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“Generous and authentic leadership will always defeat the selfish efforts of someone doing it just because she can.”  ~ Seth Godin

 

Generally if you come to ponder how to get faster/stronger/more effective at something you search out those who have excelled in that area or a coach and listen to what they have to say.  If this area happens to be something to do with endurance, say running as in my case, then you might weave your way to Rich Roll, or Alex Hutchinson, or, if you’re lucky, your own hometown help Mike Neill.

As I was in the midst of an interval session this morning I was reflecting on the fact that they all say the same thing: if you want to get better then you have to stop doing the most common mistake that most amateur athletes do and that is, spending too much time in the middle.  Making most of your workouts the same intensity, an intensity that is just a little bit stronger than you should be doing regularly and that is never as high as you should do periodically and never as low as you should recover with.  i.e. sometimes you need to push hard, sometimes you need to rest hard, but trudging along, neither pushing nor resting, will only get you so far.

Does it occur to you that there is a life lesson here?  Could we apply this to the seasons of our lives and the flow of our day to day?  Do you know when your body and mind want you to push hard and when they need you to rest?  I’ll answer for you, yes, yes you do.  That’s your intuition and your instinct.  You may have lost it, but it’s in there.  Find it and let it guide you through the intervals of life.  What season are you in now?

 

I recently came back from a three week vacation absolutely spent.

I was more tired than I had been in a while.  It got pretty dark.  Like “what exactly is going on here” dark.

We were in Nicaragua where we had recently bought a home.  The weeks leading up to a vacation for us are treadmill-like busy in attempts to minimize the chaos that will be faced upon return.  Add in trying to pack for and organize entry into home ownership in a foreign land, and let’s just say, we were hoping to land and quickly begin to decompress.  However, in the weeks leading up to our trip, Nicaragua began to unravel and over the course of our time there it only got worse.  There were days when we were told to “make sure you have enough fuel and supplies for the rest of your time here and stash money in case you have to get out fast”.  Now, remember, we’re pretty vanilla here folks.  And we were there with young kids and older parents.  And we were also there in the most dynamic season change I have ever felt.

We landed at the end of the dry season.  The heat was a heavy, dusty blanket and every living thing was holding on, with its mouth wide open, for the first drops of rain to fall.  It hadn’t rained in months and didn’t look like it was going to.  Regardless, the farmers planted, just praying that the rains would come soon.  If they did not, then crops would be wasted and hunger would go on.  The rains did come.  Mostly at night.  Rain like you can’t imagine.  Thunder that cracked and rolled for minutes, long minutes, and didn’t let up all night while our two girls, aged 5 and 8, slept alone in their bed learning how to navigate their fear (unbelievable now that I think of it).  The landscape changed completely over a course of days.  The jungle was a new colour every morning; from brown to bright Cortez yellow, to purple to every shade of green.   The wildlife literally exploded.  Sometimes in our bedrooms.  Nicaragua is not a subdued country.  Think passion and drama and fever, think the opposite of Canadian middle ground.

So Mother Nature was unfolding, the country’s people were finally pushing the lid off of their pressure cooker,  and we were settling in, making plans, learning customs, meeting new life long friends, marching to market to lawyers to accountants to banks and then back again.  We sat on hot beaches, crashed in waves, went to sleep to animal calls and woke early to howlers and an amphitheater of birdsong.  We were there for about three weeks.  We were the last people that we knew that were able to exit out of Nicaragua.  Everyone else we knew had to leave through Costa Rica.

In the last few days of our trip I felt it coming.  Sorrow.  For so many things.  Mostly because I felt powerless and we were leaving.  It was not an easy trip, but I didn’t want to leave.  I longed to stay.  Our last night we had to drive into town last minute.  The bank needed one last signature.   They realized this an hour after they had closed so they had texted a mutual friend and were waiting there at the bank for us just in case we were able to make it back in.  Unbelievably generous, but that is just the norm there.  As we drove into town the sky was other worldly; pink and purple and bright and warm and knowing.  As if it knew and was saying “it will be ok”.  The next morning we left at the break of dawn with a driver who took back roads and fields to get us to the airport safely.  I ate my last fresh papaya and drank my last sips of Nica coffee.  The roads were lined with people.  Helping.  Smiling.  Trying.  Not the faces you would have expected.  Not the faces you forget.

Since we’ve left, those faces have continued to endure more than any of most of us reading these words will ever come close to facing.  April 1st 2018 I thought that we had made a shrewd purchase of a vacation home in paradise that was, until then, frequently fully booked.  It would cover our costs, maybe even make some money and allow us a piece of paradise to visit as often as we wanted.  Two months later, that dream is not the same.  The property has been and will be empty for the foreseeable future.  There are serious doubts as to when it will be safe for us to visit again.  We thought we had leveraged but in fact exposed our young family to potential financial strain.  I am proud and so thankful to say, that the financial aspect of what happened bothered me for about a sum total of 24 hours.  What lingered was  the heaviness of knowing that a country that got under my skin and seemed to bedazzle my cells with flowers and sunsets and dusty roads was suffering.  Those faces.  All I could think of was how can I know what is going on there and not help.  Not be able to help.   Be unable to help.  Sorrow.

Abundance.

Intuition.

Caring.

Surrender.

Seasons.

These words have been swirling for months in my head and I’m not sure where they will land.  But as they persist the sorrow has lifted.  The tincture of time, the love of those who walk with me, and a few realizations have been a quick antidote.  Do I regret investing in Nicaragua?  Absolutely not.  If someone offered to buy our home there would I sell it?  Absolutely not.  Do I believe that we will be back there and that that is where we belong?  Absolutely yes.  Has the country made our lives richer our poorer?  Oh so much richer.  What do I feel when I think of Nicaragua?  Pride, hope, magic, life, community, joy.  Our intuition was correct.  This is just another of the country’s seasons.  You can’t fight it.  Surrender to it.  And as you do so, don’t begrudge your place amongst abundance.  Use it.  Prepare for what you will do to help when that season comes.  This is the mantra now and it fills the belly with those neon butterflies.  The dream is not over, it has just changed.  I dare say the dream is far better.  We will continue to make our home a beacon for those who dare to tip toe back into Nicaragua and be rewarded with all it has to offer.  We will also more tangibly give back, inspired by the courage and heart we’ve more clearly seen now.

So, I still care deeply about what is going on in Nicaragua.  I check Twitter and Instagram way more than I should.  I am heavily preoccupied.  I struggle to figure out the process of tangibly helping.  In some moments  the heaviness gets dark but as I’ve said before, this is not something to recoil from.  Caring and feeling and rolling around with your thoughts is ok.  I am proud that I care, because of my strength I care.  And it’s through the process of caring that I will figure out how to help.

So, my friends, please don’t be afraid to care and to care deeply.  A very, very eloquent friend of mine recently pointed out that we may be losing the ability to actionably care.  We can “like” and “follow” and “retweet” to get a quick hit, but your soul needs more than that.  You are more than that.  Dig deep, roll around in it, and figure out where to focus your strength and love.  Let the brief sorrow lead to butterflies.

xoxo

J

 

Hello out there.

We are travelling to Nicaragua soon.  To live in our new special place, for the first time, as a family, for a few amazing weeks.  We will be busy living and loving and I may end up writing a lot … or not at all.

There will be so many smoothies following seriously sweaty runs.  And so much rice and beans and local fruit and veggies after days at the beach.  We may get organized enough to try a few of our tried and true meals down there, with a Nica twist, or we may just eat local and take what comes.  Maybe I’ll record it for later, so when you visit you can eat beautifully and easily too.

So, if you don’t hear from me, that’s where I am.

If you search “sit with us” on the site, choose any previous week and use the menu if you like.

See you June.

xo

J

“Speak your latent conviction. . . Else tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another.”  

– Ralph Waldo Emerson

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“I think that I have imbued in my children, from a very young age, a sense of confidence in their own abilities.  That is the only way I can explain how they have all managed to survive the turbulent circumstances of their childhood without irreparable trauma.  I was an optimist, always believing they would adjust to the world around them and appreciate it in their own way.  I tried to be sincere, to never underestimate their intelligence, to trust that one day they would have the wisdom to understand the complicated circumstances of our lives.  I firmly believed they would develop the ability to be happy and that they wouldn’t think their happiness depended solely on me.  Otherwise, I would have never considered motherhood compatible with the kind of life I led. ”   ~ Gioconda Belli

For some reason, this paragraph struck me.

“I would have never considered motherhood compatible with the kind of life I led” ….

I have many a time wondered, if I am compatible with motherhood.  I do not consider myself a “natural”.  Big heart, yes.  Maternal at times, yes.  But never have I sat on the floor and played amongst toys with my girls.  I roll my eyes and whine over school projects we have to do.  I don’t relish the thought of coming up with this year’s Hallowe’en costume.  I forgot to get baskets at Easter this year.  Never have we hosted a birthday party.  My job leads me to miss bedtimes and breakfasts and parent teacher interviews.

These misgivings can plague my woman mind at times.  How are their tiny minds being twisted?  Then I look at them and I see the amazing creatures that they are.  Somehow they have become mini reflections of all the good I think I have in me and none of the bad.  They are five and eight and can execute sharp sarcasm like few I know (ahem, yes, I consider this “good”!).  They know what it is to be kind, they are learning how to respect things and places and people, they are exquisitely curious, they cherish hugs and give them with sincerity.  There is always song.  There is an earnest effort in all endeavours.  There is no hate.

Frankly, the gem of the man I married is probably mostly to thank for this, but at least I haven’t screwed his efforts up.  Motherhood can cause you to reflect on and question your every move like nothing I’ve ever experienced.  It is petrifying but also exhilarating.  If you’ve not yet tried it, considered yourself warned.  If you’re in it, trust me, you’re doing it right.

 

There are not many eyes who will read these words, there are not many heads who will hear my pleas, there are even fewer hearts who will feel what I feel.

But if you happen to to see, or hear, or feel … then take a jump in and ride the swell with me.

See you on shore.

http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/volunteers/

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