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It Only Takes One

7/20/2022

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Sometimes, I notice, it only takes one phone call, one conversation to knock me off my game and take me out for several hours.  Or, one call or conversation to bring me back in, to lift me up, to reawaken some hope in a weary spirit. 

One too familiar tone can begin the spin of “here we go again.”  One breath can re-ground and remind us we don’t have to go there. We don’t know what the future holds. 

One choice or decision can change the trajectory of a life, for better or for worse.

One birth and a world changes forever with the infusion of new life, new hopes, new dreams.  Who is this little person and what will they bring? 

One death changes everything in a heartbeat.  The profound grief sweeps in accompanied by a strong cry to live.  To somehow honor this life that is gone.  To make meaning out of the meaningless. 

One small smile and conversation can lead to a lifelong friendship.

One connection leads to the next, to an introduction to another.  One vulnerable conversation invites others to share what they otherwise might have held close. 

One “yes” can open doors to possibility. 

One breath can bring me back to ground, calm a racing heart, offer the pause I need to find a fresh perspective.  Open my mind to consider what I otherwise might have missed.

One label changes nothing, yet sometimes feels like it changes everything.  Does it change who a person is?  No.  But, can it limit options?  Yes.  Can it open doors?  Possibly. We do not know. 

Our lives our made up of so many “ones” linked together.  Each moment offering opportunity and invitation.  These moments matter because they come together to create the tapestry of your life.

One stranger lending a hand might turn a life around.  One trustworthy person who listens with an open heart.  One person who sees something you yourself cannot – who lends their hope, belief and vision to you as you find your way. 

One tear can open the floodgates, releasing a necessary and cleansing release.  One tissue is not enough. 

One smile or hug can soften my heart, soften my day.  One shared breath can open a portal to hope. 
One thought (if you catch it) leads to a screenplay, a blog, the next NYT bestseller, a sweet love letter.  If you say “yes.” 

One more thing coming at you can feel like an avalanche of overwhelm.  Letting go of one thing or even taking one step back may lighten your load. 

One dollar.  One dream.  Perhaps another ticket in the recycling bin (most likely, but c’mon, sometimes you gotta try!).  Perhaps an epic opportunity to shower good upon the world. 

I have always said (and truly believed) that if my book touched just one life, it would be enough.  I am glad and grateful for every one reader who lets me know it has. 

One keystroke.  One “send” can open or close a door.  One enrollment – one program – one retreat can alter the way you live your life, the way you see things, who is part of your world. 

One step to set your soul free.  To listen to the inner call that says, “Go for it! What have you got to lose?”  One step to light your inner flame and to let yourself be more you.  These are the steps I long to take more and more of in my days. 

Sometimes it only takes one. 

One person makes a difference – just by showing up as they are.

One moment can change a life, for better or for worse. 

We only need to face this one, right here, right now.  The one that is before us.  Just this one.  It’s enough.  We don’t have to know how the story will end.  Because we can’t.  So, as always, I invite myself into this moment.  The one right here, right now.  The one that is guaranteed – not the flimsy one that may or may not ever come to be.  “Start close in” as David Whyte says in his beautiful invitation.  Right here.  Right now. 

One moment at a time.  That’s all you need to do to move through your day.  Breathe into the spaciousness and possibility of the many moments that exist within these 24 hours.  If you can be present to each moment, be with the people you are with, I promise you it will be richer and you will be wiser and more fulfilled from having been here.  Just breathe.  Take it slow.  Take it steady.  Just one.  One moment.  One breath.  One smile.  One shriek.  One gaze.  One person at a time.  Be with that. 
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What one’s are you noticing these days, for better or worse?  What’s one thing you can do that will comfort or nourish you today?  


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Feeling Blah...

7/13/2022

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I don’t know about you, but I seem to cycle through phases of feeling energized, very on purpose, in flow, and then dropping into “What is the point of it all? Why do we do what we do?  What is my purpose?  Do I even have a purpose, or is this all for nothing?  Who am I?” 

It’s pretty unsettling and disorienting in the floundering times that hold such big, heavy questions.  I think it’s pretty natural.  My counselor says it’s ok, so that reassures me.  There will be times of feeling blah, needing to turn inward, to shut out the world, to give more to myself than to others.  It’s called nourishment, nurturing, true self care, and it’s vital to our sustainability as humans. 

The world is a lot right now.   Whatever might be going on personally, we each need to add multipliers to it that are weighing on us, consciously or not.  The pandemic goes on, the debate about the pandemic goes on, injustice, violence, discrimination, threats to life and liberty are everywhere.  Maybe the world is always a lot.  I’m feeling the accumulation of it pretty heavily right now, along with the collective weight of years of personal stuff. 

So, there’s been a bit of blah lately.  Not a lot of energy or motivation.  A strong desire to pull in, to slow down, to quiet down, to say “no” and to not be too available to others.  The clarity is strong, and the good news is I’m listening despite the inner struggle that wonders if that’s really ok or if I’m at risk of becoming a hermit. 

I teeter between telling myself it’s ok and wondering if that’s really true.  Mostly, I’m leaning into only doing what I want, what feels doable and reasonable given my current bandwidth, letting go of, or rescheduling non-essentials, releasing things that feel like more hassle than they’re worth.  As I write this it feels like a pretty healthy approach.  It just seems that I need this more and more these days, years, months.  Didn’t I just give myself a little sabbatical last year?  I did.  And this year. 

And now I need one again in the form I am able to create it – I will gladly see my clients, I will co-facilitate my group, I will continue to write… and I will put off things that do not call to me or do not need to happen.  I will cancel memberships to groups I don’t participate in – I feel the low-level pressure when I’m not being honest with myself. 

I showed up for yoga class on Sunday and thankfully the theme was tuning into and trusting our inner guidance.  Love when that happens!  So, as I practiced, I took a few notes. 

Here’s what I took away – what I was reminded of:
  1. We all have inner wisdom, inner guidance, inner authority. 
  2. When we are depleted, overwhelmed, stressed, or in crisis or survival mode, we lose touch with it.
  3. To connect with it we need to be willing to feel.  This may be why we over-busy ourselves or find other ways to numb or distract ourselves.  It can be uncomfortable to feel what our inner wisdom is telling us.
  4. Escaping, distracting, and numbing take us away from our natural connection with our inner knowing.  Work, alcohol, substances, food, activities, social media, our devices, and over-giving to others serve this purpose.  This purpose of protecting us from the discomfort. 
  5. Integrity comes from living in alignment with our inner knowing and guidance. 
  6. Slowing down, coming into breath and body helps.  Quieting down.  Connecting to something larger than ourselves through prayer, meditation, or getting out in nature helps.  Opening up space, breathing room allows us to hear and see more clearly. 
  7. There are going to be these moments when we feel unsure.  When we feel like we are flailing, lost, and confused.  Times when we release the last version of ourselves and our lives to step into what’s next.  In between steps there is often a pause – a time to cocoon in order to transform.  It’s not always pretty or comfortable.  It’s worth going there anyway. 
  8. To fully experience the richness of this human life, we need to be willing to feel it all and to be with ourselves in these moments of not knowing, of discomfort, of questioning.  When we can be with ourselves in these times, come home to our heart and soul for guidance, we allow ourselves to grow and become.  It isn’t flashy or pretty until it is.  Think caterpillar to goo to beautiful butterfly.  We too are like this.  We just need to give ourselves permission to go into the darkness, to huddle up, to rest, to integrate, to release any need to perform or prove as we become. 
The vastness of the ocean, the immensity of a redwood, the expansiveness of a canyon can take us away and beyond our own smallness to help us connect with the sense that something larger is at play.  In these spaces we can feel both our own insignificance and our interconnection to all things on earth.  We can find our belonging within the Universe and believe somehow that even when we can’t see it, there is a reason we are here. We do matter.  We can remember that we are not alone.  We matter.  We are needed.  Our voice, our ideas, our creations… unlike any other. 

Whenever you find yourself doubting that, I invite and encourage you to listen to Brandi Carlile and Alicia Keys sing “A Beautiful Noise.”  Something in this song wakes me, shakes me, and reminds me to hold on even when I’m not sure where I’m going.  It pulls me back to trust that the way will become clear (or at least clearer).  It reminds me that I have a voice.  I have unique stories to tell, perspectives to share, lessons to teach, invitations to offer, and gifts to give.  So do you.  Each one of us does. 

How are you doing these days?  Where is your inner guidance leading you?  Talking with a wise woman the other day she aptly noted, “I think people are fried.”  I think she’s right.  If you’re feeling fried right now, how do you recharge?  How do you reconnect with your inner wisdom and guidance?  What works for you?  Please share with us so that we can add to our own ideas.  In the moments of darkness, it can be hard to see a path forward.  We forget this current state will, at some point, come to an end.  It will.  


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Many & Mixed Emotions

7/1/2022

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PictureImage by Pixaline from Pixabay
Whew! It’s been a week of many emotions, from the pits of despair, to peace, to joy.  Memories, moments swirl within, weaving together, making up my reality.  Healing is happening.  Growth is happening.  Layers peeling back.  Heart breaking open.  Trauma being released. 

Car screams help.  Tears help.  Laughter helps.  Saying “yes” to spontaneous invites help.  Reaching out helps. Conversation and connection help.  Pausing to notice change and growth and to acknowledge it helps.  Holistic healthcare helps – a lot.  Grateful for all of my practitioners who have ideas and an understanding of how to help that seems to be beyond the scope of Western medicine. 

I have felt myself swirling down into the too familiar drain of doom… taking one data point and projecting it into a future reality, that I obviously have no idea if it will ever come to be or not.  Our minds are so quick with the stories, find such reassurance in certainty, think they know it all.  They don’t. 

But the old triggers awaken the automatic responses – before I even know it, I’m back in the old ways, swirling in the old thoughts, feeling the old fears.  I don’t have to stay here. I am grateful for the reminders that change is not a smooth linear upward path.  It never is.  Growth happens in fits and spurts, in setbacks and hesitations, in erratic and unpredictable ways.  The path is rarely clear. 

So, keep my heart open.  Allow space for what’s here in this moment.  How can I be with myself?  Who can support me?  It’s clear I need to expand my network.  My immediate desire is to call Mary… and, of course, I can’t.  And though she plays me music to let me know she’s right here, it’s just not the same.  Thankful for the friends who do call.  Who ask, “What can I do to support you?” or who simply offer their care and love.  Thankful for talking with my family.  Thankful for hard, honest conversations that reflect so much.  Thankful when I can help another. 

This week has hit me in so many ways, from mundane and simple overwhelm from trying to do too much in too little time, to self-criticism for doing that, to more extreme situations.  I’ve had moments of absolute divine flow and grace, sailing smoothly through with no rushing or lateness – definitely a rarity!  And I’ve had moments of forgetting things like money to pay my acupuncturist or important documents to share with my coach.  Oh well… move on through.  I can pay her next time and bring those papers in a couple of weeks.  We work with what’s here. 

Driving through our old neighborhood the other day brought up so much… dreams of what was to be and the reality of what wasn’t.  A mix of sweet memories of my kids’ childhoods twirled and danced with scary, disappointing, and terribly sad ones of later years.  I felt my heart ache for it all, felt my throat clench as sobs started to rise, and I took myself to the park.  I sat in the car in the parking lot and I journaled… I let everything come through my pen onto paper.  I let myself cry.  I let myself feel and release what had been stuffed tightly down for too long as I claimed all of it as part of this reality that is my life. 

I know for me healing includes walking through the fire, facing what’s before me.  As I can face it, I can release it.  I can see where I’ve been and where I am now.  I can reckon with the horribly hard stuff, embrace the sweet stuff and I can accept all that falls in-between. 

Contemplation sometimes moves to action too quickly for my being to keep up.  I love our spontaneity overall. And, sometimes it catches me off guard.  We decided to sell our boat. It took less than 72 hours and it will be gone – whisked away to some other lake to cart grandkids around. That makes me happy.  We had a nice run over to Beachcomber the other night for the classic summer dinner by the lake while they play beach volleyball.  One of the things we’ve always loved doing with the boat!  This morning we took our last spin around the lake.  Getting to be captain one more time, I soaked it in.  Tears ran down my face for all the reasons – mostly because this dream ever came into reality! All my life I wanted a ski boat.  9 years ago, we got our first one and it’s been a wonderful thing.   Savoring the memories and at the same time relieved to be done with any hassle.  Knowing there will be moments I will miss it and long for it, and knowing overall it will be a relief. 

Why in the world am I carrying on about such an inconsequential thing at a time when the world is raging with so many consequential and incomprehensible things?  Because it’s all part of it… each one of us is affected by the small personal things, the big personal things and the collective stuff of the world.  I don’t know anyone who’s not feeling some level of weariness right now. 
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It’s a really good time to take good care of ourselves.  And it begins, for me, with allowing the many mixed emotions to move through me.  Tears, laughter, delight, agony… they can all come through in any given day. What I try to remember is that “this” won’t last.  Whatever this is… it will change, morph, release, move on, and something else will quickly fill its place.  

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    About me...

    I am a writer, coach, and teacher, and I love capturing life's many moments through writing, whether that be journalling, blogging, poetry, or essay.  I have always found the written word as a natural way for me to express what lies within.  

    This is the space where we get real.  I will write about my life experiences and things that I find my clients encounter in their daily lives.   

    What's real for you? What would you like me to write about?  Feel free to share with me topics you would like to see discussed and please join in the dialogue through the comment section. Your engagement makes the blog a much richer place to hang out!

    Thank you for joining me on this journey!!    

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Barb Klein
Inspired Possibility
585-705-8740
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