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Shy . . . or Watching Ain’t Living

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shy_stallion

I’ve been looking at this picture for days.
It reminds me of so many people I care about. It reminds me of when I sometimes feel that way.

It’s hard thing to be standing back and watching. It’s a faraway, lonesome thing to be feeling shy. I stop myself when I feel it happening. I lift my chin and tell myself that’s not living.

And now, I’m asking you to come out from behind. It’s not an act of courage. It’s test-driving your smile.

Come out where we can see you.
It’s not nearly as hard as a mind can imagine.
I know. I have a spectacular imagination of my own.

We get to thinking that maybe other folks have some sort of secret.
That’s why they’re there and we’re here, but that’s not how it goes.

Ain’t no handbook filled with the keys to belonging.
The world’s never seen one. Who’d write it? Who’d buy if someone did?

We’re all of the same species with our own ideas of what’s good.
Some folks thrive on believing that they make the sun rise every morning.
They fall apart when they finally find out that it ain’t so.

Some folks never worry about how the day gets going.
They’re the ones worth connecting with.

Then there’s us discounting. Turn off the minus signs and start counting instead. Someone might this minute be searching for a plus sign that only you have.

Watching ain’t living. Living is about participating in life.

Come out, I need help with this question . . .

What can I do to make it easier when my friends feel shy?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Image: http:stockvault.net
Work with Liz!!

Can You Be Brave and Vulnerable?

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Be Brave and Vulnerable

Some folks are brave as knights in shining armor. Some folks are vulnerable — they are damsels in distress. Most are only one or the other. They list. They lean. They need things to stand complete.

The brave ones need an audience to know their strength. They need dragons to slay. They don’t understand why folks don’t thank them when they save the kingdom. I was brave in that way once.

The vulnerable need an audience to know they’re alive. They need to give until they’re all gone. They don’t understand why other folks have boundaries. I was that kind of vulnerable once.

prague_castle

I took my brave and my vulnerable out of their separate jars. They’re not broken anymore. In that way, neither am I.

Brave and vulnerable belong together, like two sides of one coin.

Brave and vulnerable touch us, teach us, and change us, each brave and vulnerable, deep and wonderful breath we breathe. We touch the universe together in large and small ways that hardly anybody knows.

Brave and vulnerable, eating tea and cookies in a big leather chair, watching me write this on a dark night in Chicago with a light on faraway.

Brave and vulnerable heart, my mind, and purpose in the same direction.

They are memories. They are imagination. They are two kids playing, smiling in the sunshine at six years old.

Brave and vulnerable − they are me and you.

Please . . . don’t let go of that. People will tell you other things.

Brave and vulnerable are like bittersweet chocolate — a rare and valuable combination.

They’re dynamic tension like poetry in motion, visibly authentic, and irresistibly powerful.

Are you brave and vulnerable?

Of course you are.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

When You’re Imagining Disastrous Endings

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Every Star Shines

Shine!

When I worked in an office, bigger problems seemed to happen when I was traveling. As a young manager, I used to look at every next trip with “what will happen this time?” anxiety.

My imagination could make anxiety into a motion picture with twists and turns and cinematic catastrophe.

Finally I caught on that the problems that happened when I was gone were the same incidents and mishaps that happened when I right there. I saw them with new proportions because I wasn’t there to manage them. I’d feel responsible for what went wrong. I’d be less effective. It wasn’t long before I was feeling anxious and imagining again.

I’m sure glad I gave up that anxiety habit. It threw my world view off balance.

It would happen, maybe for a reason, maybe without warning, I used to find myself feeling like I wasn’t up to a challenge. I’d get that creeping, anxious feeling that I wasn’t as good as the rest of the species.

It’s that thought that I wasn’t meant to be on the planet . . . and that soon everyone was gonna know . . .

Anxiety made the world all about me. It was years before I realized the answer was outside me.

The best results of anxious thoughts are positive actions they can cause.

When you’re imagining disastrous endings, pack that anxious adrenaline into positive experience. Move outside yourself. Move from where you are to where you’re wishing you might be.

Get curious. Get interested. Change your perspective.
Stop thinking, feeling, hiding. Start doing, being, believing. Experience yourself building, helping, teaching, creating, serving, giving, loving unconditionally.

You’re exceptional at some things, so no matter what one thing made you anxious . . . choose another and get going.
Start shining.
Shining heals better.
Shining calms worrying, whining, and regretting

Some say that it leads to smiling. Your results could vary.

But it’s fairly certain that it never leads to disastrous endings.

Whatcha’ waiting for? Make a weekend that shines.

Liz's Signature

–ME “Liz” Strauss

Reasons to Write at Night and When the Sun Is Rising

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vibrant_sky

At night everything slows down and the world is quieter, most of the animals are sleeping, some of the flowers even close — that has to mean something.

Doesn’t it?

At night, I think deeper, fuller, broader, as if I might be out there in the indigo with the stars. It’s easy to picture that. It’s hard to think of being in the open, blue daylight sky.

A wise man I know said to me that he thinks kids grow up slower where there is winter, because they need to come home to be inside and need to wear clothes to stay warm.

I think night is like that. I makes us slow down. In the dark, we walk slower. We come inside to find enough light to read by. We hear the quiet of our own thoughts.

Those are reasons I write at night and in the very early morning when the sun is rising. I can even hear the clicking of the keys as type my thoughts on my keyboard, and the sounds seems to match the beating of my heart. That has to mean something.

Doesn’t it?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Image source: sxc.hu
Work with Liz!!

About Being Shiny, Are You Listening?

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Ever been shiny, golden, glittery — the top of the social media set? Ever had a day go almost perfectly? Ever felt like the sun was shining just for you? Bet it’s happened at least one time. It’s usually something like this . . .

Every conversation is just the right amounts of smart and witty. Every word communicates and moves to action in a nice way. Everyone seems so appealing. Caffeine and chocolate aren’t necessary, but they’re available. Cooperation is the weather all day.

Ideas appear without reaching, like poetry in motion.

Everything anyone touches turns golden. People behave in the most extraordinarily generous fashion. Even that guy you dislike looks to be doing things right.

It’s a symphony. Hmmm. You check that you’ve not fallen asleep laughing.

Life is a breeze, piece of cake, easy as pie. Wishes are horses and beggars are riding.

Except, of course, for the traffic or the slow Internet connection. But who cares about those? Really.

It seems only right to savor a day like that.
Actually, it seems only right to savor every day. I mean really.

Imagine kicking back with the ones who fit this description . . .

old_bears

. . . our understanding of each other
           had reached that sweet depth
where two people
     communicate more often in silence than in words;
         an affectionate quietness replaces the tensions,
  the unrelaxed chatter and chasing about
  that produce a friendship’s more showy,
       more, in the surface sense,
               dramatic moments.
–Truman Capote, Breakfast at Tiffany’s

. . . the ones who listen to what we’re not saying.

We don’t need to be shiny.
It’s the dull old bears that we hold onto.
Are you listening?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Image: sxc.hu

How to Make Everyone and Everything Nicer Without Lifting a Finger

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Find the Answer in You

Reflection_Nebula

Want to do a nice thing for your friends? Here’s how to make everyone and everything nicer without even lifting a finger.

Close your eyes.
Unplug. Untie. Relax.
Turn off the words, sounds, and pictures in your head. Fade to black.

Look for the faint blue light by the hole on the back your eyelids. It takes a while but you’ll see it. Then look through the hole and you’ll see the stars. You can see the universe right there from wherever you are.

It’s the strangest thing, but you can be inside and outside at the same time. It takes patience and practice to find that hole. It’s hard to stay that relaxed. It’s about letting go. It’s finding out that it’s okay not to be in control.

I found it by accident when I was trying to sleep one night. I thought it was a memory of the sky. But it’s not.

Your cells are smarter than your brain. Let them show you.

Just put yourself out there, sit in the space, and trust.
No words, no sounds, no ideas.

People and stars are made of the same stuff.

It’s not hard to know what you know when you give yourself space.

You’ll come back feeling more relaxed, smarter, and happier.
And the people you meet and everything you see will suddenly be a whole lot nicer.

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!
Image source: NASA Image http://www.nix.nasa.gov

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