Increasingly, activists and change agents are using their own personal stories as a way to awaken leadership in others. Stories speak the language of emotion, the language of the heart. They not only teach us how to act, but also inspire us with the courage to act. Our stories help us translate our values into action by accessing our emotions.
Category Archives: My toolkit
Beginnings
After four years of wonderful work within a large healthcare agency, I feel called to take a smaller, quieter path. I’m not exactly clear where this new path is going and I’m giving it time to unfold. It’s a bit awkward when someone asks what I’ll be doing next and I have to struggle to find an answer; I’m ok with that.
Turn your face to the sun
The snowdrops came up this weekend. Their reappearance every year brings a shock of hope so unexpected and intense it’s almost violent. It only took a few hours of sunlight on a warm brick wall and there they were.
The new year as a threshold
Every moment offers a new beginning, but there is something special about the collective transition from one calendar year to the next.
It is and always has been a struggle for me not to get too caught up in new beginnings like this, to not be spellbound in the illusion that simply resolving to change will bring change, or that most of the mundane changes I desire, will bring lasting happiness.
Parenting in a hospital, then and now
Despite the fact that my son is considered a “sick kid”—a child with multiple, chronic conditions—he actually hasn’t been in the hospital for years. About a month ago, his winter cold turned into pneumonia, and we’ve been reacquainted with hospital life with a vengeance. Parenting a child in the hospital for the first time in nearly a decade, I can’t help but notice how I’ve changed.
I came in last. And it was great.
I ran a 10 km road race this weekend, and I finished dead last. And it was great.
I made it possible
There was a time when I would have made jam from wild berries I picked in the woods. That happens rarely these days. I’ve become a woman who, when asked the question, “Did you make this?” coyly answers “I made it possible.”
Wonder
I think sometimes we special needs parents are getting the wrong message. We’re told that if we want to be effective, we should be the mama bear — fierce and protective. Or the victim, sad and pleading. The course leader’s parable reminded me that I have other options, ones that actually might be more effective than anger or sadness.
Empty space
As we prepared to sell our house and pack for  our huge adventure and head out to Sweden next week, we’ve had to take decluttering to the proverbial “whole nother level” to say the least. A trifecta of motivators—a cheer-leading realtor, the understandably high cost of trans-Atlantic shipping and an earnest desire for a fresh start—has lit a fire under our bums and experience has been nothing short of catharsis.
Prostration
Several years ago I heard a radio interview with a devout Jewish woman who had a practice of laying prostrate—face down on the ground, arms outstretched. She said she did it to remind herself that she was not in control of every little thing. She was in God’s hands.
In other faiths too, the act of laying oneself down is one of humility or surrender. While I might not share the beliefs from which this tradition springs, I do appreciate the value of acknowledging that I am not always in control.