falling into flight

So, last night I was sitting at the local restaurant bar, chatting with the bartender and waiting for my girlfriends to arrive for happy hour and chats - maybe even a hot plate of nachos. Just kidding. As much as I would like to have brushed my hair, be wearing real pants, and “outside” shoes - that is just not the reality of the world I am currently living in.  Did you know there is a global pandemic going on?! ::insert insane laughter here:: Of course you know - you are also living in this new reality we call “The Rona”, “COVID-times”, “Coronaviscious”, “The COVE”, “Coronacation” (maybe a stretch at this point).  No matter what you call it, the world has forever changed and the entire planet is a player in the gameshow of “WTF?!” (sponsored by Charmin and Purell). Here is how I see it.  We are collectively experiencing fear, anxiety, sadness, and loss of all kinds.  This game we have all been forced to play (just like Jr High dodgeball) came unexpectedly,...

 I needed to write, to express myself through written language not only so that others might hear me but so that I could hear myself. -- Gabor Mate This July will be 10 years since my father passed away.  As his health was ailing, I would regularly go sit and spend time with him and also give my mom a break.   In the last few months before his passing I used that time to ask him questions and record the conversation.  It was an opportunity for him to look back at his life and share experiences, lessons and wisdom for his family and loved ones.  It was also an opportunity for us, as loved ones, to hear his thoughts and feelings about the really important things in life.    Several weeks ago I sat down and listened to these recordings for the first time since they were made.  It had been a decade since hearing his voice and I had forgotten exactly what questions I had asked him.  Here was my father, with only weeks to live, l...

Over the Holiday break our family had the opportunity to head up to our cabin in the nearby Sequoia national forest for a snowy night in the woods.  For us, the cabin is a magical place providing distance from the frenetic pace of “regular” life in a place full of comfort, love, warmth and connection with nature and with each other. The roads had been cleared of snow, or so we thought, and we made plans to head to dinner at the local restaurant.  But on our drive through the small community we came upon a patch of ice and got stuck.  Unable to get any traction we spent over an hour attempting to put on the new, fancy, self-tightening snow chains.  After plenty of frozen hands, laying on the ice, and lots of slippery feet pushing on the back of our car, it was determined those chains were just not going to fit.  Thanks to a local and a shovel we managed to rock the car enough to get it going while the rest of us walked the remaining ¼ mile to the restaurant....

Through a recent series of events I've become aware of a study about adverse childhood experiences called the ACE's study.  This was a research study conducted by Kaiser and the CDC starting in the 90's that revealed there was a strong correlation between a child’s exposure to traumatic experiences—including psychological, physical, and sexual abuse, or living in a violent or unstable household—and their likelihood of developing certain diseases in adulthood, including cancer, chronic lung disease, heart and liver disease. Also, these adverse childhood experiences are very common.  It's groundbreaking, in my opinion, to learn this.  Without a doubt, there is a biological connection between early adversity and physical health later in life.  There is a questionnaire you can take to find out how many ACE's you have and I promptly did just that.  Now, unsurprisingly to me, I do not have a single one on the list of 10 possible adverse childhood experiences.  I...

“It’s not enough to simply hear these lessons once, instead, one practices them over and over again, turns them over in their mind, and most importantly, writes them down and feels them flowing through their fingers in doing so.” -The Daily Stoic I love to read and one of the most recent books I read is called, “Stillness in the Key” by Ryan Holiday.  In the book the author draws on many timeless philosophies to endeavor us to be “steady while the world spins around you.”  He uses examples from leaders and visionaries throughout history up until the present day and they all share this common quality of “steadiness”.  One such person was a Roman philosopher named Marcus Aurelius.  The author's representation and revere for this man peaked my curiosity and I decided to follow it and read some of Aurelius' own writings, specifically Meditations . Marcus Aurelius was the Roman emperor from 161 to 180 and a Stoic philosopher.  His most well known written work ...

Idea #1: Doubt Idea #2: Trusting myself Doubt says: I've learned so much about myself surely this pursuit should be feeling a little bit easier? Trusting myself says: "Discovering the truth about ourselves is a lifetime's work, but it's worth the effort ."- Mr Rogers Doubt:  These thought patterns and self judgements are getting reeeeally old.  Will they ever get evicted from inside my head? Trusting myself: “To master the mind seems as difficult as to master the mighty winds.” - Bhagavad Gita D: Although volunteering at the local nature preserve, maintaining home and children and health and marriage and friendships etc., donating my time to a local nonprofit, reading tons of books and learning new ideas, and supporting and encouraging events that give back to our community.....I can't seem to “find my purpose”. T:  “Like a lion placed in a paper cage, human beings are generally most trapped by the illusions of their own mind.” -Steve...

Over the weekend I had a good friend ask me about my writing and when the next installment was coming. And my answer was, essentially, that I want to write more but the content I want to write about involves the current themes threading through my life. And those themes are the same recurring lessons I've already written about. In fact, the things I think about and want to write about are the same lessons I've learned and the discoveries that came from those lessons – as always wrapped up with a bow and put up on the shelf in my mind (recurring theme). Remember I figured it all out! (recurring theme) And isn't there a saying about beating a dead horse in there somewhere? I know sometimes I do feel like a dead horse beating myself over the head again and again. Then I remembered something from a book that I read: “So what if we repeat the same themes? So what if we circle around the same ideas, again and again, generation after generation? So what ...