Jane and Momo

(Note! Major frustrations today with the spacing on blogspot...nothing is working to fix it, so please ignore the inconsistencies as best you can!)

Today has been a "cycle of life" day.

First, this morning, a dear friend's 88-year-old mother, Jane, passed gently away in her sleep up in Connecticut, less than an hour before Susie arrived at the hospital. Just a few weeks ago Jane was doing fine, only complaining a little of not feeling well. Her decline was rapid and relatively pain-free, thankfully. Susie is bereft, but grateful that Jane is free.

And, this afternoon, an email arrived announcing the joyous birth of another dear friend's daughter, Momo, in Tokyo. Neo is ebullient, beside himself with joy and gratitude at his baby girl's arrival, astounded at the powerful emotions present as he witnessed Momo's entrance into the world. His ecstatic email effused, "She is beautiful. Yoko and Momo are both fine! I stayed with Yoko for delivery. I was moved the moment that the new life came into the world. This is our baby! All lives are our babies!"

Comings and goings. Jane and Momo. The cycle of life. Quite a day.

What is it live fully from the place of childlike energy and wonder?

How would life today be different if you embraced the fact that your days are, indeed, numbered?

At this point, in between your own coming and going, what do you know of yourself that is true and right and points to your very own "North" on your very own compass?

Wake. Listen. Hold fast to what you know to be true.

Live fully on this day!

It's a RADICAL thing...

Did you know that choosing to live the most fully alive, joy-filled, values-based, noshitnoregretsnocompromises life is a RADICAL act?

Our good friends at www.websters.com tell us that "radical" (an adjective, btw), means "of or going to the root or origin; fundamental." So what's that got to do with the above? Plenty.

More and more, I see the work I do as that of helping clients peel away the layers of "shoulds" and "ought tos" and "They" and "Everybody," finally exposing who they are at their core, their root. They remember who were at their origin...that soul/spirit grounded being that came into this world to self-express in only the way that it possibly can...who they are fundamentally, outside of what everyone else thinks or wants.

Life hurts when this radical, fundamental part of us gets buried along the way. We get sad, depressed, and angry. We muddle through mediocre lives that are in service of everyone and everything else, instead of first tending our own souls so that we can then be of service in the world in ways that actually fill us up instead of drain us dry.

And we know. We know who we are at our root. We remember what brought us joy when we were a kid. The things we'd do and the people we'd be if neither time nor money were concerns. In our vanilla adult lives, we reach back in our memories, and into our heart of hearts, and we know that what's really there is cherrybomb chocolate caramel splash!

So what is it for you? Who are you, radically? What's under your layers that's aching to see the light of day?

"In due time..."

A friend and colleague, Michael Kahn, told me about a movie short called "Our Time Is Up" (available for just $1.99 on iTunes). It's a 14-minute film in which we meet Dr. Stern, a therapist who's like one of the walking dead with the added benefit of a chip on his shoulder. His clients present stereotypical problems...O.C.D., afraid of the dark, closet homosexual, eating disorder, etc...and he treats them, as all of life, as a banal, boring, slightly-beneath-him exercise of endurance. His trademark response to most questions is, "In due time..."

And then he finds out that he has six weeks to live.

As you might guess, that news shocks the hell out of him and the truth into him. He wakes up to life, and in the meantime, starts telling his clients what he really thinks, no holds barred! I'll leave the rest for you to see, but here are some of the quintessential questions around such a topic:

Why does it take something tragic for us to wake up to life?

Why do we wander around as if we knew we had all the time in the world?

How would life look and feel differently if you only had six weeks to live? Who would you love? Who would you leave?

And here's a good one: If the awakened, no-bullshit Dr. Stern was sitting across from you, what would he say? What would he call you on? Challenge you to?

What are you waiting for?