I'm experimenting with a slightly different format and look this week: more serifs, more sections, and maybe even a bit more sass. Funsies!
Announcements
First things first: Valentine's Day. It's coming up. It's not my holiday, not really. BUT. I'm driven entirely by service and I aim to do all things with love, so it's the perfect opportunity to offer something big, heart-infused, and free. As such, I've blocked out the week of February 13 for one-off sessions. These are powerful, game-changing conversations (not casual, friendly chats—though I am a kind person, I promise) for folks who've never coached with me before.
If you've been thinking about shifting your perspective a smidge or ditching a handful of self-limiting beliefs or actually creating something instead of always talking about creating something, and you're willing to push through fear, resistance, stubbornness, etc. in order to take action (and you absolutely don't want to be in the same place in 2018), hit 'reply' to this email and we'll talk about how I can help you in a free, two-hour session.
Beans, spilled
It occurred to me last week that I'm keeping some things to myself that I suspect I'd rather share. I don't know why I'm keeping them to myself. After last week's note, I wondered, Why didn't you share what's really going on with you? I didn't have a good answer.
So, here's what's up in my neck of the woods:
1. We're house-hunting in Appleton, Wisconsin. We've visited ten houses in the last five days and none of them are right, but that's okay; we're still looking. Maybe more importantly, we're enjoying the process of looking—of imagining ourselves in a space of our own, connected to a community, exploring the world with a sense of rootedness. It's all an experiment (what isn't), and you know how much I love experiments. This Friday, we'll leave Appleton to return to San Antonio for four or five weeks, so that Dana can finish up a work assignment there. While we're away, our realtor will take us on FaceTime tours of more properties. We might need to fly in for final-final-decisions and walk-throughs and just-in-cases, but aside from that, this is probably going to be a rather modern house-buying enterprise, electronic signatures and all. We're in no hurry, and at the same time, we're eager as anything to establish our Home Base.
2. We're scheming and planning how we'll be the change we wish to see in the world, once we're settled in one place. I'd like to think we're already embodying that change as we tool around the country in the Corolla and interface with hotel staff and gas station attendants, baristas and bar-backs—but if there's one thing I've felt keenly these past two and a half months since the election, it's that we, the big 'we,' not just Dana and I, are much stronger together than apart. As a couple, it feels high time for us to hitch ourselves to a bigger 'together,' one that has its fingers on the pulse of humanity's common denominator (LOVE) and is determined to grow goodness, and only goodness, exponentially.
3. As the effects of misinformation and dishonesty play out on a national level—seriously, I've never been so horrified—I'm witnessing also on a micro level how painful it is for everyone when someone is out of integrity with herself. (There's a story here, but it's not mine to tell. Perhaps you're in a situation that can be improved by what I'm about to say.) Integrity isn't just about morals and ethics and rightness; it's about wholeness and completeness and solidarity. The actions we take from a broken place can never and will never lead to our mending; they will cause more breaking. If love is our bottom line—love of self and love of other—then our integrity tasks us with taking loving actions. Not necessarily feeling loving feelings (after all, that can't be forced), but acting out of love, or loving actively (that's always, ALWAYS a choice we get to make).
Okay, that's my week. Is there anything you're not talking about, but for no good reason? If you want to tell someone, hit 'reply' and tell me. It's a relief to talk about the real things instead of talking around them.
With love,
Helen xx
Q&A
Questions are always welcome here. This particular question comes from an internet friend of mine, Vanessa Herald of A Fierce Practice (she writes a note every damn day; it's beautiful and impressive). Anyway, in yesterday's note, Vanessa asked why any of us write publicly. She mentioned Weekly Findings, including it (and me) in a short list of wonderful women writers, which flattered me but also prompted me to take her question to heart and answer it thoughtfully.
Why do I write publicly? I suppose because the alternative is to write privately and I'm notoriously critical of my private writing self in a way that I'm not when I sit down to write something heartfelt to a friend. Some of my hands-down favorite writing lives inside the emails I've written to my family, friends, and clients over the years. The feeling I get after I hit 'send' on those emails? That's the feeling I want more of and am trying to channel every single Monday when I write to you. If I had to put a name to it, I'd say it's a feeling of connection and co-creation. A feeling of being tuned in. Yes, I'm a life coach, but I'm also an observer and a note-taker and a writer, and I believe in the importance (and responsibility!) of inspiring thought and conversation in the world. I'm sure I have more to say on the subject, but this is a start. Thank you to Vanessa for asking such a good question.
Found
A growing collection of fragments that intrigue me in a way I don't yet understand and can't yet explain
On abstractions: "These people were born here to people who were born here, and they tell themselves that they are different, and that their ancestors' path to this country was different and better than ours. They are not wrong. For the most part, their path was easier. For the most part, their path consisted of getting on a ship and surviving the journey—from England, from Germany, from Ireland, from Italy, from Poland. And if they got here, for the most part, they could stay."
Curios
This morning, before the snow, I spotted this split pickle on the sidewalk and it gave me a much-needed laugh. "Pickles must be the new banana peels!" I said to Dana, delighting in something simple, possibly stupid, but entirely amusing to me at a time when the world's short on amusement. (It's been a tough ten days.)