A friend calls breathless and begins with a torrent of self-criticism: “I am so stupid! I cannot believe I did not read the one sentence in the e-mail that made all the difference.” I heard her panic get louder and stronger with each sentence. She was in one of those “wheels of miss-fortune” that goes round and round. I listened to her-I was feeling helpless as well. She stopped and I slipped in: “I am taking some deep breaths for all of this.” I noticed a bird hopping on the roof next door and asked if she could possibly step outside for a moment. She slowed down her rant to a rumble and repeated her dilemna. She said she was not going to go outside. I described to her this crazy bird hopping around like its feet were on fire. She paused. Then I said slowly: “Okay this happened—you were not expecting this—what could you do in the next 30 minutes that might provide you with some information you need?” She repeated: “In the next thirty minutes” and then she said:  “I could e-mail Jim who might know someone in that industry.” I could hear her brain shift from panic and going around and around and going nowhere to focus and moving somewhere. The bird flew away. Her panic turned into energized focus. Breathing, posing a question and taking one action changed panic into possibility.

Sometimes I am stunned by how my inner universe (thoughts and desires) impacts my outer world. Yesterday I was struggling to figure out some part of a computer program. I could not make sense of the instructions—even when I read the words out loud and very slowly. I turned and looked out the window and a thought popped into my head. Actually it was the voice of my father (who has been dead for over twenty years.) The voice was repeating something he told me as a young adult. I was struggling with an insurance policy and asked him to explain it. After his short description, he told me that when I was very young I had difficulty with numbers. He said these crushing words: “I thought maybe you were retarded.” Even though I have been responsible for budgets well over several hundreds of thousands of dollars since that time, my mind digs up that old statement when I seem to be helplessly stuck in some maze of incomprehensible instruction. I can get on that train of thought which quickly takes me to the land of deep inadequacy and depression. Or I can smile and notice where the track comes from and where it goes. And then I can refuse to get on board. Only when our inner world changes will our outer world change.

Last week I heard tragic news. A middle-aged man committed suicide and his elderly relatives were stunned. I know the man’s mother. We were in a class that met each week for two years. I wanted to send her a note or do something for her. I found myself wondering: “What is appropriate? What if they only want immediate family to attend the funeral? What are the right words?” I even considered doing nothing as she is well known and certainly would get support. Do nothing? Go to her house? Send flowers? Write a note? Often, in the midst of a hurried schedule and a sad situation, the default position becomes “do nothing.” The fear of “inappropriate” or uncertainty stops action and creates isolation and separation. Doing something moves us in a new direction. Often this is in the heart’s direction—which inevitably leads to connection. What do you do with tragic news? Whatever you do, or not do, does this lead you to isolation or connection?

A woman’s group asked me to come and talk about grudges. I teach through example and I only had to wait a minute before an old grudge arose inside of my body. The grudge brings up a familiar tightness around my heart—combining a sense of righteousness and anger. My mind races to justify my grudge. How could he ridicule the naming of our newborn? What nerve and insensitivity! My thoughts quickly move into the old familiar grooves. I could feel the grudge harden my heart and jaw. I jumped on the ferris wheel of contempt for the other and round and round I went for several minutes. What if I did something different? What if, instead of holding a tight grip on the grudge, I softened and let go just a bit? What if I simply sat with the physical sensation initiated by the grudge? What if I did not go down the same path of emotional justification and repeated thinking?

I sat and let my hands open. I wondered: what was underneath the ridicule? Maybe he was attempting to be funny or perhaps he was expressing ambiguity about naming our child after my complicated father. I considered his pain. Softening, melting, understanding the mystery of the other stopped the ferris wheel—which was no longer an enjoyable ride anyway. What would you tell this group about holding onto grudges?

Yesterday was a challenging day at Partnership Village—an after school program some of us created for children who are in great need in our community. The children were wild. We volunteers glanced at each other and tried our usual tricks to calm them down. Nothing worked. We flicked the lights off and on. We separated them into smaller groups and finally just started our play—Little Red Riding Hood. Sometimes this is challenging duty for the volunteers and yet we know harder still for the children. “We can do hard,” we tell the children and each other as we play and tutor together. But do any of us really believe that? Secretly we all seem to want “easy” and we want it now (loose 10 lbs in a week; write a novel over the weekend; get the children up to grade level in a month). What might happen if, instead of complaining or expecting instant or easy, we embraced “we can do hard”?

I have two friends who teach me about change and balance in life. One spent time in prison (was a cat burglar) and the other spends time in her art studio. Both describe their presence during their primary activity as “intensively alive.” The key difference-intention. My burglar friend confesses that his only purpose was to take away and sell stuff to support his drug addiction. My artist friend’s hope was to add to the beauty of the world. Intention influences all we think, say and do each day. What if we all “took on” as our assignment today that in all we think, say and do our intention is to add beauty to our world? What might that look like in your life–in my life–in our world?

The other day, I decided it was time to bring out the spring clothes. I faced my clothes and thought that it would be a great time to clean the closet. I could give away some of those black suit pants and could get rid of all the strapless bras. Neither ever fit right.

The project seemed overwhelming. I gave reasons to procrastinate. Maybe the pants would come back in style and I would lose the weight and maybe I would need the strapless thing for a wedding—that I have not been invited to yet. Why are changes—even little changes like cleaning out a closet—so challenging to us?

Whenever we initiate a change, even a positive one, fear floods our emotional brain.

But there is a way to deal with this flood. We break down a change into tiny steps.

This allows us to experience success. We allow ourselves to change slowly and gradually. All we need to do is just one small thing. So what if today I just dealt with all the black pants in my closet? I wonder—if I just allowed myself to attend to one small part of the project each day—what might my closet look like in ten days?

This is true for the “bigger” stuff in our lives as well. What if we want more balance in our lives? What if we simply made one tiny change? Maybe eat slower? Turn off the radio when driving? And in 10 days—I wonder what might have happened?

How do you manage change? What’s in your closet that is ready to be thrown out?