Thing Finding Thursday with Brandy Glows

Created by Tanya on February 9, 2012 | Categories: Thing Finding Thursday, What's My Thing

Today’s Thing Finding Thursday features a guest post by Brandy. She is a word-play arteest who writes and plays at brandyglows.com, a blog that chronicles her adventures in Shalom restoration.

Know what else? She’s a brave and beautiful soul. Read on.

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Embracing The Thing That Makes Me Gasp

This morning I watched a clip from The Today Show with Tara Mohr. She shared five of her 10 Rules For Brilliant Women and one of them was to do something that makes you gasp. I remembering thinking my “gasp list” was short. I like limbs and I walk them well. I get high from the adrenaline of turning a big dream into a reality. It’s one of the things I love about myself. But it’s not my thing.

Kelly Diels encouraged us, a group she coached and coaxed into Artful, Heart-full blogging last summer, to share our stories with Tanya. I am excited to write this guest post because I love Tanya and this series she’s created. It’s been a great source of inspiration as I trek along the bloggard path. Also, I rock confessional narratives. I like being honest about what I’ve done and where I come from. I hold my stories tenderly and share them openly because they’ve made me the person I am today. And that’s a big part of what I do, but it’s not my thing either.

I’ve never actually said my thing out loud. I could say I didn’t know it, but I think it would be more accurate to say that I didn’t know I knew it.

I call myself a digital pastor. A couple of weeks ago, my husband and I started a house church, so I guess I’m not strictly digital anymore. I follow Jesus, but believe God is bigger than Christianity. I believe in the restoration in all things. And I believe it’s our job. I believe in humanity’s capacity to partner with the Divine Source to restore Shalom, or wholeness and peace, in ourselves and our worlds.

I am irresponsibly hopeful.

I studied sociology in college but grew weary of just observing and discussing problems. I longed to create real social change. Let’s end racism! Let’s feed and cloth the poor and hungry. Let’s free all the slaves! Let’s reduce, reuse and recycle our asses off.

Let’s change the world and leave it a better place than it was when we got here.

I am fierce advocate for social justice. I am a voice for the voiceless. I am a dreamer and a make-it-happener of dreams just crazy enough to work.

What’s my thing?

I’m a prophet. (This is where I gasp.)

It scares me to admit it. Even though I’d wager God wants us all to be prophets and stand up against stupid crap. People often think of prophets as crazy people, alone and lonely, screaming their messages to a loud, chaotic world. But in his book, The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann suggests instead that they are leaders of social movements.

It makes sense. If Isaiah (a prophet from the Hebrew Bible) was a nobody, then nobody would have listened to him when he preached naked. Or they would have called the cops.

Although I do breastfeed in public, but I probably won’t preach naked. Still, like Isaiah, I want to foretell hope, peace, justice. Maybe that makes me crazy. I’ve got to be crazy to believe in the restoration of all things. But it’s a gorgeous crazy. And we could all use a little more of that kind of crazy in our lives.

It’s us. The bloggers. The stubborn ones who insist we can write and make and work from our living rooms. We are the leaders of the next giant social movement. And unlike our predecessors, we’re not limited by space and time. The people in our tribes can follow us from anywhere in the world. I get to share the stories – mine and yours – of radical Shalom. I get to proclaim that we can change the world – and then watch people actually do it!

Being a prophet is a process. I don’t own it every moment of every day. Sometimes I feel too weak to shout. Other times my words are too critical or too soft and they lose their prophetic edge.

I know the more I embrace My Thing, the more exciting and dangerous the adventure of life will become. It’s already led me on journeys I could never have imagined: Homebirth, helping survivors of human trafficking in India, the World Domination Summit! It’s all amazing fodder for the juicy message I’ve been given.

And it’s only the beginning.

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Go find this remarkable woman on Google+, Twitter, or on Facebook.

Then, please answer the question I am dying to know: What are YOU crazy enough to believe in? Is that the thing that makes you gasp? How is that belief informing (or not informing) YOUR thing?

Pop on over to my Facebook page to share. It’s a safe, safe place to share crazy, audacious and gorgeous beliefs.

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What's YOUR Thing? If you’re trying to find your thing, then signing up for updates is the thing for you. Get Thing Finding Thursday updates, plus:

Top secret and supershiny notices, events and discounts.

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Emotional Real Estate (and other unapologetically mixed housing metaphors)

Created by Tanya on February 8, 2012 | Categories: Life Coach

Love knows, love grows, bigger than before. In your heart, there’s always more.

{That’s not Hafiz. Those are words our 7-year old daughter sings with great gusto (from a Barbie movie, natch).}

Yes indeed. I believe in the heart’s infinite capacity for love.

I also believe in efficiency.

Capacity vs Room.

When clients present in session with uphill battles they’re facing, or difficult relationships they’re “managing” (ugh…do you HEAR the weight of that?), I’ll often ask them to consider the emotional real estate that’s being taken up with the current situation, as it is. You have only so much bandwidth to work within. How much space do you want this situation, this person, that conversation, that decision, this relationship to take up? Is it worth it?

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. And ever a good enquiry.

That’s talking about room. Not CAPACITY.

So let’s assume your heart is a home. ‘Cause, it kinda is. It houses your emotions and is your sanctuary when you remember to rest there. You do your best to keep it well-tended. It’s neat and tidy and yours. You are a gracious host and so you invite people in. After the soiree has ended, some guests feel entitled to stay in this loving place for longer. You, of course agree. It would be unkind otherwise.

At first, it’s most convivial. You enjoy the devotional acts of leaving mints on the pillow and making your guests breakfast. Sure, they can pick the movie tonight and don’t worry about using all the hot water. Over time, you start to feel a subtle, but mounting resentment to the space they’re taking up. You can’t walk into your living room without tripping over their bags. Is that MORE dirty laundry for you to do? Don’t they EVER wipe the counters down after they shave? And about that toilet seat…

Then you stop yourself for being unkind. You take a step back and think: no, it’s not the last beer that they drank or the fact that they tear out articles from your magazines. No…the problem is you. It’s your house. If it were BIGGER, then you’d be a more gracious host.

Maybe it’s time to put an addition out on the back of the house. Then there would be TONS of space for visitors and their bags.

Sure, it will cost a ton (money, resources, effort), but then there will be room enough for all? Right?

Hmm.

You have only so much room in your heart. Fact. AND, heart’s capacity knows no bounds. But your love can.

So by all means, throw open the doors. And them all in. Just be mindful of who gets to STAY.

Allow to stay those who give as freely as they receive.

Those who value your radiance; not simply your PVR.
Those who come bearing nourishing greens + sumptuous broths to feed your soul; not three beers from a 6-pack.
Those who make you want to laugh with the world; not at it.
Those who cherish your quirks; not deride you for them.
Those who see you for the infinite light that you are; not just your generosity and comfy couch.
Those who are worthy. Of the space that you are sharing.

Before you know it, your house will have filled well beyond the imagined constraints of any architects’ drawing. There, in every room will be more love, joy and fulfillment than you thought possible. An effortless expansion with not a bead of sweat.

Exactly what your heart’s been yearning for, all along.

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Thing Finding Thursday with Matthew Stillman of Stillman Says

Created by Tanya on February 2, 2012 | Categories: Inspiring People, Thing Finding Thursday, What's My Thing

“Where creativity and wisdom make out on top of your problem.”

Okay. That is some good, good copy. It’s not mine, it’s Matthew Stillman’s. You’ve heard of him…he’s the guy that hangs out in NYC’s Union Square and offers creative approaches to what people have been thinking about. You know…their PROBLEMS (so what if the word “problem” is taboo in the magical world of self-discovery).

“Stirring what is stagnant within you”

“The art of the reframe with the science of the wise”

Seriously. I can’t stop. It’s all just too good.

You should also know this from his site:

Matt conceived of, wrote the treatment for and co-produced a feature length documentary film about the origins of poverty and why it persists in a world with so much wealth. His film, called “The End of Poverty?” premiered at the Cannes Film Festival and was featured in over 40 festivals around the world. Matt has spoken at the United Nations about the film and poverty four times as well as many other educational and socio-political forums.

Currently Matt is developing a study to radically transform the property tax system in New York City.

Not just another guy “de-problemizing through high weirdness” in Union Square and a really green wall in his apartment. Nope, he’s an original, to be sure. And a truly generous person.

So there was NO WAY I could continue talking to people about their things without talking to Matthew about his. And, of course, yours.

Interview with Matthew Stillman for Thing Finding Thursday

Look for the gaps, note the aversions, stay in some uncomfortable places, and play with the purpose of play.

Oh yes.

Tweetworthy StillmanSays-isms (for your sharing pleasure

You need to be willing to stay in some sort of uncomfortable spots and see what opens up there. @StillmanSays ow.ly/8PjhN #TFThurs
(When we’re young) our radiance goes out in 360 degrees. @StillmanSays to @TanyaGeisler ow.ly/8PjhN #TFThurs
(As we age, we feel loss b/c) we’ve lost access to three quarters of our being. @StillmanSays to @TanyaGeisler ow.ly/8PjhN #TFThurs
The game being infinite is more important than winning a particular game. @StillmanSays to @TanyaGeisler ow.ly/8PjhN #TFThurs
Be kind to yourself. You’ve done so much work already. @StillmanSays to @TanyaGeisler ow.ly/8PjhN #TFThurs

Transcript of edited interview (for your reading pleasure)

Matthew: Well, one of my things–the thing that people who are online probably know about me most–is my website, stillmansays.com. And that is an experiment that I’ve started which I’ve turned into a business, which is a report of my time spent sitting out in Union Square in New York City, where I live.

At Union Square, I sit with two folding chairs and a table, with a sign that says “Creative approaches to what you’ve been thinking about” and a smaller sign that says, “Pay what you like or take what you need.” I sit out there for 10 hours a day or so, a couple of days a week, when the weather is appropriate, and just talk with strangers about anything at all that they need a creative approach to.

And it’s been everything from as simple as “I need a name for my novel,” or “I have a relationship problem,” or “something going on with my business,” to “I need help finding my spirit animal,” or “I have a dispute with a neighbour,” or “I need to find a new religion,” or “I need help avoiding getting murdered.” It could be anything at all, and I hopefully help people look at the situation they’re in in a very creative way.

Matthew: And then, seeing it differently, it may be figured out. It might not be figured out. Or it might just be seen in its proper or different perspective, which allows you to have a different relationship with it. You know, so often we think that the only way to get into a house is through the front door; but sometimes it’s the back door. Sometimes it’s through a window. Sometimes you need to dig a hole underneath the house and crawl up through the floorboards.

Tanya: “De-problemizing through high weirdness,” this is from your site, this is what you do–I was totally gob-smacked by the genius of that.

How do you go from the time, the opportunity, people say you’re really good at de-problemizing through high weirdness, and then you just sort of say, “Yeah, you know what? Union Square: What it’s really missing is a desk, and two chairs, and these two signs. And me!

Matthew: Well, I guess that’s part of my charm, that I was willing to say, “This is the thing that’s missing.” I didn’t know that it was going to turn into a blog or a years-long experiment. I thought I was going to just do it! But on the first day I went out there, it just worked. And it was very clear I could keep doing this.

Tanya: Right, right, okay. Your last post, or the most recent one that I read, is–I’ve forgotten the title now.

Matthew: The baby feet one and St. Anthony?

Tanya: The baby feet! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.

Matthew: It’s a good one.

Tanya: I’m really in love with this idea of lost or forgotten voices, and in the realm of thing-finding, I really think that there’s something magical and beautiful about listening for those lost or forgotten voices.

Matthew: When we are children, and when we’re born, we are treasured by and large for all our qualities. People love us for our selfishness, they love us for our screaming. So all our voices, for a time, are available to us. And for lack of a better analogy, they go out in 360 degrees. Our radiance goes out in 360 degrees.

And after a certain amount of time, we’re told by our parents, and our caretakers, and society, “You know, we love you, but it really would be helpful if you were a little less selfish, you shared more, you were quieter, you were–” and it’s not done out of malice, it’s done out of sort of getting you into a system which can really be useful. But we start to close down and put into a bag the other voices that we have, because they’re not appreciated or heard. They’re too different.

And so, I’m making up a number, but let’s say you’re 10, 12, 14, 16, 20–you have practice putting three quarters of yourself into a bag behind you, and we don’t listen to those voices any more, because it makes our life too complex to listen to these other voices. And similarly, because we have to make so many choices every day, we streamline ourselves to say, “You know what? It’s easiest if I just listen to these particular voices. I’ve got to get to particular outcomes faster.” And because the world that we live in requires speed and efficiency, we move along with that, and say, “You know what? I’m just going to listen to the voices that are easiest, and get me to the place that I want to be and feel comfortable and safe in.”

And then, we have cut ourselves off from three quarters of our being, because there is 90 degrees which is presentable and useful, and the rest of it is not appreciated. So that leaves us feeling, later in our lives, “Why do I feel vacant? Why do I feel closed off? Why do I feel like the same things are happening?” Because we’ve lost access to three quarters of our being.

Tanya: I’ve got a seven year old daughter, and she was super proud of an award she came home with, she was awarded in front of the whole school; it was an empathy award. And about a week later, I was talking with her teacher and he said, “It was great to see her so proud of that award. You know, she’s a bit too sensitive, though.”

Matthew: Ugh!

Matthew: Yeah. I mean, for me, the fact that he said that to a girl in particular. You know, more broadly speaking, so many women are essentially forced to harden themselves and to cast aside some of the core elements of their femininity early. And I’ve seen too many girls sacrificed on the altar of progress and forward movement and they lose all their softness, or enough of it that they just become something different.

Matthew: You just want to be able to open the door, to say, “Here’s A voice.” And see if—if you’ve been carrying around a bag with three quarters of your identity for thirty-plus years, it might be terrifying to look it there, because if you were dragged in a bag for thirty years, you’d be furious! So it is, often, scary to look at those voices. I might say, it’s worth looking at the things that you have a very strong aversion to, and just see what your philosophies are about that, and see if that’s a part that you have a need to tap into.

Tanya: Love love love that you’ve said that. I’m big on aversions in the work that I do, too, so thank you for highlighting that

Tanya: Do people ever show up and say, “Dude, what’s my thing? Like, what’s my thing?”

Matthew: Yeah. I think the most direct question I ever got for that, that I can recall at this moment, is someone who came to me and said, “I’ve just quit my religion and I need to find a new religion.” So that’s sort of, “What’s my thing?”

But I think the thing of “finding your thing” is to not be afraid to lift every stone and to stay there. Because finding your thing is good, and important, but you’re not just one thing. You are—it’s more important for you to be whole than to find your thing. Because your thing might be really big.

As an infant, you take absolute delight in playing with your toes, and absolute delight with throwing food, and absolute delight with falling asleep, and hugging your parent’s leg and hugging a fire hydrant are the same thing. So I wouldn’t close the door to finding your thing, you just need to be willing to stay in some sort of uncomfortable spots and see what opens up there.

Tanya: There’s a way in which we have this be very serious, where does curiosity and play factor in?

Matthew: In terms of play, there are two types of games that one can play. There’s a finite game, and there’s an infinite game.

Finite games are played to be won. They’re played within fixed boundaries, and they’re played for a title, they’re bounded by time and location.

But if you’ve ever seen people who just love to play basketball, or if you see kids play basketball—they’ll run off the court, the score ends up being 117 to 4, no one cares. They’re playing for the sake of playing. It’s more important to keep the game moving than anyone winning.

So in terms of play, I think it’s very important to not be playing for title, or for winning, or for status, but to be playing for the sake of play. And there is where there is freedom. And in order to do that, you need curiosity. And it’s important to people to know what the rules are, too. That’s perfectly reasonable! But, ultimately, the game being infinite is more important than winning a particular game.

Tanya: And, through that, that’s where we find our toes.

Tanya: For the people who are trying to find their things: What do you want for them?

Matthew: To forgive themselves for not having found it. To criticize themselves less for struggling. And to be kind, because they’ve done so much work already. I think those are probably the most important things to start with.

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Compassion, wisdom, quirkiness, and a truly delightful human being.

Go find him and his incredible stories at StillmanSays.com and on Twitter.

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What's YOUR Thing? If you’re trying to find your thing, then signing up for updates is the thing for you. Get Thing Finding Thursday updates, plus:

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Thing Finding Thursday with Jen Louden

Created by Tanya on January 25, 2012 | Categories: Thing Finding Thursday, What's My Thing

Jen Louden. To know her is to love her. Without question.

{Sigh}.

To me, this woman is the sheer embodiment of Creative Joy (and River Deep? Oh YES). Truly.

{Deep sigh}.

Okay, so she’s that, she’s funny as funny can be (cf: The Giggle Reel), she’s hung out on Oprah’s couch, and oh, I don’t know, like, HELPED LAUNCH THE WHOLE SELF CARE MOVEMENT with her first book The Woman’s Comfort Book. Since then, she’s written five more books on well-being and personal wisdom that have inspired more than a million women in nine languages, like the classic The Woman’s Retreat Book and her latest, The Life Organizer. She has been a national magazine columnist, radio show host on Sirius, the whole while with those brilliant baby blues shining bright and a grin that could stop a Mack truck going full speed. In fact, I’m sure it has.

She knows self-love + world-love = wholeness for all.

{Yet another deep sigh}.

So, she’s a woman WHO KNOWS THINGS….you know?

Intimately.

And she revealed a LOT in this interview in service of you finding YOUR thing. She talks about teaching your way to your thing, her incredible TeachNow program (of which I am enthusiastically participating in this time around), seducing your thing, loving and abandoning your thing (and how that’s juuuust fine) and all kinds of other richness. TRUST me.

And I confess, I had a helluva time editing this video down to under 10 minutes (the limit available for a YouTube video) so once you’ve enjoyed the interview, devoured the transcript, shared the tweets (as feels appropriate to you), please treat yourself to The Jen Louden + Tanya Geisler Giggle Reel (wherein I THINK she does Shiva Nata, shares a highly memorable moment on National TV and we yuck it up but good).

{Final sigh}

Interview with Jen Louden for Thing Finding Thursday

Good, right??

Tweetworthy Jen-isms (for your sharing pleasure)

You don’t think you’re ready to teach, but you discover what you know thru teaching. @JenLouden to @TanyaGeisler ow.ly/8GHZc #TFThurs
Don’t let the heartbreak stop you from trying. @JenLouden to @TanyaGeisler ow.ly/8GHZc #TFThurs
It’s never about being done, or perfect. @JenLouden to @TanyaGeisler ow.ly/8GHZc #TFThurs
And if I try to stare too hard…or make it a brand or a tagline, it bites me in the ass + it dies. @JenLouden ow.ly/8GHZc #TFThurs
Finding your thing is an onion, a spiral, a dance, it’s not a destination. @JenLouden to @TanyaGeisler ow.ly/8GHZc #TFThurs
Your thing may be what’s flirting with you out of the corner of your eye. @JenLouden to @TanyaGeisler ow.ly/8GHZc #TFThurs
It’s okay to find [your thing] + abandon it + find it + abandon it. @JenLouden to @TanyaGeisler ow.ly/8GHZc #TFThurs

Transcript of edited interview (for your reading pleasure)

Tanya: So, Jen Louden, what’s your thing?.

Jennifer: Can I read you something?

Tanya: Always.

Jennifer: I’m called to lead you into sun drenched wholeness. I am called to paint a picture for you of you free from shackles and shame and blame and ill health. I’m called to mold a whole body YES to whatever life brings. And I’m called to help you find and live your creative heart’s desire in service to the world – in service to you and in servic