Late night thoughts

Ah......................


It's been a day and night of meetings and life interwoven within the confines of agendas.
Productive meetings, but mind twirling boardroom sitting thought chewing meetings all the same.
Tonight I chaired one that lasted 3 hours and has left me with responsibilities to fulfill soon.
But, I don't want to think about the to do list.
I'm tired and in need of a decluttering of my brain.

A cup of tea in front of me.
Peace and quiet........no more talking and listening.
No more negotiating and mediating
No more drumming up ideas
No more offering up options
No more finding resolutions
Tonight. yay.

So, here I am wrapped in my favourite quilt dancing in pink tulips
My feet tucked under.
Decluttering.....................

Only one lamp is on to write by.
Stillness and solitude Safely home.
How lucky I am to be warm and loved
To be sitting where I belong
Soothed by the sound of my dog clicking up and down the hallway checking to make sure her family is tucked in.

Today, I made inroads to finding peace with a friend whom I have been distant from for too long. The wounds between us, caused by us, were deeply felt. But today, a lightness reappeared. I hadn't realized how much of a burden it felt until it started lifting.......


She is someone whom I have worked with for a long time.............someone whom I used to teach with and always had such fun facilitating groups together.........She taking flight with her thoughts and ideals and heart lessons.......Me keeping her on track, with at least one foot on the ground, generating the discussion after the lesson...........interacting. We were a good team.

Today, as I heard her present her ideas for a three day course on nonviolent communication using empathy, compassion and self awareness as a means to dealing with conflict.........I was struck by how much I had missed our teaching times together.

Today, as I heard her express her frustration about her inability to structure the lessons she wanted to deliver, as I heard her admit that she has a difficult time finding the words to develop a training manual for her lessons so that others could deliver it (never as good as she could, but they would try), I felt an overwhelming sense of compassion for her. My empathy, which she calls the grounding of compassion.............flooded me.

I could feel my heels lift............I wasn't digging in anymore.

I spoke up across the big boardroom table ......................
"This is wonderful! I love your ideas!"
She looked right at me and smiled...............locking eyes
She grateful that I was supporting her
Me grateful that I saw things in a different light again.

We spoke briefly at the break..............I offered to sit with her.........to let her talk her way through her wonderful ideas while I jotted down my ideas as to how it could be delivered. It is what we have done many times in the past. It is what works well with us. The irony that we were going to be working on a conflict resolution training module together didn't slip by unnoticed, but before more words could be expressed.

Before we could get to the "I'm sorry" part, however, we just stopped talking for a bit. She looked at me and said......................"its hard being a human being. It's hard work isn't it?"

"yes," I whispered.....................and gave her a hug.

The rest will come...........we will talk it through when we have some time to be alone again.....she taking flight with her ideas, and me helping her keep one foot on the ground.........

I guess you could say that I'm the grounding empathy and she's the soaring compassion.

Tonight, after a long day, I got into my cold van shivering to drive home from the last meeting. As I turned onto my street............snowed covered and deep chilled........I looked up and saw the sideways moon smiling at me.

I smiled back......................