in frantic preparation for labor day weekend

today hundreds of thousands of americans will hop into their cars (or onto busses, trains, or planes) to head to destinations where they will celebrate the last few days of our national three month “summer vacation.” right now, in fact, many folks are frantically packing, trying to get out the door, making sure they have everything they need to make the weekend perfect. very likely the more frantic they feel the more stressful everything is becoming. they’ve gotta go, gotta go, gotta go....

a few weeks ago i was honored to share a week with high school students at twin rocks friends camp. one morning i decided to begin our time together by having us all take a few deep breaths together. the sound and feeling of 300 plus souls packed together in a room inhaling and exhaling deeply was stunning. i really mean that. it was captivating. it was as if everything slowed down and we all came together. everything. slowed. down. when we opened our eyes after the last exhale the room felt unified and calm and “together.”

i have an idea...let’s all take a few deep breaths. seriously. right now. i know you’re in a hurry. i know there’s lots to do. i promise, however, you have time. it’ll only take one minute. breathe in then breathe out. i’ll give you some space to do so...

everything you need for a time away/a good break/a needed vacation/a time of family connection/a weekend of rest is within you. 

let me say that again.

everything you need is within you. it’s already packed. you can rest and relax and begin the vacation now. you can begin it in the car when you’re stuck in terrible labor day traffic, you can begin it at home as you are scrambling to find that one last perfect item to bring along, you can begin it in the store as you’re gathering supplies three hours later than you’d hoped to do so. you can begin RIGHT NOW. the “perfect time” has very little to do with the space where time is spent and everything to do with the internal world of the person spending it.

the goals for taking breaks, vacations, and getting away may be many but at root i think most of us want to do one thing: LIVE DIFFERENTLY FOR A LITTLE WHILE. this may mean either connecting with others more or in more intentional ways. it might look like becoming a bit more contemplative and turning the focus inward. it might mean playing games, going for long walks, paying attention to the taste and texture of what you eat, see, or hear. or it might mean napping. a lot. without guilt. whatever the goal, however, YOU ARE YOUR ONLY TOOL TO MAKE IT HAPPEN.

so why not take a breath? slow down even for a moment. feel the earth under your feet and the air around your body. take another breath and get settled and still. notice the people around you or your own beating heart and connect to them or it. the hardest place to arrive at is not the beach or the city or grandma’s house...it is to yourself and yet only from this centered place can you have the most deeply meaningful experiences.

where ever you are headed today...take your self with you. see if you can vacation (or stay home) from there rather than focusing on the external destination/activity/outcome. i promise, if you do, that the rewards will be many. 

with that...take another breath and move forward from there (perhaps a bit more slowly than you were moving before). notice. keep breathing. with intention. keep breathing...

i took the als ice bucket challenge...will YOU?

i am writing today sopping wet, freezing cold, and grinning. these are good things.

i had really hoped to escape the whole als ice bucket challenge. don’t get me wrong, i LOVE supporting important causes and the people who benefit from and give their vocational lives to them. i LIVE to promote health and healing. i was put on this earth to find love/Love and pass it on. given all this you’d think i had my camera tripodded and ready to film myself pouring water over my head once i’d received the challenge. instead, i cringed. 

in the weeks wherein the challenge has gone viral i have wrestled with it. i read about people’s frustration with the waste of water and watched as some people seemed to me to fake intensity about a cause when all they really wanted was to have people watch their “awesome” video. just about every time i got totally frustrated, however, i would see another video of someone who i know was as earnest as can be donating money and getting wet and encouraging others to do the same. sometimes they added a wrinkle and drew attention to additional causes they cared about. this is the very thing that kricket, who challenged me, did. i had to admit, it was a pretty genius movement as cultural movements go. 

i know people who have lost loved ones to the absolutely awful illness that is als. i have a dear colleague who devotes much of his practice to serving this community. i have missed deadlines to support his fund raising als bike ride because i just plain forgot so i’m glad that others are giving in my absence. i am thrilled that awareness is being raised and funds are amassing for research and treatment.

at the same time as i am thrilled, i hear the concerns about the waste of water (i just spent part of a week with residents of sierra leon who know all too well how precious water is) and see the risk of making what is supposed to be awareness raising become “awareness of how awesome i am and look at me.” it doesn’t stop for me there, however. my own friends and colleagues who have taken the challenge (most of whom have iced themselves plus given money) inspire me. they are willing to be vulnerable in front of a camera, they are willing to put themselves out there in order to promote important work, and, ultimately, it feels as though they are light heartedly joining in a big warm community event.

when i received the challenge i was wracked with distress. should i just write a check? do i really want to call anyone out by name? must i post a video? what will my draught living friends think about me wasting water? is it respectful to those i know who struggle with the painful reality of actual disease to make a video that could seem like i’m promoting myself? i was tied in knots and paralyzed. i processed my concerns with some friends who took my serious concerns very seriously, reminding me that i could take the challenge in whatever way suited me best. then my husband chimed in. “the whole thing is also just fun.” he is right and as much as i want to honor my friends who need water and the community who needs me to take things very seriously i also want to stretch myself to sometimes just lighten up.

so, today, after a run, i stood in a very dead part of my lawn and poured a huge bucket of ice water over my head (and onto the parched and dry grass). i chose not to record it digitally because the point for me isn’t that. for me, it was just doing it that mattered. cold and wet, i came inside, wrote two checks (one to the als foundation and one to american friends service committee*), and changed a promised technology talk at a university to a series of talks about reconciliation and non violence because kricket’s challenge included some twists. one, that i would give a monetary donation not only to als but also to a cause that promotes non violence, and, two, that i would have a conversation with someone about non violence, peace, and harmony because those are things that matter a lot to her (and to me). the final part of the challenge includes asking others to follow suit.

rather than calling out specific others to join me i am asking those of you who read or engage with my blog to take a challenge. i’m not sure what your challenge is because i’m hoping you will take five minutes or so to turn everything off (i’m not kidding) and consider these two questions: what would be a stretching way in which i could give? what would be a cause to which i could give that would lead me to grow a bit? if you aren’t someone who normally gives time, energy, or money to causes that matter to you, perhaps you are to give one of those precious commodities within the next two weeks. if you are someone who regularly gives, perhaps your challenge would be to give in a new way, to stretch yourself by either learning more about the causes you routinely support or finding new movements that might benefit from even small efforts on your part. if you normally write checks, might you consider showing up to volunteer? if you habitually give to international causes, might you find a local one to promote or give to in some way or vice versa? if you go ahead and take the als challenge as it is, might you at least read a bit about what als patients and families face and hold them in your heart and Love. the point is to listen to what would stretch you. heck...maybe your challenge is just to have more fun in ways that honor others...that was a big part of the challenge for me.

once you’ve settled on a challenge might you be willing to share it here via comment or on my facebook page (doreen dodgen-magee, psy.d.) so as to inspire and ignite others toward growing their flexibility and generativity? 

we all are prone to living habitually. this keeps us caught, sometimes tied up in knots. paralyzed in our responses to that which is new, outside of our comfort zones or awarenesses. a good old fashioned cold shower is helpful now and then to jump start our day, our week, our lives, our ways of being in the world.

*american friends service committee (http://afsc.org) does work in the u.s. and around the globe to promote peace, justice, and human dignity. part of my personal challenge is to see if i might be able to do some volunteer work with them around the issue of immigration.

in defense of toll takers and airport curbside parking monitors

i can usually make people smile. it’s not like i consciously try to do so. rather, it just happens. i appreciate people and don’t take for granted that they might be willing to interact with me. an offered smile is typically reciprocated, a kind word or gesture blushed at, thanked, or returned in kind. recently, however, i’ve met my match. i have found two groups of people that i cannot seem to affect, let alone quip cheerfully with me. my world is shaken.

recent trips to the midwest and the airport have brought me face to face with toll takers and the airport arrivals curbside parking monitors. if i were one to make sweeping generalizations (and i am not normally one to do so) i would suggest that these two groups of people are jaded. they are grumpy and sometimes border on cruel. take, for example, the time i told the curbside parking monitor that the person i was picking up was labored with crates and not physically strong, he told me, “move along. she’ll be waiting when you come back.” “she’s right there on the other side of the door,” i said, smiling, pointing to my 70 plus year old friend weighed down with parcels. “can you not hear me? move along.” he stated, the right side of his lip pulled up as if surprised by my smile and kind, softly delivered pleading. i sat there paralyzed wondering if i was being teased and smiled bigger and scrunched my eyebrows. he got out his ticket book and started writing. “move it or i write.” and so...i left my friend who was making her way through the revolving door. when i came back around to the curb i practically threw her luggage in the car. when i stopped to actually hug her, the attendant dropped his chin and looked over his sunglasses at me and motioned to his ticket book.

where the parking attendant was shaming and impatient the toll takers whose booths i recently frequented were indifferent. 100%, wholly committed to not giving a flying fig about any interaction i initiated. i tried plain smiles. i tried “you have a hard job.” i heaped thanks and gushed gratitude. i even offered one a power bar. i couldn’t get a single one of them to even utter a sound. most never even looked up. i commented to my midwest hosts how disheartened i was by the overwhelming sadness of the toll takers. i shared with them my failures at affecting any response and they simply rolled their eyes and said, “they’re all like that. give up trying. they hire people who are like that for a reason. they must. they’re all that way.” 

this struck me. could this be true? could a majority of grumpy, indifferent, non social, still faced people aspire to be toll takers? might people with major axes to grind or chips on their shoulders interview to monitor the curbs in the arrival area at airports? i don’t think so. rather, the individuals with these jobs and countless others like them (insert here jobs like bathroom cleaners at k-mart etc), have gotten themselves employed. their positions are neither high paying nor glamorous. they are placed in situations where they interact with hundreds (maybe even thousands) of people a day who are trying to get somewhere or to someone. to most people that encounter them, they are a means to an end. their employers want them to keep things moving efficiently and many of the people they interact with are likely trying to bend some rule. “having exact change applies to everyone else but me, right?” “when you say no stopping or parking in the arrivals area that certainly doesn’t mean i can’t wait for my friend who will take 5 minutes to walk from there to here does it?” it wouldn’t take long to burn out, to harden your heart and your face and your attitude. for every kind encounter there are likely hundreds where you are treated with disrespect, anger, or, even worse, complete disregard. what might it be like to spend your days taking money from people who never look at you? how would it feel to have your job description include keeping people from those they are anticipating and preventing convenience. no wonder they don’t respond. it might just be too much to do so.

last night i was conducting a meeting at a table in an urban park. there was a concert beginning when my colleague and i wrapped up so i chose to sit and partake for a while. when the dancing began a young man in his early 20’s caught my eye. he looked familiar, like someone i know who lives (i thought) in another city. the music was zydeco and this young man was escorting a woman 50 years his senior to the dance floor. my heart leapt as i watched him leading and spinning her and smiling. i thought, “what a gift those two are giving to each other...and to me.” it always moves me when i see people who don’t appear to “go together” relating and engaging. especially when it’s across generational, gender, race, religious, or socio economic gaps. these two were a mismatched pair but the young man appeared to be trying diligently to engage in a fun and light hearted way. i hoped that my son might do the same and that i might take similar risks to offer fun to someone’s day.

as the evening went on i scanned the crowd for the young man to see if the woman was with him; his grandmother, an aunt, an old family friend, but could find neither him nor her. i wanted to tell them how inspired i was by seeing them share space on the dance floor. on a whim i texted the young man he reminded me of to see if he’d happened to be at the park. hours later he replied that he was. when i told him how deeply touched i had been by seeing him initiate the dance he replied with, “she was NOT havin’ it. haha. she got really cranky and left. but i tried...”  there’s wisdom there. he tried. 

the person i reach out to might wrinkle their nose (and a whole half of their face) in response to my effort. they might think me crazy or double motived or both. they might leave me standing, alone, on the dance floor. when i reach out i might be met with silence, blank stares, judgement, and possibly even a ticket. i may get push back or nothing at all and yet i must try. there is no need for me to be assured of a response and even less need for me to assume that the recipient of my kindness is somehow at fault. i need not judge. i cannot pretend to know what it feels like to stand in the shoes of those at whom i smile. the response to my effort is not mine but the way in which i value, honor, and treat others is. i will not be stopped by my own inability to handle rejection or judgement. and i will also not be stopped along the curbside at arrivals at pdx. i’ll smile from my window as i drive happily by, letting my passenger jump into my moving car so as not to offend...

to the person who left the note on the bathroom mirror in the tea shop in se portland

thank you. the message and simplicity of your note turned my day around. i know that you had no idea that i, in particular, would encounter the little white sticky you penned and left behind but i am grateful that you trusted your gut and left it. i have a feeling you turned more than one day around because who among us doesn’t want, at times, to feel as though we are beautiful? the fact that you know this is a gift. the fact that you trusted your gut in communicating it and taking the time to tell us is a miracle. it’s a miracle because:

1)  mostly i feel frazzled when i catch a glimpse of myself in a public restroom mirror. fluorescent lights are not forgiving and i am too often caught short when i look into eyes that look like some weird mix of my former self and my older ancestors. don’t get me wrong, my ancestors are lovely folks but i never remember that i’ve come to be their age until i see myself in the middle of a long string of errands; exhausted, rushed, and dark circled. gazing at your note instead of into these eyes felt like a blessing.

2)  i want to think that what might make me beautiful has very little to do with the image i see in the mirror but, rather, with the fact that i am a living breathing human being. given that you left this message for me without even knowing how i look makes me feel like you believe this too and affirm the internal qualities of humanity within me. this was a relief.

3)  i live in a world where unconditional affirmation is rare. your bold declaration had no strings attached. i felt as though you simply had a message that you thought i needed and you took the steps to communicate it. this was bold and counter cultural in every right way.

and so, again, i thank you. you’ve inspired me to carry a sticky note pad and a pen in order to bless, relieve, and affirm others. some day i hope one of those “others” can be you because you are beautiful!