Lawyers are on my mind and in my heart today. I was in law school when a light-bulb went off for me about praying. I went to a Jesuit university, though I’m not Catholic and wasn’t raised in church. Praying wasn’t part of my regular life. But working as an extern for a Federal District Court judge, I read a lot of motions. I often came upon this phrase: prayer for relief.
And I realized: Oh! To pray means to ask. Continue reading “Prayer for relief.”
On the inside you’re still that child. Under all the layers of life and work, of love and relationships, of broken hearts and blind ambition, you still hold the wonder and innocence that you were born with. When you feel relaxed and safe, when something delights you or captures your attention in a particular way, that child-self comes closer to the surface. It peeks out from behind your grown-up eyes. It shines. Continue reading “On the inside.”
Life is like a sacred stir-fry filled with experience and emotion. You reach in with your spoon, take a bite. Sometimes it’s everything you like (love, laughter, and chocolate!). Sometimes it’s everything you don’t (betrayal, disappointment, and eggplant). In one spoonful you might get both bitter and sweet.
You always go back for more. Continue reading “The sacred stir-fry.”
I lead a Savor Meditation every week, and it’s awesome. We explore a different theme each time, and the whole practice is about dropping in and noticing how it feels, what it tastes like, where in the body it rests and stirs.
If you’re in San Francisco, you’re welcome to join us. But I know you might not be able to come in person, and I still wanted to share this work with you. So I made this: Continue reading “Listen to the deep inside.”
I’ve been spending time at the Botanical Garden. It is Spring and so things are blooming. Also, the Botanical Garden reminds me of someone I care about very much. Some years ago, before Parkinson’s, we spent an afternoon walking through the garden and he told me all about the plants.
There are some very fascinating plants there: the aptly-called monkey hand plant, all the feathery and colorful protea from South Africa, and the unusual grass tree from Australia. There is the century plant that blooms once every ten years, and then dies. Continue reading “There’s room for you here.”
My last fieldnote was about loving the body you have, because it changes a bit every day. Sometimes, it changes a lot all at once.
I just finished reading Waking: A Memoir of Trauma and Transcendence. It is the story of Matthew Sanford. He is a yoga teacher, a husband and father. He is also paralyzed from the chest down. When he was 13, he was in car accident that killed his dad and sister. He was asleep in the back seat of the car and woke up days later in the hospital. His body suffered massive trauma, including damage to his spinal cord. Continue reading “Moving towards living.”
There is a sweet and beautiful moment that happens every morning. As you lie in bed, heavy and warm, your heart and lungs gently snuggled against each other, each soft breath and loyal heart beat pressing you from the inside out, you begin to wake up. Your breath shifts so slightly. You become aware of being in bed, of the weight and heat of your body beneath the covers, of how the sheets feel against your skin. Continue reading “Love the body you wake up with.”
We were supposed to meet for dinner, but then I received his text: I have to cancel. I have to wind down the company as our funding got pulled tonight. He is my friend and the company is an extension of his deep belief that there is a better way to do X. He sees this possibility and so for the last four years has poured himself into making it exist in the world.
And now this. A kind of freedom. Continue reading “Taste freedom.”
Almost four years ago I went to a friend’s wedding, wearing a pink dress and white heels that had little flowers on them. I lived in San Francisco and the wedding was in Menlo Park, and I didn’t have a car. I took MUNI to the CalTrain station at Fourth and King, and because I had some extra time I stopped in the Safeway across the street and picked up some sushi to eat on the train ride down.
I was going to the wedding alone, even though I don’t like going to weddings alone. But, I thought, you never know who you’ll meet at a wedding. As it turned out, I met someone who gave me a ride back to the city, and became a boyfriend for the next 2 years. Continue reading “The doing is the finding out.”
This is a game I play. It’s like flexibility training for desire and imagination. It cultivates internal resilience, curiosity, and confidence. It releases anxiety and prevents your inner bully from jumping up and smooshing your ideas. It unleashes the power of curiosity and pleasure, so you can taste pure, open possibility. It’s a little intoxicating.
You need the right friend for this. Here’s how it works: Continue reading “I have the most amazing life.”
Kim Nicol 