Access, Apprenticeship, and Belonging

We have become very concerned with access. Access to institutions, education, information, professions, communities, art, culture, and opportunity.

This concern is not misplaced. For much of history, access was restricted by birth, class, family connections, and geography. Opening doors matters. A society in which only the children of insiders can become insiders is neither fair nor particularly healthy.

But I have been thinking about the limitations of access as a model for belonging.

To have access to something is to be permitted to enter. Access is not ownership. It is not belonging. Access can be generous and genuine, and still leave a barrier intact. There is the institution, and there is the person who has been granted entry into it. The person may be welcomed, supported, even celebrated. Yet there often remains a distinction, a separation, between those who are of the institution and those who have merely been allowed inside.

For much of human history, people learned how to occupy adult roles through apprenticeship. There are obvious reasons we moved away from this model. Many modern professions require years of advanced study and technical knowledge that cannot be transmitted solely through personal mentorship. We are, or aspire to have, a more equitable society than the family-based apprenticeship systems of the past. Most of us would prefer a world in which your father’s occupation does not determine your own.

I am not arguing for a return to the old system. But I do think something was lost when we replaced apprenticeship with access.

The apprenticeship model was a long-term relationship. It was about taking someone with potential and gradually helping them become someone capable of carrying responsibility themselves. The apprentice was given more than information. They were given example, guidance, insider knowledge, and time. They learned through observation, imitation, repetition, and experience. They learned the craft, and were inducted into the community and culture that surrounded it. 

Most importantly, the apprentice entered with the expectation that one day they might inherit responsibility and ownership for the thing itself. There was continuity and lineage built into the relationship, along with guidance, protection, tolerance for mistakes, increasing responsibility, belief, and love.

The humility and hierarchy inherent in apprenticeship are easier to tolerate because they come with belonging. They come with investment. They come with a promise, whether spoken or unspoken, that the apprentice is being prepared for something. Because the purpose of apprenticeship is to create successors. 

Institutions today want to focus on widening the doorway. But institutions are extensive living systems, with cultures, memories, traditions, and forms of knowledge that are transmitted through relationships. Eventually, every institution changes hands. People retire, die, move away, or lose influence. And the question remains of who is being prepared to inherit responsibility and power.

At its best, apprenticeship recognized that every generation has an obligation to prepare the next. It required established members of a community not merely to admit newcomers, but to raise them from novice to successor. Recognizing potential in a particular arena, investing in it, standing by people as they grow and make mistakes, trusting them with increasing responsibility, and eventually stepping aside when they are ready.

We tend to think of inheritance as something that happens after someone dies. Money. Property. A house. A collection of books. But we inherit constantly from the living. We inherit languages, knowledge, membership, professions, recipes, stories, ways of seeing and thinking, responsibilities, and traditions.

When apprenticeship works, inheritance becomes stewardship. Stewardship takes place in life, through living. Through participation in continuity. And belonging, at its deepest level, means having someone believe that you will one day become an elder yourself. It means being cherished, known, guided, protected, and trusted as you grow. 

To Be Seen

I have been reflecting on a particular kind of relational pleasure that we do not talk about very much: the pleasure of being known well enough to be utilized well.

It may sound strange or even off-putting. We are rightly wary of people who use one another. But that is not what I mean. I mean something much more ordinary and, at the same time, much more profound.

If you know me, you know what I like. You know what I am good at. You know what I have spent years learning, what excites me, what I dream about, and what tends to put me into flow. You know what I can contribute and what I long to contribute.

This is different from simply knowing facts about me. It is different from knowing my history, my demographics, or the stories I have told. It is a deeper familiarity based in positive understanding. An attunement. You have a sense of my particular capacities, enthusiasms, and ways of moving through the world. You have a mental map of me. You know what brings me alive.

To love someone is, in part, to develop this kind of knowledge. You come to see their individuality in a positive glow: their particular collection of talents, interests, experiences, desires, and ways of seeing. You remember these things. You make room for them. You create opportunities for them to bring their offerings forth.

Not because you want something from them. But because you recognize that these are places where they are most themselves. You do it for their sake, because you like and love who they are and you want them to have the opportunity to become more fully themselves.

This is the pleasure of being asked for exactly what you have to offer. To be given space to unfurl into your fullness, to move in the way you most enjoy. The people who afforded you that space get to enjoy what you contribute. And you get the pleasure of being your full, expressive Self.

This is very different from people-pleasing. The people-pleaser asks, What can I do so that you will like me?

This is almost the opposite.

You know me well enough to know what I have to offer. You thought of me. Perhaps you even helped bring it out of me.

There is dignity in being useful in this way. And there is pleasure.

Sometimes we become suspicious of dependency, obligation, expectation, even usefulness. But human beings are not generic or interchangeable. Part of belonging to a family, a friendship, a community, or a partnership is becoming known in one’s particularity. Each person has something distinctive and valuable to contribute.

The people who know us well know which questions to bring to us. They know which experiences we would enjoy. They know what we can teach, what we can build, what we notice that others miss. They know where our gifts live. And they give us opportunities to contribute those gifts. In doing so, they give us the chance to become more fully ourselves.

I think many of us may long for the intimacy in being known in this way. There is joy in having one’s particular nature recognized and called forth. Being seen warmly matters deeply. Not simply to be accepted. But to be known well enough that others know what to do with me. To recognize my particular gifts, desires, knowledge, and capacities. To make room for them. To make room for me. To make room for my becoming.

Blood, Sweat, and Tears

Recently Winston Churchill’s famous quote once again came to my attention: “I have nothing to offer but blood, toil, tears, and sweat.”

And I thought: isn’t that true.

That is all I have to offer.

My heart. My mind. My labor. My love and attention. My body. My breath. My energy. My presence.

Isn’t that all any of us really has to offer?

Everything else is simply a form that those things take. Money is labor stored. Gifts are attention made visible. Service is time given away. Care is love embodied. Even our accomplishments are the result of our blood, toil, tears, and sweat.

The self is the only currency we truly possess.

And this forms the basis of relationship. We offer one another of our Selves. And we honor receiving that offering of personhood, of body, of spirit. The intertwining of our Selves, the holding of the other, becomes the bond.

What an extraordinary, beautiful thing that is.

We use one another—not in the cynical sense, but in the sense that life itself is interdependent. We rely on one another. We need one another. We feed off of one another. Sometimes literally like an infant and a mother. Sometimes energetically. We crave one another.

This is not a defect in human behavior. It is one of its fundamental beauties.

At the same time, there is tension and anxiety woven in. Will I be honored, cared for, remembered, protected? Will my gift be recognized as the piece of my Self it is? Will it be received with the reverence it deserves?

To love someone is to allow, even to sacrifice a portion of your own blood, toil, tears, and sweat to another. To receive love is to accept the gift of personhood and life offered to you.

We are braided into one another’s lives through thousands of acts of giving and receiving.

Dependence and attachment are not problems to transcend. They are fundamental to the condition of being human. How very beautiful and marvelous that is. 

Longing

Longing is having a moment.

I conceptualize longing as desire stretched across distance—across time, space, or impossibility. People, today, seem to be resonating with the feeling of reaching toward something absent. Something not here. Something not yet.

I notice that societal emotional waves often get encoded onto romance and sexuality. We feel something collectively and assume its locus is sexual or romantic desire. But what if longing is not really about the object at all?

Longing feels object-oriented. It feels like longing for something—A person. A fantasy. A memory. A future. A god. But I’m not sure the object comes first. Perhaps longing is less I want that and more simply I want. A wanting without a clear object. A reaching before we know what we are reaching for.

And only afterward does the mind go looking for somewhere to place it. Romance often becomes the vessel. But the longing may have existed before the vessel arrived. Which makes me wonder whether what we are missing is not necessarily a romantic “other half,” but something within ourselves. A neglected part of ourselves. Capacity left unused. A form of life we have not yet built. A sense of belonging or meaning we have not yet oriented around.

Or perhaps longing is not about what is missing at all. Perhaps longing is about appetite. About becoming aware of desire itself. Feeling one’s own want.

I also wonder whether longing has been culturally associated with women for this reason. Historically, and in many places still today, women’s appetites have often been constrained, redirected, moralized, or made to serve others. Not only sexual appetite. Appetite broadly. For pleasure. For ambition. For solitude. For food. For autonomy.

When wanting is constrained, perhaps longing is where desire goes. Desire suspended. Not necessarily desire for something. But desire itself seeking expression. The desire to feel one’s own appetite. The desire to exercise desire.

Maybe longing isn’t a problem to solve. Maybe it’s information. A signal. A piece of ourselves.

Maybe when we notice the feeling, we can normalize it. Normalize wanting. Allow space to grow. Step into agency. Care for ourselves in the ways we desire.

If we take longing as information, or as orientation rather than deprivation, longing becomes useful. It becomes something we can listen to.

And it translates into action when we pair it with agency.

What is like to want, to desire, to be hungry?

What am I longing toward? What am I hungry for?

And how do I move myself forward? How do I feed myself?

An Ergonomic Life

We all know about ergonomic workspaces. They involve things like lumbar support, a fancy keyboard, one of those pillow things that goes under your wrists, maybe a standing desk. 

But what an ergonomic workspace really comes down to is this: a set up where you don’t have to strain your body to be able to do the things you want and need to do. 

A workspace within reach.

One where you are not constantly twisting, overextending, bracing, or holding tension just to function. One where your skeletal frame and large muscles support the body the way they are meant to. One that allows both rest and movement. A workspace that physically centers you.

How might this apply to life beyond the desk? 

How can I arrange a life that is within my reach? A life that doesn’t require me to hold my heart or mind in chronic contortion just to participate? Where my own values, goals, and sense of self anchor and drive my actions. A place with community and belonging. A human existence where need is expected and planned for. A life that is safe and supported enough for my body, mind, and heart to let go. 

An ergonomic life is not a life without work. In fact, good ergonomics often allows greater effort, focus, and endurance. It reduces unnecessary strain so energy can be used meaningfully.

A life with space to strive and stretch, along with places to rest.

This is an ergonomic life. A life built around a human being. A life with your human life at the center and as the anchor.

Language

Let’s talk about language.

Language is a construct. One that, in order to be useful, we must collectively agree on so we can understand, communicate, and coordinate with one another.

The idea that concepts and social structures are “constructs” has become a frequent topic of conversation in recent years. Often this word is used dismissively, as though calling something a construct is the same as calling it false or illegitimate. But that’s not true. There is nothing inherently wrong with a construct. Just as there is nothing inherently wrong with rules.

We need constructs. We need rules. Without them, life becomes incoherent, too loose, too uncontained. We lose our footing.

The problem arises when constructs are obscured, rules are unspoken, definitions unstable, and meanings contradictory.

Within the construct of language, certain words are especially prone to confusion. Words such as:

Shame, Anger and Rage, Deserve, Forgiveness, Desire and Pleasure, Gratitude, Jealousy and Envy, Attachment, Loyalty, Karma

These words often carry multiple, conflicting meanings at once. Emotional meanings. Moral meanings. Social meanings. Relational meanings. Their imprecision clouds the concepts, needs, and desires that underlie them.

To be clear, I am not suggesting there is purposeful or malicious intent behind this confusion. But I do believe that we, as groups of humans, unconsciously cultivate confusion in service of maintaining peace, cohesion, and social order. Regardless, semantic fog leads to disempowerment.

The cost is real.

Language is our most fundamental construct. When language becomes convoluted, confusion spreads to all other constructs. When words are left muddy, we can no longer locate ourselves accurately inside our own experience, navigate the world, or make decisions.

Unspoken rules and obscured constructs create confusion. Confusion invites distortion. And distortion shifts us from the functional into the moralizing.

When confusion abounds, we lose agency.

But we don’t have to give into that. We can opt for clarity. And where semantic clarity is not available—where the language we’ve inherited is too loaded or too distorted—we can construct our own.

This is not rebellion. It’s taking responsibility.

Clarity leads to agency.

Agency allows choice.

Choice leads to an ability to construct our lives in a way that is humane and functional.

Trust

What does it mean to trust if we separate trust from the object? Trust can’t be about the object alone. Because the object will for sure eventually fail and not meet expectations. Even our own bodies fail us. I think trust has to also be about the subject who is doing the trusting

I conceptualize the act of trusting as a movement away from anxiety. Maybe it’s like faith. Or maybe it’s about trusting myself to cope with whatever may come.

I always find it confusing when someone tells me that they trust me. I wonder…for what. You trust me to what?

I notice in myself, that the issues for which trust is the biggest deal for me—as the subject of the trust sentence—are the issues for which I have personal childhood anxiety. Trust is about me in acceptance, overcoming that anxiety as much as it is about the human object of that trust.

I suspect that trust is a partner emotion— Trust : Anxious

Just as— Brave : Scared

I can only feel brave when I feel scared. Brave partners with scared to help it. Trust : Anxiety :: Brave : Scared

A helper emotion to help me manage the difficult emotion.

Another possibility for trust is we experience trust when there is a lack of certainty. I have found a lot of comfort in “I don’t know.” There’s so much space and opportunity there. Opportunity to ask and learn and grow.

Maybe then the opposite of trusting would be attempting to control.

Perhaps trust is an active belief in the unknown and acceptance of not knowing, with minimum anxiety. That sort of trust is without attachment or expectation. Maybe with this sort of active trust, there is less disappointment because I realize ahead of time that I don’t know and I am not attempting to control it. I am open to unexpected possibilities.

I trust you.

As in…I allow space in my mind for you to do you. I make no attempt to control or confine you. I don’t know exactly what you will do, and I’m okay with that. In fact, maybe, I’m eager and curious to see what you will do.

Marriage and the Date Night

The reality to long-term partnerships and marriages is that there is a certain amount of obligation. My husband and I are bound in a legal contract. We have important shared commitments to our children, our families, our household finances, and our community.

Two relationships exist simultaneously and in tension with each other within the marriage. A friendship and a co-working relationship. They can be complementary, but they can also be a source of conflict.

It’s so easy, especially after having children, to get caught up in the obligatory aspects of relationship. I call it “The Business of Being the Lerners.” And if we are not careful, the business relationship can dominate our time and interactions. To counter that natural tendency, we have to be mindful to maintain and prioritize our friendship. And I say friendship—not romance—because it is possible, and it does happen, that even the sexual aspect of relationship can become business-like, obligatory. It is the friendship that needs to be protected and honored.

This is why, paradoxically, I am opposed to the date night. To me, the need for a date night implies that we exist in a mostly business relationship. The date night is something set apart as unique, special. I don’t want that. Often, the date night itself can become obligatory, a chore.

I prefer the business meeting. I would rather corral as much of the business aspects of our relationship (budgeting, scheduling, discussion of chores, parenting strategy conversations) into a meeting that is set apart in the calendar. This practice leaves the default relationship one of friendship. One where our default conversations are for connection and comraderie, and our everyday interactions can be that of play.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

On Choosing and Being Chosen

We long to be chosen. To be worthy. To be valuable. But to be chosen, is to be an object. It is a position in which we have given up our own agency. To choose, on the other hand, is to listen to oneself, to hear our own voice of desire, and to speak what we want. A person who chooses has agency and is the subject. Do we always get what we want? No. Might I be disappointed? Maybe. Can I trust my ability to withstand difficult emotion? Yes. Because it is through choosing that I have the opportunity to construct my own life.

On the other side of choosing is discernment. Discernment is not avoidance, though it might appear that way from the outside. Discernment means waiting, asking questions, watching, learning. It is strategic patience because it understands that not all decisions are easily reversible and some wrong matches carry heavy costs. Within that patience is an awareness of what is coherent within me and an intention toward the place I am aiming. It also holds a capacity to tolerate prolonged uncertainty so I can actively make the choices that are healthy and in alignment with my Self.

When I am able to recognize that a relationship is special, meaningful, important, and useful and choose to prioritize and bring that person closer, I am able to have agency in building my relational and community life. Same can be said for a path of study and a career. When I can recognize the joy and ability I feel and the utility of a particular labor and I choose to invest time and effort, I am exercising agency. Without committing to active choosing we are rudderless, at the mercy of the choices of those around us, a side character in other people’s story arc.

The act of choosing takes us from being an object to a subject. Through choosing we are more likely to get what we want. Whether it be a career path, today’s dinner, or a partner. In the process of choosing, we have the opportunity to learn about ourselves. To affirm and adjust our desire, preferences, our ability to love. Sometimes this happens proactively in examining my thoughts and emotions while making a choice. And at times retrospectively, when I realize that I did in fact make a choice, and I wonder why I made that choice. That after the fact curiosity, is so important.

Choosing and considering my choices is an act of standing by my Self, owning my history, and valuing my desires. I must have chosen it for a reason. It must have been important. My choices and my actions are meaningful, and I want to know more about them. Because I’m interested in me. Taking the time to wonder about the choice of a particular boyfriend, or living situation, or diet, or job. I must have done it for a reason, what was that reason… This line of inquiry expands my universe and the realms in which I have agency, opening more and more possibility for me to be me.

Self-Care

I want to say something about self-care. I don’t do self-care. 

I don’t do one random healthy or indulgent thing for myself while living the rest of my life at my limits. I don’t treat myself to a bath or a face mask to compensate for a life structured around depletion. I am not a machine to be optimized, not a resource to be mined. When I live as a human, I don’t need to schedule humanity.

Because I am human too. And I live a regular human life.

A regular human life that takes up all of my time. A regular human life filled with taking care of myself and connecting with my community. A regular human life that is me being me. A regular human life that is me doing me.

Today’s society does not cooperate with us on this. In fact, today’s society actively works against our human nature and human needs. Not all of us have the option or agency to live our human selves. To care for our full human lives.

But it must, at least, be stated.

I have no need for self-care when I remember that I am human and I live a regular human life.

I love you

I’ve been thinking about the phrase “I love you.” People get really hung up on that sentence. People stress about when to say it. Many of us long to hear it. It’s a phrase imbued with so much meaning and import. I recently sentence diagrammed it (remember that from elementary school) and broke it into two parts. “I love” and “love you.”

People often use “love you” as a shorthand for “I love you.” It feels lighter, breezier. But “love you” is not a complete sentence. It lacks a subject. A complete sentence contains a subject and a verb. A subject and verb are all that is needed for a sentence to be complete. “I love” is a complete sentence. “Love you” is not.

When it comes to emotion verbs, we have a tendency to put the emphasis on the object. We put significance on that idea the object is loved, trustworthy, chosen even though the object is in the passive position. In the case of “love you,” we downplay the subject. You are loved…but by who? We cloud that information. We don’t want to own up to the fact that I am the one loving you.

The subject is the one doing the action.

I love. I trust. I choose.

In a way, it almost doesn’t matter who or what the object is. The significance lies in the subject doing this thing—loving, trusting, etc. And what an incredible act that is!

There are so many actions that we are more comfortable claiming. Even when they too are riddled with ambiguity.

I cook. (Certain things well, but not very often.) I run. (In my way, in stops and starts.) I work. (Yep.) I drive. (I’m a good driver.) I swim. (I enjoy it, but only in warm water.) I dance. (I enjoy it so much.) I learn. (I hope that I do.) I think. (I probably spend too much time at it.) I speak. (I like to, though I should probably try to listen more.)

Happy relationships and situations are ones that affirm that I love. Where I can love eagerly and with ease, in spite of occasional challenges. Where generating love is part of my sense of self.

I love can co-exist with respect for my own Self. Loving doesn’t require self-sacrifice. The fact that I love does not mean that I need to be everyone else’s mother. My love can stay alongside the boundaries that protect my ability to be myself in this world.

I love is simply a statement of my action. A recognition of a thing I am capable of doing. An ability in which I feel pride.

Life Happens in Relationship

Life happens in relationship—whether romantic, friendship, family, or community.

Wounded people can heal together. Emotionally immature people can grow up together.

We don’t have to know before we start. We can learn from one another’s histories. Through our curiosity, we can broaden our perspective. By asking questions, we expand our understanding. In quiet listening, we can grow.

We can show up for one another’s struggles. We don’t have to be perfect.

We may hurt someone, and we may be hurt…accidentally, inadvertently, and sometimes even on purpose. But that doesn’t have to stop us from participating.

We are human and flawed. We trip. We fall. We miss the mark. We forget the turn.

We can always circle back. We can always change our mind. We can always try again.

The Child Self

When people refer to their child self. It is not a singular, fixed child. Childhood is an evolution. We have all the ages we have ever been inside of us. We have many different child selves. All those different ages have needs, desires, and wounds. Some ages, some versions of ourselves we find off putting. Some versions we hide and disavow. It is those versions of us that need the most attention.

So how do we begin? Usually, it starts with a feeling…perhaps a bothersome feeling. Sadness, grief, anger, rage, maybe arousal, maybe shame or disdain. Our impulse is to push away that feeling. To rise above it. To be the bigger person.

It’s scary to feel the feeling. It’s upsetting. It’s a distraction from our busy lives. It is potentially damaging to the people around us. That’s why we swallow it. To protect ourselves and others. And sometimes that is the right thing to do. We might not have the budget for a breakdown or even a cry. We may not be in a safe place in life. We might not have the support we need or a soft place to land afterward.

But maybe, maybe it’s okay. Possibly we are in a more secure place in life than we give ourselves credit for. Perhaps we could give the people around us a heads up. Maybe we could simply own the fact that we are sad or angry or sexual or ashamed or judgy. Stand proud beside it, and not shrink from it.

Then what? If I say I’m sad, then what? Well, for most people, that would mean I cry. I cry and cry. And I say, “Oh I’m crying because I’m sad. Because I just realized there is a great sadness within me. Because I’m feeling my four-year-old self and she is sad.” Seems reasonable. People will either understand or they won’t. If they don’t understand, how wonderful for them that they get the opportunity to witness someone claiming and working through a difficult and painful emotion.

An interesting thing happens once all the crying is complete, witnessed, and your young wounded self is received. You stop. You stop and you might notice that you are still sad. What if you embrace the sad? What if you even go so far as to enjoy the sad. What might you do? Don’t worry. We are talking about the pure, earnest sadness of your young self. It’s not the same as a depression. Your young child self doesn’t desire a bender or any other adult metabolism of suppressed childhood emotion. Your child self wants to do something child-like. Maybe child-you wants some quiet time. Maybe you take up a cozy activity or surround yourself with soothing and nurturing people. Maybe you slow down and take care of yourself. Maybe you go to bed on time. Maybe you tell your friends with a laugh “I’m in my sad era” as you serve yourself some mac-n-cheese.

As you indulge your child Self, you may find that she not only holds difficult emotions. Your child self also holds wonder and playfulness. And that is the amazingly beautiful thing. If you can open yourself up to tolerating and even celebrating your young self’s pain, you may very well find yourself taking pleasure in your child-like play.

The Voice in My Head

I am my longest-standing, most present relationship. I am my forever companion. The voice in my head is the voice I hear most often. My self-talk has more impact on me than anything else. I am my closest friend. Unfortunately, for many of us that connection is actually more of a frenemy or maybe just a plain old enemy than a friend. Reforming the relationship I have with myself is my most important task if I am to move forward in a happy, productive life. If I enjoy my own thoughts, if I enjoy my own company, then I am never lonely. I can always entertain, encourage, and brainstorm with myself.

Somewhere around eighteen we move out of our parents’ home. But still a parent remains in our mind. That parent in our mind is not our actual parent. It is referred to as the internalized parent. The internalized parent is a version of my parents and is perhaps woven together with other real and fictional parental figures I have known. This internal parent is the way through which I continue to parent myself for the rest of my life.

Every time the voice in my head speaks to me, I imagine I am saying that to a small child. Many of us would be shocked at how cruel and abusive we can be. In real life, we would never speak to a child that way. Yet, many of us speak abusively to ourselves all the time within our minds. Remember, we are each a child of the moment. Every moment I am facing something new, struggling to learn something I didn’t know, trying to be brave.

My parent-self is speaking to my child-self. How does the loving parent in me speak to a child? Hopefully, I would reach out and hold that child’s hand. I wouldn’t berate her, and neither would I make false promises, lying to shore that child up with untruths about her capacity. I would say something along the lines of “I’m here. I’m next to you. Just try. You can decide how you feel. I’m with you.” Am I always such a perfectly kind parent? No, not at all. But I try. Again and again, I try.

From this vantage point of a loving parent is how I try to connect with and speak to myself. I hold my own hand. I talk to myself as a loving mother. I let myself know that I am always with me and I am on my side. And through that conversation, I create possibility for my existence and my growth.

Reasons

You’re not an idiot.

As an aside--I wondered about using that word...idiot. Perhaps it’s too harsh, too judgmental sounding. But these are the words I hear in my office. These are the words people use inside their heads.

“Am I an idiot?”

“Why am I so stupid?”

You’re not. Everything you do makes sense. Everything you do is for good reason. Sometimes the reason is not obvious. You—individual, unique you, is the product of thousands of years of learning, adaptation, evolution, and practice. This moment is a culmination of your entire life experience and cultural learning. To recognize this is the beginning of trust. The slow realization that there is some reason, I just don’t know it yet. Sometimes the reason is not conscious. Sometimes the reason is historic. When we have empathy, we might continue with curiosity, which may lead to understanding the good reason for what we do. Following this gentle path of open-minded inquiry into ourself, we can gain awareness and conscious purposeful agency in our future process and decision making.

Home

What constitutes home differs profoundly from person to person. For some it is an oasis, some a roving caravan, others a portal, and others a network connecting multiple points. And of course, for many, home is a traditional-type place or person.

The idea of a constellation particularly appeals to me. It’s a network connecting multiple points across vast distances. Not everyone can see it, giving constellations a kind of magic. They point in a direction. And it is always there, even if sometimes you can’t see it. 

Even more, I think of creating a home as making a parachute. Like there’s this huge expanse of cloth. And whenever I find something—a concept, an idea, a person, a place—that resonates, I put a stitch in it. The location of each stitch is a deeply personal decision made under careful consideration that needs no justification beyond the resonance I feel within me. 

Each stitch is placed mindfully and always with love. In my mind’s eye, I see the fabric and feel myself holding the needle and pulling the thread, my love wound in every turn. This way, the strength and security flow both ways. The people, places, and ideas provide me with safety and stability while I imbue each with love and resiliency. 

A long strong rope connects all the spots where I put a stitch. I can hold the rope and I can leap. The fabric becomes a parachute, and I am always safe.

Let me share what might seem both a radical and utterly everyday example. I was a home once. Me. My body. My body was my daughter’s first home, the place where she first lived and grew. Interestingly, I didn’t provide her that home alone. My daughter and I built her abode together.

I gave her a womb. And she made inroads into it. Using hormones, amino acids, and cytokines, she sent signals to direct our shared growth. Together, we collaborated on creating the placenta, both of us contributing cells and blood vessels to facilitate our constant communication. This communication included boundaries—the maternal-fetal barrier—that protected and sustained us through her first home until it was time for her to move. When that time finally came, my womb contracted and her legs pushed.

Whatever your image of home, home is something built together. A home isn’t found. A home is created together through feelings and acts of love and care, through presence and tradition, even including the conflicts and repairs made by the people within it.

The Time to Celebrate is Now

Life will give us hardship. Rents need to be paid. Bodies age. People pass away and we suffer loss. Mouths need to be fed. Exams have to be passed. We need make no effort to find reasons to work hard. Relaxation…on the other hand. Celebration…does not happen unless we make time for it. Without us remembering to take the deep breath. To pause for our shoulders to come down. To take the silence to feel into our expansive hearts. We must set aside the time to bake the cake and light the candles. To gather and sing in celebration for a single person for no other reason but that they are alive on this Earth. To mark a day as holy and make it a holiday. We have to choose to do these things because life will not force us. These acts make our life our own.  

Every season has its own reasons to celebrate. Life events, the turning of the Earth and planets, school accomplishments and conclusions. Even times of hardship like the loss of a job or a medical leave can offer time to recalibrate, rest, and reconnect. Loss can be a chance to come together to remember in celebration and mend wounds.  

People are always reminding us to “put your own oxygen mask on first.” But I think that it’s more than that. Life flows through us. We don’t give to others from a bucket that is different from ourselves. We are not inhaling from some mythical oxygen tank. I think we breathe one another’s breath. That is what air is, is it not? When someone says “my bucket is empty” or “my bucket is overflowing,” she is not actually holding a bucket. She is talking about her own self. To that end, I cannot give you anything but myself. So I have nothing to do, but live my life. Live my joy. And as I do that, you can partake in it. Just as I partake in yours.  

Whether as a quiet secret in one’s mind or as a planned community effort, we can notice and claim each and every moment possible for love, for celebration, for relaxation. This is my moment. This is my life. Breath into it.  

Happy Summer!

I am human too

I am human too. For those of us who have been accustomed to putting the needs of others ahead of ourselves or who were parentified as a child or whose vulnerable self was neglected, we need to remind ourselves that I am human too. I am human, and I have human needs. Normal human-sized needs. Not small needs and not big needs. But regular human-sized needs just like everyone else.  

There is a math problem you probably learned when you were in elementary school. It is the most important math problem of all time, and I want to remind you of it. 

You have 20 M&M’s and 4 friends. How many M&M’s does each person get? 

How many of you answered 5? That’s the trick answer and a wrong answer. The correct answer is 4 M&M’s each because you must remember to count yourself. Twenty divided by 5 is 4 M&M’s per person.

And for those of us who may feel guilty counting ourselves…notice the difference to the group when I count myself and when I don’t. The difference to me is between nothing and 4. The difference to the group is just one.  

We can afford to count me.

Need

I need. By virtue of being alive, I need. Every living creature has needs. The most low maintenance plant has needs. Even bacteria have needs. I am a living human. I need.

Friendship

I believe friendship is the perfect relationship. It is voluntary, and a source of comfort and pleasure. A friendship is the basis of any other type of happy relationship.  

A friendship is the difference between “I love you” and “I like you.” There are so many people we love out of obligation—great aunt Margaret—for example. I don’t actually have a great aunt Margaret, but you know the situation. You love her because you are supposed to, because she is a relative, because it is expected. You love her because of the relationship that binds you. But you may not actually like her.  

“I like you” is special. You bring a smile to my face, and you feel good in my life. I am under no obligation, but when I’m with you I feel pleased, interested, and joyful. “I like you” is the basis of friendship.  

Acceptance is also fundamental to friendship. Because there is no obligation, I have no choice but to accept you. I am not trying to change you. I also accept myself as I am. I am not going to change myself for you. We are who we are, and we are kindred and/or complementary spirits.  

To be in the “friend zone” is the ideal zone. A boyfriend or a girlfriend is simply a type of friend—a romantic friendship. A husband, wife, spouse, or partner simply continues along that trajectory of a friend with romance, sexuality, shared projects and commitments. If any relationship is to be a good one, it is because at its core, and at the end of the day, it is a friendship.  

When we were children, before we started thinking about sexuality, romance, or dating, we thought about friends. We focused on cultivating friend groups, best friends, and playing. Sometimes as adults, we might find ourselves romantically struggling. This is a good time to pause and ask ourselves, how am I doing in my friendships. Do I have real friends? Do I have people I actually like?  

If I don’t, let me consider a rewind. Let me cultivate friendships first. Let me notice who and what I like. Centering myself in my feelings. Not getting caught in the push-pull of anxiety and avoidance or the pressures of social messaging and competition. A simple feeling and thought of “I like you” with no expectation or even movement. Let me also accept myself as I am and celebrate being accepted by others who like and enjoy me as I am. Let me take joy and pure pleasure in being a witness to the people I like—my friends. Let me make a habit out of creating love and experiencing joy.