Rejected

Posted by shannon on May 19, 2012 No comment

 

I love the title of this blog post in a way I likely would not have a few months back.

When I started out trying 40 new things before my 40th birthday, I added “find a writing mentor” on the original to do list. And then almost right away I asked a writer I admire if they could carve the smallest piece of time out of her life to take a look at a few things. Or maybe offer a thought or something. It was very unclear, almost apologetic and truly lacked any assertion or structure.

She said no. In a nice way. She was kind enough for sure. After that I waited awhile before thinking about  this again. You see I grew up in a way that “rejection” was about me. It was about a flaw in me. Or more generally that this was a personal rejection about my being.

I asked another writer, who I admire in a words leaving in her presences sort of way. And she ignored me. No reply. No yes or no, just a simple nothing. This I was able to some how in a twisted sort of way make about her and then turn right about to be about me. Clearly I was not noticeable enough to even warrant a response.

Alongside all of this,  I was challenged by FreePlayLife once again. This time she wanted me to head out in the world and ask for rejection (you can read the post right here). I was all like HELL NO, I will not. I have spent a good chunk of my 39 years building up the sorts of walls and stories that combat rejection before even trying. No way am I gonna open up that door and ask for it on purpose. Which of course is why I had to participate.

I found in doing so there was even an App for my iPhone that would provide me with ways to go on about getting rejected. There was in fact a whole rejection movement. Wow.

On the tails of this I was also taking the VerbTribe Course, I have mentioned in a few other posts. In the class we were invited more then once to make a bold offering. A bold offering, took me back to my very first request for a writing mentor. It was weak. Weak in what it asked for and quiet honestly already rejected.

I have asked a couple of other folks more boldly to be my writing mentor and had more rejection. But now I see it’s not about me. It could be about any number of things in the person life or belief system or the mood in the moment or the stars aligning sideways or the smell of rotting garbage.  My point, endless possibilities.

The value lies in the bold request and the acceptance of the answers. The rewriting of the internal dialogue that attaches my worth to something outside of myself.

So, even though I can’t yet check “find a writing mentor” off my to do list. It is something I did before turning forty. I sought out a writing mentor and was rejected. And it changed my whole opinion about the word and the role it plays in my life.

30 Days

Posted by shannon on May 11, 2012 No comment

Ever since I watched this Ted Talk

I have been wanting to do a 30 days experiment. Pick something and to it. I have started many and failed them just as quickly. With the arrival of April came Hooping.org’s 30 30 challenge and the beginning of my Verb Tribe class.  The hooping challenge was to hoop for 30 minutes for 30 consecutive days. The writing class was 37 days long and had a writing prompt for each of those days. So, not only did I complete one 30 day challenge I did two simultaneously.

Each one brought something different in to my life. The hooping challenge brought fitter abs, a shoulder injury and lots of joy. The sort of joy that can only unfold when you are 100 percent in the middle of something that takes you with in yourself. Within yourself to that place where everything else disappears, in the zone some may say. When I watch my brother sing, I imagine him there. I have seen this in many performers, but the brother examples sticks out cause I also love him like crazy and get right blessed out seeing him disappear to there while also transforming me with his music. Hooping for me is this sort of activity. However, prior to doing the 30 30 challenge I had not gone there often. Without the challenge it was easier to just not do it. To put the activity off. My commitment to complete the challenge is what added the depth of experience to my journey. Now that I know that place truly exists with in my, I wanna pick up the hoop and go there all the time. It’s moved from an fun activity to a spiritual escape. In fact, after one particularly joy filled experience, I wrote this.

 

Sometimes the hoops only job
is to create a safe space to weep.

It’s tough material demanding solid boundaries
it’s inner sanctity firmly held up.

The rotations moving forward and backward
both easing and clearing pathways.

Connecting the physical and spiritual
in to one fluid motion.

With the dominate rotation I flow deeply with in
And with the release I welcome healing.

The spiral takes me to the beginning
and wide out again.

A clarity of sight shining on all
my parts and pieces.

A release that blasts through hurts
and nourishes once again beginnings.

My eyes drop tears while the
hoop mops them away.

Together mind and body form
into an unparting silhouette.

Liberated once again from the
constraints of societal pressure.

Freely dancing as the
only unique me I can possibly be.

 

The other activity, writing every day, now for 38 days, established a habit I have been chasing for more years then I care to mention.  I believe the structure of the course helped as well. I wasn’t staring at a blank page, I had things I could write about. That being said, this morning when I turned to my spiral notebook for the first day on my own, I found the creation of the habit helped the words to flow. The shift, writing with intention has happened. The intention is set and the circumstances can fall to the wayside.

Now I pose a challenge to you .. what could you try doing everyday for a mere 30 days ?

I won’t silently agree with you

Posted by shannon on May 3, 2012 1 comment

This week has given me the opportunity to reflect on the ways we agree by not saying anything at all.

While in circles of folks not on the same living path as I, I have been known to sit quietly as the circle passes around stories of their children. I don’t mean the kind that shed light to how awesome their kids are, I mean the kind that inform me as to how hard it is to be them, with their kids.

I hate this. I hate that we live in a world where it is almost expected that as a mom, I will not like my kids. That they will be hard to raise, that they will go through the horrid teens and it will be awful for me as their mother. Don’t get me wrong I am fully fully aware that this job of poop wiper, snot cleaner, vomit remover has moments that drive me to the whiskey bottle. But the overall big step back look at the people my kids are image, is totally filled with awesome. And I am not interested in sitting around listening to folks who want to blame all the discomfort on their kids.

So this week, I didn’t. Here is a script of what went down.

The other mom1, “Oh we are just commiserating as parents of teenagers.”

Other mom2, “Ya, I have two of them right now. Arghh”

Other mom1 ” Sorry, we aren’t trying to scare you.”

Me, “Oh, I’m not one bit scared. In fact I have been known to prefer the company of children and teens to most adults. They know how to have more fun.”

Other mom1, now launches in to a long story of why her teenager is challenging (her 1 child). To which I reply, “yep, my husband pulls stunts like that all the time. So I’ll be ready for it.”

Other mom1, needs me to see her way. I can’t type it all out but the gist of it is that her son simply will not see himself as a part of the team. He makes decisions based completely on himself, what he wants without thinking of the other team members.

Me, “I think that’s a lot to ask of a child or teenager. Heck, I’m pretty sure that’s all I did right up until I met another human being I adored enough to change my mind for or to team up with.”

At this point Mom1 gracefully exits the conversation.

I am not saying this to paint myself as some got all the answers kick ass mom. I am simply pointing out that by saying something different then those who are complaining about their kids, there is the potential to open doors for new thoughts. Perhaps even a shift in thinking.  Or not. It is also just as likely that Mom1 walked away, disqualifying everything I had to say, coining me as some freak and forgetting the whole thing. But I walked away, knowing I hadn’t agreed with her in my silence.

If I had remained silent and simply listened the conversation would have ended with Mom1 and Mom2 thinking I was on the teenagers suck bandwagon. Instead they knew I wasn’t. What they thought of that is 100 percent their shit.

I also walked away more affirmed in what I believe.  It’s easy to get lost in the group. To listen silently all the while loosing voice, fitting in.  But I don’t wanna fit in to a world that looks at children and teenager as burdens or less then or weaker or troubling or anything other then fully equal human beings.

Silence can be taken to mean, I agree with you. Probing questions, alternative offerings or outright refusals to agree, have the potential to open minds. Or at the very least to let the folks who are listening know I don’t subscribe to that.  And at the end of the day, I’m okay with being the crazy lady who likes kids and spins in her hula hoop. Cause I’d rather be all sorts of crazy then silently spreading nastiness to the very people who showed up in our lives simply asking to be loved just the way they are.

Writing Class

Posted by shannon on April 25, 2012 No comment

On my list of 40 things I had placed “take a writing class”. I have a long time dream of being a writer. It has taken many forms in my 39 years of life. Coming in and out of itself, shifting, turning, adjusting but mostly hiding for fear of being failed upon.

I have read much of what author Patti Digh writes. The two things that have really given me a kick in the pants are a poster she shared that reads Plumbers don’t have plumbers block, do they? Sit down and write. And another that I read, somewhere in her writing and please pardon any miss quoting, it was in response to questions of how to become a writer and her ever so clever response “sit down and write.”

So when I saw Patti offering the Verb Tribe it was like worlds colliding. My desire to write my awe at this amazing woman and the goal to take a writing class. Now as most of the adventures I have set out to go on in these 365 days, I am quite shocked by the learning that is going on.

You see, I had one of those tricky expectations about what it would all be like.  Now a little over half way through, I am flummoxed at what is really going on. It all really became clear to me during one of our conference calls. So much so that I could not wait until the end of the class to share.

The class is brilliantly designed to encourage one to their very own edges, with a gentile invitation to reflect there. No pressure just notice what happens when you get there. It’s powerful to spend time at the very tips of your own comfort zone and notice what you do. To take that noticing and apply it to all areas of your life. Cause I am coming to see writing, hooping, running, relationships, all of those have edges I hit between what is comfort and what is pushing through to new areas of learning or growing . However, my response when there is pretty much cookie cutter 100 percent the same.

The brilliance of knowing this about myself is that I can in Patti’s words notice the structure of the land. I can notice my inner world how it operates how it functions what it serves what it does not serve. I can see it all there in front of me. And if there is a tree in my way I can cut it down. Thank if for the shade of all the years and then move it.

Let me expand. It is one thing to decide to change a behavior. To wake up on Monday declaring this the day to  begin to exercise for all the tomorrows. To apply each and every last bit of will power to the task. Likely, short term that sort of sprinting will work and may get some sort of results. It was not until yesterday steeped in Patti’s wisdom, that I had a huge internal shift.  If I don’t adjust the structure of the land, I can’t shift the behavior.

For me that noticing, that shift, means doing the deeper work. The reflecting work where I can see my patterns, I can see their repetition, I may even dare to go so far as to figure out how they came to exist. From that I can choose. I can choose to shift things around. Or I can choose to notice when I arrive there again.  In the simple act of noticing, I am running from a brand new sort of presence. I am saying, “oh there I am again looking outside of my self for answers. Must be pushing through to a new growth.” Then I have the authority or is it authenticity to decide how to move. Maybe it’s not time yet and I want to stay peeking out at other’s ways or maybe it’s time now to move in to the new arena. To take a flying leap in to the unknown and land on my new and shaky legs.

It’s all still settling in to me. The more I reflect the more I understand.  Half way through the “writing class” already drinking in so much wisdom both from outside and from within.

The story

Posted by shannon on April 19, 2012 2 comments

So here it is. The story I promised to tell on the spot. I pulled out the parts of the story on film, to show it was really just right there.  There are things that make me cringe when i watch it. It’s completely imperfect. Which makes my stomach turn. But I said I would do it, I pushed the edges and so here it it.

 

 

A poem

Posted by shannon on April 17, 2012 No comment

Sometimes the hoops only job
is to create a safe space to weep.

It’s tough material demanding solid boundaries
it’s inner sanctity firmly held up.

The rotations moving forward and backward
both easing and clearing pathways.

Connecting the physical and spiritual
in to one fluid motion.

With the dominate rotation I flow deeply with in
And with the release I welcome healing.

The spiral takes me to the beginning
and wide out again.

A clarity of sight shining on all
my parts and pieces.

A release that blasts through hurts
and nourishes once again beginnings.

My eyes drop tears while the
hoop mops them away.

Together mind and body form
into an unparting silhouette.

Liberated once again from the
constraints of societal pressure.

Freely dancing as the
only unique me I can possibly be.

I love telling Stories

Posted by shannon on April 11, 2012 7 comments

This is a new section of the blog all about Storytelling. The world is full of stories just like our heads. We are constantly telling stories of full and half truths that inform our very existence.  I have always adored picking up a picture book, novel or heck even a magazine and reading it aloud to an audience. In fact when I was a substitute teacher, I would take out the part of the lesson plan that said have the students read aloud and just read it all myself. Of course I let others volunteer to read aloud but for the most part they were happy to sink back in their chairs and listen.

I clearly remember the first spoken story I made up myself. I am not sure why I did it. I was an adult. I had a stuffed penguin and while I lay in bed I told a story of Why Penguins can’t fly. As a teacher in a kindergarten class I was able to tell stories quite regularly.

My first born son loved me to tell him a story, the same one over and over and over again. When my second child was old enough to ask, he wanted a new story every night. The characters could be consistent but the story itself had to be a total original.

This is when I needed a little format for my story to survive. He couldn’t sleep without a new to him story. I was generally fighting to keep my eyes awake while laying in the dark beside him at the end of a long exhausting day.

So here is what I put together. I needed a who, a what and a where. The who was always easy, he loved to the be the star in the story. The what and where were generally as simple as picking a part of his day. Now I could not just tell the story as it had happened that was clearly never exciting enough. So I exaggerated all the details to be big and bold. He was of course capable of things way beyond his imagination. And the bug he found in the backyard was obviously the size of a T-Rex.

That is how I came to tell brand new stories each and every night for years on end.

To merge my Storytelling passion and my 365 days to 40 challenge I am kicking off something new here.  I am going to tell a story. And not one I have rehearsed and prettied up perfect for presentation. I am going to tell a on the spot, random story.

This is where you come in. I need you over the next week to send me Who’s, What’s and Where’s. I will have three containers, to match the who, what and where.  Then one week from today, I will pull one piece from each container and tell the story.  I don’t think I have the tech know how to stream this in any live sort of fashion. I will however record myself pulling out the story pieces and then telling it on the spot and post it here.

Go ahead, spam me with your suggestions.

Standing on my head

Posted by shannon on April 3, 2012 No comment

I did a headstand.

As I shared in an earlier post, I took Aerial Yoga. I loved it. So I went back. It was during the second class that I did my first ever headstand. I didn’t set out to do it at all. In fact I was quite okay with just trying again as I had in the previous class.  However with my year long commitment to yes energy, when my group mate said, “do you want to try it without the block?” I said yes.

Then I did it. I went right up on to my head. It so was nothing like I expected a headstand to be. In fact, I kinda felt like my head was actually off the matt, suspended somewhere. The entire thing is all about arm position and core strength. Oh yes and relying on your spotters.

The afterwards processing once again is where I learned more about what I had just done. You see in order to participate, in the practicing of headstands, I was randomly assigned to a group of three. As that is I didn’t even know the other members of my group. Aside from a smile and name exchange earlier in the class. With in the group one person is in charge of practicing a head stand, another in making sure the swing is removed so the headstander doesn’t break a limb on the way down. The third person is the spotter. The person ready to catch any misdirection of the practicing headstand.

I was putting the trust of my bodies well being in to the hands of a couple of strangers. Relying on them both for help and support. The kind of support that would push me beyond my own belief in my physical abilities. And I did. I just trusted them and jumped right in.

Generally, I’m a pretty stubbornly independent person. I generally avoid asking anyone ever for help. I keep up the appearance of total self reliance. I know why this is. I have seen the pattern time and time again. I have wept over its inefficiency at actually bringing forth what I desire. Yet, the pattern is still prevalent in my life.

But if I had not  trusted in the support offered to me in the yoga studio by total strangers I would reach 40 without doing a head stand. I would have struggled alone. I would have missed the wisdom and suggestions of others.

It might seem like a simple metaphor, if that is the correct word. Yet, it truly was a light bulb moment. A simple energetic shift. To a place of seeing that asking for help, seeking out support truly is a sign of strength. It is not about weakness or deficiency.

See all along I was under the misguided myth that my success was built upon my independence. My ability to do it all. To do it all on my own. But the truth is I can’t. It’s a simply impossible standard to set for myself.

Instead as my headstand taught me strength grows in my willingness to receive support from others. To know my own edges and accept help when pushed to pass through them.

Lean in to the resistance and feel the support. My headstand taught me so.

A repost of a reminder

Posted by shannon on March 28, 2012 No comment

 I wrote this two years ago. It still remains so true. As I travel toward 40 pushing the edges of my growth I am continually reminded that not all the stories I tell myself are true. Not all of the belong to me. And many of them are worth testing and eventually rewriting. 

 

Things I was wrong about

This past week, I have truly been reflecting on things, I thought I knew about myself and my own limitations.

And you know what I was wrong about a few things.

Prior to this move, I would have told you, “I can’t drive in big cities, it’s just too much.” And now I drive on freeways sometimes with 12 lanes. Not only do I drive on them, I navigate, predict my next move and ensure I am in the lane I need to be. Heck, I have even pulled the daring move of a huge acceleration that allows me to narrowly pass a car in order to make a turn I might otherwise miss. Worry not, I always give a wave of thank you, I am after all Canadian.

Six months ago, I would have told you, “I could never live in the US.” Well, here I am living, laughing and enjoying myself in the US. It’s not as scary as I thought it would be, there are some super nice folks here and lots of grand opportunities. I will always be Canadian however, I am making the most of my US adventures.

In the past, I likely would have told you, “I have no sense of direction.” Turns out I have a pretty keen awareness of the space around me and can navigate myself from off the beaten path, back on to the beaten path. Who knew!

For the better part of my life, I have held on to a line, told to me by teacher after teacher after teacher, “she is so shy.” I have told myself this on many an occasion, not as an affirmation, I see now, but perhaps as an excuse. Turns out, in many situations, I am not that shy after all. Sure maybe I have days where I feel shy or nervous, I like to turn that around now and say “I am having an introvert kinda day,” instead of using it as a definition of how or who I am in social settings. I am actually, in some instances, rather extroverted and make new connections with ease .. Huh, interesting new observations.

At the end of my pondering, I came to realize, without saying “Yes” to those things that frighten me, or push the boundaries of my own comfort zone, I would miss out on knowing new things about myself. And it is about time, I stop carrying around others peoples stories about me, and be the author of my own experience.

With privileged skin

Posted by shannon on March 20, 2012 2 comments

I grew up in a town without race. Over the course of my four years in high school there were a total of two students who were not white. In my graduating class there were 120 students one of them was not white. The other not white student graduated years before me.

Race, difference and tolerance were never discussed at school. They were hardly touched on at home. Except for those times when my dad would lament “I’m not prejudice accept when it comes to Indians.” (A side note here, my dad did develop a deep regret for his ignorance of First Nations people in his later years. He expressed remorse and worked for forgiveness (which came easily from others but I don’t think so much from himself) for his prejudice. )

I grew up white. In a white town. With little exposure. Expect for the box in the living room that perpetuated racial myths and stereotypes with ridiculous inaccuracy.

This lack of exposure lead me to grow up rather naive. I actually believed we were all equal. I thought we had made progress. I thought for sure folks were not walking around judging others by their skin color. Cause in my brain this made absolutely no sense what so ever. I really could not wrap my mind around the idea that a persons intent, behavior, level of deviance or criminal intent could all be wrapped up in skin color.

In my naive mind it was like assuming cause someone had an apple they hated oranges. The leap was that hard for my small town mind.

Yet as my word expanded I was more and more shocked. My sheltered world began crumbling piece by piece. The first was with an Uncle who let me know I best buy a house quickly before “the Asians bought them all and made it impossible for me to get what was rightfully mine.”  I was stunned in to silence.  A silence I continued to witness around me whenever there was blatant disregard for the humanity of a race other then ones own. I was confused that such injustices (small or big) were silently being swept under the carpet with such apathy and disregard for the humanity in us all.

In my late twenties I moved to a foreign country. I will never forget the moment I stood in a busy marketplace and noticed I was the only white person around. Throughout my year, I was pointed at. I was cursed at. I was called a name or two.  It was humbling. I was never in danger. And truth be told my white privilege even followed me to this foreign country. My safety was never once jeopardized. In truth more of my interactions were in total fascination at my english and my white skin.

I now again live in a foreign to me country. The state I live in is by far the most colorful culture rich place I have lived. My boys hear a wide range of different languages and encounter a rainbow of skin colors. But with that has come the noticing as well that all is far from equal around us.  Along with the division of race, I see a stark division of class lines. Lines not visible to the eye but clearly noticeable to the heart, outline my every outing.

I mostly feel overwhelmed with confusion. I mostly feel small to issues bigger then my single self. Yet, as the case of Trayvon Martin spreads throughout my Facebook feed I am stunned out of any sort of silence. Friends I barely know such as Erika Davis – Pitre beg of me to examine once again what it means to be human. What it means to share humanity with others.  This was the beginning :

Thank you everyone for your thoughtful responses here about the Trayvon Martin case.
I just spent most of the night thinking about this case and wondering what I could do to help raise awareness of what I see as a serious problem across the nation, the assumed criminality of black males.
Granted, it doesn’t always end in physical death or physical incarceration but it does leave many of us in the black community in a psychological prison of self doubt, anxiety and I feel that it leads to a kind of spiritual death of personal freedom.
So you will have to forgive my impatience with my continual need to explain to folks who don’t have to think about this situation often, of how it feels to be Black in America.
It may not be as bad as it was 60 years ago but it is still bad.
Bad enough for a teenaged boy to wind up shot to death because he looked like a “criminal” and because it appears that he did what I taught my own children to do if they were confronted by a stranger that was following them: run, scream and fight like hell!
And to those of you that question the racial aspect of this story, I have a couple of questions for you:
What have you taught your own kids to do if they are being followed by a stranger?
What would have to happen for you to believe that this incident happened because Trayvon Martin was a black teenager at the “wrong” place at the “wrong” time?
What would acknowledging this as a racist incident do? Why the denial of that?
I really want to understand this.
I hope that you will answer my questions.
And please keep this story on your wall! Many things are happening in this case because of all of the media attention! -Erika Davis-Pitre

She asked me some hard questions and I don’t know that my answers are any where near complete yet. And then Jeff Sabo added his voice to it all with The White Man’s Burden, a deeply moving piece. Then Flo Glascon asked me so many more meaningful questions with her piece Shoot First, Apologize Later?

It is clear the issues this small town girl thought were long gone still fill large pieces of our world. It is clear there are many more questions to be asked more conversation to be had. What is clearest of it all though is that stunned silence and carpet sweeping apathy are not options. This is our shared humanity as living beings. This is not okay to ignore. It is not enough to hide with in feelings of smallness. One question, one answer, one conversation, one human being to another. It’s time to make real the feeling, the knowing that it is simply ridiculous to judge a person by their skin, race, gender, their sexual preference or any thing other then their shared humanity.

I beg of you to unfold your own knowledge and carefully examine it for the leaks that keep you silent. Ask yourself the questions Erika and Flo ask. Ask your neighbors. Talk to the store clerk. Only once we see through the sorts of eyes that only witness are shared humanity will the whole world be as safe of those of us born in to this privileged white skin.