Lynne Fairchild, Author at Wayfinding Coach

Being Who We Want to Be

November 14, 2015 by Lynne Fairchild Leave a Comment

Our dog Cinnamon had surgery, and she came home with a lot of healing ahead of her, and a complex set of post-operative protocols involving special food, a special feeding schedule, meds, activity restrictions, and so on.

Just like a post-operative person, she needs some careful attention for a while, so that her body has everything it needs to heal.

My dogs bring so much joy to my life, and I love them so much, that it is an easy choice to put aside my own desires and agendas to give Cinn the care that she needs. I am truly grateful to be of service to her.

What I find most challenging is to adjust my pace to her needs. I need to walk very slowly when I take her out. It’s important for her to feel included in “pack life,” and given her limited mobility, that means that I sit and just be with her.

In short, I need to take things at her slower pace for much of the day, during the next few weeks.

This made me realize that in serving her, I get an opportunity to be the person I want to be.

I want to take life at a slower pace.

I want to sit and just be.

I want to radiate calm and love.

I want to be generous in spirit and spacious in the way I come to life.

I’m coming to believe that everything we do in life is an opportunity to be, more, the person we want to be.

But some circumstances and relationships call us forth to this becoming in a more powerful way than others.

Who do you want to be?

Who, or what, helps you be more of who you want to be?

What’s the Good of Process?

May 11, 2015 by Lynne Fairchild Leave a Comment

I know that many of you have creative practices where the product never “goes anywhere.” What good is it, if it never goes anywhere?

A lot of people in our culture would argue that our time and energy are better spent producing something that can benefit others.

Our culture highly values product, or the end result, over process.

And for those of us who truly value making a contribution to others, what good is it to invest significant time and energy into something that will never be shared?

I want to make a case for making art that never goes anywhere, even for those of you who don’t consider yourselves artists. Maybe especially for you.

And, I also want to make a case that immersing ourselves in our creative process does benefit others, even if it is indirectly.

For me, art-making (Soul Collage®, glass work, mandala-making) is a process of connecting to the creative spirit within and feeling my way into what wants to be expressed or created through me.

I quiet myself and sense the impulse in my body of what line wants to be drawn next, in a mandala, or which image is the next image to be placed in a collage. I feel where it is to go. It’s not me making it happen. I am allowing it to happen through me.

As such, it’s all about the process and not the result.

It’s about my connection with the creative spirit within. Art-making is then a practice of entering the unknown and surrendering myself to the mystery of not knowing what is to come next, or what wants to be made. It arises out of the silence, the listening, and the “feeling into.”

I empty and allow creative spirit to express through me, and to delight me. In this process, I grow beyond my previously-perceived assumptions and expectations. I am almost always surprised at what comes out.

Is this not good practice for life? In life, we often think we know where we are going, but how much of our lives is spent in not knowing? A lot. And where are we taught to embrace not knowing, or how to be with not knowing? Not very many places.

So this is my case for art-making, or creative practice, specifically with the intention of it not going anywhere. It’s excellent practice for life: for listening to the creative spirit within that is always available to guide us in and through Not Knowing Land. And for learning to distinguish that voice (from others within us), and to respect and follow it.

Art-making or creative practice, done in this way, is a transformative process, because I allow myself to be transformed by the creative spirit within. I let it have its way with me. I practice listening and feeling the impulses. I practice getting out of the way. In this way, I am transformed a bit; I grow.

And since I grow through this practice, I am a different person when I go out in the world, and interact with others. I have the potential to be more creative and more open, and more receptive to others and life. In that way, others benefit from my creative practice.

It took me a while to be able to come to my art-making or creative practice with this level of detachment to the result. I, like everyone else, have been trained well by our culture to produce good results and to be sure they make a difference.

Being detached to the result just becomes a part of the practice of doing art in this way. When I notice that I am beginning to care what it looks like, how good it is, whether I like the result, I consciously let that go and surrender to the process again.

Are you interested in playing with art-making or creative practice in this way? There are an infinite number of places to begin, but here is an easy one. It’s a simple and lovely video called How to Grow a Mandala. Anyone can do this, even with no artistic or creative experience.

Where in your life can you honor the process of creative spirit expressing through you, just for it’s own sake?

What’s In Your Manifesto?

April 13, 2015 by Lynne Fairchild Leave a Comment

480 manifesto A manifesto is a statement of intention. It is a set of promises to ourselves.

When we are going through periods of change in our lives, as in midlife, it can be really helpful to know what matters most.

Midlife can stop us in our tracks and make us reconsider what matters most.

The practice of having a manifesto, and reflecting on it from time to time, can be very grounding. It can bring us back “home” to what is really important to us, especially during those times when life feels out of control.

Here’s a manifesto that I wrote a few years ago.

The questions that I asked myself in order to create the manifesto were:
What do I want to pay more attention to?
What matters now?
What is it time for?

I offer it to you as a starting place if you would like to write your own manifesto, and use it to guide you in your life.

What’s in your manifesto?

Touchstones of Certainty

November 6, 2014 by Lynne Fairchild Leave a Comment

I meditate every day. Not because I’m virtuous or particularly disciplined.

Meditation, for me, is an oasis of calm and certainty in a sea of change. It’s one of the best ways for me to connect to what’s most true, and centered, and essential in me.

And when my outside world is shifting, having some regular, inner structures really helps me.

I’ve meditated for 30 years, so it’s a real touchstone of rhythm and structure in my life.

These structures hold the process of change for me.

When your “outers” are moving, it helps to have some practices that feel stable and reliable, things that are just there, no matter what is going on in your life.

Regardless of the chaos or the uncertainty, I sit and meditate every day. It gives me a touchstone of certainty.

What are your touchstones of certainty?

Rituals That Mark Time

November 4, 2014 by Lynne Fairchild Leave a Comment

On Halloween morning, it snowed. Then high winds blew all the oaks clean, and left no doubt that it was November.

So, over the weekend, I did some of my preparing-for-winter rituals. It was time.

These are simple things like covering up the air conditioner unit and clearing everything off the screened porch. Some of you may rake leaves or stack wood.

Rituals are really important. They mark the movement of time, and for me, they help me embrace change, if I do them intentionally and consciously. By that I mean that instead of just putting it on my To Do list, and getting it done, checking it off, I think about how it is marking the end of the warmer weather and moving into the shorter days and cooler times.

These simple rituals are particularly helpful to me when I’m going through big changes in my life.

Doing rituals like this gives me some stability and routine, or ritual, in my world that is shifting.

What are the rituals that mark your time?

The Land of Not Knowing

November 1, 2014 by Lynne Fairchild Leave a Comment

shifting sands A friend and I were talking about what it’s like to be in Not Knowing, to be in a change in your life that’s so foundational that you aren’t sure who you are in it.

For me it feels like I’m walking on shifting ground. Like I’ve lost my footing and lost what it feels like to be sure-footed.

I know that it’s all part of the process, and I certainly have learned that I don’t want to push it, push new understandings, push knowing, push the process of change forward. That would be inorganic and would only come back to bite me later.

What we came to was to pay attention to what feels alive, even if it is a relatively quiet time. That we could still find the life force: the energy or inspiration or idea that feels most alive, and follow it. And see where it leads.

This requires curiosity and a lack of judgement or pre-formed assumptions. It requires self-compassion and kindness towards ourselves.

It’s not passive, or demanding things be solved, or figuring it out. It’s actively engaged with life, just in a different mode than when you have high clarity about who you are and where you are going.

And then there’s containers and structures and keeping the channel open, but more about all of that on another day.

How do you be in Not Knowing Land?

Bye to BYE (Best Year Ever)

October 28, 2014 by Lynne Fairchild Leave a Comment

It has been the Best Year Ever. This brilliant oak is an example of it.

On October 11, 2013, I wrote a blog post titled Best Year Ever.

I asked myself: What if the Best Year Ever is merely the exquisite quality of attention that I pay to my life? That what makes it the Best Year Ever is my degree of presence, rather than the things that happened to me, or the things I did?

We have choice over how we come to our lives.

Over the year, I shared about sixty blog posts of things I was noticing that grabbed my attention as I was committed to paying more attention to my life.

These were very “ordinary,” everyday miracles, most of them in nature, because nature was always available, for me to pay more attention to.

I learned a lot about paying attention.

I learned how easy it is for me to slip into a trance of not paying attention.

I learned that I am literally showered with blessings, in great abundance, and all around me, all of the time.

I learned that if I am not seeing those blessings, it is because I’m not looking.

I learned more about the power of choosing how we show up to our lives.

It feels like time to complete this Best Year Ever series on my blog. I still intend to pay a greater and greater degree of attention to my life, and to practice a degree of presence that becomes ever deeper and deeper. I still intend to live the Best Year Ever. Life is a miracle, and I want to show up to it.

It has been fun to have this focus for the year, and a part of me is reluctant to complete it. I’m a bit uncomfortable with completing it, too, and I noticed today that I was procrastinating writing this final Best Year Ever post. I’ve been thinking of it since the 11th, and just haven’t done it. This is because I don’t know what is next.

It’s always easier for me to let one thing go when I have clarity on the next thing. But that’s life, for sure, isn’t it? Most of the time, if we are living fully present to the emergence, we don’t know what’s next. Being with that is the practice and the process of life. I’m making space for whatever is next, by completing this part of the adventure.

Thank you so much for joining me on this journey of the Best Year Ever. What is your Best Year Ever?

Best Year Ever: The Color of Fall

October 7, 2014 by Lynne Fairchild Leave a Comment

Some of the leaves are beginning to turn.

Autumn is starting to show her colors.

I love this time of year for the contrasts and the color.

It is a spectacular reminder that change can be beautiful.

What are the changes that are presenting themselves to you?

Best Year Ever: My Own Stonehenge

September 30, 2014 by Lynne Fairchild Leave a Comment

Some of you may have seen this image of the setting sun, because I posted it on Facebook, on the day before Autumnal Equinox.

At Autumnal Equinox, the sun sets due west.

We live on an East-West road, and so, on, or very near, Autumnal Equinox, the sun lines up exactly with the road as it rises and sets.

One of my friends pointed out that I have my own Stonehenge. I loved that thought.

I do have my own Stonehenge, on the Equinoxes. On the other days of passage, I’m left to my own devices.

Best Year Ever.

Best Year Ever: Heralding Change

September 24, 2014 by Lynne Fairchild Leave a Comment

The seasons, they are a changing.

One of the first heralds of Autumn is fungi. Beautiful and complex and spontaneous.

I’m always delighted to see these unusual creations of nature.

I don’t always feel ready for Summer to change into Autumn, even though I love Autumn too. Sometimes it just seems like things are moving too quickly.

This ever-changing kaleidoscope of nature’s creations helps me embrace change.

What is changing in your world?

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