What IS Blooming In Existence?

It's a way of being in the moment and in your life.

It's getting what you want out of life.

It's not letting life happen to you.

It's being able to say you're happy.

It's showing up in the world in way that you're proud of.

It's: KNOWINGNESS  +  LIFE RITUAL  + ACTON

A Story Is Always Waiting

writing it now

The Way My Brain Works

From: Walker Sculpture Garden
September 25, 2012

My phone had gone dead and I forgot my camera, so I couldn't take pictures.
I was going to leave. I had even gotten into my car and shifted it into drive.
Then I thought, "No. Stay. Take your notebook. Write. Sit in the sunlight. Be slow."
So, I did.

What if I just wrote what I thought?

Yes, I want to take pictures of my tennis shoes in the sunlight because all things look beautiful in the sunlight. No, not all. It's most. I bet death doesn't look good in the sunlight.

Hmmmm. Waiting for things to speak to me.

Look at the small kids in the distance choosing to dance around while surrounded by benches. They're rebels and they don't know it. I want to sit on those benches! Each one of them. And see how the world looks different from each one.

I live the combination of industrial and nature. The combination of them pitted against each other. I wonder if it's the same reason why I like when people force organization and patterns into nature, like rows of trees. Something about the duality. Maybe there's something about the collaboration of order and freedom. Tamed chaos. I don't know. Structure combined with freedom to create beauty?

I see a question box on a post. I wonder if it has pencils in it or if they expect people just to have a writing utensil with them. I want to put a question box in my front yard. I wonder what questions I would get. Would it be filled with foul teenage comments. Maybe I'll put my own questions in it and answer them. Would I feel more obligated to come up with answers if I had to go through that process? If I put up a question box, I should put up one of those micro-libraries on a post too. I love that idea. I wonder if anyone would use it.

There is a couple walking by me. The woman is very pregnant. They're about to be three, three of them. It's strange that they don't know what that will be like. Forever changed. Lives. Bodies. Moments. Love. Freedom. Risk.

I only see one other person. Strange for such a beautiful day and beautiful place. I'm mentally claiming the gardens as mine. It IS.....ALL MINE. Ta da. Now, there is no one here. Haha. It's me and the spoon and the cherry.

I decided to check out those benches. Ohhhh. They're engraved! There  are 28, 7 on each side of the square. I'm going to read each one of them.

#2 "It takes a while before you can step over inert bodies and go ahead with what you were trying to do."..............especially if the inert body is you! I'm sitting on this bench for a while. Is that Freudian?

#6 "There is a period when it is clear that you have gone wrong but you continue. Sometimes there is a luxurious amount of time before anything bad happens." Hmmmmm. Wonder how many people are waiting for something bad to happen. Probably should sit on this one too.

Uhhhh. Who invited you? Didn't you hear the declaration that the gardens were mine? And you're reading the benches very slowly. You're really going to slow me down!

#12 "You should limit the number of times you act against your nature like sleeping with people you hate. It's interesting to test your capabilities for a while but too much will cause damage." Ok, love the first part but that was a surprising twist. Wait, I bet there are more people sleeping with people they hate than I originally thought. Think about all those deteriorating marriages and relationships. Yep, that's not uncommon.

#28 "Some days you wake and immediately start to worry. Nothing in particular is wrong. It's just the suspicion that forces are aligning quietly and there will be trouble." Yeah, everyone needs to stop doing this right now. Make up the opposite.

I wonder why no one reads all of the benches. They come, read a few, leave. What if I laid down on a bench and then people couldn't read it. They'd have to go their whole life wondering what was on it.

That is one fat chipmunk. There's another chipmunk. Are there anymore. Wow. They're fast.

We all teach the world about us even just as we walk by them. I'm going to watch people.

• Your shirt around your waist, flowing in the wind, taking care not to spill your Starbuck, sunglasses on your head. Relaxed, catching up with you mom.
• Khaki pressed shorts, baby blue cardigan, determined focused walk
• Tripod on your shoulder...............  he's stopped in front of me.........here's that story

Alone

I woke up from the anesthesia.

My husband sat in a chair against the wall at the far right end of my bed.

I'm sure my memory isn't 100% accurate but I do remember looking up at him and seeing him shake his head as if speaking some universal language that I should understand. I don't remember exactly what was said, something along the lines of, "They found something they weren't expecting to." or "It didn't go as planned." I just remember that is was all from a distance. 

What? It was just supposed to be a simple procedure. They were just removing a cyst.

The doctor came in and sat on the side of my bed.

"Michele, I'm so sorry and I was not expecting this but we think it was a malignant tumor. The pathologists can't agree, so they've sent specimens to Mayo Clinic to be tested there but we're fairly sure that it's ovarian cancer."

The doctor left.
My husband sat in a chair.

3 Things To Do When You're Trying to Let Someone Go

1. At the end of each day, record whether it was a "thumbs up" or "thumbs down" day. Keep this somewhere so you can see the data. Sometimes, we let moments of goodness persuade us the relationship is getting better but find the same problems cropping up the next day. This can be a high level guide on whether it's really getting better.
2. Tell yourself that you deserve to be happy. Relationships should be your refuge from the outside world; the place you know that you can go to for support and comfort. They require work but they shouldn't be a constant battleground.
3. Tell yourself that your partner deserves to be happy. Don't kid yourself. If you are feeling the disconnection, so are they. Just like you, they deserve someone that cherishes them. Don't waste their time.

DON'T KEEP PROTECTING SOMETHING THAT'S BROKEN.

What are you leaving in hearts?

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."

It might sound odd but I like to go to cemeteries. I feel like they represent the "boiled down" version of a person's life; the recap, the summary, the last whisper of what they were and how others see them. 

.......how others see them. Notice, that phrase isn't in the past tense.

What are we, if not what is left behind in the hearts and minds of those we leave behind?

I believe that it's the ONLY thing we are.
And yet, I believe it's NONE of what we are.
 

Me: You shouldn't care what others think. What others think of you is none of your business. The only reality that exists is the one in your mind.
Me, again: Yes, but part of how I want to show up in life is about how I interact with others, what I am to them. When my mind no longer exists, theirs will carry who I was.

                      Which camp are you in? 

                                                               To care or not to care?

5 Ways to Attack Your Funk That Will Have Immediate Impact

Recently, I've been feeling my world get smaller. Doing less. Interacting less. Exploring less.

This morning, I woke up and noticed the dark shade hanging in my bedroom window to keep the light out and I realized that it had been doing exactly that.....and so had I.

So, I opened it.

It seemed like a simple thing but it felt simply right.

Attack your FUNK!!

1. Let the light in. LITERALLY. Find the light.
2. Go outside. Go for a walk. Look at the sky. Find a bumblebee. Notice the trees sway.
3. Talk to someone else.
4. Listen to someone else.
5. Do SOMETHING different. Drive to work a new way. Go to a new grocery store.

Perfecting the Art of Failing Quickly In 5 Steps

1. Skip the conversation that YOU aren't good.
2. Realize you can't be good at everything.
3. Decide if you want to be better next time. If yes, move to step #4. If no, let it go.
4. Figure out what it will take to be better.
5. Do the things it will take to be better.

Click here to watch a video by Seth Godin. He's an expert on failure.

5 Ways To Start & End Your Days With Your Kids

It starts at home. We need to TEACH our children HOW to BLOOM. Start with saying these simple things. They encompass the foundational principles of blooming: knowingness, life ritual, and action.

Morning 

1. I love you.
2. You will have a fantastic day.
3. What one thing will you get done today?
4. Help whenever you can.
5. Remember to share your smile. It is a gift to the world.

Evening

1. What was the best part of your day? What was the worst?
2. What are thankful for?
3. Did you get it  done?
4. Are you proud of who you were today? 
5. I love you.

It starts at home.

Braking Your Heart So That It Isn't Broken

For the past few days, I've been having an unusual thought: Be safe with your heart. Protect it. The reason I call this unusual is because my normal philosophy is to give my heart away freely. This thought has even made it beyond my brain and ended up as advice to others and I'm doubly confused on how such a life operating philosophy could be coming from my mouth. Have you ever been in a situation where you're trying to protect your heart? It's hard stuff. The heart wants what the heart wants and no amount of reasoning can usually convince it otherwise.

How do you put the brakes on your heart?

Is Your Love Broken? Change the Game You're Playing

When you find yourself spending most of your conversation trying to prove that the person you're supposedly in love with is wrong, you need to give it up.

Are you pleading your case? Offering evidence in an effort to win? Wanting to be right?

Is that the GAME you REALLY want to win? Being right?

REMEMBER, this is the person you supposedly love.

The ONE you couldn't wait to see.

The ONE whose smell was so hypnotic that you would sleep with a piece of their clothing.

The ONE you loved to make smile, whose touch you could get lost in.

The ONE you started missing even before you left.

The ONE who redefined winning because nothing was won without them feeling like they were winning too.

Why don't you take all that energy you're spending on proving that you're right and put it into the GAMES worth winning - all the things you would do if they were still the ONE:

• Being named their #1 fan
• Finding a way to put a smile on their face
• Always knowing how their day is going
• Sharing your biggest victories and your smallest irritations
• Being the safest place for each other, your shelter, your sanctuary

And if you find yourself explaining why it's impossible to play any of these GAMES because you need to win at being right first, the likelihood is that you don't even like them anymore. THAT IS OKAY!!!! Stop holding onto the need to assign blame or be defensive. Let them go. Stop trying to fix it. There's nothing to fix. There is nothing wrong with you. There is nothing wrong with them. You just don't fit together. Like puzzle pieces, when they don't fit together, we don't blame them or think they are broken, we just move on in search of the piece that does fit.

WHAT GAME are you playing?

FLUID LOVE

Sometimes, we don't recognize the moments when we're in them;
Scattered droplets in the sky.
We step away and we see them,
Step back to get them.
But like a flash of the firefly,
I'm finally there but they're gone.
It's too late because we're different - them or me;
But the calm center is there where we were
And where we are

With LOVE all around
And THAT love is captured forever
Recorded in that moment
Even the ones we don't recognize we're in.
It is where we are all the time.

What Will Make You Face the Life You're Living?

Eight years ago, I moved from Cleveland to the Twin Cities. My husband, at that time, stayed behind for three months to close up his private psychology practice and sell our house. I brought our kids and dog to live in temporary housing while I looked for a house. Everything was new to me here. Within a month, I found myself in abdominal surgery to remove what they thought was a huge ovarian cyst only to wake up and be told it was a 7 lb malignant tumor. Ovarian cancer. The surgeon wasn’t equipped or qualified to proceed, so she just removed the tumor/ovary and sewed me back up. It would be three months until I could know how far it had spread and take any next steps. I had to wait for the adhesions to heal.

I remember the first week after the first surgery….not having any idea of what my life would be now. I had been told that most ovarian cancer isn’t diagnosed until a person is in Stage 3 (meaning it had moved outside of the ovaries, beyond the pelvis, into the abdomen). A Stage 3 diagnosis has a prognosis of a 15-20% five year survival rate. So, all the odds said that I probably had an 80% chance of dying within the next five years. I sat there with that “sentence” hanging over my head and was trying to figure out how to weave it into my brain. What should it mean? I just started a brand new job. Should I keep looking for a house? Should I move back to Ohio and try to get my old job back? Were my kids going to be motherless within 5 years?

life isn't happening TO you

There were three gynecological oncologists in the Twin Cities area and I immediately called them. I wanted information and action ASAP. To my horror, their first appointments were at least three months out. I couldn’t wait that long. I needed to know what to do with my life and I needed information to help me figure out a plan. I pressed, told my story and asked if there was ANY possibility of getting in sooner, in the next week. I ended up persuading them to fit me in. And in the next week, I listened to them give me the same advice. Wait 3 months. Get a complete hysterectomy. Do the cancer staging to see how far it has spread and create a plan based on that. 

My husband returned to Ohio. I returned to work and lived the only way I could. Until the data says otherwise, I lived life with what I knew. I would not allow my reality to change yet. I based the plan on the latest information and right then, I could only assume I no longer had cancer. I don’t remember a lot about those 3 months. Being a single parent in a new city with a new job provided me with plenty of things to keep the dark thoughts at a distance. I think I turned my brain off as much as possible. I remember walks with my kids. I remember baths in my condo reading a wonderful book called “The Anatomy of Hope”. I remember standing on the deck with the realtor and talking about what a great yard the house that we were going to buy had. Great for kids, parties. (But would I be there for them?) I remember going to the house closing and wondering whether I should be buying a house. But it was the only thing to do. Life could not stop based on maybes. I kept it at a distance, at bay. I refused to deal with it until there was something certain to deal with. But there were moments that eased their way in, usually with the help of a song, that would wake me to possible realities and the profound sadness associated with them – motherless children being the most difficult one. Lifehouse’s song “Hanging By a Moment” was my song that summer. It was a plea, a promise, an anthem all at the same time. It was my negotiation with life, with the Universe, with cancer, with myself. I just needed this one thing – to not die. Just give me this one thing and I’d make it worth it. I wouldn’t waste it.

So, three months later, as I pulled up to Abbot Northwestern, listening to Cities97, “Hanging By A Moment” began to play – the Universe with its grin – and I walked in not knowing that when I walked out, I would be one of the lucky ones. Stage 1A. The cancer was only inside one ovary – and even though it was 7 lbs, it remained completely encapsulated. No chemo, no radiation. Nothing further to do except watch. 95% survival rate.

wake up

I returned for my follow up appointments and as I glimpsed each time into the eyes of what could have been, I was reminded of my secret negotiations with the Universe. A poke in the side to recognize time was passing and it could be taken away at any time. The Universe wasn’t blinking and it wasn’t going to allow me to hide. So, I had no other choice but to allow cancer to become one of my gifts and slowly face the life I was living.

Or better yet, the life I wasn't living.

5 Short Steps to Achieve FOCUS

Are your days passing and you find that you are busy but you aren't busy doing the right things?

1. Brainstorm for 5 minutes - "What am I trying to accomplish in my life?" WRITE the answers!
2. Circle the 3 most important things.
3. Review the list at the beginning of each day. 
4. Review the list at the end of your day. Did your activities drive the 3 things?
5. Adjust. Repeat.

                                                   

Rhubarb, Pogo Sticks and Pompoms

I REMEMBER:

• The smell of lilacs from the bushes in the backyard
• The simplicity of dirt, water and what they could be
• The afternoons spent with my Barbies on the front porch
• The determination of making the swing go even higher
• The belief that THIS year the rhubarb that I pulled from the ground would be sweet, not bitter
• The stain of green on my hands and the smell of green in the air as I tended to the garden
• The silence of the earth while lying back in a fresh blanket of snow
• The sense of adventure, taking off for the day on my bike - new places to find my independence
• The excitement of slumber parties - the danger of the Ouija board and the endless giggles
• The competition of who could stay under water the longest
• The disappointment of just how boring a pogo stick was
• The nights of potential at the roller rink, pompoms on my skates, comb in my back pocket
• The first and last days of school

What do you remember?

Hi. My name is Evil.

Does evil really exist in the world?

I need to remind myself that evil isn't going to show up with horns and a pointed tail and when I feel like something is wrong, the odds are, it's wrong. Evil is created by people. People are responsible for evil.

Evil isn't going to announce itself. It's going to sneak up on you and plant seeds of doubt. It's going to make you ask yourself if you are crazy. It's going to going to look different to different people. It might even walk up to you and shake your hand. Don't be fooled by the smile, the impression made on others or the parts that are good. Those are just there to confuse you. When you're gut says evil is afoot, evil is afoot.

Are there any Evils in your life that you've been trying to convince yourself aren't? You can stop now.

An Angel Scrubbing My Floor???

Do you ever feel like you're in the presence of an angel? I used to really NOT like the whole idea of angels. Then, over the last few years, I've had encounters with people that have left me after feeling like I was just in the presence of an angel. Yesterday, I had one of them.

It was one of those times where you feel like so many things aligned that you couldn't possible believe that it was a coincidence: 

• I brought a Groupon over a year ago for housecleaning. I was going to use it to get my townhouse cleaned when I moved out.
• I didn't use it.
• It expired.
• I call the company and asked if they would extend it for me.
• They graciously said, "Yes."
• I had to book my appointment 3 months in advance and I promptly forgot about it.
• I got a call yesterday morning to remind me that they were going to clean my house that afternoon.

• I rushed home. A woman arrived.
• I started to talk to her.

Well, we talked for the ENTIRE time she was here. 

• We talked about our daughters and how they frustrate us in the same ways.
• We said the same, atypical words at the same time.
• We shared the same fundamental life perspectives. It was haunting. It brought tears to my eyes.
• She was tattooed with stars and she said one of them stood for existence because she always like that word.
• And so much more.

By the time she left, I only felt that I couldn't let her just walk out of my life. We weren't done. I told her that she couldn't just leave. We were meant to stay in contact. We exchanged information. We hugged.

I smiled when I walked back into the house. An angel was just here.

Don't let the angels walk out of your life.

Don't Be Dumb

I finally got around to straightening my garage yesterday. It had been getting increasingly messy since I moved in 9 months ago. I was tripping over shoes trying to get to my car.

The cleaning took much longer that I had anticipated. Well, I also had a visit from my neighbor's two year old. He had wandered over and hesitantly sat at the end of my driveway watching me clean. I finally enticed him to come closer by pulling out some bubbles, the kind with the big wands. Once I showed him what to do, he was determined to cover me with bubbles and eventually just started dipping the wand into the soap and then tapping it on my head. It was at that point that I suggested that we switch to chalks. I have a big ole box of sidewalk chalk that's actually mine because I love to chalk but he didn't seem too interested in those. I finally pulled out the liquid roll on chalks - it's just like paint. You used a roller brush to paint the surface with chalk. Eventually, it just turned into fingerpainting. We sat there and chalked until he had to go in for a nap and I returned to cleaning my garage.

As I went back to my cleaning, I started thinking, "I don't feel grown up. I wonder if most people feel grown up."


I really enjoy Gretchen Rubin's (author of The Happiness Project) fb page where she asks Happiness Question of her readers and she always gets enthusiastic responses. I started thinking that I would love to hear her reader responses to the question of whether they will ever be grown up.

Then I thought, "Well, I think that I'm just going send an email to Gretchen and propose the question for her readers. It couldn't hurt to ask and would be fun if she responded. I COULD do it........I wonder if most people would give themselves permission to ask her. I wonder if they think that she wouldn't respond to an ordinary person, so they'd abandoned the idea before they even got started.................Ya know, everyone should remember to ask. Just ask for what they want. I'm going to ask her."

I walked inside, found Gretchen's email address on one of the sites and sent her my suggestion.
Forty minutes later, my question was posted on her fb and readers were busily responding and I was happy I asked. And once again, I was reminded that you should always ask for what you want. 

Do you know what you want?
Are you going to ask for it?

Gretchen's info
Here's Gretchen's fb page: http://www.facebook.com/GretchenRubin?ref=ts
She also has a website for her book: http://happiness-project.com/

How To Stumble Upon Yourself

I went bike riding yesterday for the first time in about six years. Besides the fact that my butt is sore, which isn't a surprise, I'm still thinking about a moment that happened. I stumbled upon myself. I was riding and I looked up and there, in my memory was the picture of me sitting alongside the football field. The memory came to me instantly and just as instantly brought tears to my eyes.

I was sitting and waiting for my daughter to finish cheerleading clinic put on by the high school. I was reading "Happy for No Reason" by Marci Shimoff. I had gotten to page 39 of the book where Marci challenges you to do an exercise:

The Exercise
Get out a piece a paper. Create two columns with the headings Expansion and Contraction. Under each column, list things that expand you or contract you. Things expand you if they make you feel more lightness, openness, happier. Things contract you if the make you feel fear, pessimism, low energy.

At that moment, I realized that my marriage would go in the Contraction column.....that choosing to stay in my marriage was choosing something that contracted me. It was choosing unhappiness. Somehow, that exercise simplified what I had complicated. It delivered "new" information to me. So, now I had to decide if it was okay for me to live an unhappy life.

I closed the book at that point. I couldn't go on. I had to give that new, simple fact time to sink into my brain. I certainly didn't know what I was going to make of it once the processing stopped. I didn't open the book again until years later; not until a year after I had moved out and moved on. I was finally ready to process some more.

So, when I stumbled upon me, the tears were to grieve for the person that lived in unhappiness at one time and were to celebrate and acknowledge the person that I have been since.

What CONTRACTS/EXPANDS you? What are you going to do about it?

M

The Top 5 Ways to Piss Me Off

I often think life would be a lot easier if we could give everyone that we interact with a handbook on us. One of my life's goals is to actually be able to know myself well enough that I could write such a handbook. 

Last night, as I repeated, "Go to bed." for the umpteenth time to my kids, I thought, "Wow. Repeating myself sure makes me mad." Then, instead of making my kids go to bed, I asked them to join me in coming up with this list. It will be useful when I get around to writing that handbook.

1. Make me repeat myself.
2. Scold me or stomp on my energy.
3. Be disrepectful (this especially applies to my children).
4. I know this is a dumb one, but drive slow when I'm in a hurry. I'm not a huge speeder but I think it's kind of a rule that you should drive 5 miles over the speed limit.
5. Generally be a downer: whine, complain, blame, be bored.

What would be in your chapter?