It has been my experience that risk-taking comes in many forms, according to the personality of the risk-taker, the nature of the risk, or the results of previous attempts at deliberate change.

First of all, there are people who dive in head-first, undeterred by the sudden chill of the water. Others prefer to wade slowly through the shallows, trying to adjust themselves to the temperature change before they commit to plunging under the waves. Then there are those who have taken a Swedish Plunge, jumped quickly out, and vowed never to repeat such an experience again!

i have done it all three ways, at one time or another, and as I have grown, I’ve learned that there are some risks that I never need to attempt, for instance, bungee-jumping. It is not anything that is necessary for my growth as an individual, and the reward is not worth the risk, in my opinion. Some risks are dark and hairy, and the only way to deal with them is to take a deep breath, put on your big-girl panties, and plunge right in. Facing the situation immediately is better than living in anxiety about how and when to take that risk.

Finally, some risks are better faced in bite-sized chunks. My previous post was about allowing myself to grieve my parents’ deaths. That was a huge one, and at first, I thought that there was no way I could survive it. I had to make some readjustments — take it slow, allow myself time to feel my true feelings, but not stay stuck there. Even in a season of grief, one has to take time to love, laugh, meditate, and pray. Finally, (and this was another scary risk for me) share my feelings with those closest to me, and ask for their support. Despite my fears, they did come through for me.

So, whichever method you use, why not take a risk today?  I just did, in writing this post replete with mixed metaphors. I’m sure my fellow writer friends have cringed a few times as they have read this. Guess what? It has not diminished my value as a human or a writer. I’m quirky that way.

In January I wrote that every morning I was going to begin my day by writing in my tiny journal (not my bigger journal) that I was unique, valued and loved.  In a sermon by our pastor, we, in the St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church congregation, had been encouraged to have that affirmation each morning.  And beyond that, to realize that others were unique, valued and loved, too.  I chose to write it.  Well, I have been doing that now for 3 months.  I thought it was time to report to you about that discipline.

I must admit that it became terribly boring to write that every day.  Some days I thought “This is VERY boring.”  Other days, I took it right to heart and tried to live that day knowing that I was unique, valued and loved and opening myself to those qualities in others. “Success” you might say.  Hmmmm.

I need to back up a bit and tell you that for most of my life I was a very codependant person.  (Does anyone use that word anymore?)  I knew correctly and clearly what everyone around me needed or was feeling but didn’t have a clue about myself.  Over the last 25-30 years I’ve learned a lot, but like most things learned, I don’t always behave as if I have really learned them.

Over these last 3 months of writing that I am unique, valued and loved, I have had days of thinking…”OK I’m unique.”  That’s a given.  Valued?  Hmmm. Most days I feel very valued by my husband, lots of days I feel valued by my children and grandchildren, some days I feel valued by my friends and neighbors.  So, clearly I’m not too sure about valued…Loved?  I feel very loved by my husband, children and grandchildren and lots of my friends.

While I was analyzing this, it suddenly occurred to me that I was falling into old habits – being concerned about what others were feeling.  This was supposed to be an exercise about MY FEELINGS.  Oh, my!  My risk of beginning my day by the affirmation that I AM UNIQUE, VALUED AND LOVED is MY affirmation.

And so, I will continue the practice and hope by the end of the year it not only will be an affirmation but will be MY truth about myself.

Today’s my birthday. I am 77 this year. Double 7′s. That could be lucky, don’t you think?

As I’ve said before, as you get older, you no longer think so much about risking but how to avoid risking. You look for safety far more than you ever did. I remember being daring in my youth. No more.

Now, I want to live each day with my eyes, mind and heart wide open to the promise of the day and to the blessings that are always there. I want to risk believing that the old, like me, can embrace the new. That’s why I hope to do all the wide open living I can, within the parameters my body and my age place on me, as long as I can. I don’t want to be foolish – only open and optimistic.

So, I risk telling you that I’m old and more careful than when life was new. But, I want life to keep coming at me with its challenges and its blessings. All else being equal, I’ll risk taking them head on.

“The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.” – Emily Dickinson

My mother was my best friend. She was my cheerleader, my shoulder to cry on, my role model, and my soft place to fall. I can remember thinking that I would be unable to cope on any level if and when I lost her. I’m embarrassed to say that more than a few times I secretly wished that I would die before she would. I could not imagine a world without her comforting presence in it.

But life has its own capricious rules to follow, and I did lose my beloved mother to cancer in 2005. It was a world-shattering loss to me. One that I couldn’t bear to feel or examine. So I concentrated on taking care of my Dad. Before my Mom died, we weren’t that close. I started talking to him more, and listening — really listening — to old stories I’d heard a million times before, but had mostly tuned out. I tried to help him become more self-sufficient after more than 45 years of being catered to by Mom, although I did love cooking for him. His rave reviews of my culinary skills naturally brought me pleasure. Over six years, we made up a lot of time in getting closer. I truly enjoyed his company.

Then on August 8, 2011, I went in to wake him up, only to discover that he had died in his sleep. I cried out “No! This is not happening again! ”  I pounded on his chest, all the while knowing it was too late for CPR. I was grasping for some supernatural miracle, I guess. For 48 hours after his death, I was afraid to go to sleep, for fear of replaying that scene in my dreams, or worse, forgetting that he had died, only to awaken to fresh pain. I finally found sleep, and neither of the things I had feared came to pass.

Other than the copious tears that flowed at his funeral though, I have rarely cried since. When grief sits in the shadows just outside my consciousness, I keep myself busy. I fill my brain, often with trivial things, to keep from feeling pain.

The task before me is to open myself to the risk of feeling the grief, the pain, in order to process it, and move through it. The fact is that, as silly as it may sound, I am an orphan at 51 years of age. I don’t want to think about it, but I must. Perhaps at the end of the process, I’ll have learned how to parent myself, how to be my own cheerleader and comforter. Perhaps I’ll feel cleansed by all of the tears shed. Maybe nothing will change. I just know that I have to do it.

Hello, faithful readers of the RiskADay Blog!  I hope this finds you having a Rocking Day!

Today, I want to tell you about a risk I am taking this week.  I am working on a newsletter to send to my list of True Voices subscribers, letting them in on what’s going on with me and the business.  Why is this a risk?  Because in this newsletter I am going to tell it like it is. That’s why.

It’s not that I have been being dishonest and now I am coming clean, it’s just that there are some hard truths I want to share with them, and that is scary for me.  I’d rather they think that every little thing is hunky dory and leave it at that.  But frankly, things aren’t hunky dory at all.  (And maybe some of the readers can benefit from knowing that they are not alone.)

Don’t worry. I still have a roof over my head, the dogs are fine, Martha and the rest of my family are fine, and I am not hurting for meals, for sure.  But there are things about my business that are no longer working (maybe some that never did) – yuck. So, I am in the middle of figuring out what those things are and what to do about them.  And it’s unpleasant, to say the least!

So, my risk – risks – for the week, are working on this newsletter and then pushing the send button.  I expect that the world won’t collapse as a result, but if I’m not back next month, you’ll know why!  :-)  Actually, what I know is that regardless of how hard this turns out, I will feel better in the long run.  And, after all, isn’t that why we do hard things in the first place?

Yeah, but why tell everyone, you might ask.  Because, as you know, authenticity and integrity are extremely important to me.  And even though I haven’t been lying, I feel they deserve to know the whole truth, and I deserve to be heard telling it.  I am reminded of a quote my friend and web goddess, Suzanne Bird-Harris sent me this week.  ”If you asked me what I came into this world to do, I will tell you: I came to live out loud.”  - Emile Zola

So here goes.  Wish me luck!

I was recently talking with dear friends. Some of them, like some of you probably, are facing hard financial times. Some fear losing their jobs, some were already feeling the pinch of diminishing income. Being optimistic, they are open to new possibilities, new experiences. Maybe open like they’ve never been been.

That made me think of the stuff we carry around with us – stuff we hang on to because we think it’s important. How often do we really sit down and make a judgement about whether it IS important. It may have been at one time but is it still?

I’m talking about two kinds of “stuff.” One kind of stuff is tangible – you can hold it and you can certainly accumulate it. It’s important to look at it often and make judgements about it’s importance now.

The stuff that I’m most talking about isn’t something tangible but we hold on to it just as tightly. Have you ever tried to open a door when your hands are full? Sometimes being so loaded down can result in dropping and/or losing something you were hanging on to. Think about how, when our hands are empty, there is room for something else, something new, maybe something better. What could we pick up if only our hands were empty? What would be available for you if you hadn’t filled yourself and your time to overflowing? What door could you open and pass through by maybe putting something down? What would that something be for you?

I’m trying to simply my life by ridding myself of tangible stuff but I’m also risking a “real” evaluation of what I’m holding on to that I might put down to make room for something new and exciting. hmmm

This is an update from my last post “Tooting my horn”.  It’s only right to post the results.  Yes, I tooted. Yes, I received good feedback. No, I didn’t get what I wished for.  Or, did I?

I rallied myself, and all those who cared to listen, to ask for a thing.  I didn’t get that thing.  BUT, I am choosing to take my lumps and find the positive.  This is probably one of the most important things about running your own business.  Find the positive in everything you do.  You have to do this.  You have to reflect on what just happened, accept the consequences and most importantly, learn from your experience.

Once you decide to work for yourself, you are out of the classroom.  Yes, we always continue to learn, but there are truly are no rewinds and no replays.  You take your chances and you learn from them. Or, you just relearn those lessons again and again.

So what did I gain from asking for a thing?  I learned about preparing for a presentation.  I learned about doing my absolute best.  I learned about asking for help.  I learned that each time I talk about the benefits of massage I achieve new insight.  I gained new colleagues while I asked for their help.  I also learned the value of not always getting what I ask for.

So, just like from childhood “try and try again”. You will succeed, even if you don’t get what you pictured.  You will come out the other side better prepared for the next time you try.

Both of these things start with a brick. It just takes one brick.  It’s the intention that sets everything into motion.  It’s that first act, moving in one direction or another that decides what will be created.

One brick placed one on top of another that can build a wall.…. or one beside the other that can create a bridge.

Walls are built all the time.  Sometimes they defend and protect.  Other times, they separate, they isolate, they provide shelter.  All these walls come in different shapes –some are taller, some wider.  When I build walls they are meant to keep something or someone away – to cushion myself, to guard myself.  Therapy has helped with some of my past walls, and is helping with my awareness of ones under-construction.

And then consider bridges--there are many around us, when we notice. Little ones, and big ones. They connect and provide access.  They make a way over or a way through.  When I build bridges they are meant to connect or re-connect me to someone or something.  Therapy has also helped me in recognizing the significance and healing that can happen with bridges.  

The clear truth that I’m thinking about today is that it’s not that one structure is right each time its built, and the other structure is wrong each time its built.  The difference-and the lesson–is that it’s the intention that makes all the difference.    Along my own journey, the building of one or another of these  is a life practice.  There are times that I need shelter and protection – and in those times the walls are my choice.  Likewise there are times when there is life in bridging toward another –when I reach across and reach outward.

And if I tell the truth about it today,  there are times that I feel very vividly like I’m walking through the wilderness.  All that I sense around me is flat, endless, and immense.  All around me is sand – not a brick to be found.

For this day, for me, the risk-a-day lesson is to think twice as I reach for the next brick.  Will it be for wall-building or bridge-building?  It starts with that first brick.

When I was a child, my idea of what I wanted to be when I grew up changed almost weekly, from a teacher to a research chemist to a psychiatrist to an opera singer. One thing I never wavered on, however, was my plan to be a “mommy.” Being the oldest of six children, I knew early those tuggings termed maternal nurture. I remember crying on my twelfth Christmas, knowing that the next year, I’d be too old for baby dolls.

​Flash forward to my twenty-fifth year. Everything seemed right in my timeline. I was engaged to be married, and was expecting my first child. But at twelve weeks gestation, I miscarried that child, and I called off the marriage (for other reasons.) I won’t list here the details of my failed relationships and reproductive problems, but at age 40, I finally had to have a hysterectomy, which naturally quashed all dreams of motherhood.

​For a season, I was devastated, even bitter. I became comfortable in seeing myself as “wronged” by the universe. Anger does have a certain energizing force, after all. Eventually, though, anger turned to depression, and that wasn’t nearly as satisfying. I knew I had to take the risk of letting go of those comfortable angry feelings, but it was scary. What would I replace them with? Would I ever be happy when my fondest dream in life could now never possibly come true? I didn’t know for sure, but I was willing to be open to whatever came next for me. And what a glorious next chapter unfolded:

​See, while all of that drama was going on, I was fortunate to have a sister who honored me by allowing me to be a part of her children’s lives. They stayed with me often when they were little ones, and each in their turn lived with me during the rough teenage years. Today, all three of them are parents themselves, and guess what? My oldest niece and her child lives with me, as does my oldest nephew, his significant other, and their baby.

It may not be the family I envisioned as a young child, but I have a houseful of people whom I love, and who love me. I get to play the mother role and the grandmother role.

​I challenge you to look at your life, and at the things at which you think you have failed. Perhaps, just perhaps, you may have attained that very thing, only it doesn’t look exactly the way you thought it would. A change in perspective can often put your whole world into focus.

What do you do when you first open your eyes in the morning? What are your first thoughts? How do you begin your day?

I attend St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church in Austin. The minister is Dr. Jim Rigby. Some of you may have heard of him or read a quote from him. He is often on the cusp of the response to injustice – globally, nationally, and within in our own neighborhood(s). I am always challenged by his words, his thoughts, and the thoughts I have that his words have stirred. In the words of Jack Nicholson in “As Good As It Gets,” he “makes me want to be a better person.”

A recent Sunday’s scripture was Psalms 139. I wish I could quote it as we heard it. It was a modern, progressive translation from the Inclusive Bible. During his sermon, he said that each of us belongs to: ourselves, others, and to the world/universe/nature. It was a good sermon, as usual. He made a suggestion that I want to risk doing.

Here’s what he asked us to do. When we first wake in the morning, we are to remember that we are unique, valued and loved. He went on to say that this isn’t to make us believe that we are each the ultimate person and that those who aren’t like us are inferior. NO. That would never be what he was saying. We are to think this and remember this while we remember, also, that we are all connected and we are all loved. Just wake and remember these things.

From the way I was brought up, at first this sounded a little bit like a form of bragging. Maybe you were brought up the same way. But, we’re not asked to say these things to someone else – just to ourselves.

I bought a “thought a day” journal and in it I’m going to risk not only having that thought and saying it to myself but writing it. Each morning I’ll write that I’m unique, valued and loved. I’ll also continue with my usual journal writing but this new little journal will be to remind myself every single day of my uniqueness, value and lovableness.

We won’t have world peace because I do this. But it’s a start. Imagine. Just imagine. If each of us started each day acknowledging that we are unique, valued and loved and going about our day feeling this and allowing others to feel it, too, what a different day it would be. What a different world it might become.

I’m going to risk it. Will you risk it with me?