Yes! Not the What but the Who

How do we know what we want to be when we grow up?

The New Year offers the space and time (if we take it) to jump into such a question and dig down deep.  On this eighth day of January there remains plenty of time in these beginning days of 2013 to reflect and get into your core good.

I have an infuriatingly lucky older brother who knew exactly what he was meant to do on this earth. At 13 years old he knew he wanted to be an architect and that is what he became. And a damn gifted one too.

It did not happen like that for me. I have regularly struggled with “what” I was meant to do in this world and “what” form it would take.  My resume has been described as richly diverse. I have accomplished much, earned an advanced degree, traveled the world, been an ordained pastor, university instructor and non-profit founder and leader. Still the question haunts me: “What” are you AmyJo?

You know how it goes. You’re at a party or gathering and you get involved in a conversation with someone you don’t know. After exchanging names the next question almost always is “So what do you do?”  Our identity is intertwined with how we earn a living. These days it precedes almost all other aspects of how we define and understand ourselves. It is what we pay attention to; we use it to measure and size-up if we want to remain in conversation or move on.

When I was a pastor I especially despised the question. The reaction was the same 100% of the time. “So, what do you do?” the stranger would ask. It was no matter where the exchange took place; a bus, at a party or social gathering, at school functions. When I responded with “I’m a pastor” the questioner would offer a furtive “Oh”. Awkward silence followed. The parties or social gatherings were the worst. People would assume they now had to watch their language or put down their glass of wine, even though I was holding one myself.

After leaving the ordained ministry (a story I tell in my book Religion Made Me Fat), I still dislike the question. It pierces an insecurity I have held since I began to wonder what I would become when I grew up. “What do you do?” is a query that leaves me flat and afraid. Afraid that what I do isn’t enough and doesn’t measure up, and flat because there is so much more to me than any one thing, position or post I have ever held professionally. There is a part of me that wants to shout with the joyful energy of freedom, “I don’t do anything but what I want to do! I am all that I should be right now!” Followed with an arm pumping, “Woop! Woop!”

But I don’t. My habit has been to play along with the game, talk about my teaching, my coaching, my new business. Until now. Until today. Until this eighth day of January 2013 where I am proclaiming “Yes!” I will break this habit, change the rules of my life and make my own game!

To begin, I am letting go of the question “What do you want to be or do” and replacing it with “Who do you want to be?”

“Who” do I want to “be” is an entirely different question. Imagine if you were back at that party. You’ve introduced yourself and shaken hands, and then you ask “So, who are you?”

Ha! It would be such a great question to ask! It matters not “what” they do, but rather the import is on “who” they are. What is it that makes them tick? What do they love? What do they think is beautiful? How do they love, make decisions, solve problems? Do they drink from abundance or are they pinched by scarcity?

“Who do I want to be?” is the question for my 2013.

Amy Ahlers, the incredibly gifted Wake-Up Call Coach, offered the question as rooted in our state of being. It isn’t what you want to get or attain. It isn’t where you want to go or something you wish to complete.

This is a question grounded in a different soil than the well known clay of expectations, production and making things happen. It is into these that we plunge our measuring devices that create measurable targets of losing 10 pounds, taking a painting class or buying that dream car, boat, or purse. These aren’t bad goals. It isn’t wrong to want and desire things or to extend our skills and knowledge. We definitely know it’s good to take care of our bodies. Yet there is a distinct difference between these goals that come from the familiar ground of societal do’s and don’t's and those that arise from our own core good.

Living into our good is the key access point to our contentment and it starts by claiming the power of our natural inner good core. From here everything else - all that is human - stems, grows and blossoms. It is not determined by any other being, organization, book or custom. Your good life comes from your good core.

Who do you want to be in this next year?

Let me offer a few examples.

• This year, I want to be a woman who is confident in her great work and in claiming the great life intended for me.
• This year I want to be a relaxed mother who enjoys her kids; playing while guiding and loving them up with my own core good while affirming theirs.
• This year I want to be a sexy, energized lover who listens to, laughs and plays with my husband.

You get the idea. Claiming your inner wisdom-core-good that is full of creative, brave power is the first step to begin listening to that power.

The process is easy. So easy it will make you laugh, perhaps even doubt. But don’t.

• Just do it.

• Say it.

• Repeat it.

• Make it your truth.

I am good and have in me the power to make more good for myself and others.

It is this one sentence that will activate your good and get you in tune with “who” you are and “who” you want to be. Make this sentence your New Year’s Resolution and then add the question: Who do I want to be in this year? The confidence you build in your natural goodness will guide and direct you and you will hear your truth.

Busy to Distraction

When I was a pastor, my colleague who had been at the congregation 15 plus years when I arrived, was always running. His cell phone was constantly barking at him; clipped to his waist it rarely stayed in the holster longer than a few minutes. When we had scheduled meetings, he’d fly-in at the last minute, out of breath with phone moving from ear to holster.  At the end of it, he’d head out immediately to his “next important meeting,” phone always (always) being pulled toward his ear as he walked out the door.

It was intimidating. That is, until I discovered that this person actually did very little. 

This experience, combined with my personal history of growing up in a house that praised busyness while deriding anything seemingly sedentary, got me thinking. Why does it appear that we love being “crazy busy?”

We live in a culture obsessed with constant movement, packed schedules, and being “busy, busy, busy!” Whenever I hear anyone say that word more than once-in-a-row, I can’t help but hear the voice of the Magician in the TV production of Frosty the Snowman. You know the scene, the long-legged, top-hatted entertainer & scumbag is trying to ignore Santa, so he says “No time to talk, busy, busy, busy” as he zooms over hill and yonder, away from the truth of his reality and his choices.

It’s an insightful metaphor. Somehow we have been trained to think of ourselves and others as worthy, good people the more “crazed and busy” we are.  Regularly, when I greet someone with the words ‘How are you?’ I am met with rolling eyes, shaking head and appropriately stressed smile. “Oh my gosh,” the person says, “Crazy! Things are so busy… one thing after another.  So hard to keep up.” Or another of my favorites is,  “This week has been so chaotic!... I barely have time to breathe!” And another that tops the list is “Oh man, I am just running all the time…” Each of which leads to an exhalation of dramatic breath followed by, “What about you?”

It’s almost a comparison of who can out-crazy-schedule the other.

The problem (and I do think it is a problem) isn’t that people are busy with schedules that are full, productive and life-giving. The way in which we talk about our days isn’t with affirmation of the goodness coming from the “running around” or “chaotic days”. It approaches a sort of badge of honor that we wear proudly to prove that we have earned something. What? Is it our worth?  A mark of success?

I think it is a problem because we have convinced ourselves that the more we fill up our days with appointments & events and the louder our phones screech with announcements of Facebook likes, Twitter RT’s and text messages, the more value we have as a person. I come to this conclusion because when queried with “How are you?” people are not saying “I am really good. I have a full day and a lot of time consuming connections, and I love it.” They’re responding with harried, heavy breathing and shaking heads. I also am convinced it’s a problem because in the midst of all this “running around” we are not collectively getting healthier. We clearly are not getting good aerobic or anaerobic activity from being “on the go”. We are getting fatter with ever growing incidence of diabetes and heart disease, blood pressure and other diseases due to being overweight and out of shape.

A final reason I think our “Chaotic days” are a problem is because, like the Magician, we use the busyness to get ever further away from the reality of our true selves. Slowing down means more time to think, reflect and feel ourselves. Are we happy? What is happy? What do I really want? What do I honestly think of myself and why? Why am I choosing to work at what I am doing? Why am I in this relationship? What does it mean that I am a ___________ (fill in the blank, Christian, Muslim, Atheist)? Why do I laugh at jokes deriding homosexuals? And on and on.

When our days are “filled” with “one thing after another” we don’t have to face those uncertainties, questions or ponderings that are part of a life-aware. To be present in the moment of our days means to engage fully with the realities in which we exist, whether they be friendly or challenging truths, a healthy, grounded and happy person faces them. The distractions from an overly packed, smart phone yelping life enable you and me to get further away from that work and therefore, a much less honestly full life.

Let’s begin this New Year with a resolution to be less like the “busy, busy, busy” of Frosty’s Magician and commit to being open to making honestly core-Good magic within ourselves & to share with others. To talk more about this work, give me a holler below or on Facebook, Twitter or my website. Use these oft-times social distractions to slow it down and blaze a new trail for 2013!

Claim the Good, Even Today

I’ve recently noticed how much I use it, and it bothers me. I can claim a big win just in the fact that I am aware of it. Awareness is the beginning step to choosing to change it…the behavior that isn’t healthy.

I discovered how dependent I am on it while lying in bed the other morning. It was dark-dark outside and my husband and I had yet to break light into our room. We were slowly awakening to the call from the 5 a.m. alarm and talking about the wind and rain pelting our windows, leaving short, panging noises ringing into our quiet.

“I know we need this rain”, I was saying, “but it sure messes with my running schedule, especially the wind.” And then I said it. “It makes me crazy not to be able to run.”

That time I caught myself. “Wow”, I said. “I did it again.”
“Did what?” my hubbie asked. “Said it. I think I am dependent on it. Yuck.”

The phrase I use often, a lot, I mean, really a lot is this: “It makes me…”

I have noticed that I use it when I experience myself as out-of-control or unable for some reason to exert my will to make things happen according to my wishes. When other drivers cut me off or choose to make decisions that are dangerous I have said “It makes me crazy when people drive like this.” When my students don’t listen or continue to play on their smart phones in class I report that “It makes me upset when you do this.” When my kids won’t follow my directions I say “It makes me nuts when you don’t listen.”

As I was writing this, I received a text asking if I had heard about the school shootings in Connecticut. “No!” I responded. “What and when?” Then I almost wrote back “It makes me feel out-of-control” but I caught myself. I texted back “I feel out-of-control”.

The subtle change is not small. It is a chasm leap from one way of looking at the world to another. Repeating the phrase “It makes me,” or “they make me” or “______ makes me”, denies that I am the one in control and responsible for my life. It gives away my good power to another entity, situation or person. It denies that I have all that I need to choose how I feel, decide what my options are and what I think. I become dependent on blaming, giving-over to or letting another entity be the cause for me and my thoughts, emotions, feelings and actions.

Doing this is not tapping into my natural good. When I claim that I am naturally good and have in me the power to make more good for myself and others, I am take responsibility to use it. The good is in me now. I do not need to wait to get it from God, church, job, government, friends, lover….you name it. When the good is in me, it is up to me to tap into it regularly to use it to create more good.

How do you do that in the face of a tragedy such as the one happening right now in Connecticut? First, I own how I feel. The shooter didn’t make me feel out-of-control. I feel that way because I have three children and one husband at a school every day. The thought of something like this happening to them sends shock waves of fear careening through my body. To get hold of that fear, I face it. I have plenty of good to manage it and think. I don’t’ need to react and I don’t need to blame. I decide how I respond.

Step two. Get in touch with my good to claim that the power of good, even in the midst of this terrible, frightening occurrence, continues to be stronger. Realize that this bad, awful event does not mean evil is triumphing over good. It means one unhealthy individual chose to deny his good and cause immeasurable pain, fear and suffering for many.

Step Three. How can I help? What can I do? Where can I put my good power to work to make more good, especially at times when it appears (it’s not reality) that the bad is winning.

Step Four. Breathe deep into my good, claim it for the world and get busy.

Here’s a good challenge for your good self. Pay attention to how often you say the phrase: “______ makes me…” When you notice it, replace it with “I am good.” For those of you with a streak of adventure and fun – replace it with the Tony the Tiger growl-up of “U-I-A-A-A-M-M-M  G-O-O-O-D!

Let’s go make a good difference in a world of good that needs more!

No More Shopping!

I don’t like shopping.

During the hubbub of the holiday season, I find it even more distasteful. It’s difficult enough to find items that are just right and appropriate for me; that I like, that aren’t too much to spend and that will be a good asset to my already overfull house, closets and containers.

Trying to find the right gift for others is even harder. My kids make it easy… they write it down in detail and are willing to talk about it at just about any given moment between Thanksgiving and December 25th. 

It’s the rest of the crowd that causes the crease over my eyes to deepen. How do I balance the budget of limited funds with really wanting to provide for my family and give them what they need and some of what they want, while also wanting to appreciate other people? What do you get your friend that isn’t your best-y but who you want to show you appreciate? What about that colleague, or casual acquaintance who regularly brightens your day?

Give the gift of their good. Seriously. I did it last weekend, and it was so enriching to be part of.  Serendipitously, I gave the gift of “our natural human good” to a friend who is having trouble claiming it for himself.

“Listen,” I said… “are you saying the sentence?” (You know the one: I am good and have in me the power to make more good for myself and others. That sentence that changes the world.) He sheepishly admitted that no, he wasn’t.

“You need to!” I exclaimed. “Seriously, my friend, it truly works. I promise you will hear a difference in your inner dialogue. All those negative nasty’s telling you that you aren’t worth it and are not enough, will subside.”

We talked for a while about all the ramifications of taking seriously the work of practicing and rehearsing the idea that he is naturally good and has the power to make more good for himself and others. He texted me today with an update: “I’ve been saying it!” it read.

Between beginning to write this blog and completing it, I gave the same gift to another person in my life. She is one of those people you regularly see at work, who is helpful, kind and always ready with a smile, but not a close friend. She was flustered from all the pressure she was experiencing, so I said “You are good and have the power to make more of it. Trust yourself. All of this isn’t as powerful as your good.”

She blushed with a broad smile and said “Oh, AmyJo, well, thank you.” As I was leaving the office she purposely sought me out to say thank you again, for those particular words. “What a great gift you gave me,” she said. Indeed!

No more shopping! Give the gift of good to someone in your life! Wrap it up with your own good. Put on the bow of confidence in the truth that when we share our natural good with others we generate a larger, unstoppable energy of positive, problem-solving, beauty-affirming and life promoting power! Now that’s a gift for the season!

Think About It. Really.

Think about it. Give me four minutes to tickle your intellectual imagination. Really consider the potential of what I am about to say.

“You are good and have in you the power to make more good for yourself and others.”

I’ve been talking a lot about this idea lately. In my TEDx Talk which I gave in October (check it out!) I offered this sentences as a replacement to the Christian confession “I am by nature sinful and unclean and cannot free myself,” rooted in the Doctrine of Original Sin. 

I have since had the opportunity to speak to a group of retired pastors, another with current pastors, another discussion with progressive non-clergy Christians and still others with non-religious and secular folk.

It has been interesting to hear the responses from these various groups of people and the common theme they hold between them. It seems that no one truly buys into the old idea that human beings are naturally (meaning we were born that way) bad and sinful. “I moved beyond that over a decade ago” one pastor said. Another offered that he’d have to get that “old doctrine out and dust it off. I can’t remember what it argues,” he laughed. Other individuals explained that they don’t really think that anyone believes that anymore.

Apparently it’s not a big issue. That is, until I make it clear that I do not mean that we as humans do good and are good because God works through us, but that we as humans are naturally good already – right now – this minute – in all the stuff of our humanity – we are good. “And,” I add, “we have an abundance of that good within us to continue to make more of the good because we choose to use it.”

When that sinks in, the eyebrows raise and the bottoms shift in seats. “Say what?”

Let me try again:

You are naturally good. Meaning, you did not have to “do” anything to “get good” or to “get the good” in you. It simply is in you and you simply are, good. And, you have the capacity already in you, right now, as you exist in this moment, to make more good that will positively affect you and others. By regularly affirming your own GOOD you create more capacity within yourself to do more good. The more seriously you take practicing this idea and claiming that is it true for you, the more good capacity you create. It multiplies!

Believing, practicing, affirming and training with the idea that YOU are GOOD by the very nature of your being human – shifts everything. It changes every aspect of how you and I interact with ourselves, each other, our government, strangers and with ideas and challenges. Here are just a few ripples to contribute to your thinking:

1. You do not need to get the good from anywhere else, or anyone else. You are good all on your own just because you are you.
2. You don’t need a god, church, religion or any other person (lover, parent, friend, etc…) to prove you are worthy or acceptable. You are good, way deep-down-into-the-core of yourself good, without anyone else or anything else confirming this truth.
3. There is no need to have religious judgment. Because ALL humans are naturally good, religion is not required or used to make us acceptable and good. We already are. This gives space for religion to be a source of comfort, story & guidance, thinking & wonder, celebration & community instead of “rightness” and judgment.  We can be in different religions and still be in relationship. We can learn stories that vary one from another, practice liturgies that are unique and still claim that we share the same CORE GOOD!
4. I am responsible for my life, my choices, my loves, my feelings, my reactions and responses, my…. everything.  Because I have all the capacity I need to make good and to do good, I have all the power I need to be the one in control of myself and my life. I do not need a god, a job, a social status or a relationship to make my life good or to blame when I struggle.  I am in control of my life and have the good capacity to direct and interact with all that happens around me.  
5. I am not a victim. I do not blame others for the situation of my life or for how I feel. I am naturally good and have plenty of good in me to use to make healthy, good and life-giving choices. I do not need to wait for god to finally bless me, or for a company to recognize my potential. I do not need to blame you for making me feel small, or wait until “someone loves me” to claim my worth and beauty. I realize my power and regularly tap in to my good that reminds me I am in control and responsible for me.
6. When I practice the idea that I am born naturally good, I am practicing that same idea for you too. I am naturally good and so is every other human. This is a momentous shift from only affirming good in me and my kind, to including everyone, no matter their race, creed, color, sexual orientation or political affiliation. Each of us is responsible for using our own good, and still when I practice affirming that I believe you have it (whether or not you are tapping into it) have more room to listen to you, see you and be available to problem-solve with you.

When you take these few minutes to really consider this idea, you will add ripples to this list. It is a remarkable concept that is, unfortunately, not being practiced or taught in our churches, temples, schools, homes and society. Even as people are adamant that they no longer subscribe to the old language of being “sinful and unclean” we remain rooted in the notion that without God, church, friendship or good upbringing, we cannot on our own be and do, good.

There is an across-the-board nervousness I encounter when I assert that as humans we do have the power and capacity to make good choices & to create more good within us and around us. We do it. We tap into it and we create more of it.

“It sounds an awful lot like self-worship” someone recently stated, including the assumption that such worship is negative.   

I say, “Right on!”

I have counseled and guided enough people who doubt their worth, loath their life and think of themselves as bad that I think we can use buckets of self-worship, focusing on our inner good, practicing tapping into it and regularly giving ourselves love, respect and reverence!

Becoming Halloween

I loved Halloween when I was a kid. Odd, really, since my mother hated – and still does – the whole affair. I looked forward to the huge Halloween party my church held. My memory of the huge, expansive multi-purpose room was filled with games, a cake walk giving away whole cakes, and the coveted prizes for the costume competition. Each year I dressed up to win. Every year I lost.

In fifth grade, having read the book “Plain Girl” about an Amish girl, I decided to go as her. I made the costume myself, my mother helping me with the apron and bonnet. I was transformed as I gazed at myself in the mirror. I felt like I had become her.

The next year mom said “no more sewing”, so a seamstress friend stepped up to help. I was a can-can girl and the costume was all that. I could have stepped onto the set of Moulin Rouge and fit right in.  I felt pretty, exotic, flamboyant and sassy! 

For as long as the Halloween party was held, I costumed myself up to become another person, character or entity.  I never did win. Not once. It wasn’t until I was older and those parties had long since gone by the wayside that I learned why: dad was the pastor, I was one of his kids, it would look bad if I won.  

My dad died a little more than a year ago, and all that is involved in grief is on-going. All Hallow’s Eve, Dia De los Muertos, Day of Souls and Saints are exactly the right time of year to think about my dad. These rituals give us the opportunity to ritually honor those who are no longer physically with us. They invite us to honor, remember, celebrate and think about our dead.

I was considering building an altar for my dad and wondered what I would put on it. Over the last decade of his life he and I (and my mom and my husband) moved together on a profound journey. We transitioned from espousing Christianity and living deeply embedded in the church as pastors, to independent thinkers who locate ourselves somewhere between agnostic and atheist. We remain engaged in the story of Jesus and his radical choices toward justice, equality and the value of women. Ritual and meaning making through word, meditation and ceremony remain central and important. We are not your typical anything… not freethinkers, humanists, agnostics, atheists, pagans or secularists. We are simply becoming.

I still enjoy Halloween. I love to watch my kids find joy in putting on another persona, adorning themselves with mustaches and make-up, having the chance to be “Katniss”, a witch, goblin, warrior or Viking for a day. There is a grace and freedom to the act of masking our faces and bodies with a different look, energy, personality and letting loose the growls, purrs, screams and roars of a new being. Perhaps once-a-year Halloween gives us the opportunity to take the risk of becoming something new without having to actually do it full time.  

The practice of “becoming new” once-a-year, and the imagination and preparation to do so, has served me well.  The disappointment of a young girl at not winning the competition has diminished along with the roles in and expectations of the church. Maybe it was Halloween and the freedom of trying on a new being for a night that readied me to truly, honestly and powerfully become a new person in my own skin.

If you could try out a new idea, what would it be? What question is burning in your mind and heart that has seemed too scary to ask? Is there a personality trait you have always longed to express? Is there a passion left untouched, a desire lying dormant?

Stephen Covey used to ask people to “begin with the end in mind”. “Imagine your own funeral,” he would say, “and the speeches given and what you hope they will say.”  Use this to guide your choices throughout your life – your decision of becoming.

On my dads altar I will place an excellent bottle of red wine, luscious dark chocolate, all that is music and books: lots and lots of books. I will fashion the altar to resemble a dinner table, around which people will gather to eat good food, drink good wine and debate, discuss, talk, wonder, laugh and cry. There will be candles, linen napkins and open minds.

What would you put on your Dia de los Muertos altar? What would you want others to recite about the “story of you”?

This year, dress up for Halloween! Be that something new, something dangerous, risky or previously-off-limits idea, persona or image! Practice becoming; thinking new, wondering differently and trying on another perspective.

Miss Tinsel

My entire body was tilted back and down. Sunglasses blocked the intruding light that was floating directly over my face. I couldn’t speak as fingers, suction tubes and drills were pulled in and out of my mouth. I swore I felt drool sliding over my erratically positioned lips and down my cheek. Grunting, I pointed to the spot and tried to say “drool” which came out “ouool”. The doctor looked. “Nothing there,” he said smiling. Silly me.

I was in the dentists chair this morning for the second time in the same number of weeks. In case you missed that, it’s 2 visits in 2 weeks – both for a crown. The first was “just” a cracked tooth, today was a full on break. Lovely.

So there I am, lying in a head down position with my mouth occupied by gooey gunk and a 5 minute timer ticking away in back of me. The doc is washing up, chatting pleasantly when suddenly he declares “October 24^th! Oh my God! It’s almost November.”

Yes, it is almost November and with it a swift move to the holidays. The season of giving, getting, wanting, griping and endless Christmas carols – or rather, Holiday music – is around the corner.

Doc continued. “I’m just not ready for the holidays to come. It’s too soon. There’s too much to do, too much to prepare and buy… and the hustle and bustle… all the parties and gatherings and expectations… and family!” He made a sound like a muzzled animal. “Ah… family during the holidays”.

Almost as if he remembered he was not alone, he turned and looked at me. “Are you ready for them AmyJo? For God’s sake, it was just August!”

Having no real ability to respond, I used my eyebrows and deep guttural prrr to try to communicate “Yes!” Of course I’m ready for my favorite time of year!”

When I was in high school my best friend gave me the title of “Miss Tinsel”. It stuck. I love the season of Thanksgiving through Christmas and New Year. When I was young it was magical and filled with music, cookies, yummy smells, Grandma & Grandpa and a glass of soda on Christmas Eve.

As the years passed, the reason for my exuberance has changed, but I still have it. 

I can relate to the Scrooges, bah humbugs and to people who hate the season. I have experienced the anxiety swirling around family gatherings, the comparison of children and the evaluation of lives, looks and current body size.  The numerous parties that demand our attention, hostess gifts, another well put together outfit, correctly selected gift and on and on it goes.   

There is a lot about the Holiday Season that can be difficult, sad and hurtful while also producing anxiety and even shame.

Yet amidst the flurry of gifts that are sung about, advertised for and written down on wish-lists, there really are gifts to be found during the months of November and December.

On November 16, 2012 I will offer a 7 module video course that guides you through the weeks leading up to the Celebration of the Yule, of light and abundance. These videos will assist you in facing those aspects of the upcoming holidays that give you the butterflies and the dreads, and will give you applicable tools to overcome them. At the end of these four sessions, you will find yourself ready and filled with positive anticipation for all that occurs between November 22 and January 1.

More information will come about how to access this fun, engaging, lighthearted romp toward the holidays that will give you the tools necessary to have the best Season of Giving ever!  Stay Tuned!