The Misery and Joy of a Staycation

"Misery and joy have the same shape in this world: You may call the rose an open heart or a broken heart." --Rumi 

My kids are off of school this week and my husband is home too, taking some vacation time so we can work around the house.

The week got off to a great start. We were all just so happy and in sync and the first couple of days were full of joy. 

Yesterday afternoon, however, the tide turned. 

My husband reminded me that he did have some work to do this week and it triggered something old and angry inside of me. I was miserable and I could not rest until everyone around me was miserable as well. 

This morning, I succeeded. 

"Where do we go from here?" I found myself wailing inside as I tried to imagine what came next. 

And what I got was similar to this quote from Rumi. "Just do what comes next. What you were going to do anyway. Do it with a heavy heart and it will gradually get lighter." 

Don't let misery stop you in other words. Misery is just another name for joy. And if you step forward in misery, you just might find joy again.

Sniff Out the Joy

"Keep your nose to the joy trail." --Buffy Saint-Marie

My parents didn't have a lot of music, but The Best of Buffy Saint-Marie was in heavy rotation around our house in the 70's. "Cripple Creek" was my favorite song and it still makes me feel like I am six years old and being mesmerized by this strange (in a good way...) woman's voice coming out of the speakers. 

This quote from Buffy comes via my sister in our column for this week. May you sniff out - and find - YOUR joy today!

For a Monday Morning

"Once in awhile what you do for work is also what you do for love. And when that happens? It's heaven." Toni Colette as "Tara" in "The United States of Tara"

May you find the joy in your work today and every day.

Going out to buy some roses...

"Misery and joy have the same shape in this world: You may call the rose an open heart or a broken heart." --Rumi

No matter what, the rain falls...

"Mostly, change is as inevitable as rain in the spring. Some of us just put on our raincoats and splash forward, some of us choose to stay home, a few admirable nuts shed their clothes and cavort in the yard, and some people go out and get deeply, resentfully, and miserably wet. And no matter what, the rain falls." --Amy Bloom in O magazine

No matter what, the rain falls. I love that. And truer words have never been spoken about fall in the Northwest. The rain falls, and it falls, and it falls...and then it falls some more. 

Sometimes at this time of year it seems impossible to make any progress, to get anything done. I start to eat more, exercise less and want to sleep ALL THE TIME. 

Nonetheless, life does go on. Dishes need to be washed, garbage needs to be taken out and laundry needs to be done. 

It also seems to be a time of great change. The weather, of course, is changing and because of that the clothes and shoes we wear are changing. School starts, so for many of us our schedules and routines change. The holidays start to loom so there is something new to focus on every month. 

A lot of changes are happening around our house this fall. And a lot of changes are happening in my writing life. Starting later this month I am teaching a class (would love for you to attend btw...) and my sister and I are starting to write a book together. I am also doing some writing for Verity Credit Union and have applied to be the next Verity Mom. 

So....a lot is happening. 

So far I have managed to keep up with TRO (the refrigerator oracle), but it hasn't been easy at times and I have not been as pleased with every post as I would like to have been. 

So (that's a lot of so's in a row :) as last year around the time of my blogaversary, this year I am making some changes to the format of TRO. Instead of posting three times per week with whatever strikes my fancy that day, I will be posting quotes whenever they come to me and then once a week (probably on Fridays) I will write a longer post about the week. What has been going on, what I have been working on, what I have learned and what quote or quotes have informed the week. 

My hope is that each post will be a meatier, juicier morsel of goodness to devour. Similar to some of my favorite posts like this one and this one and this one. 

I hope you will continue reading and sharing this journey to enlightenment with me. We've still got quite a ways to go I'm thinking! 

May you be one of the admirable nuts shedding their clothes and cavorting in the yard this fall!

[Don't forget my class, WRITE YOUR LIFE, starts this Friday. I hope you can join us!]

Three Women

"You can do much...if in a situation calling for help, you think of it this way: I am only here to be truly helpful. I am here to represent Him who sent me. I do not have to worry about what to say or what to do, because He... will direct me. I am content to be wherever He wishes, knowing He goes there with me. I will be healed as I let Him teach me to heal."   

--A Course in Miracles

Recently I had interactions with three women which healed me, inspired me and helped me on my spiritual journey. Here are their stories:

(All names have been changed to protect the individual's privacy...) 

MERRY: A couple of weeks ago I made a mistake at work. I deposited a check into the wrong member's account. Doh! 

In my defense, this member's name was just one tiny letter different from another member's name and this one letter made the spelling of her name a bit unconventional. Nonetheless, it was a mistake. 

The member, who I'll call Merry, called our Member Service Center to let us know about the mistake and they called me to make the correction. Turns out the very same thing had happened to this member two weeks earlier, also at our branch. Double doh!

I made the correction and picked up the phone to call the member. 

As I did I reflected on how this might go.....I know that these kinds of mistakes (mistakes with our money, our livelihood) can hit people hard and bring up a lot of fear. Having it happen twice in two weeks is bound to make a person scared. So I was prepared. 

I was prepared for frustration. I was prepared for anger. I was even prepared for yelling. What I wasn't prepared for was Merry.

"Oh don't worry honey, it happens all the time!" she laughed. "Even my doctor can't get it straight." (Insert "surgery gone wrong" joke here.) 

We chatted for a few more moments, I apologized again and we hung up. 

In the end it was no big deal, but this conversation has stuck with me. It is a reminder to me that I always have a choice. I can choose to REACT from a place of fear or to RESPOND from a place of love. Merry chose love and I am ever grateful. 

JOY: About a year ago Joy came into the branch to use her new bank account. She had just moved to Seattle and was about to start her residency at a local hospital. From the first moment she came in she was a favorite. She just had a bubbly, friendly energy about her that endeared her to all of us immediately. 

About a month later Joy came in again. It was really slow so she was talking to all of us who were in that day as she made her deposit. 

We asked her how things were going and she told us that she had quit her residency. It turned out that she hated being a doctor and she didn't want to spend the rest of her life doing something she hated, despite the fact that she had trained for years to do this very thing. 

It was a pivotal moment in her life and she shared it with all of us working that day - openly, honestly and, yes, joyfully. She was truly happy and free as she told us about quitting a job she had worked a third of her life to get. 

Over the next ten months or so we saw Joy every couple of weeks.

She was looking for work. She sold her car. She moved in with a friend. She sold her furniture. 

Through it all I never once heard her express doubt or regret about the decision she had made. She never went back on herself with "shoulds" or "if onlys." She stayed the course. Waiting. Hoping. Searching. 

Last weekend Joy came into the branch for the last time. She was in a hurry. The rental car was in the garage. She was just going to drop some checks in the ATM and then be on her way. But that didn't feel right. So she came in. 

She came in to tell us that she was moving out of state to take her dream job with a company that does talks and retreats with some of the biggest spiritual luminaries of our time.

As she told us about her new job she was full of JOY and I was so happy for her. But also for myself. For all of us. Because she is living proof that if you follow your bliss, follow your guidance - even if the road you take to get there might seem crazy to the outside world - you will end up where you were meant to be all along.

RUBY: Last night I drove my son to Toys R Us to get some Pokemon cards. Pokemon is very big in his world right now and he just really NEEDED some new cards last night. So at 8:30 pm we jumped in the car and headed out. 

As pulled out of the parking lot, I got the feeling that someone needed my help. I had no idea who or what was needed, I just had a feeling. 

I turned onto the street adjacent to the mall and there I saw a man yelling at a woman on the street. She crossed over and he followed her, yelling. She crossed over again and he followed her, yelling at her some more. She headed toward a nearby bus stop, but when she got there he started toward her, yelling. 

I wasn't in a good position to turn around - at a busy four-way stop with a green light - so I zoomed through the light, turned around and waited at the now red light to be able to get back to the bus stop. 

Watching as I waited I saw her once again trying to cross the street to get away from him. Looking both ways I ran the red light and pulled up next to her, rolling down my window and asking, "Do you need a ride?" 

She gave me a quick once over, saw my son in the backseat and jumped in. As we sped away he yelled profanities after us. 

We exchanged the basics: Where are you going? What's your name? 

Then moved onto the obvious: She knew him. It was a mess.   

Then to what we had in common: We both had 9 year-old sons. We both had kids into Pokemon. We both kind of liked to play ourselves. 

After that we rode in silence for awhile as I drove her to her mom's house. 

I don't know how to explain it, but I just feel so grateful that I was able to be there for her in that moment. I feel like she was there for me as much as I was there for her.

As we drove to her mother's together, I could really feel the oneness of all mankind. Even as we talked about him I didn't feel judgmental or angry. I could feel his pain and fear as clearly as I could feel hers. 

It was like I could see deeper into a part of the human experience - what we do to each other in the heat of the moment, in the midst of pain and sorrow and fear. 

It was life and I was glad to be a part of it.

I AM? YOU ARE.

"Let there be peace, I am a stand for peace
Let there be love, I am a stand for love
Let there be joy, I am a stand for joy
We are making a new world now." 

--Karen Drucker, closing song at Seattle Unity

Friday night I went to see the movie, "I AM," with a bunch of friends. I was poised to love it, to be inspired, and to have my life changed, but I left the theater feeling somewhat disappointed. 

My disappointment turned to dismay when I realized that almost everyone in the group I was with LOVED IT. I mean, REALLY LOVED IT. 

I was flummoxed. 

Did I not "get" the movie? Did I miss something? (It was the late show on a Friday night.....)

The thing I just kept thinking is: There is nothing new here. Everything he presented in the movie I have already seen or read or experienced somewhere else. We are all one. The Universe is connected in ways we cannot fathom. Yeah? And? 

I am not even sure what I wanted from the movie, but I wanted something MORE. Something BIGGER. Something MIND-BLOWING. 

I guess it was that movie for some people, it just wasn't that movie for me. 

The thing that really gets under my skin is something Tom Shadyac (the director and star) says in the trailer, "I decided to....spark a conversation around challenging and rarely-asked questions....What's wrong with our world and what can we do about it?"

I reject the premise that these are rarely-asked questions. I ask myself these questions. Every. Single. Day. And so do the friends I went the the movie with (a group which included a massage therapist, a psychic, a cranial sacral practitioner, and two highly intuitive energy healers). Which is why I just cannot understand why they were so enamored with it.

The irony of the whole thing is that just prior to the start of the movie I got into a discussion with one of the women in our group (a friend of a friend and someone I had never met before) about Catholicism and the clergy-molestation scandal. I did not handle it well. 

[As a quick aside, my history with the Catholic Church: I grew up pretty fundamentalist Protestant, became a Catholic when I met my husband, and ended my affiliation with the Catholic Church five or six years later for personal, political and spiritual reasons. While I no longer support the church financially or take communion, I do attend services from time to time with my husband.]

I had just read an article about the Texas priest who is under investigation for the attempted murder of a boy who has accused him of molestation and my hackles were up about the Catholic Church so when we started discussing Catholicism it brought up a lot of energy for me. A LOT. 

I was sitting there in my head saying, "Calm down. You don't know this woman very well. Your husband is Catholic and you can understand that. There is no need to make a stand here, etc., etc." But I just wasn't listening to myself. 

I wanted some kind of admission, from this woman that I don't know at all, that what her church had done by covering up all of these cases of molestation and refusing to apologize publicly for it was wrong. Wrong with a Capital W. 

But she couldn't, or wouldn't, at that moment give that to me. And I couldn't, at that moment, accept that. 

And then the lights came down and the movie started and that was it. We didn't get a chance to finish our discussion or come to any kind of meeting of the minds (and I think we would have gotten there had there been time) and I felt badly about that. 

So maybe I didn't get it because I wasn't in a space to get it. I was sitting there thinking, I know this already, this is nothing new, all the while still obsessing about what was separating me from this woman I had just met (our opinion about how best to react to the clergy molestation scandal in the Catholic Church).  

So what now? 

Yesterday I took the kids to Unity and got a hit of the I AM that I could appreciate, accept, and understand. 

At the end of the service we all stood hand-in-hand singing, "Let there be peace, I AM a stand for peace; Let there be love, I AM a stand for love; Let there be joy, I AM a stand for joy...." Tears came to my eyes, as they always do at the end of the service, and I realized, once again, that it doesn't matter HOW you get to Peace, Love, Joy, and Oneness, only THAT you get there. 

So if you see the "I AM" movie, I hope you love it. I hope it inspires you. I hope it gives you hope. 

I also hope that you recognize that just being there means you already are. YOU ARE.

Defining Joy

"At the beginning joy is just a feeling that our own situation is workable. We stop looking for a more suitable place to be."

--Pema Chodron, on Twitter 

In the midst of my existential crisis last week, I was blessed with this quote from my favorite American Buddhist nun, Pema Chodron. 

I love this definition of Joy, because it is a definition that I find possible.

So often I feel like Joy is impossible because I define it as some sort of extended or permanent state of extreme ecstasy. But if Joy is just the feeling that my situation is workable, Well! I can aspire to that. 

Maybe I can even achieve it once in awhile.

JOY!

"Joy Alone is the Truth."

--The Universe

This is one of my favorite quotes for the holidays (I used it last year as well), maybe because it is such a great reminder for me to put my focus on the joy of the season rather than the stress. 

In that vein (and in the tradition of 3BTs) here are a few things that are bringing me joy this holiday season:

1) Dark chocolate-covered mint Joe-Joes (like Oreos) from Trader Joe's - best cookie EVER and only available October through December;

2) Hearing songs from A Charlie Brown Christmas and Love, Actually on the radio and looking forward to watching both. (Click here to hear my favorite song from Charlie Brown and here to hear my fav from Love, Actually);

3) Shopping from the comfort of my own home and having the presents delivered to my door;

4) Finding the perfect present for those I love and beautifully wrapping it;

5) Making my own holiday cards (and tee shirts too!) with some of my favorite quotes on them at www.zazzle.com.

What is bringing you joy this holiday season?

"JOY ALONE IS THE TRUTH."

The Universe

"Let no despair darken the joy of Christmas, for the time of Christ is meaningless apart from joy. "

From A Course in Miracles by The Foundation for Inner Peace, p. 306T