Retreat in Hawaii 2020
The Next Inning
I need to hit a baseball.
Seriously?
I am sitting in contemplation, allowing the trillions of memory bits accumulated in my 12 days in Hawaii and 14-day isolation to settle into words, and this is what I get.
I need to hit a baseball.
This is what lights me up inside.
I know it’s spring, and I know baseball fans. Even in this time of lockdown, dreams are drifting to ballfields and batters, grand slams and pennant races. I like baseball, loved it in the 1980s when I went to my first Expos game, still have my souvenir Youpie (Montreal’s bright orange mascot, for you non-fans). Gary Carter was my dream guy.
Then baseball became one of the many other things in life I forgot or let go.
So where does this sudden desire to be at bat come from?
Good things come in threes. Triple play. Three bases, then home. Lessons learned in my retreat indeed come in a trio. In these past few weeks, I’ve unpacked and cleared decades worth of old baggage, with a pace and passion that would make Marie Kondo clap her tiny hands with glee. To keep the space open, I am committing to the following (or it’s three strikes, I’m out):
- A new blog post at least once a week
- Reading an hour a day, something from my waiting-to-be-read shelf. I’ll post the finished book and favourite quote on Instagram
- Playing something every couple of days, either on my piano or on the guitar I got years ago and have yet to learn to play … I may over time share something here, but won’t promise that yet 🙂
Is this triple play why I’m suddenly thinking of baseball?
Turns out, there was one more thing, deep down in the closet of memories worth keeping.
My father taught me to catch. I was maybe 8 or 9, and we would spend hours in the yard catching with one of those vinyl foam balls. I’d shriek and duck when the ball came near me. With unusual patience he would keep trying. ‘Keep your eye on it,” he’d say over and over. Eventually my body ditched my mind and started listening. I watched the ball. I remember the shiver of amazement when like magic it connected with my outstretched hand. After more hours of me not ducking any more, we switched to an actual baseball. He got me a glove. And we played catch some more, through my teens until I moved away.
I can catch like anything. But when it comes to batting, I cannot hit a basketball with a barn board. School gym was a roller coaster of excelling in the outfield and tanking at the plate. I was keeping my eye on the ball but my bat caught only air. Eventually I gave up trying. But flow is in and out, like the tide, like baseball. To hit is to put the ball out there, sending out your offering, enabling you to advance and your team to win. To hit requires alignment of eye, hands, brain and body, choosing in a split second when to push your weight into the bat that changes the course of the ball in your favour. I want that, for fun, for my business, for life.
My father taught me to catch, but he couldn’t teach me to hit. I can play defence like crazy, but stumble and swing at air when faced with putting something out there. I want to be in the game, but am only half-prepared.
I need to hit a baseball. More importantly, I want to learn to hit a baseball. There is the missing piece. To want something good for the soul is to unlock the great riches the universe has to offer. So now, as I wait for isolation to end and our parks to reopen, I think of who will teach me and how I will learn to hit the ball, maybe not a home run but at least a single to start.
Thank you for joining me on this retreat, including the bonus two weeks of self-isolation. See you on the field.
The Space
On some level, I wished for this.
Not the terror, danger and death caused by Covid-19, but the new world its response has created. What would it be like, I often wondered, if I awoke one morning and the calendar was instantly erased, no appointments or schedules, no need-to-be-theres or have-to-dos?
Saint Teresa of Avila once wrote that there are more tears shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones. In other words, be careful what you wish for.
I head to Hawaii for that annual reset. In the sun and waves and intimate conversations with powerful women, the invitation to be, listen to one’s spirit and reframe habits weighing me down into opportunities that engage me with the world is natural, flowing as the breeze itself. Returning home, that flow lasts unabashed for about a week, until the old habits exert themselves and the clutter returns. But not this year. My return from Hawaii 11 days ago was just as Covid-19 response in Canada was escalating. I came home to a house literally divided as my daughter and I entered 14-day self-isolation in our part of the house, and the rest of the family kept their distance in theirs. It is an unprecedented space in which I live now, my physical space restricted but my inner space unusually clear. A calendar jammed with school, work, music lessons, rehearsals and competitions when we left is now completely empty with no word on when, or if, things will resume. The space I cleared in Hawaii had nothing to fill it except me.
And oh, have I tried. My hiding places are popping up like noxious weeds in a blossoming garden, looking pretty but diverting me from reflection, creation, and writing. Binge watching on Netflix, snacking and more snacking, napping, and puttering – rearranging books on a shelf or the folders on my desktop – all necessary functions, but given way more importance than they need. With my schedule gone, that is where I hide. Lined with blankets and an absolution of responsibility, my hiding places are cozy, safe, too good to pass up. But increasingly, I am forcing myself out.
Why? I can’t see the beach when I’m hiding. With my Nova Scotia yard covered in early spring snow, one can argue I can’t see the beach where I live, either. But the beach I speak of is not on the Northumberland Strait or the South Pacific Ocean, but within. That place where my essence is like a billion grains of sand, rich with history and knowledge, soft and beckoning, with the waves of energy pounding relentlessly against the jagged rocks of isolation, sending up sprays of inspiration and rainbows against the tropical sun. That place where energy meets words to flow upward, outward, and into the world. That place I not only carry with me, that place that is me, every second of the day. That place I forget when completely in my head and ‘getting things done.’ That place I can do without, but choose not to do without, because I am better there, I am whole there, I am me.
Self-isolation has provided me a place to see my deeply-rooted habit of self-clutter and actively choose a space of openness and flow instead. In this choice I am learning to trust how it is always with me, despite where I am in the world, and where the world is in its state of chaos. I still have me. I still have my energy, my ideas, my words. Like tossing dirty laundry from the floor to the basket, I just have to remember my way to the beach, and keep the path clear.
The Secrets
Snow whips across the lawn that yesterday was promising spring. It is easy to forget the kiss of Hawaiian waves that a week ago governed my days, but if it was easy, no one would forget where they were, who they are and why they are here. I did, until waves and friendship and intense conversation rooted out my secrets. And lest I forget, here they are:
Secret 1: I’ve been surviving in a world in which I was born to thrive. I had a good life. If I’d stayed living in my head, it would still be good. But I was a being existing on stored energy, detached and parroting like a laptop unplugged and without its hard drive. The words I needed to maintain the life I had were drying up, my body was running down and my spirit was throwing tantrums in a desperate attempt to gain a voice. The only difference between a rut and a grave is the amount of dirt on your face, the saying goes. I was dismembered, sinking and about to fade, and my mind insisted I was just fine. Then one day, the world appeared quite different and the pieces began to make sense. But my writing and my voice continued to be strangled. Why?
Secret 2: I was born to share and was encouraged to share: my toys, my candy, my good fortune with those less fortunate. However, to share information, stories, oneself, was strictly forbidden – none of their business, don’t get too involved. This was no doubt a safety feature built by gentle souls born into large families with thin skins, generations of kids being teased, feuds erupting over a missed gift or forgotten meal or jealous need for attention, who knows since it all happened before I was born. Old habits are tough to forget, though, and when folks spend so much time surviving, they forget how to thrive even when times are good.
Secret 3: I am worth it. My whole being knows this, which is what made it dangerous. My clients are worth it. My family. My friends. But to take time for my story, my company, my writing? Things that at the moment do not make money or do anything for anyone but me? How selfish. How needy.
How judgemental. How wrong.
And there they are, three giant mountains that were pretty, even comforting to look at, but being used by my mind to keep me trapped in place. They were so much a part of my landscape I didn’t see them, yet I was so attached to them it took days of laser-focused words and exploration to reveal them. There is no erasing them or even moving them, but in the light they can be seen for what they are, and considered accordingly. They are a part of me, these secrets, and while they make my calling as a writer a more challenging, they also give me great height from which to dive, a solid foundation from which to leap, a reference point that can be seen for miles, and a reminder, always a reminder, of where I have come from and where I choose to be.
I choose to be in the life for which I was born. A life of flow, fed by fear but ruled by belief. Belief that I am worth it. Belief that actually, I can.
And just like that, the blizzard is gone and I’m back in the Hawaiian waves.
The Home (office) Coming
As if Mondays weren’t tough enough, this particular Monday will be the harshest yet for some. There will be no back to school after March Break, a return to Nova Scotia winter (for me) and the need for household adults (including me) to work from home. I send a ton of virtual hugs and glasses of wine to you all, but having run my own home office since 1997, I may have more to offer. Gems of wisdom proven in battle, such as A Lap Is Not An Office and other hints that may save your body, mind and sanity from unnecessary punishment.
And I say it again: A Lap is Not an Office
Propping your laptop on your knees so you can binge Grey’s Anatomy or watch your little ones play is a recipe for disaster. it contorts and tenses your muscles in most unnatural ways. It exposes your laptop to sudden death if it slips off and your attention is constantly split between keeping your laptop balanced, other things in the room and doing the actual work you are trying to do. Even if working from home is only temporary, secure yourself a dedicated space: repurpose a bedroom or a corner of a room with a clear work surface and decent chair, ideally a space where you can shut the door or otherwise have some quiet. If your house has no extra space (I hear ya!) use the dining table, keeping your files/papers/supplies in a tote that can be easily packed and shifted at mealtime. I use a backpack to keep my laptop, phone, chargers, files, pens, paper clips and calendar (yes, I use a paper one) all together for when I need to shift locations.
Set out your daily tasks. You may already make a to-do or priorities list, which keeps you on track. If you’re like me and lists give you hives, do it anyway. i’ve learned a little itchiness is small price to pay for the efficiency and focus a list can provide. Even with the door closed, distractions abound: the doorbell, the phone, one kid threatening to flush another kid down the toilet … and a list can help calm your nerves and restart the work flow once you’ve retrieved your package or set the perps to scrubbing the bathroom floor. One additional hint here: BE GENTLE with yourself, especially if you’re new to the whole home office thing. A list can sometimes invite what we WANT to do rather than what we can reasonably achieve. Unless the deadline is urgent, ease up a little on the self-demands until you gain your home office footing. Working from home should not mean working around the clock every day.
Adapt to sharing your space and your time. I know, I said find a dedicated space but if you share your space with pets or children, you will have visitors. My cat will head butt my leg twice, giving me 20 seconds before he lands, all four feet, on whatever is atop my desk, quite often after he has been frolicking in the damp bathtub (don’t ask me why, he’s a rescue and has his own way of doing things). Before him it was my children at assorted ages, needing everything from bandages for the boo-boos only they could see to needing help with their university applications. And those are the good moments. The dangerous moments are when you don’t hear or see them at all: that’s when they’re about to bake their plastic dishes in the oven or see who can slide the most pennies into my fax machine (sadly yes, these are true stories.) I used to get incredibly tense and frustrated, but learned with advancing age (and the fact that the house didn’t actually burn down) that these moments with family are precious. I found it best to take five minutes, hug the cat/child/offered stuffy, give a kiss/bandage/redirection, then get back to work. With my list, that became more gentle and realistic over time, I was soon easing the stress and rocking my work.
So, as I gaze at the wind-whipped snowbanks of an East Coast spring, I dream of Hawaii but give thanks for the life I’ve created here: Working from home, with the wine rack just a room away. Hang in there. We are in isolation, but we are not alone.
The Re-Entry
This was not the Hawaii I knew and expected. The western side of Oahu is the dry side, with very little rain and lots of rainbows. In previous visits, I experienced maybe one day of rain. But the rain was a constant presence in my last few days, misting in between sunbreaks. Then on my last full day, the tempest unleashed: torrents of rain lashed by fierce winds. In an hour, all had calmed by the puddles and awe remained for the rest of my visit.
The weather was unexpected. We can try to predict and plan, but inevitably we will be shown there is force much larger than us and our personal agendas. We can fight and be frustrated, or release and allow the energy to move even if in a direction unprepared or unknown.
A perfect end to an experience that, too, was unexpected. When first planned last fall, it was to be a group retreat of writers and creatives in January. Then I got sick. No one signed up. Work demands needed me in town. Give up, hissed in my ear, Hawaii is not meant to be this year. I was tempted to pretend the whole dream never happened and stay put this winter. Then, instead of giving up I chose to give in. Rebook the trip. Adapt it into an early March Break vacation to share with my youngest child. Adjust the experience to a series of responsive conversations with my awesome retreat host, Ange Arbuckle. And get on a plane.
Had I delayed, Covid-19 would have made the decision for me and I would have gone nowhere. Had I cancelled, I would have missed a beautiful creation of time with my daughter who, like all teens, is growing into adulthood way too fast. Had I wallowed in the shame of hosting a party and no one came, I would have missed two very important facts: people did come, Ange and I and we were the only ones because that is what I needed. The retreat I envisioned last fall is still possible but first, I needed lots of time and space for me. Dark unseen corners were closing in, choking my flow and blocking my view. The only way to get rid of them was to face them, name them, discuss and process, then declutter: keep and use, or discard and move on. What were these dark corners? Self-worth. Old beliefs inherited or modelled, to keep everything private and feel (or at least appear to feel) nothing. Seeking safety in anonymity, while knowing I was born to seek the light. Skimming the surface when my call was to the depths. In truth, I did very little writing on this experience, but did a whole lot of shifting so the words have a way out. It was not what I expected. It was frustrating and frightening. But the space and lightness I carry now … so worth it.
I have arrived home and am in 14 days of self-isolation which I am adding as a two-week bonus to my retreat. In these days, I will share thoughts on how to integrate the awareness I brought back from Hawaii. I will need these days not only to ensure freedom from a virus, but from slipping back into old habits left behind like the undone laundry and piles on my desk. I miss the sound of the waves already, but if I quiet myself for a moment, I can still hear them.
The Relationship
Secrets. We have them, hold them as sacred, and hide behind them. Secrets make for good stories, but lousy relationships. The ocean is a great listener, but with every wave seems to vibrate: no more secrets, little girl. Hawaii was not just calling to my soul with its warmth, waves and island magic. Hawaii was calling to my spirit to be with me and me alone. For I needed to give permission and space to be with just me before I could give permission and space to be with my story.
For years writing was something I did, and did well enough to earn money and a certain amount of credibility. Yet I didn’t allow that writing was also part of who I am, a practice of energy flow to and from the spirit like irrigation to a garden or breath to the body. Keeping my writing in the box of 8-4 on my desk kept me at arm’s length from a great source of rejuvenation and joy, like watching a sunset in a mirror rather than in person.
Bringing ownership of my writing inward, embracing it as a part of life rather than a to-do or should-do, elevates the craft to its rightful place from ‘when there’s time’ to ‘now, when I make the time.’ This shift, however, means removing the judgement that keeps me from investing time, from allowing space to sit, reflect, stare at a blank screen if need be, until the words can surface. And it means letting an ace investigative reporter into the guarded files of my spirit, where for too long my brain maintained too good a guard by locking down ‘secrets’ that could crack open the shallow life I created and allow the chaotic, unknown, limitless, unruly expanse of what my life should be. So for years, I allowed the guard to slowly strangle my flow of words, redacting with greater force until only black streaks and blank pages were left.
No more secrets, little girl.
I am onto my tricks, at least some of them. And I’ve stood on the beach, choosing to see the sunset for myself rather than as a reflection from somewhere else.
There is no going back.
The Discovery
Too tired. No time. My truths, I thought. But they were tricks, my ego claiming to protect me from the rejection of the world by keeping me hidden, silent, and safe. So my reality is an ocean of words to share, and a conduit so constricted that writing had become not the seamless joy it one was, but an exercise in futility, like trying to force a watermelon through a drinking straw. Every writing retreat, every business course, ran like water off a hippo’s back until this week, when I stopped moving, turned to my fear and said … Let’s Talk.
At first, all I heard was screaming. Breathe in. Breathe out. Screaming becomes an image in the kitchen: baby crying, toddler throwing her food, preschooler searching for shoes, and me with 10 minutes to get everyone in the car and delivered to sitters so I could get to work. I have been there. Clearly the wound remains.
I know how to write. What I didn’t allow myself to know is why I don’t, why it is treated not as the gift and opportunity it is but as the toilet bowl of chores that gets done when absolutely every excuse runs out. It should be easy, and a joy, to engage in something you know you were meant to do. When I’m not writing, it should be easy to look at my life and at least know why. But it has taken years of excavating, sorting, purging, relapsing and scraping the darkened bottom of my existence to touch the root of my constricted flow.
At first I thought it was inner trust, which is essential for any healthy choice. But inner trust is the conduit itself. The squeeze came from a whole cluttered hot mess of thinking work was hard, miserable and necessary. A chore, like homework on a long weekend or working late in the office on a sunny summer night. The fuel for the squeeze, however, was even deeper: my work means sharing, putting myself out there, offering up words and allowing that others will read them through their own lenses and conduits, and that I cannot control. It is safer to stay silent, and when that alone was not enough to stop the flow of ideas then my ego used my storytelling to spin tales that my body and soul could not resist. My words as a weapon to keep me quiet. How twisted. How easy to sigh and give up, live the rest of my life as a recluse, bartering ghost writing for cat food (not for me, for my inevitable herd of cats).
Breathe in. Breathe out. I barely breathed at all during my early frantic days, and still forget when the memory of work comes flooding back. Breathe in. Breathe out. With each breath comes change. With each breath comes choice. I settle into the image again, but this time the toddler is feeding her baby sister, I am playing a game with the preschooler to get his shoes. There are giggles. There is flow.
There is no place like an island to remind you of the importance of flow. With breath, that flow is inside, no matter where you travel, live or work. I love Hawaii, but at the end of this week, everything I need will be remembered within. My life is not about location, but about me.
The Release
It was a beautiful hike, but what did it have to do with writing? Turns out, everything. For the writing support I needed was not workshops, critiques or inspiration, but a 10-point letting go so the words I’ve been storing could finally ebb and flow to the light of day.
The hike along the western coast of Oahu follows an old rail line and offers up some of the most fascinating vistas and rock formations, like the heart-shaped rock in the middle of pounding surf. The day before, I drew an oracle card: Vale of Shadows, which urged me to identify and list the following:
5 Things I admire in another but do not see in myself:
Empathy – knowing what to say and do and when (instead of standing their blankly when something new or intense happens)
Focus – knowing exactly what you want and going for it
Leadership – standing up and building support
Foresight – Identifying the real point of a conversation or action
Caring – wanting to be nice to other people, not just those I know and love but strangers, too
5 Things I dislike in another but do not see in myself:
Conceit – ‘Look at me, look how wonderful I am’. Grrrrrr
Childishness – Poop jokes can be funny, but in a business meeting? Sigh
Dishonesty, in both actions and feelings
Negativity – leading with criticism, no matter the conversation
Smallmindedness – no room for or acknowledgement of other points of view
Turns out, making these lists was the easy part.
I was then invited to reclaim all 10 items, because as triggers seen in others they are a reflection of what I am missing in myself. And these 10 things, missing or hidden, serve to break the flow of my writing by causing me to forget words, overlook storylines, struggle with ‘what comes next’ or avoid writing altogether because it’s too hard, time-consuming, or an overall waste of time. Writing is my invitation to be present, whole, seen and heard. My ego, comfortable in its tiny bubble, would rather I sit on the couch all day and imagine rather than do.
So, I laced up my sneakers and stepped into the tropical sun for the first hike I’ve taken in months. Perched on a cliff above the foaming surf, I sat with each quality, one by one. The ones I admire, I was to imagine growing in light inside me. The ones I dislike, I was to imagine forgiving. The exercise would enable that which became ugly from a lack of love to sparkle with this newfound attention. Washed clean and reshaped. Like the rocks below. Words flowing like the waves.
My muse once told me that money problems are rarely about money, something strange for a financial advisor to say. But it is true. The same goes for writing. Often, blocks or diversions are not because of time management or loss of imagination, but of underlying issues, the light and dark qualities that need our attention to reconnect ourselves and enable flow.
Don’t get me wrong, I can’t wait to hit the beach and soak up the sun on the sand. But working up a sweat on this hiking trail will serve my soul – and my work – for years.
The Evolution
On my first trip to Hawaii, I sat for days mesmerized by the surf.
Waves foaming toward shore, unceasing, unmatched. Some were gentle, others fierce, the occasional one roaring ahead of the others to smash the shore and soak viewers unaware. Advance, recede, repeat, a rhythm lulling and irritating, like the beating of an ancestral heartbeat. No effect, except for the projection of time. Rocks once smooth were scarred, those craggy were worn smooth. One large boulder lay buried on the shore like a napping hippo. Surf crashed over its polished back, then drained in rivulets into the sand. It was how I felt. In a community of powerful women, in the embrace of this beautiful island, energy crashed over me, then drained in tiny streams into the ground. So much beauty, and so little capacity to accept and digest it. I wished in that moment I was sand; unchanged from stone at the cellular level, but in a form that could be moulded, sculpted. In a form that could absorb rather than deflect.
On my sixth trip to Hawaii, cruising 34,000 feet over the Pacific, I could feel the sand, as if I had reached into the shoreline of my life and held a handful of grains sifting slowly through my fingers. Waves of words mixed with tears, crashing relentlessly against the boulders, was reducing my essence to sand. Conversations, invitations to write, stepping into the storms, reformed my life into grains of beliefs, habits, ancestral signals and spiritual codes contained in pieces of memory and story. On this trip the waves would lull and excite, shifting the pieces to reveal a truth, washing way the layers hiding it.
The Arrival
Flights from Canada arrive at night. The western side of Oahu reveals itself in shapes, shadows and sounds. You sense the mountains, hear the ocean, but see little except taillights, signs for McDonalds, and the inevitable blue blinks of a police car on the chase. Bit of a rough town, but no airs. Real as can be.
Sleep comes quickly after 24 hours of planes and airports.
The awakening is to a constant purring that is not rain, but surf. First to the window, then to the outdoors, bare feet cool on the freshly-watered grass, and there it is, also real as can be. Ocean to the horizon and beyond, waves cresting and crashing on the rocky sand, water and sky tinged pink from the rising sun. To the side and behind, mountains fuzzy green and sculpted with the precision of fire and time. Every sound, each blink is filled with a beauty that penetrates your frozen bones. You open yourself to the sensation and await the rush of …
Guilt.
What, now?
Much of my life has been too detached to attract guilt. Do something because you choose to, not because you think you have to was a lesson learned young from my mother. Did I feel shame? Much of the time. Confusion? Frustration? Oh, yeah. But guilt? In the most beautiful place on Earth?
Stunned like a surfer upended by a rogue wave. Surface, sputter, not surprised.
This is my sixth visit in five years. I was to have come in January. By Christmas, I hadn’t booked my ticket. After New Year’s, I had a scratchy throat which in the weeks that followed extended to a winter storm of illnesses. I shifted Hawaii to March and continued to be sick. Cause for concern, perhaps, as viral hysteria consumed the world, but guilt?
I watch the flotsam drift to shore, allow the slimy tentacles to encircle me.
I was sitting in the tropical sun as loved ones weathered biting windchill and yet another foot of snow. I was spending money I didn’t have, working on a book promised long ago and still not delivered. I was playacting at adulthood, toying with all I have been given when so many others were struggling just to get by.
I don’t deserve to be here.
And there it was, the root of the infection.
I scraped the flotsam off my soul and released it back into the tide.
Guilt is the narcissistic friend that fills your mind with poison then with a smile and the free lunch you provided totters off to leave you with the mess. Guilt never functions in isolation but acts as a stooge for a more sinister deal, in my case, stage fright. My computer sits as a piano on the stage of Carnegie Hall, where the curtain will rise and my impersonation of an artist will be witnessed by the world. Guilt spins a web that feels soft as a blanket, yet smothers intention. To do something good for myself is wrong. I don’t deserve to be here.
But this is exactly why I’m here. Only Hawaii has the energy to untwist my tangled paths of thought, loosen the knots of mixed messages and soothe the wounds of battle between who I created and who I was meant to be.
Guilt has made a jagged, blackened mountain out of something very simple: I am a writer. I must write, as a shark must swim or a surfer must be out on the waves.
No more free lunch.