I’ve taken a month off from posting on the blog.

Most of my clients are either in the EU or the UK. For many of them, their custom is to take a month off for holidays, both in the summer and at Christmas/Year End.

In the US, we often think of vacation in terms of a week or two. I feel like my clients are more evolved than I am about taking breaks (and many other things, too!). Their choice is truly restorative, where my customary vacation interval feels like merely a pause.

I decided to try taking a longer break at Christmas/Year End this year. It wasn’t a “pure” time off, because I was still walking the Camino (virtually), writing about it, and doing some Year End review calls with my clients. But I did drop a lot of non-essential activities and commitments, and it really felt good to have more time and space.

I love what I do. I’m passionate about my clients and coaching. And, paradoxically, for me, that makes it more difficult for me to take significant time off. It truly doesn’t occur to me that I need time off, because I love what I do so much.

But, everyone needs time off, to step back and breathe, and create some space for other things, even (or maybe especially) if we don’t know what the time is for. To change the landscape and the rituals, patterns and routines. To have time that isn’t assigned an outcome or intention or purpose. It’s just open space.

My taking time off serves my clients, too (gasp!).

For whatever reasons, I was born a responsible kid. I do what I say I’m going to do, to the best of my ability. I show up when I commit to showing up. For me, time is a precious gift, and I always strive to make it count, to make it meaningful. So it is surprisingly tough for me to take time off, without an intended purpose or focus.

In the last few years, I have been taking time off without any specific focus or intention (Covid has almost made this easier, because I have been doing a lot less activities outside of my home).

I just take time to be, and I see what shows up. I discover what I’m inspired to do. (Warning: this can take some getting used to, if you’re a person like me. I found myself wanting to jump right in and fill the time.)

When I moved in a slower rhythm, I took more walks. And I was moved to do art, in a number of different forms.

I created a journal to hold the joy moments in my life. It’s filled with some background papers that I painted. And there is a lot of space to sketch, write, and play with lettering. And to record the things that give me joy this year.

This year I am going to notice joy.

Where is your joy?

How do you keep the feeling of connection with spirit strong?

I believe that our connection to spirit is always strong; it’s part of who we are. But for me, I’m not always feeling it, as I tend to get lost in the tiny dramas du jour that often fill our days. And it seems like there have been a lot of those going on lately.

And when I get caught up in those things (remember that book from years ago? Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff), I lose my larger connection to vision, and who I am, and what really matters.

This is one reason why l love being on a pilgrimage, even a virtual one.

Having the pilgrimage top of mind helps me remember my commitment to make my spiritual life just as active a part of my day as the commitments that are reflected in my calendar and to do list.

For years, this felt like a noble but unachieved objective. I got all caught up with the practical aspects of incorporating a genuine spiritual focus into the rest of my life. What? When? How?

I guess the question that I was asking boiled down to: What is my way?

For me, finding my way of spiritual life (in the midst of the busy rest-of-my-life) proved surprisingly elusive. It has been a long journey of discernment and practice and feeling my way, and it is always morphing and changing.

The key for me right now is Space, and specifically, tiny spaces.

Tiny spaces to pause and take a long breath, and remember to feel my connection to the energy of spirit, to something greater than the me that is moving through my day getting things done.

This simple practice is so nourishing. In any moment, I can feel spaciousness and a sense of deep sustaining peace.

What is your way?

Leon is about two-thirds in distance along the Camino, so I felt like it was a good time to take a look at my original intentions for my pilgrimage, and to make any adjustments from where I am now.

The biggest impact of my Camino pilgrimage, so far, has been my realization that my life is my spiritual practice. My spiritual practice isn’t something that I take time out to do, separate from living the everyday.

When I began my pilgrimage in Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port, I had the following intentions:

• To live life at a different rhythm and pace. I have always been aware that the rhythm and pace of my soul are different than the pace that I live my everyday life.
• To allow daily life to be governed by a different compass than the calendar and To Do list.
• To create more spaciousness in my life, so that there is plenty of room for heart, soul, and spirit to express fully. Related to rhythm and pace, and also related to eliminating clutter and distractions.
• To cultivate stamina: do the things that nourish me and support my fullest vitality.

I noticed that all of these would seem to nurture my fullest connection with spirit.

I also felt it was important that:

• My connection to spirit is strong.
• I live with gratitude, especially that I live with a vital sense of appreciation for the ordinary and the everyday.
• I live on a solid footing of grace and equanimity.

I felt like the first four intentions would occur naturally as a result of my being conscious of living my life as a pilgrimage.

I thought that I would fulfill the last three by strengthening my daily spiritual practice. My vision for strengthening my daily spiritual practice was to reinstate the early morning time that I used to devote to my spiritual practice. This was something that I would do.

I struggled with this, for various practical reasons, mainly related to the reality that we need to give our dog Bella a very long morning walk because she is a highly energetic dog. Long story short, we arise at 5:30 am, and by the time we do the morning routine, including that walk, it’s time for me to begin work at 8 am. My body doesn’t do well to get up earlier.

Of course when I broke my knee, I couldn’t walk. Then I reclaimed over an hour in the early morning, and I did my spiritual practice of meditation and reading and journaling. That practice really grounded me in spirit, to begin my day.

But now we are back to our full walk in the morning.

So I am asking myself if life is trying to show me something different, a new possibility for what my spiritual practice can be.

It was by asking that question that I realized that my life is my spiritual practice, and spiritual practice does not have to be something separate that I do.

These are spiritual practice, when I am wholly present to them:

• The joy that spontaneously overtakes me when a client has an important ah-ha moment.
• The immersion of pure love that I feel when I look at Bella and Nanuk, our dogs.
• The awe and wonder that overwhelms me when I look at a winter sunrise or sunset.
• The breathtaking beauty of something new in nature on one of our walks.

These are direct experiences of spirit. They aren’t a separate practice: they are me living my life, and being open to receive the graces that life is showering upon me. They are life as pilgrimage, and me being conscious and present to what is right here, right now.

But I always like to think about the both/and, rather than the either/or, and of course some space and time regularly devoted to spiritual activities that nourish me is a very good thing too. And, lately, I have found myself longing for some space, on a regular basis, to just sit and be an open vessel to receive the gifts of the moment.

So, I’m just being with the tension of not knowing the How/When of that kind of regular space, and we will see what is inspired in me.

As for all of those other specific intentions listed above, I may reflect on them and write about them in future posts.

What is your spiritual practice?

My Camino pilgrimage took an unexpected turn last week.

Harold and I took a vacation week to dog sit for our dog Bella’s foster mom’s dog and current foster dog. If you can keep that straight, you’re a better person than I am.

It was more like Dog Wrangling than dog sitting. There was very little sitting involved. It was SO much work, and SO much fun.

Long story short, at the end of the week we had committed to foster this beautiful 10+ year old husky, Nanuk.

Nanuk has special needs. Among them are someone who is home all the time to let him out at short, regular intervals.

He is a gentle, quiet soul of a dog, and Bella fell in love with him. So did we.

In preparation for writing this blog post, I thought about what this had to do with being a pilgrim, and being on a pilgrimage.

I think it has everything to do with trusting my path. Pilgrims trust their path. I have committed to myself to trust my path.

Does it make logical sense for us to commit to care for a 10+ year old dog with special needs? No, probably not.

But everything in my heart told me that it was the right thing to do and that we were the right “pack” for Nanuk. So, as pilgrims do, I answered the call.

Nanuk will be a wonderful walking companion on my Camino. He lives to walk. I’m sure I will do even more walking because he is with us.

Welcome, Nanuk, to our life. I hope that we will provide a safe, nurturing, happy home for you.

My last two blog posts have been about Boredom/Overwhelm, and Releasing Judgment, the two biggest challenges that I have faced throughout the process of releasing my non-essential stuff.

First, it occurs to me that if those are the only two serious challenges to releasing non-essential stuff from a lifetime of living, that is a pretty good thing. Before I started, I anticipated that the biggest challenge would be to know what to retain and what to release. Turns out, that’s the easy part.

Second, I have been experiencing a lot of moments of spontaneous joy lately. I’m speaking of the joy that comes from truly appreciating and enjoying all of the things that I have that support my life journey and support who I want to be.

In my bedroom, for example, every item has meaning for me and is something that I value and appreciate. I experience such joy in savoring just the right amount of things and the right things. And I really enJOY the space.

I needed to make space for joy.

In the process of letting go, you will lose many things from the past, but you will find yourself.

Deepak Chopra

How will you make space for joy?

I’m still paring down my stuff, in order that I “carry only the essentials”.

This process seems to be an integral part of my virtual Camino pilgrimage.

Wow! Self judgement comes up a lot:

• What was I thinking???!!!
• Why did I buy this?
• Why do I still have this?
• Why do I have so much stuff?

Regardless of my intention to love myself through this whole process, and to be self-compassionate, these types of thoughts jump into my mind, unbidden.

I know my patterns; I know the whys of my acquisitions. And, this process has already really helped me to hone my future buying habits. I am now more mindful than I have ever been about what I choose to buy, for myself, and for the planet.

The truth is that every item I hold in my hand should be held with respect and reverence, because it has had a role in shaping who I am today, and in helping me understand who I am, and who I am not.

At a core level, I want each item to either enhance my life or help me be the person whom I aspire to be.

Judgement is exhausting, energetically. It takes a toll on our soul.

So what it really comes down to is that if I’m going to commit to releasing my stuff, the invitation to practice self compassion comes right along with it.

In addition to releasing my stuff, I get to practice releasing self judgement.

I love when things are transparent, free and clear of all inhibition and judgment.

Pharrell Williams

Where can you release self judgment?

As you regular blog readers know, I’ve been living into a commitment to “carry only the essentials”, inspired by pilgrims, who must carry only what is absolutely essential.

In non-pilgrim terms, I am going through my Stuff. I’m taking each and every item that I own in my hands and discerning whether it is still a fit for me, or whether it is time to release it. Many of you don’t need to do this, because you have diligently kept up with this shedding as an ongoing practice.

For the most part, this has been an energizing and renewing journey of release.

This week, I am bored out of my mind with it.

And, I’m completely overwhelmed by how much I still have to do.

I’ve been tending to this project for a few weeks now, and there have been a few times when I have hit the boredom/overwhelm wall. For example, I find picking up each piece of paper in my house mind-numbingly boring.

In these moments, it has helped me to remember that not only have I committed to this project, I have also committed to being a pilgrim.

When I see the project from the perspective that “I am a pilgrim”, of course I only carry the essentials.

When I see myself and my life from the perspective that “I am a pilgrim”, I can feel the strength of a commitment that I have made to myself, to come to my life in a certain way.

As I’ve mentioned many times before, pilgrims get up in the morning and walk, whether they feel like it or not. And they do it pretty much regardless of the circumstances that they are encountering (except when they sustain a serious injury or illness).

This inspires me to keep going in the face of boredom and overwhelm.

I’m bored. So what? Just keep walking, one step at a time.

I’m overwhelmed. Pilgrims get overwhelmed all the time (just think about the prospect of walking 480 miles), and they just get back to the practice of putting one step in front of the other.

And, generally, I only get overwhelmed when I arbitrarily impose a schedule on how fast I complete the project. I need to remember that it will take the time it takes, and remember why I am doing it.

A woman who lives with the stress of an overwhelmed schedule will often ache with the sadness of an overwhelmed soul.

-Lysa Terkeurst

How do you want to be with boredom or overwhelm?

Today I’m retiring my favorite boots EVER.

I’ve worn them for the past year, and have walked over 700 miles in them. (Not all of those miles have been on my virtual Camino pilgrimage, or I would have made it to Santiago de Compostela by now!)

It’s actually pretty hard for me to let these go. They have been so comfortable, and they have been my companions for a lot of walks and everyday adventures and journeys. They have a lot of stories to tell.

But, as with all things, there is a time to be complete, and for these boots, it is actually past that time.

So, in order to honor their presence and contribution in my life, and to express my gratitude for the support they have given me, I have sketched them.

Those of you who have been following my blog know that I have been in the process of clearing my stuff down to the essentials. Part of being a pilgrim, of the Camino and of life, is to carry only the essentials.

One of my favorite parts of my “stuff clearing” process is thanking everything that I am releasing for its service to me (borrowed from Marie Kondo’s approach).

Thanking everything has helped me to develop a deep gratitude for all of my stuff: that which has served me in the past and is now being released, and that which I am keeping because it supports who I am now, or who I am becoming.

So, I now say to these boots: “Thank you for your service.” And I gently and respectfully release them in gratitude.

This week, for me, being a pilgrim has meant continuing to clear my Stuff, in a quest to “carry only the essentials.”

My insights for the week are quite simple.

Exploration is really the essence of the human spirit.

Frank Borman

Frank Borman is a NASA astronaut, probably best known for his Gemini 7 and Apollo 8 space missions. So, I’m pretty sure that, in this quote, he meant outer exploration.

But to me, inner exploration is the essence of the human spirit.

As I have been sorting my stuff, it has become clear to me that a great deal of my stuff was transitory. These were things that served my mission of exploration to discover who I really am.

This is particularly applicable to books and art supplies, but it’s more broadly true as well.

I bought things that attracted me, interested me, called me forward to engage in new activities. And it was all part of finding who I am, at my essence.

This first insight was really important, for two reasons:

• The realization that so much of my stuff was part of this journey of discovery allows me to let it go now, because it has served its purpose. I was using it on the way to something else, i.e., expressing a truer version of myself.
• It also lets me release much of the “What Was I Thinking?!” judgements that I was tempted to load onto myself as I clear my stuff. When I bought a lot of the stuff, I wasn’t actually clear, at the time, whether it was “me” or not. I bought the stuff to discover whether it was me or not.

The second insight for the week is that when your sorting criteria is “me” or “not me”, what you end up with at the end of the sort is a tangible picture of the essence of you. You can literally see who you are.

I’m still so immersed in the clearing project that I haven’t stopped to look at what I have remaining, and to let it show me what it reveals about my essence. More to come.

What can your stuff show you?

In my last blog post, I shared that I have been captured (ok, possessed) by the idea that pilgrims carry only the essentials, and I want to carry only the essentials for me (for who I aspire to be, and for how I want to live).

Since I wrote that post, I’ve added an additional criteria for what’s essential, in the way of stuff: Does this item support my vision for the space?

Your vision will become clear only when you look into your own heart. Who looks outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awakens.

Carl Jung

However, I can’t remember when I have had a clear, conscious vision for the spaces in my home, so I needed to address that issue first, before I could include it in my sorting criteria.

Of course, in working with my clients, visions are essential: I always help them get clear on who they aspire to be, and how they want to live their lives. I help them sense their true north, and with that knowing, making choices and decisions is so much easier! (A vision for where they are going can be trickier; sometimes you can’t know, and it’s a matter of moving step-by-step, and allowing it to unfold.)

And, I refresh my personal visions (who I want to be, how I want to live my life) frequently.

But, with regards to physical space in the home…… Well, the kitchen is for cooking, the living room for living, the office for working, right? 🙂

I may have had some vague notion of a vision for the spaces in my home, and their purpose and feel, when I moved into my home. But that was a long time ago.

So, I pushed the pause button on the clearing to sit in each space and let it tell me what it wants to be, how it wants to serve, and what it will feel like. From this very intuitive and “sensing” kind of approach, I clarified my vision for each space.

Now I can sense whether any particular item serves that vision, for the space, or not.

So, if this resonates for you, I’d invite you to play with a vision for the spaces in your home.

Having a clear vision helps immensely in another way too: it inspires me and motivates me to keep going with the sorting of the essentials, when the going gets tough.

What’s your vision for the spaces in your home?