Tuesday, June 26, 2007

My Summer Fun and Ego Stroke

I am having a great time this week! I'm hanging out with my old business partners running a leadership institute in Indianapolis and I feel fully and completely myself. I'm grounded, in my zone and fully present to the moment at hand. What a gift!

This is the second year I have worked the Institue and I am always awed by the magic created with/by this work. The Institute is for women who have been identified as leaders in a primarily male work environment. These ladies are confident, intelligent and capable. They have the stuff many mothers want for their adult daughters - the ability and skills to lead the full and accomplished life of their choosing.

The ladies represent a spectrum of backgrounds: marital status, age, socio-economic background, sexual orientation, educational institutions - you name it and it's probably represented. They delight my heart and Spirit because I see such beauty and power in them. It is a joy to have those two particular characteristics in combination around me.

They are also good for my sense of self. In the past two days I have been honored for my ability to listen and coach, as an author and as a facilitator. It is so nice to live this part of myself, it's like a vacation!

Gotta run as we are meeting and I'm late. The guys above are Naturally 7 - if you have never heard them, click the arrow and enjoy!

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Summer Starts

Thanks to all who expressed concern re: my blogger friend. I think he is moving forward, but so little is sure. Anyway, he knows he always has a shoulder here.

Life seems to be puttering along. Work is very busy and I am career planning. Lately, it seems that I am being given more exposure and am rising to the occasion. Teammates seek my advice and thank me after they take it. The boss displays new levels of confidence in my abilities. Which, has its good and bad side.

Those of you who have been a friend for a while may understand my mixed feelings when I tell you this next bit of news. It has been announced that the manager who tormented me and enjoyed it has been given her walking papers - rather cruelly, too.

She was not only told she didn't have a job, but was made to host the 8th Annual Big Deal Gathering of Leaders. So, there she was with a smile frozen on her face, shaking hands and trying to be witty when on the microphone. Everyone knew she was out and I heard a few comments that were less than kind.

Now, don't get me wrong, she deserved her exit papers. But, it was still sad to watch another human be brought so low. And, so you know the whole truth, you can also find me with a smile on the edges of my lips when I think about it. There is a sweet satisfaction in witnessing the go around, come around.

With that, summer is progressing nicely. The girl child is playing tennis and then will enjoy soccer and debate camps before the end of the season. Somedays I wish I was in camp. Doesn't that sound nice?

Be well, relax and have a little summer fun for me...

Thursday, June 07, 2007

The thing I love about blogging is the way you can connect to people who you may never meet in the flesh, never hold them through their tears or know the sound of their laughter. And yet, you do and know all those things and more; there are so many intimacies that we share with one another until we feel like friends.

When a friend goes off for awhile we are usually happy for them and look forward to hearing their adventure when we visit their space. Maybe it will take a month or two, but we continue to check back (like so many of you have here) and then smile deeply when they drop by or leave a new picture or share some good (or bad) bit in which they are immersed.

So far, I've had the experience of being afraid for two of my blogger friends (at different times); afraid that they are on thinning ice and the heat is turned up. I'm in that state today because a friend's blog reads of chemicals and disappearing and tiredness. When I visit my friend's blog I can feel how tired he is. You know that space that is beyond exhaustion, where everything seems futile? Maybe you don't know, maybe you are lucky, but he's there and I made an unplanned trip to that space once.

There is nothing I can do to support my friend's safety. I have no phone number, no address, no way to drive by and check on him. I'm not even sure where he lives outside of cyberspace.


If he should, by chance, stop by and read this I want him to know that I am thinking of him and sending Love straight to his heart, that it's ok if everything falls apart, sometimes that's what a Life needs. I want this sweet man to know that there is Life on the other side of complete and utter emptiness, on the flip side of loneliness. On this rapidly spinning ball of dirt, we come to know that it's that very dirt that makes up the fertile ground of Life.

Stand up! I want to shout it at him. I want to wake him up and force him to choose Joy. But it doesn't work that way and I know it. So, I just want him to know that I care for him and have him in my thoughts. I am sending all the energy I can to him so he can find his footing on a good path.

r ddeisyf chan 'm asgre atat 'm anwylyd
The wish of my heart to you 'm anwylyd'