Here are nine old and new snippets of wisdom that spoke to me at some point in 2024. And a bonus at the end…
“Leadership is no longer part of a job description: something anointed on the chosen few. Leadership is a role to be adopted when needed, and then passed on when the need has gone. It’s a dynamic thing, moving around the organisation, reshaping the organisation as it passes from individual to individual, team to team.”
— “Is your organisation irrelevant?”, Peter Evans-Greenwood, 2012
“Everything that needs to be said has already been said. But since no one was listening, everything must be said again.”
– Andre Gide, Treatise on Narcissus [Le Traité du Narcisse] (1891)
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, a very loose English paraphrase of his French poem Dessine-moi un bateau, or Make Me a Boat, found in Citadelle, 1948
“The person you are just about to become is a stranger to you.”
— David Whyte via Viv McWaters, 2016
“Covering content does not lead to knowledge retention, understanding of information or how to apply it. It actually serves as a barrier to learning. It is only when attendees become participants with the content and use it, even if just in discussions, that the knowledge is retained and understanding happens.”
— “Is Your Conference Guilty Of Content Bulimia?”, Jeff Hurt, 2013
“Humans and stories need each other. We tell them, but they tell us too–reaching with soft hands and wide arms to pull us into their embrace. They do this especially when we have become mired in lives of which we can make no sense. We all need a path, and stories can sometimes usher us back to it.”
— Michael Marshall Smith, Hannah Green and Her Unfeasibly Mundane Existence, 2017
“The deepest human need is the need to be appreciated.”
— Attributed to William James, 1800s
Aging has brought gifts though. As my professional life slows, I have more time to consciously maintain my body and my relationships. The upside of a worsening short-term memory is that it’s easier to live in the moment!
I’m more aware than ever that I will not live forever.
This awareness brings, at times, some measure of equanimity.
The act of maintenance is inherently paradoxical—it is a fight against entropy, a refusal to let things fall apart. Maintenance implies that we can somehow maintain what we had at an earlier age. This of course is not how it works. Eventually, I will die and maintenance—along with everything else that occupies my attention—will no longer be a problem.
Until then, I will work diligently on maintenance, keeping my life the best it can realistically be.
Throughout my professional life, I have been fortunate to receive invaluable advice, support, and encouragement from mentors at critical times. Most importantly, when I hesitantly approached someone I deeply respected and asked them whether something I was planning—often, something I had never done before, or something no one had ever done before—was a good idea.
To my surprise, my mentors invariably reacted with great enthusiasm and encouragement. “That sounds like a wonderful idea—you should do it!” they would say, often offering suggestions and valuable advice.
I felt so supported.
Without their encouragement, I would have felt uneasy about pursuing my risky new plans. I might even have given up.
Thanks to my mentors, I:
Set my professional fees at the right level when I began consulting in 1982.
Forged ahead and wrote what eventually became a series of three books on conference design.
Found the courage to share my weekly musings on a wide variety of topics publicly via my blog.
Consequently became a valued resource on meeting design and facilitation for thousands of people and organizations.
Mentorship and the mentee
Mentorship is often depicted as a formal process with a mentor regularly meeting with a mentee. However, I have a more flexible definition. Powerful mentorship can happen in a single short session, sharing insights and encouragement at a critical moment that supports the mentee’s life—sometimes in ways the mentor may never know, and that the mentee may only recognize years later.
Mentors also benefit from working with mentees. I feel good when I’m seen as a mentor and appreciated for my guidance and advice. And I often learn from mentees too!
As a result, I have been paying it forward as a mentor of various kinds for some time now, giving back what was so generously offered to me when I needed it.
How I pay it forward
Professionally, I offer free guest appearances during meeting industry college programs, allowing students to experience participant-driven and participation-rich session formats. I answer questions about the industry and encourage students to continue to work out what they truly love to do, supporting them along the way.
Given my years of independent consulting and running a business, decades of serving on nonprofit boards, and a deep background in technology, people come to me for advice on their lives, careers, and top-of-the-mind problems. Online communities of practice are great places to connect with people with unmet wants and needs.
I try to help these people to the best of my ability. I love this work. Just like my mentors did.
Paying it forward is at the heart of community. It is one of the keys to facilitating connection, my ikigai.
If you haven’t already, I encourage you to adopt the practice of paying it forward in your life. I think you will find, as I have, that it pays rich dividends.
Trust matters more than ever to me. In a world that is complex and often overwhelming, building trusted relationships has become essential. As I reflect on my various connections—from intimate and life-changing relationships to countless daily interactions—I realize that trust is the cornerstone of my well-being. It’s little wonder that I have moved to valuing trust more and more over time.
It wasn’t always this way. In my youth, when I had plenty of energy and finances were tight, I often based my choice of professional relationships—whether buying products or services—on financial considerations alone. Most of the time, this strategy worked out fine. But occasionally, it led to unpleasant surprises.
I dealt with large organizations that turned out to be less than forthright. Their polished advertising and marketing were seductive, but the fine print, if it existed, often hid unpleasant surprises. The price of choosing based on cost alone was increased vigilance and stress. When things went wrong, I was left to navigate misunderstandings and unmet expectations.
Finding those I can trust
In contrast, my experiences with individuals and small companies were significantly better. These smaller entities usually understood the value of delivering on their promises. They knew that failing to do so would jeopardize future work. When things didn’t go according to plan, they were willing to discuss the issue and find a fair resolution. In short, they did what was necessary to make things right.
Over the years, I built up a network of people I could trust. My website developer, who can handle the infrequent but knotty problems I can’t resolve, despite my IT background. The garage owner who reliably fixes our cars. The guy who picks up our trash. The small local company that plows our gravel driveway, fixes it when heavy rain washes it out, and mows the lawn.
It’s not that price is no longer a consideration for me. I still look for value and buy commodity products as inexpensively as possible. However, I continue to support local sellers of food, services, and hardware, even though they may not be the cheapest places to shop.
This resonates deeply with me. Trust isn’t something that can be easily regained once it’s lost.
I’ve also learned a couple of things about hiring experts. The key to choosing the best professional help often lies in their honesty. When an expert, like a business colleague or a doctor, can admit, “I don’t know,” it’s a sign of reliability and integrity. This humility is a cornerstone of trust.
Trust, I’ve learned, isn’t uniform across all areas of expertise. For instance, as I get older, my memory becomes less reliable, and I’m more likely to share opinions or recollections that aren’t entirely accurate. Recognizing and communicating the limits of one’s knowledge and expertise is crucial in maintaining trust.
The level of trust can change over time. Take Twitter, for example. My trust in the platform shifted dramatically after the Elon Musk [“Civil war is inevitable”] acquisition. Changes in ownership, rules, and organizational culture influence the trustworthiness of any product or service.
Social media, in general, presents a complex landscape for trust. Its trustworthiness is influenced by its structure, rules, level of moderation, and ownership culture. While disagreements about facts are inevitable, the degree to which these disagreements occur, and how much we can trust what people post depends significantly on these factors.
And consider the trust infants place in their parents or caregivers. This unequivocal trust can lead to either healthy or unhealthy development. As adults, blindly trusting others is seldom a recipe for a healthy life. It’s essential to build trust based on experience, reliability, and integrity.
In conclusion, trust is a precious and fragile commodity. Trust matters! As I navigate life, I’ve come to value trusted relationships more than ever, understanding that they are essential for a fulfilling and less stressful existence.
Recently, I’ve been practicing what Susan Pollak calls “letting go of whatever isn’t serving you right now”. Perhaps your first thought is “That sounds nice”, quickly followed by a second thought along the lines of “Huh, easy to say, hard to do. OK, Adrian, how can I let go in this chaotic world?”
I’ve no guarantees, but here are nine suggestions that almost always work for me.
1 — Notice what’s going on
Yes, we need to shut up and listen to what people say. And we need to notice what they do. But what is often harder is to listen to and notice ourselves. To notice:
How what we’re thinking and feeling is affecting what we’re doing.
A simple personal example is noticing I feel angry about a small irritation, like accidentally dropping something I’m holding. When I’m centered, an incident like that is no big deal. But when I respond with an expletive, that’s a sign something else is going on. I’m likely carrying some anger that has nothing to do with my fumble.
Without noticing what’s going on with ourselves, we’re unlikely to be capable of letting go of anything that isn’t serving us well.
2 — Meditate regularly
Regular meditation is the key to giving me practice and supporting my need/want/desire to let go of what isn’t serving me in the moment. Though I struggled to meditate daily for many years, I’ve finally developed a daily meditation practice that serves me well. I also try to meditate when I notice incongruence in my responses to experiences (see above).
3 — “Nothing to get. Nothing to get rid of.”
While meditating, thoughts and (sometimes) feelings appear. When this happens, reminding myself that there’s “Nothing to get. Nothing to get rid of.” calms me and helps me empty my mind.
4 — “Is it necessary?”
The question “Is it necessary?” is a useful tool to examine a disturbing thought that captures your attention.
Do I need to be thinking this thought right now 😀?
Usually, the answer is “no”!
5 — Remember who you are
I have a contract with myself, that I developed in 2005. Sometimes, I notice I’m circling through thoughts and feelings about a fantasized future unrelated to the current moment. I remind myself of my contract — who I really am — by mentally repeating it to myself. This helps me center and stop clinging to unhealthy and unproductive thoughts and feelings.
6 — Greeting what comes up with compassion
You can’t force letting go. Instead, you can accept the reality of what is happening. One way to do this is to greet what comes up with compassion. Compassion is a form of acceptance that can allow persistent thoughts and feelings to lose their force.
6 — “Let John be John.”
Sometimes you find yourself worried, upset, angry, etc. due to a specific person’s actions that affect you. A helpful way to get some distance and relief from these feelings and associated thoughts is to accept that they are the way they are. Saying to yourself “Let John be John” (substitute their name for “John” 😀) acknowledges that:
They are not you.
How they interact with you is always about them, and, often, not about you.
You accept their reality without it necessarily affecting yours.
7 — Use music
Music has the strange power to change our emotional state. I don’t know of a better way to move away from persistent distracting thoughts and feelings than by listening (and sometimes dancing) to music that I love.
8 — Other concepts that may help you.
I’m using imperfect words to convey helpful approaches to letting go. Here are some other words and phrases that may strike a chord for you:
Acceptance
Loosening
Surrendering
Releasing
Noticing the burden
Clinging is suffering; letting go ends suffering
Letting go is a form of love.
Letting go is an ongoing practice and process
Letting things be as they are
9 — Finally, be kind to yourself!
We are all imperfect realizations of our perfection. I fail at all the above over and over again. When the renowned cellist Pablo Casals was asked why, at 81, he continued to practice four or five hours a day he answered: “Because I think I am making progress.” So, be kind to yourself!
What practical tips do you have to help you let go in this chaotic world? Please share in the comments below!
If you saw the solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, you surely felt an experience of awe. Even if you weren’t in the path of totality—at my home we were at 96%—it was an awesome experience.
The author (on the right) and others enjoying a near-total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024
The eclipse could hardly be called unexpected; it had been predicted for hundreds of years. During the weeks before the event, a storm of media attention made it virtually impossible for anyone in its path to be unaware of this awesome event.
So let’s remember, that for every expected experience of awe, there are countless opportunities for unexpected experiences of awe.
If we are open to them.
An unexpected experience of awe on an airplane flight
I was flying home from a conference in Phoenix when I had an experience of awe. No, I didn’t see a breathtaking sunset, the moon’s shadow racing across the earth as an eclipse began, The Grand Canyon, or the dazzling lights of a great city.
Instead, something amazing happened on my seat tray.
November 11, 2005, flying home from a Phoenix conference
The flight attendant didn’t hand me the cup of ice water but put it directly on my tray. As it left her fingers it slid smoothly across the slate blue surface, towards my lap. Simultaneously puzzled and anxious, I reacted instinctively, grabbing the cup an inch from the tray edge. A spill averted, I let go for a fraction of a second, and the cup started to slide again. Fascinated, I flicked the cup lightly with my fingers and found I could control its glide with the lightest of touch.
For a minute I played with my cup as a child, delighted by a mystery I did not understand.
Mystery and play!
Then a moment came when my inner scientist moved into consciousness and asked: “What is going on?”
I lifted the cup, and the mystery collapsed into understanding.
Under the base was stuck a tiny chip of ice.
I put the cup back down on the tray and played some more. But within twenty seconds the ice melted and the cup became ordinary, unmoving. My pants were safe from a spill, but the world had shrunk back to the normal, expected.
But for a minute, my fragile worldview that there are reasons why things happen, even if we don’t know what they are, disappeared. I played in a space of suspended belief.
I had an unexpected experience of awe.
And a tiny slice of wonder made my life a little richer.
Be open to unexpected experiences of awe!
I love moments like this. Have they happened to you? Share them in the comments below!
I am not a psychologist or neuropsychologist. However, I have spent thousands of hours as an amateur, supervised by therapists, leading small group workshop explorations of individuals’ struggles to make sense of their lives. And I’ve learned that confusion about thinking and feeling is common.
Especially for men.
As I wrote in 2010:
“…when I was growing up my education emphasized thinking…However, the educational agenda allocated no time for understanding or expressing my feelings…All of us in school had feelings, of course, and they greatly affected how and what we did. But no one encouraged us to talk about or explore them…Over the years I’ve learned to be more in touch with my emotions.”
Here are my personal experiences and observations. Yours may be different.
Thoughts, emotions, and feelings
Our brains provide physiological experiences that we typically label as thoughts and emotions. Experiments show that thoughts and emotions originate in different places in our brains. Feelings are our conscious awareness of our emotions. Both thoughts and feelings give us information about the world.
Both thinking and feeling are critical activities that affect our behavior.
Most of us are aware that we’re thinking most of the time. What we’re often less good at is noticing how we’re feeling.
For example, during conversations we process what we’re hearing from others. We spend time thinking about how to respond. The feelings that arise when having more than a superficial conversation aren’t so obvious.
Noticing and talking about feelings
Most people are good at noticing facial and body language that telegraphs emotions. However, such observations may be largely unconscious. But even when we sense how someone may be feeling, we frequently don’t talk about their perceived emotional state.
Often, there are valid reasons for avoiding talking about feelings. Doing so may take a conversation to a level of intimacy that requires more time to explore than is available, or might be inappropriate under the circumstances. (Though, for example, telling a stranger that you’re sorry they seem to be having a hard day can be a small but highly positive action.)
These days, when I notice an emotional response during a conversation and it feels like an appropriate thing to do, I say something like:
And that’s when I often hear confusion about thinking and feeling.
Q: “How do you feel about that?” A: “I think…”
I lost count long ago of the number of times I’ve asked someone:
“How do you feel about that?”
And they responded:
“I think…”
The responder continues by analyzing the situation that evoked the feeling, completely sidestepping my request to name how they’re feeling. Even repeating my question—sometimes more than once—continues to evoke an “I think…” response.
In my experience, men are far more likely to respond this way than women. This may surprise you if you’re not a white, England-born, baby boomer like me, but until I was in my 20s I don’t remember anyone ever asking me how I felt! The thousands of words available to describe our feelings were rarely spoken to me or by me. I was given little to no opportunities or role models to introspect about how I felt, even though, like almost all human beings I’ve always been awash in emotions.
Consequently, I didn’t start asking “How do you feel about that?” until my 50s.
Given such socialization, is it any wonder that some people are confused about thinking and feeling?
Negative(?) feelings
I was sparked to write this post by a discussion topic offered for one of my men’s group meetings. (Yes, we’re all old white guys.)
‘Let’s take a look at our personal negative feelings. How do you experience negative feelings? Do you slide into depression? Do you feel “blah” and lose interest and energy to move forward? Do you retreat and “escape” from negativity? How are you able to recover from negative thoughts and spaces? Do you have a “recovery plan” that can lift you out of negativity?’
The phrase “negative feelings” immediately caught my attention. The phrase implies that some feelings, some emotional states, are negative. During the two meetings we discussed this formulation I said that feelings aren’t “negative”, because they are appropriate responses to experiences. For example, feeling sadness is appropriate when bad things happen, feeling anger is appropriate when injustice occurs, and feeling shame is appropriate when you do something you know or believe is wrong.
For me, using “negative” to describe certain feelings is a way to relegate them to “bad” or “avoid this” experiences. This allows us to excuse ourselves from exploring them. It can prevent us from fully accepting them as an important component of our lives.
The other members of my men’s group did not seem to be convinced by this point of view. They talked mainly about ways to escape or move on from negative feelings. While I, too, make choices that are likely to change how I’m feeling—listening to music I love is a favorite—I try to notice how I’m feeling, sit with it, and perhaps, explore what I can learn from how I’m feeling.
Historical and current perspectives on the importance of thinking and feeling
His contemporary, the philosopher Baruch Spinoza, popularized in this century by the neuroscientist António Damásio, challenged Descartes’ view, persuasively emphasizing the perspective of “I feel, therefore I am.”
Perhaps a better formulation is, “I think and feel, therefore I am.”
The other day, one of my meditation teachers ended her daily session with the words:
“May all beings find peace in their hearts.” “May all beings find wisdom wherever it may be found.” Helen Narayan Liebenson
I interpret this as a desire to find peace—a feeling state—and wisdom through our thinking and feeling.
What are your experiences of thinking and feeling?
Were you socialized to ignore or minimize experiencing your feelings?
Do you find that women are more likely to be aware of and talk about their feelings?
What are your experiences? I would love to hear perspectives (especially from women). Please share your thoughts and feelings in the comments below!
After a four-year gap due to the COVID pandemic, we eagerly returned to Anguilla for a two-week vacation. We love this tiny Caribbean island and have taken a welcome break from Vermont winter for fifteen years. I have written many posts about lessons from Anguilla gleaned during our visits, and this trip uncovered more.
The trip
For the first time in many years, Celia and I stayed in Anguilla without company. In the past, family members, and Celia’s women friends would join us for a week. But flights were so expensive that we couldn’t afford to bring family, and Celia’s friends couldn’t come for various reasons. The villa where we’d stayed previously was up for sale, so we looked for another place to stay.
We love the East End of the island and found a wonderful Airbnb in Island Harbor. Right on the northern coast, it featured two decks overlooking the North Atlantic, without a speck of land between us and Nova Scotia, 3,000 miles away.
Here’s the view from the large deck outside our apartment.
And here’s the view from the lower deck.
The same deck with the author’s feet included
We loved our new accommodations (read below for more reasons) and hope to return there next year.
So, what lessons from Anguilla did I learn on this trip?
Lesson 1—Don’t make assumptions
The third agreement of Don Miguel Ruiz’s classic book “The Four Agreements” is
Don’t make assumptions.
I’ve spent so much time in Anguilla that, understandably, I make assumptions about what a new visit will be like.
I think I’m a little wiser about making assumptions these days. One thing I now know is to not assume that something I’ve experienced in the past under certain circumstances is likely to occur when those circumstances are repeated. Great initial experiences may not be so good the next time.
For example, on our Anguilla vacation, a memorable restaurant could go out of business or somehow lose its allure. Perhaps, a perfect beach is now covered with seaweed. The Nurse Boy Carwash and Thick Madam clothing store are no more. The perfect bartender who knew your names and made the best rum punches left for better pastures.
The day we arrived offered a good example. We’d had some charmingly idiosyncratic meals and good times at a little shack, Lime Keel House, that was within walking distance of our new island home.
The former Lime Keel House
But when I passed it on my morning walk, it was clear that the restaurant was closed. A woman working inside the building told us they were renovating it into a tourist store.
Well, since it had been four years since we’d last been on the island, I assumed that some things that we had loved would be gone. Smart, huh!
Don’t make assumptions!
Over the next two weeks, we found that the vast majority of places and experiences were just as wonderful as we remembered!
Goats still roamed everywhere!
Our favorite restaurants were still around and just as good as ever!
Dining at Blanchards RestaurantBlanchards Beach ShackWhat do you want to eat?! The menu and serving windows at Blanchards Beach ShackSmall plates at the Sandbar restaurantSmall plates at the Sandbar restaurantThe view from the Sandbar Restaurant in Sandy Ground, Anguilla
Once again, the sunsets did not disappoint.
And the beaches were just as gorgeous as we remembered.
Celia in the ocean
OK, the Nurse Boy Carwash and Thick Madam clothing store were, sadly, no more.
But they were pleasant memories, nothing we needed to experience again.
And Ruthy’s Yum-Yum and Fruity Web were still thriving!
Photograph of Ruthy’s Yum-Yum courtesy of anguilla-beaches.com
Lessons from Anguilla: I learned that sometimes the present can turn out to be quite like the enjoyable past.
Lesson 2—Stay open to new possibilities!
We’ve been visiting Anguilla for the last twenty years, so we’re pretty familiar with the island. With an area of just 35 square miles, 16 miles from end to end, and 3.5 miles at its widest, it’s eminently explorable. Over the years, I think we’ve walked or driven down every rocky road. So it was easy for me to assume that there wouldn’t be any major surprises on this trip.
Yeah, I know.
Don’t make assumptions!
The world outside the vacation
Just because you’re on vacation doesn’t mean the outside world can’t come crashing in. We got some unexpected upsetting family news early during our stay. There was not much we could do about it, and we were able to (mostly) let it go. But this was a reminder that vacations aren’t a sealed hermetic pleasure bubble that nothing can penetrate.
Hermit crabs
OK, we were not expecting this. As we walked down the concrete path into our new home, we saw a lot of these guys moving out of our way… They’re called hermit crabs, and we’d seen them before on the island. What was different, we soon realized, was the sheer quantity of these creatures that lived around the building compared to our previous sightings. There were hundreds, perhaps thousands of them. (Later, a local friend told us that island fishermen used to come to the area where we were staying and use the crabs as bait for their lobster traps.)
We quickly became attached to these odd creatures. They move around surrounded by a shell they’ve found that fits their bodies. When they sense potentially dangerous circumstances, like us, they either scurry away from the open or withdraw into their shell. As we walked on the path we could hear the clink of their shells hitting the concrete as they moved or retreated. When the path wasn’t level, their retreat often turned them into a shell ball that rolled entertainingly down the path.
Hermit crabs are omnivores that feed voraciously on anything available. After watching them for a few days, we put out a piece of melon rind and made a 30-second time-lapse video of what happened when we retreated for fifteen minutes. The crabs leave at the end when we approach to retrieve the camera.
Enjoy!
Unexpected weather
We have always visited Anguilla at some time between February – April. The weather is generally delightful. Rain is light and occurs for short periods and rainbows abound. Hurricane season occurs during the fall, so we’ve never experienced bad weather on the island.
Until this trip.
Midway during our stay we experienced two days of torrential rain. All the boat ferries between Anguilla and St Martin had to stop running (which hardly ever happens) and the island was cut off from the outside world except by air.
That was OK; we could stay outside on our large deck, watch the ocean, and stay dry. But when we went out to dinner, it was a different story. Night had fallen, and driving the length of the island turned into a very scary experience. Visibility was so poor it was almost impossible to anticipate the frequent expanses of water of unknown depth that would suddenly appear around a corner. We are used to driving on winding Vermont roads in icy conditions, but our 45-minute drive to dinner and our return were perhaps the most challenging driving we’ve ever done.
But we made it to dinner and back home safely. The trips became a memorable experience, and we gained a new respect for what it’s like for Anguillians when they live through hurricane season each fall.
Unexpected experiences
Yes, Anguilla is a tropical island so there are coconut trees. While relaxing on Shoal Bay East beach one day, this guy ran up the tree right next to me… …and chopped down a coconut.
He wanted a drink.
Two spots for meditation
This was a small unexpected treat, but regular readers of this blog know that I meditate daily. I can do it anywhere, but it’s nice to be in a supportive and beautiful environment. Imagine our delight when we found our apartment had a little meditation deck (not included in the listing), clearly made with us in mind.
Our lower deck (pictured at the start of this post), surrounded by the ocean and enveloped in the sound of breaking waves, turned out to be a wonderful place to meditate too!
Lessons from Anguilla: I learned that, even though you’re very familiar with a place you love, I can still discover new things there.
Lesson 3—Sometimes things unexpectedly improve
We’ve seen Anguilla beaches change so much between our trips. When we first visited Shoal Bay East Beach, the east end of it featured Gwen’s Reggae Bar and a small resort called Serenity. The beach in front of these properties was beautiful, and our former landlady and many tourists and locals danced to live music at Gwen’s every Sunday at lunchtime.
But over the years the east end of the beach shrank drastically. The palms in front of Gwen’s that once held hammocks fell into the sea and the beach disappeared…
…and Gwen’s had to be abandoned and rebuilt down on the west end of the beach (where it remains to this day).
In 2020, the last time we’d visited Anguilla, right before COVID decimated tourism on the island, walking down to the old Gwen’s from the main Shoal Bay East beach was a slightly perilous undertaking. At high tide, waves could dash you against the rocks. At low tide, you’d certainly get pretty wet. The sea had essentially eaten the small beach at Serenity.
But on this trip, the beach was back! Once again, we could walk the entire length of Shoal Bay East, rounding “proposal point” and enjoying the white sand down to Serenity, which has once again installed beach chairs and umbrellas.
The beach came back!
We’d experienced the resilience of Anguilla after Hurricane Irma but had thought of it as the remarkable resilience of the Anguillian people. But Nature is resilient in surprising ways too, and this was a pleasant lesson to learn during our vacation.
Lessons from Anguilla: Nature can be resilient as well as people. I’m thankful that we live in a world which still has some buffers to the increasing climate emergency we are now experiencing.
Any other lessons from Anguilla?
These are the three lessons from Anguilla I picked up on this delightful trip. But perhaps you’ve learned more? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Long ago, I participated in and later staffed a series of workshops that profoundly affected my life. They led me to create a contract with myself that is still important to me.
Creating a contract with oneself is a common way to motivate yourself toward achieving desired goals. There are plenty of resources available for writing such contracts. (Here’s one that’s slanted toward event professionals.)
Toward the end of one of these guided visualizations, the workshop leader invited us to meet our magical child. I “saw” a large glowing black rock floating in space, sparkling with veins of fire. The rock embodied power, my power.
Later in the workshop, this experience helped me develop my contract with myself. In the workshop context, such contracts emphasize fundamental positive aspects of oneself with which we’ve struggled, for a variety of reasons.
Though the workshop process of creating a contract is unique for each person, mine evolved directly from my visualization experience. It seems obvious in retrospect, but it involved some hard work!
“I am a glowing, powerful, and complex man.”
That is the contract I wrote for myself in August 2005. Reminding myself of it helps me to stay in touch with these important aspects of who I am, which I sometimes lose sight of.
My contract with myself remains vibrant and relevant to me to this day.
49 years ago I met Celia at the wedding of mutual friends in the heart of the English New Forest. I moved in with her ten days later and we’ve been together ever since. We married in 1977… …and moved to the U.S. the same year.
We have been through so much together: wonderful times and hard times. Along the way our family grew; we now have three (adult) children and three grandkids.
A few years ago we were in Anguilla for two weeks and I decided I would tell her each day something that I loved about her. It was easy to do.
What have I learned from Celia?
Unconditional love
Like most couples, we were infatuated with each other from the start. Unlike other relationships I’d had, our mutual infatuation lasted years, rather than weeks or months. It was over a year before we had our first argument.
We participate in a daily dharma meditation on Zoom on weekday mornings. Recently, our teacher quoted the Buddha’s words about the liberation of the ego through love. Celia has been a great teacher to me of that. Loving kindness cuts through the murk of identifying with a belief about who I am, as opposed to being who I am. Having someone love me unconditionally despite my imperfections is a great blessing.
Noticing and sharing feelings
Celia helps me learn to share more about how I feel and less about what I think. This has helped me overcome (to some extent!) the effects of a quarter-century of being taught that thinking is the only important motivator of action. We’ve helped each other get better at sharing feelings and becoming less scared about doing so. She’s really good about supporting me when I do.
Family
I’ve always loved being with children but never spent significant time with little kids. Celia has worked with kids for most of her life, first in after-school programs and later as a pediatric occupational therapist in our local schools. She has taught me a lot about being with kids, about having kids, and bringing out my childlike, joyful, playful side.
She has helped me develop what it means to me to be a family.
Mutual support
Celia teaches me how, together, we can weather hard times that would be so much harder if we were by ourselves. She tends to go into how she’s feeling about a situation before I do, at which time I can support her. When I’m down, Celia’s very supportive.
She has helped me learn about myself through being seen through her eyes. She is often insightful about me and others in ways that take me some time to appreciate.
Honesty and generosity
Celia has taught me about honesty and lack of guile, while still being circumspect and respectful of situations.
I have learned about generosity from her. There have been plenty of times when I’ve been influenced by her generous spirit in responding to situations. I think I have got better at being generous, thanks to her.
I don’t know if I’ve learned this from her, but Celia can simply say just the right thing at the right time. Sometimes she discounts this superpower. I continue to tell her how important it is.
Aging well
Celia has been a model for me in how she looks after herself as she ages. She has transformed how I eat and always supports me exercising.
Learning from each other
We have learned from each other about:
Our spiritual journey together.
Illuminating each others’ shadows, allowing us both to grow.
Giving each other the freedom to do what we want to do as individuals, and negotiating well how we want to plan our future together.
We complement each other so well. I am blessed to have her in my life.
Here are nine old and new snippets of wisdom that spoke to me at some point in 2024. And a bonus at the end…
I’m a proponent of paying it forward.
Recently, I’ve been practicing what 
I am not a psychologist or neuropsychologist. However, I have spent thousands of hours as an amateur, supervised by therapists, leading small group workshop explorations of individuals’ struggles to make sense of their lives. And I’ve learned that confusion about thinking and feeling is common.
They’re called 
…and chopped down a coconut.
…and moved to the U.S. the same year.
