Knowing When to Call a Time Out

I received more than my fair share of time outs when I was a kid. I had a hard time sitting still in school and felt bored much of the time. As a result, I was often given a time out and  had to endure the excruciating experience of sitting in the hall with nothing to do. In high school, when I got a time out it meant I had to silent study hall during my lunch hour.   This was clearly a example of cruel and unusual punishment-although I do remember getting a lot of work done in those silent study halls. I’m guessing many of us may have a negative association to time outs as most of us have at some point been asked to sit on a step, or on our bed to think about our being mean to a sibling, being disrespectful, or breaking a rule. We may also remember being grounded as a teenager, which is really just a prolonged time out. It’s too bad that our associations to time outs are negative, as the ability to know when to call a time out in our day, week, or month can be a crucial ingredient to our wellness.

The March Madness of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is in full swing right now and provides the perfect opportunity for us to rethink how we view the role of a time out. In every game there will be at least one stretch of time when a team is starting to lose control. Shots that were going in easily earlier are now missing the mark, passes are not connecting, and mistakes are escalating along with the players stress and anxiety. It is precisely at such a moment that the team’s coach will call a time out.

The purpose of such a time out is positive and proactive. It is a time to help the players take a deep breath and reset their game plan, often with some valuable perspective and input from the coach. There is nothing punitive about the time out, and in fact the players are grateful for the chance to regroup. It is fascinating to see what a positive difference in performance a time out can make for a team.

A positive use of time outs is not just good for basketball players.  Overwhelmed parents have long known about the importance of counting to ten and thereby creating a time out for themselves when they are feeling emotionally flooded. The “power of the pause” is good for any of us when we find ourselves “missing too many of our easy shots” or when seeing our mistakes and anxiety escalating.

I understand that schools are no longer using timeouts the way they used to when I was a child. They are now instead teaching children the value of taking timeouts proactively, much like sports teams do. They are teaching children how to pause and practice mindfulness and that a positive time out can be helpful no matter what the age.

Every basketball team has a limited number of time outs that it can use each game. The rest of us, however, have an unlimited supply and can use them whenever needed, knowing that  a time out, at just the right moment, can enhance our performance and get us back in the flow with renewed focus and energy.

It is in the Shelter of Each Other that the People Live

If you are like me, you sometimes take for granted that you are fortunate to have a shelter—a home, apartment, or some kind of physical dwelling—a place where you get to live and sleep on a daily basis. I’m not always as appreciative as I should be about the fact that I have always been blessed to have such a shelter in my life. I am aware that I often take for granted another kind of shelter that I live in, and that is the shelter that the love of friends and family provides for me each day. It is this kind of shelter to which the beautiful Irish proverb that appears above is referring: “It is in the shelter of each other that the people live.” There are many ways we can provide the kind of shelter for one another that this proverb describes.  As I wrote last week, one way we can provide shelter is to truly listen to one another.  We can also offer any or all of the following: compassion, love, patience, forgiveness, acceptance, and gratitude—all of which are forms of shelter.

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     In honor of St. Patrick’s Day I want to highlight a wonderful Irish tradition, that of offering blessings and well wishes to one another.  In this way the Irish, and the rest of us who can learn from them, can provide emotional and spiritual shelter to our friends, neighbors, and families.   Even if you are not Irish yourself, you likely are already familiar with these wonderful sentiments offered to others.  Google “Irish Blessings” and you will a long list.

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One way I know about the shelter a blessing can be for any of us is the many times I have heard stories, from clients and parishioners alike, about the pain they have endured when the blessing from a loved one was withheld.  I have heard stories of great sadness when a person shared how a significant person in their life—a parent, grandparent, boss, close friend—did not bless the person they were or an important decision they had made.  “It has always been painful for me that I never received my _______’s blessing” is almost always said through tear-filled eyes.

I have also heard stories of how much it has meant to people to receive the blessing of a significant person in their lives.  Their eyes sparkle with joy and their faces light up as they share their story of feeling blessed. To be blessed by someone is to experience the shelter of their unconditional love and positive regard.

There are indeed many ways to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.  This year, I invite you to join me in celebrating this holiday by remembering to be a blessing to others and to continuously offer blessings to your friends, families, and neighbors.

I close with a beautiful Irish blessing, one that reminds us of the many kinds of shelter we can, in fact, offer to one another.

May you always have…

Walls for the winds

A roof for the rain

Tea beside the fire

Laughter to cheer you

Those you love near yo

And all your heart might desire.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

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Every Good Conversation Starts With Good Listening

Imagine you are in a room full of people trying to have a conversation with someone. Thirty seconds into the conversation you realize the person is not really listening to what you are saying. Instead, they are actually starting to look over your shoulder to see if there are others they might want to connect with in the room. You keep trying to connect, hoping to engage in an exchange of thoughts or experiences, but the other person soon finds the next person they want to talk with and offers you a superficial, "It was good to talk with you," and moves on. If you are like me, you have had the experience of this kind of "pseudo conversation" more times then you care to remember. And again, if you are like me, you have also been the person looking around the room and pretending to be listening, more times than you care to admit.

One of the reasons I believe that deep, authentic listening is rare is because it is challenging to actually do. It takes time, discipline, intention, and effort to be fully present to another person when they are speaking to us.  We have to truly focus our attention so that we are not distracted by what is going on around us. We have to quiet ourselves internally, so that we are not distracted by our own thoughts and concerns. We have to listen in order to truly understand, instead of simply listening in order to respond. We have to avoid the temptation to steer the conversation back to our lives and our concerns. And we have to offer the other the gift of our time.

Every good conversation starts with good listening. I have written before about how the word conversation and the word conversion share the same etymological root. The reason for this is because to listen deeply and enter into authentic conversation with another person creates the possibility that we may be changed. Perhaps another reason we often avoid truly listening to one another, in addition to the intention, time, and effort it takes, is that there is a certain kind of vulnerability in truly listening. When we truly listen to another person our perspective may be changed, and, we may create a deeper intimacy with the person to whom we are listening. Being that vulnerable can be scary.

Please don't take my word regarding what I have written here, try it  yourself. Over the next day or two I invite us all to make the effort to truly listen to the people with whom we interact. Practice the discipline, and intention it takes to listen deeply to another person. As you listen to them listen to truly understand what they are saying, experiencing, feeling, and thinking, and not simply to respond. Look the person in the eye and listen to the feeling and meaning behind their words. Ask clarifying questions that let the person know you really want to hear more about what they are saying. Be still within yourself and be fully present to what they are saying to you.

Try this several times and see what happens. See if you feel more connected with the people with whom you tried this.  Did anything change in your perspective on what you were hearing or how you understand that person?

Feel free to drop me a line and let me know how this experiment went. I love to hear stories of how good listening enriches relationships. And I promise... I will give my full attention to what you send me, and not be looking around at other emails while reading yours!

A New Kind of Fast

    Christians across the globe began the season of Lent this past Wednesday. Traditionally Lent has been marked as being a time to give something up.  There is a long tradition of fasting as a Lenten discipline which is where the idea of giving something up comes from.  When a person takes on the practice of fasting it is not to experience pain, but rather to practice the discipline of delaying gratification, which is an essential factor in all dimensions of wellness.  Fasting also helps to heighten  the awareness of the nature of one’s true hunger, helping to clarify our need or hunger for spiritual, emotional, and relational wellness. I love to study words, and so I find the word fast intriguing. Being that he word fast is a verb, adjective, and noun, it clearly has several meanings, including “to move quickly” and “to be firmly fixed.” To combine these two uses as they relate to the season of Lent, we could say that in the midst of our fast moving lives, Lent is a time to remember and reconnect with that to which we hold fast, that which grounds and firmly fixes our lives.

The word fast has also acquired another meaning, practices that individuals keep during Lent.  Fasting from food or drink, or certain kinds of food or drink, is a spiritual practice common to most religious traditions, for example. Recently though, many people have been trying a new kind of fasting for Lent. Pope Francis recommends these  new ways:

• Fast from hurting words and say kinds words.
• Fast from sadness and be filled with gratitude.
• Fast from anger and be filled with patience.
• Fast from pessimism and be filled with hope.
• Fast from worries and have trust in God.
• Fast from complaints and contemplate simplicity.
• Fast from pressures and be prayerful.
• Fast from bitterness and fill your hearts with joy.
• Fast from selfishness and be compassionate to others.
• Fast from grudges and be reconciled
• Fast from words and be silent so you can listen.

Fasting from certain foods or drink may impact our physical wellbeing, but by following this list from Pope Francis we will enhance our spiritual, emotional, and relational wellness as well.

Lent is a perfect time to slow down our fast lives and become more intentional about holding fast to the habits, beliefs, and practices that ground and secure our lives.

A Center of Resilience

     This past weekend my wife Holly and I had the honor of spending three days at an amazing church in the city of Marathon, located in the heart of the Florida Keys. We were at St. Columba’s Episcopal Church offering a variety of wellness programs, but in the end we received as much inspiration as any that we may have been able to give. More about that in a moment, but first a few words about the Florida Keys. The Keys have an incredibly vulnerable and unique ecosystem. The narrowness of the land masses and their position between the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean make the Keys, the 100 mile stretch of islands off the southern coast of Florida, indefensible when it comes to  storms. Hurricanes are a well known part of the history of this area, with some having packed wind speeds of 200 mph, causing thousands of fatalities over the years. These life-threatening storms are never far from Floridians’ minds in the summer and fall when hurricanes are more common.

The beautiful coral reefs that surround the Keys draw hundreds of thousands of divers, snorkelers, and fishermen from around the world, but these reefs are as fragile and vulnerable as the land they surround. Careless boaters that run aground on the coral reefs, as well as  changes in water temperature and quality are causing widespread damage to these reefs. The native fish population is as exotic as it is vulnerable to pressure from over-fishing and pollution. None of these challenges are too daunting though for the people who make their home in the Keys.  These locals, known as “Conchs,” are admired for their adventurous spirits, for living in a place where life is both incredibly beautiful and incredibly vulnerable and ever changing.

In this midst of this place of beauty sits St. Columba’s Episcopal Church. Ten years ago this church was close to closing, but since then, under the leadership of the Rev. Debra Andrew Maconaughey, along with many devoted lay leaders, the church has flourished and nearly tripled in size.  Just as importantly, the church has at the same time, become a real center of wellness for the wider community.

Several years ago St. Columba’s courageously bought a house that came up for sale right next door to the church. They gradually turned the house into an after school and summer camp center known as the Hammock House. There they provide an incredible array of programs that serve the emotional, educational, physical, and spiritual needs of children who are living in challenging home situations (the picture at the top of this column is from our visit with some of the children at the Hammock House).

The church also was instrumental in starting Independence Cay, a non-profit that serves people in need of transitional housing.  The church recently opened and now operates two different second-hand stores in Marathon that raises tens of thousands of dollars for these outreach ministries.

In addition, the people of St. Columba’s are the founders of Celtic Fest, a yearly Irish festival that just last month brought 7,000 visitors to Marathon for a weekend of Irish music and fun.  Add to this, their annual Bluegrass BBQ benefit which sells out every year, and you can see that this spirit-filled church not only knows how to do good, but it also knows how to have fun doing it.

When I asked Rev. Debra about the variety of outreach offerings her church offers, she shared with me that while everyone sees the Florida Keys as a kind of vacation paradise, in the Keys, just as everywhere else, people struggle with difficult life challenges.  Rev. Debra is proud that her church reaches out and serves the most vulnerable people, both children and adults, in the Keys.

As I reflect back on what Rev. Debra shared with me I was struck by what a parallel there is between the fragile and vulnerable ecosystem of the Florida Keys and the fragile and vulnerable ecosystems of the people her church serves, and in fact, those of all of our lives.  Florida residents tell stories of the hurricane storms that have disrupted their worlds and left them feeling so defenseless, and the storms even have names; Andrew, Charley, Frances, and Wilma.  Who amongst us can’t name storms that we have weathered that have disrupted  our lives?  These storms have names such as a health crisis, the loss of a relationship, the death of a loved one, or a loss of a job might be a few?  Even when our lives are going well and it seems that all is paradise, we know that we are always vulnerable to a sudden change in condition.

The main focus of the wellness programs we offered at St. Columba’s last weekend was about how to  build resilience-how to be better able to bounce back and persevere when life hands us unwanted challenges.  Throughout our talks we presented the fact that all the recent research on resilience focuses on two essential factors that contribute to a person having a good degree of resilience in the face of challenges.  These two factors are a strongly developed spirituality and a vital connection to a strong community of support.

After spending so much time with the people of St. Columba’s it is now clear why they are so resilient in the face of their many challenges- they have a strong sense of spirituality and a deep sense of community.  We would all be wise to learn from our new friends in the Keys.  The ecosystem of all of our lives are indeed fragile and each of us is vulnerable to storms at times, but with a strong sense of spirituality and community, we can be resilient even in the midst of life’s toughest challenges.