For many years I was completely confused by the idea of patience, and was certain I didn’t have any of this particular quality, or what I did have seemed to come at a cost I couldn’t endure for long.

I thought patience was the ability to maintain oneself in unpleasant, difficult, painful circumstances without complaint or running for the hills. I thought it was some infinite form of self-denial that would some how get you into heaven and keep you out of trouble.

Ouch, it hurts just to think of this.

I thought it involved squashing all the internal news that something was amiss, something wasn’t nurturing or supportive or safe.

Thankfully, it turns out I was wrong about patience.

Patience is something else.

Patience isn’t the denial of anything, but the willingness to be with everything.

Recently I had the honor of spending time with our ancestors the Sequoias. I stooped down and ate the soil at their roots and stood inside the hollow of their trunk. I felt the reach of heights I’d never imagined. I felt my roots sink into rich earth.

Whatever misconception I’d been carrying for years about trees as separate from me and somehow less conscious than I was, were let go of here.

These trees were here: totally and completely present and manifesting a quality of patience and grace I’d not met before.

These ancestors had cultivated contentment so deep and strong over their many centuries lifetime from seed to seedlings to now ancient, enduring presence.  All I could do was stand in witness and let their patience sink into my relatively young, flitty, distracted, confused being.

Patience is a movement in this moment toward being present with the uncomfortable inside our bodies, a willingness to open toward and allow these sensations to be here along with everything

else we are experiencing.

Sometimes when we are willing to include these feelings and sensations in our lives we realize it is time to shift our outer circumstances to more deeply support what is emerging inside.

We move our bodies and discover new ways to stand in the world.

Sometimes when we stay right where we are with

what is uncomfortable without pushing it away or pushing it down we realize it is bearable, that we don’t have to leave or get a new job or scream at the neighbor.

We can live as this sensation, we can live with this experience, we can stay right on the spot and wake up.

The other spirit of patience I know is the capacity to not know,

the willingness to live in our lives without knowing how a conflict will be resolved or if it will be resolved, how we will survive or if we will survive, where we will end up or what it will all be like.

And out of this event of patience, of including everything in our experience and drawing from our center of strength—a center we might not even know exists until we come into this patience—we will grow as content and open-hearted as the great Sequoia, or better yet we will grow into our fullest selves, what ever that is for us, that we can’t imagine from where we are, but is there none-the-less inside of us taking root.

I can’t tell you the number of times in my life things haven’t worked out the way I thought they should, the way I wanted them to, the way I expected they would. I get it wrong on average: %100 of the time.  Sometimes I don’t know I’m getting it wrong because I like what I get.  But it is never what I expected.

So why do I go on predicting, planning, controlling, manipulating, cajoling and obsessing?

Because I’m scared.

I’m scared that some how in the next moment or deeper in the future I won’t be okay, I’ll be in pain, I’ll be poverty stricken, I’ll be lonely, I’ll have a miserable job and chronic pain, I won’t be my image of myself…I could go on and on.

Here’s what I offer myself when the insecurity gets intense enough I can’t ignore it (I’m hiding under the covers for the duration of the day, I’m losing my cool with someone I love).

1. I kiss my shoulder

(In public I just imagine it, don’t want to get locked up or anything…okay, that isn’t totally true, even in public I sometimes do this).  I’m serious, we give our family and friends—the kids in our lives—kisses when they aren’t feeling well, when they are being hard on themselves, why shouldn’t we do the same for ourselves? As you can see, I’m shy and a little defensive about this, but it has improved my relationship with myself considerably.

2. Then having established some caring toward the confused creature that I am I ask myself, “What is really the matter?”

3. I listen.

Not just to the tumble of thoughts that have been plaguing me, but to what is actually going on right here and now.

4. I discover I’m human.

Maybe I have a stomachache, or I’m upset about something I said to someone earlier. Maybe I realize a hurt or fear inside I’ve been living with since I was little. Not something that has anything to do with the future, but something that is here and uncomfortable right now.

5. I stop resisting the uncomfortable and be with it–tenderly.

Feelings and sensations are alive in us. They are full of energy and want to be expressed and acknowledged.  So I see what I can do to just let the energy be there, or move, or whatever it needs.

6. I focus on what IS comfortable and secure.

Sometimes the feelings or sensations are just too much. Instead of unwinding it seems I’m retriggering my anxiety and insecurity.  When this happens I locate a place inside that feels at ease, maybe even strong. For me this is often my feet.  I build up my experience of okayness in my feet in this moment (I know, sounds strange, but it really helps).

7. I go slowly.

Now that I’ve realized the insecurity isn’t in my future, but is alive in the present, I offer myself some much needed compassion and tenderness.

8. I ask myself, “Is this okay? Is it tolerable? Can I accept this?”

Sometimes the answer is YES and sometimes it is NO.  When it is No, I ask myself, “Is that okay? Can I live with the NO right now?”

9. I ask myself, “What is possible right now?”

Each moment the unknown is unfolding before us, we really don’t know what will happen or who we will be.  If you ask this question and are open to all answers you will be surprised by what you hear—not from your thinking brain, but from your heart brain. Sometimes I hear, “I need to rest for now.” Or, “I think I’ll go dig in the garden a little.” Or, “I really need to put on loud music and dance.” Who knows, but the answer is about meeting ourselves in this moment and taking a step back from trying to secure our unsecurable future.

10. I respect the answer.

This is so hard.  Hard not to argue that staying in bed will be my ruin, or that I have more important things to do than dance.  But if I can quiet these voices, do what I need to do, and trust when the next thing needs to be done, I’ll do that, I begin to relax into joy.  Sometimes if I absolutely must do something other than what my heart calls for, I promise my heart that I’ll come back as soon as possible and fulfill its request.

11. I remind myself the unknown is mystery and grace. I put one foot in front of the other knowing it won’t get me anywhere but here.

Here is where all the JOY is.

I love God. I love God in the way Rumi speaks of God:

“The Beloved we want is always awake,/and always meets us when we arrange to meet.”

I almost never use the word God when talking about my spiritual life.

I almost never talk about my spiritual life.

It is true, I write about it here on my blog, or at least I almost do:

I talk about the power of listening to bring us into new relationship with ourselves and the world.

This is a spiritual act. I rarely say this.

I rarely talk directly about what the sacred means to me.

Sherry Ruth Anderson and Patricia Hopkins write in their book, The Feminine Face of God:

“And, indeed, we seem to be much more comfortable talking about our sex lives than we are sharing information with each other about how we pray. Perhaps this is because praying may be the most personal and intimate thing we do. To pray is to be vulnerable. And in deep, personal prayer we come to know our vulnerabilities in a way that strips us of all our defenses and pretenses. That which is our very essence calls us into communion with mystery, and this joining is a supremely intimate experience.”

I don’t talk about prayer. I don’t write about prayer. I don’t admit that for me, entering into a receptive listening relationship with the unknown is prayer.

It is. I admit it. I pray.

My prayers are the act of orienting to the unknown, to feeling the love of the Beloved alongside and inside every ache and misunderstanding and confusion.

Almost ten years ago I began a searching prayer when I moved in with myself, alone (one of those maybe this is a just a one night stand but then instead I stayed, with myself, alone, for a long time).

I took the advice of a wise spiritual teacher without even knowing it since I never met her and didn’t hear the advice until later:

“Sit down, shut up, and figure it out yourself.”

As I lived my way into and through this prayer, I wrote. And wrote. And wrote.

The time has come, out of this prayer and writing to make a book. To share my spiritual life.

To talk about it out loud. To let go of thinking my path doesn’t fit with some notion of The Path and instead trust myself, trust the Beloved, and trust that

speaking out loud our truth is an act of creation, regeneration, and love.

“Learning to trust the unfolding of one’s own life is awkward, painful work that often leaves one feeling exposed and vulnerable.”–Sherry Ruth Anderson and Patricia Hopkins, The Feminine Face of God.

I’ve launched a Kickstarter Campaign to make a book and share the prayer of my unknown unfolding in the hopes it speaks to your unknown unfolding. You can listen to me speak about this in the video on the Kickstarter page and you can back this project and help bring this book forth.

Kickstarter Campaign: Waking Up At Home. A Memoir. A Manuscript.

Sometimes our life brings us to our knees. Sometimes on our knees we pray.

Sometimes when we are on our knees it is our best opportunity to lie right down on the earth and listen.

Sometimes when we are here it is helpful to have someone listen to us, with us.

I offer this listening through one-on-one sessions by phone and in person.

I’m offering limited sessions this year because–see above–I’m writing a book. But if you are interested in a session with me the best way to book one right now is to back my Kickstarter project at the $100 level and you’ll get a session plus postcards, books, updates.

To see all the pledge levels and rewards click here, scroll down and look to the left hand sidebar.

To learn more about working with me click here.

And since talking about sex is not as scary as talking about prayer, I’ll now admit:

The secret to sex is to approach it as prayer,

to explore the unknown with your beloved while held by the Beloved, and to let go of every belief and idea you have about both sex and prayer (and your beloved/the Beloved).

“When a woman makes the choice to embody spiritual experience in her everyday life, idealizations go out the window. She has to bring in everything—frailties and strengths, doubts and optimism, whatever she longs to conceal and whatever she’d be delighted to flaunt—and live it out.” –Sherry Ruth Anderson and Patricia Hopkins, The Feminine Face of God.

Inquiring into the underbelly of my thoughts—the shame, the shadow, the shortcomings—and living out the repercussions of this listening is also prayer.

Out of a prayer of this kind I wrote a piece about men and women—no, it is about me—that was published this week on my friend Kelly Diels’ blog, Cleavage.

Here it is: Men Should Not Ignore and Dismiss Women, Especially Me

So one more secret shared, I pray.

And you? What are your secrets? What are your prayers?

I’ve begun to wonder if becoming in love isn’t something that happens in a flash of lightning, but something that emerges slowly, painfully, tenderly as we come to know someone, come to accept their presence, their needs and desires, even when they are other than what we imagined we wanted, imagined we would need to be safe and secure. I have lived almost three decades, still a young woman most people would say, and it has taken this long for me to begin to know and love this girl that I am, its taken me until now to open the doors and windows of myself and to give air to what has been here all along. A home for me to grow up inside of, to learn within, to experience the pain and grief from, a place from which to die in the end and over and over again along the way.

After sleep yesterday I drove out to Mirror Lake, walked to the beach and swam and swam—my body kept carrying me further and further—I went slowly, I stretched my arms and legs into the weight and motion of the water. I floated on the water and listened to the world beneath the air, I gazed at the vast sea of blue and cotton clouds above me. Who knew this existed right here below and above me, if I only opened myself to it? In the late afternoon I slept more, I biked out of town and back, lied in bed and read, sat at the kitchen table and read. So this is it? What I’ve been waiting for – days that are my own. Days I can trust. Days that feel like home. Remind me when I’m no longer here that this exists. Remind me when my mind is rushing me on to some undefined critical point in the future that this day happened, that I lived it, that I still carry it in my body and can return to it.

This is an excerpt from my not yet finished book: Waking Up at Home. You can help me finish it. How? By contributing to my kickstarter campaign and sharing it with all your community. Check it out here.

The lake and I swam together yesterday. She wrapped herself around me, I moved through her. She settled into the curve of the earth and the curves of my body, I gazed along the sparkling surface and across to the green hills beyond.

What does it mean to be in relationship with our inner and outer environment? How are we fed by this?

Here are two gorgeous answers. The first by Julie Daley and the second by Ron Finley. (If you are reading this in your inbox, click through to the All Is Listening website to see the videos.)

(Don’t miss the release of my ebook A Call to Listen: How to Begin an Inner Revolution at the end of this post)

I’m going to undress you.

But first let me undress myself.

First I gave up being good. Not to be bad. But because good was exhausting.

I let go of being interesting, because boring was more true a lot of the time.

Time went by and I realized intellectual was over rated and I became simple, still smart sometimes, but no need to impress the sophisticates.

I unsophisticated myself. I spent more time in the garden, growing weeds and wondering over dirt.

Have you thought lately about what you were before you were born? Have you contemplated how naked you were when you were born?

I’m (deconstructing) undressing my identity and I dare you to as well.

I got over being insecure, not that this doesn’t arise because how could it not when we are such tender, naked creatures, but it isn’t the truth of my being. I wasn’t insecure before I was born and I won’t be once I’m dead. And in this moment it is only sensation and misunderstaning if it is anything at all.

I ache, oh how I ache, except for when I don’t.

And the more ideas I dropped (simple, boring, bad…these all must be questioned also) the more curious my life became. Yes, curious as in strange, perplexing, mysterious.

But also curious as in open wonder, as in opening my naked palms to the unknown, as in listening to the presence of this moment.

In fact, when I personally undeveloped myself all the way through, giving up on every idea I’ve ever had about me, about you and me, and us and them, about getting anywhere or achieving anything, all that is left is this: naked listening.

Not listening for the answer or the outcome, since these are simply new suits to wear, but as listening, listening as listening.

Simply because I am.

Because I am naked.

Because you are too underneath all your ideas about who you are.

Spend a moment, a month, a millennia in this open spacious place of presence and what will come to pass? I wonder?

For me it’s been an inner revolution.

Ready for your own undressing?

What’s important to you in this short life you have?

Now that I’ve stripped bare. Am standing here naked before you, it seems the right time to tell you I’ve made you something. A gift. An offering. To offer you company while you undress all the way down to naked listening.

A Call to Listen: How to Begin an Inner Revolution

Your tight chest. The crink in your neck. A swollen knee. The rash. A persistent longing for life to change. Sadness swelling in your heart every afternoon.

These symptoms are the way in to the story of your bodies best attempt at communication and healing.

We react to our symptoms, we constrict around them, we run from them, we berate them and complain of them. We take them to the doctors and hope they will eradicate them. When we are hurting this is understandable. And it is what we’ve been taught and told to do with our symptoms. And of course sometimes we seriously need medical attention—this is what our symptoms are telling us!

But not only do these approaches often not work—our symptoms just keep coming back, or simply shape shift into new symptoms—but we miss out on the opportunity to be present. to listen. to learn from and experience the healing force inherent in the pain.

We miss out on the story seeking resolution in our being.

Your symptoms might not all be painful. Laughter when you’re with your friend. Joy when the sun streams in across the counter in the morning. Your belly soft and open. The way your lover’s touch takes care of you. A sense of purpose in your feet. Listen to these symptoms also. Soak in them. Stay present with them.

They are your home of healing, your center of aliveness, your best details in the novel of your life.

Listening to our symptoms takes time, takes practice, takes infinite gentleness, courage, and patience. Go slow. Give as much attention to what feels good and is comfortable as what doesn’t.

Ask for help. Trust yourself.

Don’t know why. Doesn’t matter. Just taking the tears, the typography, and the tenderness as they come.

(If you get this by email, click through to the videos.)

Before you read this post, I want you to check in with yourself, and see if you are available to put attention toward tragedy.

I want you to notice how you are feeling, just as you read that first sentence. What are you noticing inside? Explore the possibility of not reading further until you feel settled, until you take a look around the space you’re in, feel your feet on the floor, and connect with what feels most safe inside.

Take your time.

And when you feel settled and you feel safe, I’d like to share with you my response to hearing about the school shooting in Connecticut yesterday.

Yesterday, a man killed children and adults at an elementary school in Connecticut.

I heard about it at the end of my work day. I was already full with exhaustion and overwhelm from many hours of the complex heart filled work of being present with people in distress. When a co-worker mentioned the school shooting I asked him not to tell me about it. I couldn’t be available to this news. I went grocery shopping and came home. My roommate then mentioned the shooting. I also asked her not to tell me about it.

I didn’t want to deny the tragedy. I wanted to open my heart.

But I knew I couldn’t do this until I first settled my own nervous system, until I came into a place of rest and resource from which I could be available to move towards this news with love and presence.

Today I woke up rested and safe and cared for. I went to my guitar lesson. My roommate and I got a Christmas tree. It is small and perfect and covered in golden lights. I took a nap. And then I opened my computer with a full heart and ache already blooming to be witness to this tragedy.

My first way in to the news was through Marianne Elliott’s post My small seed of peace. Then I went to the New York Times and read the front page article from yesterday. I didn’t look at any pictures. I didn’t read any other articles.

I read enough to stretch and open my available heart, but I don’t want to read so much that I numb my heart to closed again.

Now I’m sitting with myself and all of you. I’m dreaming of what I love about this life, what I know to be possible when we are present to one another, how precious this moment is, not only because we don’t know what will happen next, but because here is the moment where we have the opportunity to cultivate safety inside ourselves and support it around us, here is where we listen.

May we all know the experience of whole-hearted safety within us. May we all be a safe place for those around us.