I guess saying “wild coyote” would be an oxymoron wouldn’t it?  I’ve worked with wolves in my life and understand as best as I am able to how smart they are, how they communicate and what “rules” to heed.  All I know about the Coyote is that they are smart and very, very wily.  Even the friend I worked with who rescued hybrid and pure wolves from across the United States told me to “never trust a Coyote”. After all, the Coyote is known as the “Master Trickster”.

Several years ago, I learned about animal communication through a good friend, Leta Worthington (http://www.herbsandanimals.com/).  She really helped me to grasp on to and hone the communication skills that I already had been using “loosely” throughout my life with animals.  I learned that there is a real difference between communicating with domestic animals and communicating with wild animals. The first time I ever communicated with a wild animal, it was a Red Tail Hawk and the communication felt very wild indeed!  It felt as if I had entered into a world that required that I know, understand and utilize immediately

its protocol for approaching—even psychically!

We’ve lived in our home for almost 15 years which boasts three acres total that backs up to a wet weather creek.  I’m fairly certain that our elderly outdoor cats that moved with us to this home met their demise with the Coyote pack who lived out back.  I “communicated” with the alpha cat after she passed, “Dreamcycle” who told me their deaths were quick and honorable.  Still, I did walk around feeling sad for not having protected them better.

Throughout the years there have been puppies stolen out of yards, cat food gobbled up, and dogs threatened by the Coyotes.  A few years ago, a young couple from California moved into the home and acreage across the creek from us.  They’ve put in an extensive organic garden, lined the creek bed on their property with high wire fencing and just recently built a hen house—they are determined to raise chickens.  Some of the neighbors have tried to warn them about the Coyotes, but their convinced that they can make it work.  I’m pretty sure the Coyotes will figure out a way to get in their yard….we’ll see.

The first time I connected with a Coyote was an early evening when I heard the most pitiful lonesome yipping and crooning that pulled me outside onto our back deck.  My heart practically broke from its sadness. I reached out mentally and also verbally said soothing words.  The yipping lessened and then it gradually stopped.  Almost immediately all the hair on the back of my neck went up and I could “feel” many Coyote eyes gazing at me through the trees.  It felt like every single Coyote was “sensing” me out to figure out who I was and what I was about.  I could stand about ten minutes of it before I made a quick beeline back into the house.  Still, I’m pretty sure I connected with the Alpha female who had just lost one of her pups.

Years have come and gone since then and there have been times when Animal control has “relocated” the pack. But earlier this year I began to “feel” them again and sense their presence.  No sightings, no killings, just that they were back.  Then the other night I was woken up at about 2:30am with the whole pack yipping wildly for about 4 minutes…I could almost “see” that two of the younger males were fighting with a large mammal (possum? raccoon?) and the whole pack was cheering them on to victory.  Then it was completely silent as if nothing had happened.  But I knew that a great Coyote feast was happening.  When I replayed the group yipping in my mind, I’m pretty sure that I recognized the louder yipping of the female that I had met so long ago.

In the Medicine Cards it says this about the Coyote card, “Many Native cultures call Coyote the “Medicine Dog.” “If you have pulled this card, you can be sure that some kind of medicine is on its way — and it may or may not be to your liking. Whatever the medicine is, good or bad, you can be sure it will make you laugh, maybe even painfully. You can be sure that Coyote will teach you a lesson about yourself.”

I’m pretty sure I picked up the Coyote card awhile back and am only now able to receive the divine “medicine”.

Accepting the cards that we are dealt can be the answer to all our problems if we allow it.  What cards have you been dealt lately?

When you hear or read the word “goal” what do you think?   Is there anyone else out there who is like me and would do pretty much anything to not say the word “goal”?  And that was tough for me considering that when coaching people about their lives or careers, there was many a time that the word “goal” was utilized.  I even learned a great goal-setting technique through the Success Unlimited Network (SUN) which was to set “achievable” goals.  Made sense for my clients or friends but not so much for myself.

The problem with having learned how to disassociate myself from uncomfortable or disturbing people and/or situations was that reflexively I could sometimes disassociate from something that was good for me—such as setting goals—because of a preconceived misunderstanding I had of what it meant for me.

Some of you may recognize the camp that I belonged which was the “oh, but that is good for everyone else but I’m different” camp.  Quite useful when carrying around preconceived misunderstandings and acting on them without question.

My preconceived misunderstanding about goals for me was that somehow “Lynn goals” were already set (I guess I thought they had been set genetically before I popped out of the womb) and in most cases, these preset goals would mostly be unachievable because of the level of perfection that would have to be achieved.

Ahhhah!! There’s that word and concept again..sneaking into my idea of goals!!  PERFECTIONISM.

Case in point.  When my SUN Coach asked me to set some “achievable” goals over the next two weeks (about ten of them)…I set what I thought was achievable such as taking three 1.5 hour yoga classes per week, running 20 miles/week, and 8 other goals.  Well, of course you know what happened.  I made one yoga class in 8 days (whereas before I had to set my goals I made 2 yoga classes every 7 days) and many of the goals I hadn’t even touched. Why you might ask? Because I had set the mark so high for achieving my goals that I gave up before I had even gotten started.  God forbid if it was proven that I was less than 100% perfect?!

So being the sometimes slow learner that I am, today I am seeing the partnership between writing down your goals and attracting what you want in your life.  I’ve done a whole lot of breath work on both of those subjects (goals and attraction) but not a whole lot of activating either on my end.  Today I’m starting off slowly.  Instead of setting unrealistic goals of what I think I “should” be setting…such as going to the gym 3 days a week…I’m setting achievable goals such as going to the gym twice a week. Shoot, then anything after that will either be gravy or crazy or maybe even a combo of the two! (wasn’t there a musician with that name awhile back??)

Just pondering the wisdom of setting goals as we head out of 2010 and into 2011 and what with Jupiter sticking out his chest and all kinds of astrological signs pointing us in the direction of great change right about now and into the New Year, it just seems to make good sense to find ways to set achievable goals.

Still can’t quite admit to myself that I just might be “average”—not that there is anything the matter with that — but getting closer to accepting my humanity while I learn how to roll along in this life.

What about you? How are you looking at something from another direction?

Running through houses and disrupting lives…..ain’t nuttin quite like dysfunction.  I would say that if we’re really honest, most families will have at least a smattering of it and many have a whole lot of it.  In fact, those that have a lot of it probably aren’t even aware of just how dysfunctional their family dynamics are because they’ve adapted and re-formed and transfigured and hidden for so many years that dysfunctional for them is the norm.

What has brought this topic of discussion up on this December eve 7 days before Christmas you might ask?  We just got through seeing the new Mark Wahlberg/Christian Slater/Amy Adams/Melissa Leo movie, “The Fighter” which is a true story about a fighter who came out of Lowell, MA and his very dysfunctional family.  What I appreciated about how this movie showed the depth of the dysfunction is that it showed the depth of love as well which is more real than most Hollywood movies portray dysfunction.  Usually the dysfunction in movies is seen as being all or nothing. In real life, the confusing aspect of dysfunction is that there’s a whole lot of bad mixed in with a whole lot of good so figuring out where to set boundaries and when to extricate yourself from a situation get’s really murky.

I’ve been in “recovery” from all kinds of addictions both mine as well as my loved ones for the past 23 years and one thing I know for sure is that the recovery from my crazy thinking and reacting and being has to begin with me.  That means I get to look at myself first and get right inside of my own head and heart with my perspective on things and people before I can ever point a finger at someone else.  Most of us then find that we’ve got enough to clean up in our own house that we don’t have time to cast stones at anyone else.  Looking at ourselves first doesn’t mean that we don’t use our heads about people and situations to figure out how to keep safe.  What it’s talking about is sometimes it is so much easier to sit and judge someone else about who they are, how they think and what they are doing with themselves then for us to ever take a look in the mirror first.

I wish I had known all of this many years ago when I would find myself in crazy situations and my immediate offense was a defense.  I know I did a lot of damage to myself and people I cared about because of it.  In many cases, I’ve been able to make amends for past behavior for which I am grateful but dang did I waste a lot of good time wreaking havoc!

For those of us who may be going into the Christmas week visiting family and friends, remember to clean your side of the street first before you begin taking someone’s inventory.  There are some really basic slogans that have been passed down through AA over the years that  I used to judge as being so trite when I first heard them but they sure can help you take a breath and pause before saying or doing something you’ll regret later on.

Some of my favorites are: Easy Does It, Let Go and Let God, Keep It Simple Sweetie and Think.

May you enjoy your holidays with much love and joy and remember to keep it simple.

From Thomas Leonard’s 28 Principles of Attraction I bring you # 24 which is:

SIMPLIFY EVERYTHING.

ABANDONING THE NON-ESSENTIALS LEAVES MORE ROOM FOR YOU TO ATTRACT

And the word “attract” in this case is referring to those people, things, ideas, activities that you want to attract into your life.  The challenge is to know what a non-essential is to you and then how to abandon it.

Christmas this year for us is going to be very simple, very simple indeed.  My car brakes gave up the ghost last week and we had new ones installed at the tune of $783.00  Nothing like a vehicle emergency to put the simple back into your life.  At least, the way we want to live our lives.  Charging up a huge bill that would hang over us for many months into the New Year is not how we choose to live our lives these days so we’re abandoning the frantic pace of buying Christmas gifts that would truly take the crunch out of the snow and put it right into our wallets.

As much as I hate to admit this to you, if I had an endless supply of money one of the things I would love to do with it is to buy gifts for people–all kinds, all the time. I love buying gifts that I know will light someone’s eyes up.  Seeking out just the right thing is something that I can do well for the most part.  Because I’m in a “food program” that asks that we not eat flour and sugar, I don’t cook. Okay, if truth be known I wouldn’t cook anyway, but I really really have a good excuse now!  And if you read back through several of my posts you’ll know that I am certainly not an artsy craftsy person.  I would hate to think of what I’d do with a skein of wool and two needles.  So when i have to abandon buying gifts for people to show them that I love them and care for them, it really puts me into a quandry.

How does one go about letting the people in her life know how much they mean to her at a time when it seems the entire world is giving gifts to show how they feel?  Here’s ten ideas that I came up with on the matter, hope they inspire you. Feel free to add your own as well!

1.  One way you can do it is to tell them. I know, right? It seems pretty obvious but you might be surprised to know just how many people actually do not tell the people they love (or even like) how they feel about them. Give it a whirl, you might be surprised at yourself.

2.  Give people your time.  I know, another one that we give good voice to but don’t always think about carrying it out.  Who do you know who is alone or sick that you could give an hour of your time to today?

3.  By all means if you’re crafty, craft away!! But if you’re like me, what is a talent that you have? I’m a fantastic cleaner, organizer and straightening upper.  Could totally turn someone’s home into a castle if they let me.

4. Ditto if you know someone who has dogs.  Where do you think all that poop outside goes?  All you need is a trash bag and a shovel to give someone some cheer!

5. Can you wrap presents well?  Hmmm, can think of at least a few people who would surely love some help wrapping their gifts.

6. What about taking someone’s Christmas cards and/or packages to be mailed? Can you think of anything more selfless than to stand in line for somebody else? Hey, what do you think those new Smart Phones are all about? To keep you connected during the wait.

7.  If you know someone elderly or home bound who has the perfect gift in mind for a loved one but lacks the mobility to go purchase it….well, there could be you helping them do just that!

8.  Throw a white elephant party for your block, street, neighbors, floor of your apartment or dorm. Rummage around in your closets and drawers, I’m sure you’ll find something you can gift away!

9.  Dig up all the socks, shirts, sweaters and sweat pants that you and your family are not using anymore (clean please!) and keep them rolled up in your car with ribbon to hand to a homeless person next time you see them walking along the street.  It gets really cold out there.

10.  You do have something to give that is your own special unique spin on giving. Remember the reason for the season and give in the best way you can.

While running errands today I caught up on the phone with a good friend that I’ve written about before who is going through what she calls the “death of her marriage” and the “death of the idea of what her marriage was” etc. etc. etc.  It’s a hard time for her right now and yet, she is plugging through going to support meetings, talking in therapy, showing up for her children and her life.  Doing that grown up thing that we call slugging through life even when it is the last thing that you really want to do.

And yet, as a fellow non-published, non-acted out officially comedy writer, she and I can dive right into the dark, dark humor of the situation. In fact, she will be sharing some of these realizations in a public venue but I can’t say more than that to keep her anonymity.  I’m so glad that she and I have found this laughing place to go to with each other when either or both of us are experiencing another freaking growth opportunity.  Laughing just helps to soften the edges of reality.

Earlier this week, I was sharing with another similarly-minded friend my sheer terror at having to do a presentation about the model that I had been working on all semester in the class straight out of Dante’s inferno! Even now as I type these words sometimes I hit the wrong key because the index and middle finger of my left hand are bandaged from having been cut when I was working with the exact o knife.  Turns out my tendency to smudge and muck up an otherwise pristine canvas is still alive and well.  I remember having so much embarrassment over always seeming to have smudged papers to turn in when I was in elementary school and yet,  there I was last week many decades older and smudging droplets of blood all over my last foam core board without realizing it.  Anyway, talking with my friend and laughing over my project board helped me buoy up the courage to carry on through with the presentation to the very end. Trust me, I’m a hit-the-road kind of gal from way back and so just being willing to show up for two hours when all the other fantastic boards were being displayed and it was obvious, bless my heart, that I am definitely differently challenged in this particular area of life.  We laughed at the fact that there’s a whole lot of people who will tell you that “their paper, project, art work is not really that good”  so that you will be AMAZED when you see how really great it is, but when I tell you that mine wasn’t, I really, really mean it!!  It helped to laugh. Kind of feels as if you hit your spiritual funny bone.

When we can laugh when it hurts with friends it helps the medicine of our learning go down better somehow.  I choked in mid-laugh a couple of times this afternoon while listening to my friend.  And if you’re like us, once you get someone laughing heartily at your predicament, then you’ll dig in the closet of your psyche til you find even more heart rending baring truths to share if it will bring you another hearty laugh. It must seem really sick to you if you are not made this way, but for those of us who are…it is such a great release.

So it’s kind of weird probably for me to pull this analogy up to end this blog with (but welcome to my mind!) — laughing when life is throwing really tough lessons at you faster than you can process makes you feel like you’re Ellen Ripley showing up for life with buff biceps and a big gun (Alien movie reference) screaming at life to bring it on!

Now look inside and find someone you can make laugh!

The full moon is gorgeous tonight and will be especially for those of us in North America at between 12:30am and 2:30am CST when there will be a full lunar eclipse (which after reading and hearing several versions of when we last had a full lunar eclipse, Earth Sky says it’s been since 1554  http://tinyurl.com/2dgencb) And if anyone is an astrology buff (check out Lissa Boles on FB) there is all kinds of stuff going on with Jupiter (http://tinyurl.com/294ma8g) that, as I understand it, means that THIS IS THE TIME FOR YOU TO MAKE ANY CHANGES THAT YOU MAY HAVE BEEN SITTING ON FOR AWHILE BECAUSE YOU WERE WAITING FOR THE RIGHT TIME.  NOW IS THAT TIME.

So do it.

I feel very hopeful with all of these signs of change and the repetition of huge planets and solar/lunar alignments happening at the same time. If nothing else, the full eclipse reminds me that I am but a small speck of grain in the real scheme of the Universe.  And I’m aware of being alive and am aware of expansiveness of the Universe.  I’m a big picture kind of a gal, so times like these when I pop out of my little brain an envision first how our sun, moon and earth impact each other and then move on to glimpse how all the planets in our solar system relate to each other and then move out from that….well, it’s pretty easy to put whatever idea or person who was bugging me today into perspective.

If you think about it, but not too hard because you may get a brain cramp like I often do, the pattern of the positioning of the moon, earth and sun tonight along with the Jupiter and Uranus revolving into the same orbit they had done in the 1500’s, well there some kind of really big math happening right now all at the same time.  Repeating math, gravity and patterns.  This all seems very significant to me and I just have a byte of information that my brain can grasp on its impact.

So why not, why not make tonight, right now the time that you will make those changes that you’ve been meaning to make?  Get your ducks in order, pull in your support systems around you and jump into the arms of your higher power to move you forward.

The moon is beautiful tonight and so are you!!

Here’s the deal, for those of us who have never had children we (the global we) are, for the most part, ignorant about who we are in relationship to the people around us in terms of age.  We missed that phase of teenage truth when parents who are stout and hardy somehow survive having the mirror of who they are shoved into their face from every single angle possible about 70 million times a day.  If we’re lucky, we may have a true and trusted friend who will ask us, “what the hell were you thinking” when we dash out in our latest fashion faux pas, but for the most part we tend to careen through our lives in utter unaware bliss that time is definitely traveling on and unlike the rings around the inside of a tree bark, our rings show!

It is with this tentative bliss that I embarked in the goal of returning to school to finish up a degree I had left in the dust many boys ago, to find out what the answers were for all those gaps in my understanding and to—and this is the one I so dearly love—-to “heal” bitter self-talk that had lodged itself inside of my mind to sing in concert with my ego and remind me of just who I am not.

Two years later and I’m just barely beginning to catch my breath and wonder where the hell this ride is going to take me.  What I have learned and am pleasantly surprised by is how much I’ve enjoyed getting to know my fellow students.  I think I may have had that blind prejudice, you know the kind where you’re blind to your opinions and feelings but you blatantly have them without even realizing it (think about what color “flesh” was meant for crayons and panty hose in the 60’s).   I had been walking around with this head full of information and thoughts about people in between 18-26 that has been disproved by my experience with fellow students…at least as far as the ones I’ve met thus far.

It’s kind of weird though because I feel like I’ve been sent as a “representative” of my species (older than   many of their parents…) to help create an “inter-generational” bridge with them that criss-crosses between multiple generations.  I must admit that the “mom” in me has come out a couple of times though.  I just can’t help but exclaim effusively when someone has created, done, said, or written something that I think is amazing for anyone to have done much less a young person.  I suspect I get this way because I am so grateful that the people that I am mingling with in school are so much more awesome then what is portrayed out in the mid-zone of the world where huge gashes of people gather erroneous information.

I’m feeling pretty hopeful about what is possible for our planet because of these gals and guys.   Below are some of the boards (sorry Ashton, my camera didn’t load yours yet!) that my fellow Creating Spaces students created.  My camera phone does not do them justice, but if you squint you can see just a hint of some of the wonderful work that they created.  Enjoy!

Kassandta Gonzales’ board

Ashleah Howard’s board

Baron Alba’s board

Madeline Hayes board

Alison Whitworth’s project

Are there any recovering perfectionists out there amongst us?

One of the lessons that I learned this semester in school (which was not on the lesson plan by the way) was that it is okay to accept that you’ve done you’re best even when it is just good enough–not great—not really good–but just good enough.  Since Thursday, I’ve put in at least 30 hours of work on this last project board for the Creating Spaces class and I still have a final board to complete and to get the notebook/journal all in order all before 12 noon tomorrow.  Even with all the hard work and effort I promise you that my board would come in last if we were in a show.  The good news is that I realized tonight that I’m okay with that, I know I did the best I could even though I’m not good with precision cutting, measuring and gluing.

How many hours, days, weeks and months do we spend in our life wasting precious time by beating ourselves up and worrying about how to do something perfectly that really isn’t our forte when our time could be better spent focusing on what we are able to do well?  And the balancing act is to always do the best we can do with what is in front of us and to be able to accept our best effort even if it isn’t as good as we’d prefer and then to let it go.

Maybe this is something that you already knew intuitively or never worried about much but for me this feels like one of those big aha moments.  Now, tomorrow when I have to present my notebook and boards in front of the Professor, fellow students and visitors I can tell you that I will probably have to sneak behind the comedian that lives inside of me to talk about what I’ve learned from what I’ve created this semester in order to be able to survive the obvious! It’s one thing to admit that I’m less than perfect to you guys here but it’s a whole other enchilada to have to do it in front of a classroom full of people (especially when the other student’s project are so very well done—they’re mom’s would be proud of them I can assure you!)

This is when I really wish that heaven was somewhat like the Albert Brooks and Meryl Streep movie, “Defending Your Life”.  Surely I would be taken into a grand viewing room and applauded for my best efforts!  Ah, well, if my sharing helps at least one person out there to face the music and accept themselves, then all of this will have been well worth it!!

I know, I know being sick is never something that we want to think about but we are humans as far as I know and so there are going to be times when we may not feel as hot as we normally do (if we’re lucky and usually have pretty good health).  I don’t know what is going on in the Texas Hill Country as well as west Texas, but there are a whole lot of us not feeling so chilly red hot right now and definitely don’t have the energy to keep up with the pace of the holidays that it can demand of us if we let it.

As weird as this may sound, your being sick could be a “pass” card that the divine has given you to “let go”.  Do those things that you absolutely positively have to do, like feed your young kids if you have them and find a way to get them some care so that you can go to bed and heal.  I don’t know about you, but I certainly used to pile on all kinds of ridiculous expectations of myself about everything for the holidays.  And it’s so weird the kind of ideas that my mind would glom on to such as wanting to have an abundance of lights and decorations like something out of a Chevy Chase movie.  Really when I stopped to think about that, I really didn’t want to do that on my house–but some adolescent part of me sure thought it was a super idea.

When it comes right down to it, unfortunately we find out what ducks we have in order and what we really need to get in order when we’re down and out for the count because we’re sick.  As I type this blog tonight my husband is nestled up in the down comforter on our bed sweating off the vestiges of a not-so great Vietnamese dish that he thought would make him feel better.  It didn’t do the trick  but it sure did get rid of some of the crud that he’s been walking around with today in about fifteen minutes flat.  Hopefully, he’ll be passed out for the night by the time I crawl beside him in bed.  I’m sorry he’s feeling bad, but I’m glad he’s going to get some good sleep.  He’s been working really hard lately and waking up at the crack of dawn to dive into some special projects for a string of weeks now.  It was time to slow down and I believe his body knew it so it threw a protest and by gum, it looks like it’s gotten it’s way for now.

So, if you’re feeling sick take it as the opportunity it really is.  Remember what is really important to you for this time of year.  Really love comes in all kinds of simple messages and behaviors that we tend to get diverted from by the excellent marketing scientists out there who know how to hit us just right to make us want a product, event, or experience.  You’ve got everything between your two ears right now to give the simple things that can make someone happy.

Drink lot’s of water, get lot’s of sleep and call your doctor in the morning to check-in just in case.  Here’s praying for your speedy recovery and, oh yeah, Happy Holidays!