There are so many great, inspiring leaders.  

The more I learn about their choices and lives, the more I realize that they didn't all set out to lead, and many of them didn't know they were leading when they were.  They were just making the next, best choice they could for what was in front of them at the time.

They were driven by a deep and burning desire to do something; to help; to serve.  I think that we all are here to figure out how we can uniquely serve, and then go about the business of doing that.  

Always, but especially lately, I've been impressed once again by the leaders of the Civil Rights movement in the United States.  The non-violent approach is especially impressive at this particular moment in time - their choices to easily juxtaposed with the choices that we currently see all around us.  

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. said many profound things during his time here with us, which was cut far too short.  One quote that is sticking...

Lately I've been thinking and feeling really deeply.  

I think it's a mix of worldly circumstances, goals achieved and just a function of where I am in my life.  I find myself in thought way more than I ever have been.  Less time being reactive; less time spent outward.  

In many ways, I have been feeling a sense of resolve.  

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As we draw a calendar year to a close, it's only natural to begin to think about our own resolutions and what we may aspire to in the coming year.  It's a time to reflect and look back at all we accomplished...and didn't.  Most importantly, it's a time to understand why. (It's worth noting, too, that you don't have to wait until the end of the year to do any of this).

This year as I think about the end of December and the time I carve out for myself to think and feel, to evaluate, the idea of intention keeps popping up in my mind.  I wonder, is there an opportunity here to view resolutions...

These are challenging times.  

Everyone in my life, everyone that I speak to, has something going on in their lives right now that is challenging them.  It could be related to health, to relationship, to uncertainty, to employment...all of it.  This realization got me thinking about a conversation I had with a good friend and someone who is connected to self not too long ago.  This person has been in my life a few years, and has been a friend and guide to me through some of the most uncertain times of my life so far.  The last time we touched base, the conversation became about the opportunity that challenges give us.  

For most people, challenges are something negative, something to be overcome and fixed.  But in our conversation, he offered to me that challenges that come into our lives were not negative.  They aren't something to be resisted.  What if, instead, challenges were an opportunity to stop, listen, go within and...

I very recently experienced another moment of one of life's Reminders.  It's amazing, really, that now when they come, I can feel them as they approach, when they are happening, and also recognize when I'm on the other side.  Today, I'm on the other side of my most recent Reminder and am feeling at peace and deeply grateful.  

While I was in it, I felt like a buoy being pulled down.  As soon as I cleared it though, everything around me and within me just sprung up!  Right back to the surface, taking a big breath of fresh air at the top.   

This particular Reminder was about Clearing Space - specifically, a forced clearing space in life to allow for what should really be there - people and activity.  

As I think back on it, I understand that if we really listen to ourselves, I think we know what should be there.  How many of us are distracted by other things, though?  Especially now, when there is so much going on around us that can...

Maya Angelou has famously said: "Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better."

There are many lessons I've learned so far.  One of the most important is that life will always provide opportunity to learn and grow, if you're listening.  When you don't listen, life will keep offering up more opportunities to learn, at times, with growing intensity.  

There are many things we have both collectively and individually known for quite some time.  Some of us chose to forget early on.  Some of us still remember, but may not choose to do something about it, out of fear.  Perhaps for these people, the stakes have not yet been high enough.  

Years upon years of these choices lead us to this moment, where the circumstances we have built and permitted all around us have become so destructive that they will no longer be ignored.  

In contrast, I know that many have been listening and learning and...

Most people alive on earth today have never been through this kind of thing before.  

To have such a world-wide, disruptive, dangerous virus among us - it's an eye-opening and uncertain time.  Some days I think though that we have always had viruses around us, this one is just more visible than the ones we have been living with for longer- pervasive in society.  

Nevertheless, here we are.

Confronted with many difficult things, but also feeling (at least for me) that the happy and joyful realities are that much sweeter and more important.  It's really about survival in a way that it hasn't been so far in my life, at least.  It's a challenge and an opportunity.  

Things are coming into focus in new ways for me now.  Things that mattered before, matter more now.  Things that were on the edges have fallen off.  Some things, places and people are dearly missed.  But this time has also become a great reminder for me.  

For the last...

The pic I chose for this was a little dramatic...but not much! Sometimes when I'm feeling out of control, that reaction fits perfectly.  It's very uncomfortable and is a place and state of being that I'm working on getting more, well, comfortable with.

For me, sometimes an actual or perceived lack of control can illicit an outward reaction.  More often than not, though, my reaction to a lack of control comes up for me in ways that I am just linking back to, and that are less obvious.  There are behaviors I engage in that I am just now realizing are a reaction of mine to a feeling of being out of control.  Last week I had one such realization around the way I was behaving in relationship with other people.

There is a pattern that ends up emerging, if you are brave enough to really look at your self and your behavior.  I discovered this behavior a while ago (years) and so now, I'm pretty good at curbing it before it starts.  But, because I'm...

Lately I've been thinking a lot about expectation.  

I'm not thinking about it as it pertains to baking, or the weather or the stock market.  I'm thinking about it in the ways in which it impacts my life in relationship, and those I've witnessed. 

As I recall, most of the times I have been hurt or disappointed, a person or circumstance has not met with an expectation I had of it.  Sometimes this expectation was known to the person.  Many times it was not.  

I think that perhaps placing expectation is an act of attempting control.  Such a strong desire or need or want to make something happen, or to influence something, that expectations are put upon the person or circumstance.  

I wonder, if you need to rely on control, or expectation, does that mean that you don't fully trust in something?  Perhaps that something is in yourself?  Perhaps that something is the knowing that all things are conspiring in your favor, ultimately.  

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