I’m Not Who I Appear to Be on Facebook

Posted on by Meredith

I was deeply disturbed by a Facebook memory that popped up on my feed the other day.

It was a gushing post (of mine) about gratitude… complete with photos of a gaggle of girls smiling…. eating something fabulous, of course.

It included hash tags about laughing and emoji hearts.

I remember that weekend well. But not because of the laughing.

It’s seared in my mind as one of the more painful weekends I can recall.

Several of my closest friendships were disintegrating. My core beliefs about myself and the world were quickly falling apart. I was promoting an event I felt super conflicted about. And every other meal ended up with salty tears doing the major seasoning of my food.

In all that confusion… I appear to have put on a great big smile, added emojis and told a surface level story instead.

Sure, I do love that city. Sure, the food there was great. But I was also miserable on that trip.

I see that post and my heart breaks. For me. For the image I was so carefully defending.

But also for everyone else who saw that post. One more post that perpetuated the bubble of half truths and refrigerator magnet joy, so often seen bouncing around the social media world.

The truth is… I couldn’t have captured the whole story in a post, even if I had wanted to. It was complicated. And messy. And not actually appropriate for mass consumption at that time anyway.

I don’t judge that I put it up.

But it was only, ever, a small part of the truth. I think we need to remember that.

Two people have written on my wall recently that I remind them of a Disney princess.

This is not good.

If I give this impression.

It’s lovely. But it’s just not real.

And thus, I think, it’s worth expounding upon:

The reason I post about my animals so much lately, is not because I think I am an amazing princess animal whisperer.

It’s because the phase I am in right now is so deeply raw and human and tender that I have nothing much else to say.

So I connect to you through the creatures around me. Who happen to be quite cute. And who do indeed bring me joy.

This post is not to invoke sympathy. I’m fine. I’m growing. In many ways, I’m great.

But if I have ever given you the impression my life is perfect…

It’s just not.

It’s full of questions,

and uncertainty,

and sadness.

Full of simplicity, and surrender, and unused drive.

Full of beauty and growing authenticity and the grittiest kind of love.

But slim on answers,

on direction,

And (hallelujah, finally, even) advice.

It was not my intention to turn this phase into having the appearance of a fairytale. I have just required a lot of solitude. A lot of reflection. A lot less sharing. A lot more grace.

I get it can be so easy to scroll through a feed and think you have a sense of who is living the good life. And why.

I suppose I just wanted to remind us all, that a smiling photo, matching family Easter dresses, a trek through Spain, whatever it may be…

All that we share…

… is really only, ever, always,

one part of the truth.

It’s all it can be.

We are complicated.

As you scroll… tread lightly on judging yourself.

My Unrealistic Expectations About Learning

Posted on by Meredith

So I just finished writing a paper for this class I’m taking.  It’s a masters level course on quantum physics, science and spirituality…

And it has been freaking hard! I mean… brain numbing, what?!?!

Just about every day in the first 5 weeks my strategic plan was to drop the class. But just as I was emailing my professor, I flashed back on this silly moment.  And it stopped me in my tracks. 

Last year I went on a trip through the South with a friend of mine.  He’s a Harvard lawyer and a concert violinist.  

One evening, over dinner, he mentioned to me that he does yoga every morning, even when he’s traveling.  Impressed, I asked if I could join him.

“Sure!”  He said.  “I’m not that great, but you are welcome to!”

The next morning, I put on my yoga clothes and claimed a three foot crevice on the corner of his hotel room floor. For the next hour and a quarter, Greg led us through a full length Ashtanga class.

His focus was absolutely unwavering, his breath was solid, he knew the sequence top to bottom, but what surprised me the most was… Greg was actually pretty bad!  His flexibility was minimal, his postures relatively poor…

Now I know you are thinking, “what kind of person judges someone’s yoga practice!? Don’t you go straight to hell for that!?” But I honestly wasn’t being super judgy. I was just surprised.

The truth is, I had just never seen Greg be bad at anything.  He speaks some half dozen languages, his speeches make you want to rise to your feet and cheer, his tinkering on my piano sounds like a world class concert (and that’s not even his instrument).

I realized I had a strange expectation that anything he approached he should just be incredible at.  

After breakfast I confessed to him my weird experience that morning on his floor.

What he said was so simple.  It is forever melded in my brain.

“You know most people have totally unrealistic expectations about learning.  They want to learn a new language or get in shape, and when it doesn’t happen seemingly overnight, they are already disappointed.

Being a concert violinist at a young age, I learned HOW to learn anything.  Because you practice for hours and hours and hours… and every day you get the tiniest most infinitesimal amount better.  It happens so slowly that you can’t even notice the improvement.  But then, over months and years, you improve.

It turns out Greg had just discovered Ashtanga a few months ago.  He loved it.  So he learned the routine and did it literally every morning.  And he didn’t worry about if he was doing it right. He just did whatever bits he knew how to do today.  He figured some time he’d be in a class and a teacher would correct something and he’d just get better tiny inch by inch.

That was how he approached everything.  If there was anything he wanted to learn, he just learned it.  Slowly.  Like he had learned the violin.

I thought about all the things I said I wanted to be good at but I’d actually just never put in the time.

Real time. No judgment of self kind of time. There were a lot.

I didn’t drop my quantum physics class. Because hard or not, I actually wanted to know it.

Instead, I read the chapter again.

And again.

I called a classmate and asked her some questions.  

I bought another book. Watched a youtube video. And then I read the lectures yet again.

The real problem was not that my class was impossible. The real problem was that I had expected to understand it the first time through.  I wanted to already know what I wanted to learn.

This year has been filled with learning for me. I let go of the woman who ran our stable and learned how to take care of our horses myself. It’s not that hard. But it’s a little hard. I did have to learn.

We got a freight farm and I let a bunch of plants die. Getting the hang of the technology and basics of growing isn’t impossible, but we did have to figure it out. We aren’t great at it yet, but every harvest the plants look and taste a little better.

And this master program… well I entered it because I had questions about things, not because I already knew.  

Perhaps it’s ok that it’s hard.  

Perhaps I’m not going to know until AFTER I put in the work.

It just made me wonder…

What do you want to be good at?

Would you be willing to be terrible at it first?

To learn the language with poor grammar? To play the chords slowly?  To put on the yoga clothes and let your form be all kinds of “oops”?  

Maybe that’s how we’re actually meant to learn.

I’ll tell you one thing— I’m going on another trip with Greg. I actually left this morning and am writing from the airport. And you know what I’m certain I can count on? His yoga will have improved by leaps and bounds!

Reading Rumi & Being

Posted on by Meredith

Reading Rumi—

This morning I woke up anxious and deeply sad.

I used to do all sorts of things about that. To change it. Used specific methods to make it go away.

Today I sat with it and watched the snow fall.

Then I went down to my sauna and sat in the dark. A meditation and prayer.

As I settled into an eventual stillness, I picked up Rumi to join me.

Rumi and I laugh a lot. We weep. We sigh. We fill back up.

I thought there was nothing better on a snowy Sunday afternoon than to invite you to tea with Rumi.

May I read to you for a bit?

I love this man.

The Books That Stole My Heart in 2017

Posted on by Blossom Benedict

Does anyone read anymore? Like actual books? 

I know over the years my own reading had fizzled to almost non-existent. 

In reflecting on my year, one of the things I am most grateful for has been my own rediscovery of those ancient page filled treasures known to some as BOOKS. 

In 2017, I really started to read.

With my reading this year has come the most incredible mentors, surprising friendships, new ideas, and amazing journeys through time. 

I wanted to give a shout out to the books and authors that have most shaped me this year. Many of them I consider to be dear friends, though most of them I have never met. 

I have divided these lists into categories. Much of my reading this year was dedicated to mystics and contemplative approaches to the universe and truth. There is also a list of authors I most admire as artists, books that have opened my eyes to important topics in the world and a little bit of random categorical gratitude.  

I can’t say these are the best books ever. Or of all time. They are just the particular titles that found me and whispered things I needed to hear at perfect moments. They held me.

See if any of these titles sparkle at you. See if opening any of them might add to your future and your life. 

Mystics & Guides – My greatest teachers of 2017
Rumi – I can meditate deeply… or read Rumi. Same/same. Weeping with beauty.  A Year With Rumi. Dude!
Richard Rohr – (Everything Belongs, Immortal Diamond, Falling Upward… I read like a library by him.) He caught me this year in free fall and said everything I needed to hear.
Paulo Coelho – Manuscript in Accra was a wonderful quick surprise.  Beautiful insight about friendship.   
Vernon Howard – Always yells at me when I need it.  And knows stuff. Mystic Path to Cosmic Power = worst book cover and amazing insight!
Thomas Merton (New Seeds of Contemplation) – A new friend who has discovered many things I want to know.
Joel Goldsmith (The Contemplative Life) – also knows stuff
C.S. Lewis – The Screwtape Letters are kinda genius! (Very different than reading them in high school.) 
Mother Teresa – Come Be My Light shook me.
Pema Chodron – The Pocket Pema fits in my pocket. What’s not to love there? 

Authors That Inspire Me – My New Best Friends
Cheryl Strayed (Tiny Beautiful Things) – I want to write with that much bravery
Bob Goeff (Love Does) – I want to carry his suitcase around the world. 
Elizabeth Gilbert (Big Magic) – My best friend who has never met me.
Rob Bell (Love Wins) – Just love all the things in his brain.  And he has guts.
Shauna Neiquest (Present Over Perfect) – So inspired by how she creates. 
Maya Angelou (Letter to My Daughter) – How have I not read her books until this year?! What!? 
Stephen King (On Writing) – Thanks for writing this book! So good. 
Forest Benedict (Life After Lust) – Congrats bro on your first book! Way to go!
 
Books That Have Most Opened My Eyes About the World
The Shallows by Nicholas Carr – About how the Internet is changing our brain. This booked changed everything about my life. Literally. 
Just Mercy by Bryan Stevensen – Just system. Must read this!
Sapiens, A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari – Every human should have to read this! 
Jesus, Interrupted by Bart D. Ehrman – If you have interest in (or repulsion to) the Bible, check out his books. There are many. Such important and fascinating history. 
The Last Rhinos by Lawrence Anthony – unimaginable connection to animals and a wild adventure!
The Myth of Equality by Ken Wytsma – embarrassed I didn’t know this! My own prejudices explored. Uncomfortably good!

My Personal Spiritual Text Books of 2017
A New New Testament – Such good context & amazing insight into a book I was pretty much over for decades (the Bible). Beautifully done! Many new (old) manuscripts added that didn’t make the original Bible. Super insightful!! 
Christ Returns, Reveals Startling Truth – Perhaps my very favorite book of the year! It’s scrubbed by this Catholic nun in her 80’s who starts channeling Jesus. I LOVE this book! Online for free here.
A Course in Miracles – an old friend I returned to after a decade. Nourishment. 
The Sophia Code – a new friend with beautiful insight from 7 female masters over time.  

Super Inspiring/ Categories of Their Own
Lin-Manuel Miranda‘s Hamilton the Revolution. Beautiful book of the making of Hamilton. Don’t have enough words for this book, these lyrics, this man or this show! If you are an artist, you will love this book!
Beth Moon’s Ancient Trees Portraits of Time – Stunning photography of stunning subjects. Thank you Beth!
Seth Pitt – I just keep gushing about this artist. His paintings brought so much sparkle to my year! 
Seth Godin – awesome daily email blurbs

Best Fiction (I clearly don’t read much fiction) 🙂
Signature of All Things by Elizabeth Gilbert – My favorite heroine of all time!
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett— Just loved!

So many thank yous to all these beautiful, vulnerable, tenacious artists living bravely in the world. 

If reading has left your life, maybe 2018 is a year to wonder about it again? It has been super enriching to add back to mine.

A Room of One’s Own

Posted on by Meredith

The unveiling of my darling, impractical, delightful new creation.

A tiny room that makes me unspeakably happy.

A writing/ library room of my own.

There has been something so very life giving for me this year in purging and decluttering and filling the new spaces with things I find truly beautiful.

Things that I love.

The room is my gift from me to me. A creative space of my very own.

Is there a space that you could add to your life this year that would amp up your creativity, your relaxation or simply increase your capacity to breathe?

Or maybe you have a space that you just need to declutter and fill back up with beauty and love so it can nourish you rather than drain you?

There is so much to be said for the objects we surround ourselves with. For the spaces we create and how they make us feel.

May 2018 be a year of beauty and filling up rather than excess and frenzy.

May 2018 be a year of nourishing spaces, from you to you.

Glorious & Wretched: Including It All

Posted on by Meredith

A friend sent me an email the other day. She’s having a really hard time right now. She moved to Europe and is struggling with her family, with feeling alone, with finances crumbling, and plans not going as planned.

But even more, she’s struggling with not having it all together.

I think that’s one of the big lies we feed each other. That we should have it all together. That life should always be glorious. That something is wrong if it is not.

Another friend sent me this poem by Pema Chödrön the other day that has struck me deeply with revelations about myself.

May I share it with you?

LIFE IS BOTH WRETCHED AND GLORIOUS
By Pema Chödrön

Life is glorious, but life is also wretched. It is both. Appreciating the
gloriousness inspires us, encourages us, cheers us up, gives us a bigger
perspective, energizes us. We feel connected.

But if that’s all that’s happening, we get arrogant and start to look down
on others, and there is a sense of making ourselves a big deal and being
really serious about it, wanting it to be like that forever. The gloriousness
becomes tinged by craving and addiction.

On the other hand, wretchedness–life’s painful aspect–softens us up
considerably. Knowing pain is a very important ingredient of being there
for another person. When you are feeling a lot of grief, you can look right
into somebody’s eyes because you feel you haven’t got anything to lose–
you’re just there.

The wretchedness humbles us and softens us, but if we were only
wretched, we would all just go down the tubes. We’d be so depressed,
discouraged, and hopeless that we wouldn’t have enough energy to eat
an apple.

Gloriousness and wretchedness need each other. One inspires us, the
other softens us. They go together.

This year I have been looking deeply at the fact that I have lived most of my life focusing entirely on the gloriousness. Sweeping the wretched out of sight.

“We get arrogant and start to look down on others.” I had.

This last year has rocked my world and knocked me off kilter. My first walloping dose of wretchedness in a long time.

And in this intensity, as Pema predicts, I found myself more real.

More humble.

More willing to sit with people who are in pain and not have to spoon out platitudes, fix it or help them figure it out.

I started to see all the fake both around me and even within me. First with judgment. Then with sadness. Then with a touch of grace. And curiosity for what is beyond that falseness and those barriers and walls.

I found myself drawn to people I had written off. And broken open by things I cannot change. Also comforted by things I would have found unproductive or worthless before.

As I have sat with this energy (wondering dramatically if I would ever create anything ever again), I have realized that I will connect with the gloriousness as and when I am ready.

And slowly I have been becoming ready. And gloriousness is peeking into my space once again.

“The world needs real people.” I told my friend. “Even people who need help and don’t have it all together. Perhaps especially.”

What if it’s not just ok to have seasons of both, what if it’s actually required? What if it’s part of what gives us beauty and richness and depth? Dare I say, is sometimes deeply beneficial? And exceptionally real?

I do think there are shimmery things for us on the other side of hard. That doesn’t make them less brutal to be with.

And that doesn’t mean that the shimmery will be glorious. It might surprise us. We might shimmer with raw wretched aliveness for a time.

But I wonder… Couldn’t the world use more of that too?

A Whole Chapter About Not Judging (Hidden in the Bible)

Posted on by Meredith

So the other day I got into a particularly precarious conversation with a group of people I really respect who have a very different opinion of what I think is a pretty important, humanitarian topic.

It was a predominantly Christian group of people and the conversation was about how the Bible called us to handle this particular thing.

Now I haven’t actually read the Bible thoroughly. Maybe like 20% if I’m being generous with myself.

But I had a pretty strong opinion on this point.

“I really just think that if we are talking about loving each other, the commandment of Jesus, the first thing we are called to do is not judge each other.” I said. “I just cannot see how it is our job to judge.”

My theological argument pretty much ended there.

With a piddly “You know, judge not, lest ye be not judged” thrown in for good measure.

Everyone nodded politely.

But I KNEW this was a key. And that there must be more than that.

So fast forward a week.

And randomly I pick up the Bible and start reading Romans. A book I have never read.

And I get to chapter 14 and my jaw drops.

The whole freaking chapter is about how we are not to judge our neighbors.

How we are to support them in doing what they believes connects them to god.

The whole freaking chapter!

It’s kind of about food. But it’s about WAY more than food.

To me it is about everything. About condemning each other for the way another worships or expresses herself or loves or interprets her own whispers from whatever name she have given any presence bigger than herself.

I’ll read you parts of it in this video. Because it is so good!

It says:

“Always receive them as friends, but not for the purpose of passing judgment on their scruples.”

and…

“Nothing is defiling in itself. A thing is defiling only to the person who holds it to be so.”

and…

“Happy is the person who never has to condemn himself in regard to something he thinks is right.”

I am in love with Romans 14 today.

And I continue to remain passionate about the idea that if we are to bring light and beauty onto this earth, that one of our core jobs is to give up judgment of each other.

To listen to the whispers in our own hearts and souls and minds and to honor others by allowing and inviting and even celebrating that they are doing the same.

As we jump into holiday parties and gatherings and difficult family conversations… what if we kept this in mind?

What if we focused on judging each other less? And loving each other more?

Permission Granted

Posted on by Meredith

So this writing workshop I went to last week with Elizabeth Gilbert & Cheryl Strayed… It was soooo juicy.

We did a lot of 5 minutes writing exercises. Stream of consciousness. Just whatever came out.

One was to write yourself a permission slip, written by the principal or ultimate authority of your life, as though they are writing yourself the ultimate hall pass.

Permission to do and be absolutely anything you have ever been waiting for permission from anyone for.

I thought you might want to take 5 minutes to play with it yourself. I found it really freeing and fun.

I’ve posted mine below.

Feel free to share yours in the comments. Or just share what came up for you.. if you wish.

What is it you desire to be or try or seek or change?

Permission officially granted!

———————————

Dear Blossom,

I am your authority. And this is your permission slip:

You no longer have to explain yourself…
To anyone.
Again.
Ever.

No why.
Ever.

You know. You choose. You did. You are.
That is all.

You now have a license to enter all conversations happening on this planet. Without invitation. Without credentials. Without permission. Without apology. To comment. To question. To contribute. To poke.

You may say what is true for you and let others work out their own discomfort. Or not. Their choice.

This slip comes with unapologetic carte blanche to:

Love your body
To stand alone
To fuck things up
To have nothing to say
To change your mind
To not be sure
To get it wrong

To disappear from the path of great importance.
And reappear on the path of wherever you are.
To accomplish nothing noticeable.
To sing off key songs.
To sit very still.
To wear yoga pants
Anywhere

To pay change fees on airlines because you have changed your mind.

To break all rules that never applied to you in the first place.

To compare yourself to nothing.

To care. Or not care.

This pass comes with total credence to be all the “toos”: Too happy, too lucky, too confident, too rich, too connected, too enthusiastic, too talkative, too too too.

Consider this a hall pass to do whatever the fuck you know you must do with this beautiful life.

For it is yours.

And you know.

I trust your instincts.

I trust your heart.

You can’t get this wrong.

Permission to play!

Yours Truly,
The Principal

When My Stories Collide with the South

Posted on by Meredith

There are many fanciful stories about my childhood I tell with a glimmer in my eye.

My yurt being repossessed and my father passing out LSD at the airport are two that have gotten a lot of light hearted repetition over the years (yes, told in my video).

Yet something about receiving a tour of the 9th ward today, where hurricane Katrina’s devastation is still palpable 12 years later…

And hearing about some of the factors that keep New Orleans at the highest incarceration rate of any city in Louisiana, with the highest incarceration rate of any state in the USA, with the highest incarceration rate of any country…

Well, it started to reframe a few of my stories.

In a lot of ways, I’ve always felt like a product of social systems at their finest. We had tremendous help with housing and food and education growing up when my single family needed it most.

Being here—I couldn’t help but wonder what my life might have looked like had I lived where the systems are all so broken.

Or if I had been born with another color of skin?

Would I have been just as resilient?
Would I have landed so well?

It is great to acknowledge what choices we made that led us to where we are at. I whole-heartedly believe that.

But today I felt led to acknowledge all the choices other people made that got me to where I am as well.

Choices to build systems that supported my single mom so well. Choices that got us day care while she went to college, housing vouchers when we couldn’t afford our full rent, education that was pretty great and paid for in full.

I know it’s complicated. And messy. Poverty and justice and race.

I have no political statement about it today. Or at all.

Only gratitude.

Today has been a reminder of the power of having people and networks around that support you. That care.

And a reminder of how much that is missing for so many.

It is an invitation for me to be more of that in the world. To listen. To ask hard questions. To care.

I truly have been so marvelously blessed.

The Good Kind of Surrender

Posted on by Meredith

I’ve been thinking about surrender a lot lately.

I was taught the word first in terms of war. When you surrender you are done. It’s over. You lost. The enemy has prevailed.

By when you return to another older definition of surrender, you find more the energy of “yielding”.

It gets soft.

That kind of surrender is like letting go of the rock you have been holding onto so tightly and allowing the river to take you with the current.

It’s full of allowing. Of breathing. Of grace.

We have these electric assist bikes that I love riding. I can go straight up hills or on crazy long rides.

But I realized the other day that they actually won’t assist you if you are already going over 20 mph.

You have to slow down a bit. To let the assist mode kick in.

How much of my life has been like that I started to wonder?

Where I’m going just a little bit too fast to receive the assistance, see the shortcuts, or hear the whispers of ease?

Is there anywhere you could substitute some good old fashioned brute force for a question followed by some letting go?

I’ve asked for the life I desire. Directed. Connected. Meaningful. Rich.

This is the part where I let go and let the current lead the way.

Do we trust it? The universe? God? That it will kick in and do its part?

Perhaps that is the underbelly question, hiding smugly under all that force.