I’ll look up daughter-“Oh, my sons my son til he get him a wife, but my daughter’s my daughter all her life.”

I love you! I hope we can spend some time- up close and personal soon! Beyond being your father I aspire to be one who has your respect for who I am becoming!

Dennis

On Developing Acceptance

Excerpt from my clinical theory of counseling, The Quest for Balance:The Ten Essentials.

Essential #9, Develop Acceptance.

Both gratitude and acceptance are important characteristics to be mindful of in our quest to restore and maintain balance in our lives. People often enter counseling only able to see the negative aspects of their situation and are unable to see the whole picture. As a therapist, it is my job to help my clients look carefully at the nature of their presenting problem and start to identify different outcomes that will lead to the relief or insight they are seeking. Whether a client comes to me feeling anxious, angry, overwhelmed, or afraid, it is my job to help tap into their natural potential for change, and to help them recognize that acceptance is often the only way out of a difficult situation.

Awareness of the source of the pain is almost always the starting place in my work with clients, especially if they have sought out counseling in need of immediate relief. We begin to take steps to accept the situation for what it is, no matter how painful or difficult it might seem in the moment. Together we begin to imagine and create different and more desirable outcomes based on conversations about what can be changed, and what cannot be changed. Change requires action, and action is only possible when we accept the way the world is so that we can begin to work with it.



Thoughts and Prayers about Acceptance:

“Acceptance is a state of non-reactivity and understanding. Acceptance does not mean ‘approval’ or that you condone what you are accepting. It means that you see something and know it for what it is, without having to need to change it. There are many ways prayer can prepare you for acceptance.”

“God of My Heart, help me to see and to know things for what they are, both inside me and outside of me. Help me to allow things to be as they are, even when I wish them to be different.
Help me to experience the importance of Acceptance: that things as they are hold many gifts, and that if my eyes and heart are open I can learn from what things and people teach me.
Help me to remember that to be in the state of Acceptance means that I can truly move through the world knowing what I can and cannot change.”

Goodbye my friend. I’ll see you on the other side.

LOST

She lost her voice, went outside to find her words. She got lost in the moon and the stars and the sky. The coldness of the winter night wrapped itself around her like a blanket. She could not find her way home.
January 15, 1961 - January 14, 2013

Sadness is such a lonely road to travel alone. It takes you further and further into the darkness, and sometimes to the point of no return. I remember what it was like to be lonely, hopeless, and stuck in my own despair. In these lonely times I did not long for connection and I didn't dare reach out for help. It was my despair, my pain, my lot in life. It was who I was, and I was where I belonged. I have lost two friends to suicide, one in 2003, and I just learned of another friend’s death, perhaps not suicide, but certainly a death that could have been avoided. Today I am grateful for my recovery and the many friends, mentors, and guides that have supported on my journey to wholeness.

In the wake of disbelieving, grieving, loss, and confusion, the question we ask is, “why didn't they reach out, ask for help?” We try to make sense of a sadness we will never understand, unless you have had the experience, then you already know and you will not need to ask. You will not try to explain. You already know this sadness has a paralyzing venom that keeps you trapped in despair. Rarely does a person in this place have ability to ask for help. Ask yourself, if they had this ability, wouldn't they have reached out? They lost the ability to see the glimmer of hope and their light faded into dust. They could not find the words to explain their sadness. We trace our steps and find pieces of the puzzle, evidence of their struggle and despair, and we can't help but wish for a different outcome. We want to think we could have done something, and maybe we could have, but for whatever reason, we were not able. They are ashes, they are a reminder of how close we are to the edge, how precarious and precious this life is. Seconds and inches.

I hold the light of Jackie and Jennifer in my memory, in my heart, and into my work with others. As therapist, we talk about being the lantern that our clients carry with them into the darkness. These two beautiful women will be the light in the lantern that I hold for my clients.

Today I will Increase my Capacity to Love

“There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections." John Lennon

Stepping out of your Comfort Zone

I wonder how much fear of the unknown keeps me from seeing, doing, and being. I've had a couple of conversations over the last few days about the stories we tell ourselves and how much fear inhabits our narrative. Fear tries to tell us it's too scary, too hard, or that we are not smart enough, good enough, or worthy enough. I am learning how to sit with fear instead of running away. Fear is usually trying to stop me from believing in myself, fear likes to keep me small, and if I let it, fear can rob me of my joy. When I find my self believing fear, I quickly remember........



Fear is a tricky foe. I think my ability to look fear in the face comes from the interpersonal work I've done around my Family of Origin issues. Fear played a huge role of keeping me in my addiction, I believed fear when it told me I wasn't good enough, or smart enough, or worthy enough of God's love and light. Fear kept me in the darkness. I had to go back to my past to fully understand the source of fear in my life. Here is an excerpt from my clinical theory of counseling that explains the root of fear in many peoples life:

"For those who have been wounded, especially as a result of early childhood trauma, unraveling their family history can be long and arduous process, but it most often a vital and necessary step towards healing." In her essay, The Labyrinth of Truama, Dr. Alexandra Onno discusses the client who comes to us with a history of trauma:

"These are the ones who enter our hopeful offices suffering from what over time has become a terrible inner battle, and often a self-destructive one. Resulting from profound issues of survival and attachment and loss, born out of living with relationships characterized and poisoned by danger rather than nurture, these are the survivors of relationships that wittingly or unwittingly betrayed the first contract, the contract to keeping safe the young ones in our care. (Onno, 2012, p.2)"

As therapists, we are entrusted with the responsibility to meet each client we receive with a tender awareness of the history of trauma their stories may hold.

The lack of secure attachment, where a child received “consistent, emotionally attuned, contingent communication with their parent or primary caregiver” (Siegel, Hartzell, 2003, p.103) is perhaps the deepest wound a person will experience in their life time. A broken heart may go unnoticed by the untrained eye, as those who have this wound often work hard to conceal their hurt and pain. My work as a therapist is to look for that which is hidden, to help mend broken hearts, and to facilitate the process of becoming whole again. There is a place in all of us that longs to be whole, to be a “worthy member of the tribe” (Onno, 2012), and to know that we are enough.

In Onno’s essay, To Fill This Cup: The Quest for Secure Attachment, she describes that:
"Secure attachments are born out of state of enough: enough affection, warmth, and responsiveness, and enough consistency, structure, and safety. We need the sweetness of life as well as stability, roses as well as bread. Secure attachment is ‘the full cup’ that does not leak—the cup holds something worth holding. (Onno, 2012, p.3)"

The art and beauty of the healing process emerges when the client and therapist are able to join together in creating a cup that can release the bitterness of the past and hold the sweetness life has to offer today. If the client is ready, I believe that I can hold the container that will allow them to find the answers that exist inside themselves. Answers that will tell them that they are competent, lovable and that they belong on this earth. In our work together I will make space for conversations about developing acceptance and how to be forgiving as a way to heal from the past and be fully alive for the present.
We are not always aware of the impact our families’ history has on our functioning, but we are born into system that has a need for us to function in a specific way. In utilizing Bowen Theory my hope is that I can assist clients in understanding that their stories began developing when they were infants in the care of their parents. I believe the stories we tell ourselves are the verbal DNA that connect us to our family of origin. This DNA is passed on from generation to generation and will shape our beginnings and stay with us until the end of our lives. We will pass this DNA onto our children, and they will pass it onto theirs. Bowen theory recognizes this pattern as the concept of the multigenerational transmission:

The multigenerational transmission process describes how small differences in the levels of differentiation between parents and their offspring lead over many generations to marked differences in differentiation among the members of a multigenerational family. The information creating these differences is transmitted across generations through relationships. The transmission occurs on several interconnected levels ranging from the conscious teaching and learning of information to the automatic and unconscious programming of emotional reactions and behaviors (The Bowen Center, 2012, p.1).

Increasing a client’s understanding of family of origin issues and how they manifest in their present day life is a key component to my role as a therapist. Family Systems theorists would say that we are born into the most influential narrative we will ever encounter at any point in our lives. At birth our parents consciously and unconsciously convey their messages about our lovability through how they welcome us, nurture us, and accept us into their lives. The messages received and all interactions between parents and children contribute to what Bowen Theory calls the nuclear family emotional system. Using the Bowenian lens I am able to help clients deepen their knowledge of how this emotional system may be a source of anxiety that is still alive and impacting their current relationship and quality of life. I believe that the stories we develop about ourselves, both positive and negative, play a significant role in every aspect of our lives, and therapy is one of ways to understand how the past lives in the now.

"Let Go or Be Dragged", The 30 day meditation challenge.

One of the greatest spiritual tools I possess comes from actively working the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous. The 11th step encourages us to take on a morning meditation. "The eleventh step says that we do this in part “to improve our conscious contact with God as we understand Him,” that is, so that we can learn how to go through every day of our lives being continually aware of God’s presence with us and around us in everything that we do. So we need to be aware of God’s presence while we are meditating, and practice at this, so that we can carry this awareness with us throughout the rest of the day." Taking time out for morning meditation has allowed me to feel more grounded in my purpose on this planet and more connected to my higher power. I know this practice makes a difference in how my day goes AND I don't always take the 5-20 minutes it requires to do it."

Today I am challenging myself to take 15 minutes each morning for prayers and meditations. My meditation practice begins with a prayer, then I read AA approved literature or something that is spiritually inspirational or provocative, then I sit for 5-10 minutes, and I conclude with a journal entry. This is my journal entry from yesterday, I was meditating on letting go of that which does not serve me. "Holding onto hurt and fear, why is so hard to let go? What really is the fear? Think....sit quietly...name it.
It is....fear of not being met, being misunderstood, disappointed, disconnected, alone, frustrated. This is the fear, this is what I hold onto. What would happen if I let go? I can't say for sure, but it may be something different? I won't know unless I let go. How? What does letting go really look like, what does it mean, what do I do? So afraid to move forward, afraid I won't be met. God, I turn my will and my life over to you so that I may better do your will. Help me let go so I can connect with others and live in your light and love.

Rumi

The Gift of Friendship

I had dinner on Friday night with two amazing women I've known for a long time.  I met my friend Karen when I was 17 or maybe a little younger (I just turned 42, so we've know each other a long time).  We worked together in a "fine dining" restaurant at The Governor House Hotel and Conference Center. I was a busser and she was a server.  She was in her early 20's and I was pretty sure she was one of the coolest "adults" I'd ever met.  Over the years we've managed to stay in touch and witness the journey of each others lives.  We traveled through the Southwest in a VW Westfalia camper van I bought with student loan money in my junior year at The Evergreen State College in 1997.  This was her first trip away from her daughter, who was three years old at the time.  I sang karaoke at her graduation party when she received her Master's degree, not sure when it was, maybe 2000.  She stepped in and  helped cater my dad's memorial in 2005.  We talked about the challenges of raising a fiercely independent 15 year old, and we often laughed about the insanity of our lives and choices we made or didn't make.  One thing we've always had in our relationship is honesty and laughter, lots of laughter.  If I think about what has made our friendship work all of these years, it would have two be those two things.  Karen is one of the the most authentic people I have ever know.  Spider was the other dinner guest, I've know her about 10 years or so, and she is another smart, creative, soulful, and authentic person.  Dinner with these two reminded me how important and vital honesty and laughter are to my existence.  If I had nothing but these two things at the end of my life, I would be content.  Oh, and by the way, Karen remains, without a doubt, one of the coolest adults I know.

The inspiration for this post was the book Karen gave me for my graduation:

From this book comes one of my favorite quotes:

"How does one become a butterfly?"  She asks pensively.

"You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar."