Archive for June, 2008
Renovation Anyone?
By Jamie Gilroy
- Monday, June 30th, 2008
I had an unusual dream the other night. It was about a client who was upset that she had changed the design of her project and felt like she had made a mistake in doing so. Now the project was built, and what was she to do? We were talking over the phone and I could tell she was struggling to get her words out without getting emotional. I thought this a little odd but didn’t have any real judgment about it – I just listened.
As she spoke she got more and more upset and she began to cry. Finally I said what to me seemed like the obvious. I said that she really didn’t have to get so distraught, there was nothing a sawzall and a nail gun couldn’t fix. And you know what? In that moment I said that with 100% conviction. Like talking to someone who was sad it was dark in their room and me saying to them then just turn on the light. She seemed to breathe a sigh of relief after that and then the dream ended.
I mentioned the dream to Meg the next morning and she laughed. Meg in her line of work helps people to make better choices and become happier in their lives. She said if only it was that easy to renovate ourselves just using a sawzall (reciprocating saw) and a nail gun – instead of battling through all our beliefs and learning the latest spiritual and psychological techniques to gain awareness. That got me to thinking about how easy it is to renovate an external structure and how hard it is to renovate ourselves – those internal structures that we no longer enjoy. Fear, anger, jealousy, hatred, judgment, lack of self esteem…etc.
With a sawzall in hand you can cut apart just about anything – wood, metal, roof shingles. By cutting these things you can alter the way a structure looks, remove it and make way for a new change. Change the size of a door opening perhaps, add a sidelight or maybe a transom. Let some more light in. More glass, more transparency.
With a nail gun you can start to put it all back together. No more endless swings of a hammer to wear you out. Just throw a coil of 12 penny framing nails in the gun hook it up to the compressor and wow! Things get put back together quick and easy. Usually too they don’t come apart unless you got a sawzall…
See how that works? What if we don’t like part of our inner experience? What if we worry excessively about what people think of us? So what?! Grab that sawzall, load in a big saw blade and go to town! Things might get messy and be a bit stubborn to cut out but eventually the transformation will happen. Once you’ve removed that old structure go get the nail gun. Build a new structure for yourself, but make this one exactly how you like it. Make it yours. Renovation is taking something existing and transforming it into (hopefully) something better. Using what’s already there but making it more comfortable and inspiring.
I think I’m onto something here. Maybe I should set up a booth outside Home Depot and offer a demonstration of how to rid oneself of an old point of view. How to instead build something wonderful and unique for yourself and then invite people in to see how cool it looks! I could even give away a free tool to each person who stopped by the booth.
Yes! A free shop vac to deal with the inevitable mess that renovation creates. And at the end of the day it’s SO satisfying to vacuum up all the crap our little project produced.
So enjoy! No need to stress! Go grab your favorite tools and express yourself!
Happy renovating!
And don’t forget to watch my upcoming TV show on PBS - This Old Belief System, or the one on ABC – Extreme Inner Makeover.
Humm, I do kind of have a bit of a soul patch like Ty does…but maybe it’s more like chin spinach actually. Nothing a set of clippers couldn’t fix.
Time to go to work.
J
Leaving Home - Part Two
By Jamie Gilroy
- Wednesday, June 25th, 2008
So that first leaving home experience wasn’t so bad huh? I ventured into the unknown and found it to be not so scary. Initially that was the case yes. That year between high school and college turned into a bit of a challenge however. I made some really silly (obviously in hindsight) decisions that led me to some experiences that put a damper on my foray into the unknown. And in the years to come I continued to stumble after that brilliant start out of the gate.
But what would wisdom be without the mistakes and failures to inform us and lead us to a place of awareness if we’re so lucky? That’s the keyword however - inform. If you’re like me, then a hard head tends to batter things numerous times before the way around becomes clear. My lessons came hard and fast. I don’t go quietly - never have. It’s all or nothing, 100% conviction, damn the torpedo’s, screw convention, take the path less traveled type of strategies.
Let’s flash forward a couple of decades, multiple relationships, lots of debts, a son, plenty of scars both emotional and physical, and at least half a dozen near death experiences. Not to say it was all wreckage and disaster - it wasn’t. But underneath my battered facade I was getting tired of repeating myself and getting the same results. What’s that adage? The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result? Something like that. That was me.
Anyway by the time I reached 40 years on the planet I was ready for a change from that behavior. I thought maybe convention wasn’t so bad. Maybe that worn path was worth following. Maybe my head was better off not being used to ram things. Maybe I’d just settle down and live a quiet life of…desperation? Normalcy? Why not I thought. I’m done searching for the Holy Grail of Happiness. Fug it.
Well guess what? Life had other ideas (duh!). Just when I was ready to show my belly I got cold cocked. My heart got broke again and as I sat there in the midst of my shattered dreams and hopes I had a bit of an awakening. Maybe one of those once in a lifetime sparks of self awareness. It was this: ok this place seems really familiar (heartbreak). What if for once in my life I don’t rush to recreate the structure called Jamie so quickly. What if I look and SEE how I might reassemble in a new way. That my fine friends, that little tiny spark ended up burning my whole inner house down. Sometimes in Nature a fire happens to restore order and beauty and balance. In my case that’s what happened.
So dear reader you may be asking what the heck this all has to do with leaving home? Good question. That ignition of awareness propelled me to take a journey that altered my direction for the remainder of my life. However it required leaving home again - my newly adapted coastal home. I had lived here for 5 years and experienced some of the most brilliant and challenging moments of my life. I had found the place I felt like I belonged, people I connected with - a community - a true sense of home. And now I was pulled to leave to go on another journey - one that felt like Life or Death, Now or Never. To move all the way across country to California and a destiny yet to be determined. I knew I had to go, had to against all good judgment leave the Known again for the Unknown. For some reason it felt like my roots were being ripped from the ground and I was dying for nourishment.
I’m not ashamed to admit I cried most of the way driving across country. Cried for the leaving of friends and family. Cried for the sad state called my creation - my life. Cried for being 40 years old and having to take another journey into what? To where?
You got it - the Unknown. But guess what? It was even better than that first time so many years ago. The changes that came about inside me as a result of that leaving home part two were lasting and radically transformational. Life altering actually.
And you wanna know the best part? I came back home. Back to my beloved seaside community when I learned once and for all that all I can ever do is embrace the not knowing and love it.
Wow. I’ll never doubt the Unknown again.
Ever.
Again. J
Wake Up!
By Meghan McChesney Gilroy
- Monday, June 23rd, 2008
This weekend we celebrated the Summer Solstice within our Dreaming Community. We traveled to Western Massachusetts to a beautiful retreat surrounded by trees, a river, birds, lightning bugs, lush green.
The Solstice marked a transition between the light and the dark. We gathered light, or energy, to illuminate the dark, or any belief within the program in our minds, any emotion, any sensation that is not in alignment with the Truth of Who We Are - energy, light, Life. Throughout the weekend, we talked about Awareness, the choice between love or fear, emotional purification and a transformational process to support that, and our role in the evolution of Humanity at this time.
My intent from the weekend was to take even greater responsibility in my life, to consciously choose what I am experiencing in each moment.
Monday morning, 5 am. My one year old, Bodhi, awakens ready to start the day. I am tired, praying he will go back to sleep. But no, he is now wailing. I stumble down the hall, feeling cranky. I am supposed to be able to sleep in after a Dreaming weekend. This isn’t how I want to start my day. As I lift him from his crib, I remind myself that I made a commitment to choosing love. I assume this reminder will make the crankiness go away.
We head downstairs for breakfast and I am aware that I still feel cranky and I still don’t want to feel cranky. I catch what I am doing and laugh at myself. The program in the mind is so subtle, so sly. I made the erroneous equation crankiness does not = love, which is my intent, therefore I should not be feeling this.
I shift my attention. I remind myself of the process I taught. Welcome the emotion. Breathe. Let it flow. I welcome the crankiness. I breathe. I let it flow. This is love. Allowing what I am in the moment, cranky. This is acceptance. The crankiness moves through me, flows.
I look around our home. There are piles and piles of stuff strewn about that haven’t been unpacked from the weekend (and trust me, with a one year old in tow that’s a lot of stuff). The dishes are teetering on top of one another in the sink from last night’s dinner. This morning I was supposed to unpack, clean up, prepare for the week but I decide to be gentle on myself and take a walk with Bodhi and Gorda, our dog, instead.
We run into DaDa (Jamie) at the local coffee shop. Bodhi learns that a “rose” (pronounced “wose”) is a kind of flower. We take the time to sniff one and the petals shower down onto Bodhi’s feet. We admire the boats (boats! boats!) in the fog-shrouded harbor. We push the stroller in circles until we are laughing and dizzy. We see two friends, three dogs, more flowers.
By the time we return home, I am not so tired. I am grateful that Life sent a message to awaken this morning (literally) - in the form of a crying baby. I appreciate my beautiful mind, and its good intentions for knowing how Life should be. And I am so pleased that I no longer believe what it says because, as always, Life had a much grander plan on this day, filled with light, for me.
Leaving Home - Part One
By Jamie Gilroy
- Thursday, June 19th, 2008
I’ve been thinking about leaving home recently. No, I’m not going anywhere. It’s just that I know a couple of young friends who recently graduated high school and it got me reminiscing about the excitement I felt at leaving my own known world behind for the first time.
The first real time I left home (not counting during my senior year when I went to live with my best friend for 2 weeks) was exactly three days after my high school graduation. We graduated on a Friday, had a killer all night/day party at a friends house Saturday/Sunday and by Monday I was at the airport. I was totally primed and ready to go seek my way in the world.
I was heading west like so many pioneers before me. I had seen that mythical, vast, and heroic part of the USA called the Continental Divide for the very first time when I was 15 years old on a family cross country trip. Colorado, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Montana. All places that were ingrained in my young psyche by repeatedly watching the old western movies - everything starring John Wayne, anything directed by Sam Peckinpah, and of course the classic and my all time favorite - Jeremiah Johnson with Robert Redford. That movie was to be the template for the life I wanted to live - if not in actuality, then at least in my imagination. I wanted to live far from civilization and all its noise and congestion. I wanted to roam the mountains and live close to the earth. Even taking a Flathead Indian woman to live with and raise a family living off of the land - it all sounded good to me.
So with that in mind and $150 cash in my pocket I headed to LaGuardia airport. My stepfather in his haste to be rid of a testosterone-infused-budding-alpha-male offered me a hundred bucks and a bus ticket to anywhere in the country. I counter offered that with a one way plane ticket and fifty bucks more I’d go. I reasoned there wasn’t much to see between New York and where I was headed so why waste time on a bus. I remember hugging my mom good bye at the gate (yes you could go to the gate back then - no security) and in photographs of that moment that I looked at years later I could see the determination in my eyes to make the break and leave my old life behind. I had my cowboy hat, jeans, and work shirt on. I was totally green. And I was totally psyched regardless. Though if you told me I was green I would have begged to differ.
I’ll never forget flying in to Salt Lake City and my heart pounding as I saw the Wasatch Mountains explode up from the desert floor. It felt like I was in my new home. I took a bus into the city figuring I find a job. But the mountains kept calling me and after checking into my room in a downtown flop house and spending a restless night there with a six pack of Coors and a local newspaper I packed up late the next morning and started hitchhiking towards the mountains in distance.
Barely out of the city-limits a cab pulled over and the driver hailed me. Where are you going, he asked. To the mountains I replied. Wait here I’ll be back in 20 minutes. Sure enough 20 minutes later he pulled up and said hop in. We picked up a friend of his, grabbed some food and started the drive out of the perfectly flat valley towards one of the canyons that led to the heart of the Wasatch. There was still snow on the tops of the peaks visible from the city below that turned pink as the sun set. As night fell we were winding up a narrow canyon road - Little Cottonwood canyon as it turned out. My new friends dropped me off at a large lodge that looked like it grew out of the mountain built from stone and large timbers. I waved goodbye and turned to walk in through the doors of the impressive lodge. A very attractive older woman (at least 23 years old) greeted me with a big smile. I said I had just arrived and was hoping to find work. I asked where I was. She replied, Snowbird. I told her I didn’t have enough money to stay in such a beautiful lodge and was there anywhere cheaper. She said not to worry - she could get me the employee rate since I would most likely start working there soon. She smiled and handed me the room key and wished me a good night.
The room was huge and had floor to ceiling sliding doors that looked out into the darkness. I fell onto the kingsize bed and into a deep sleep.
That morning I woke up late and pulled open the drapes. I couldn’t believe my eyes. The mountain rose out of my view and there were all these people congregating on a plaza at the base of the mountain. I looked closer. The people were all young girls my age. They seemed to be wearing cheerleading outfits. I went down to the lobby hoping to run into the young woman from the night before. Instead there was a really old guy behind the desk (early 30’s). I asked him who all the people were on the plaza. He said there was a cheerleading convention of 500 of the best cheerleaders from around the country staying at Snowbird for the week.
You’re kidding right? Nope. My very first foray into the Unknown delivered me straight to Heaven. On a very cellular (and dare I say biological) level, my leaving home without a clue about how I would earn money or how I would survive was turning out just fine.
That was easy. Or so I thought.
From where I sit now that first journey was in fact easy and yet the subsequent ones became less so. The purity and ecstasy of that first leap soon faded into a place of searching for the known.
Certainty. Comfort. Belonging. Control. The Known soon grew like an all encompassing vine twisting around my wild spirit and constricting it until many, many years later I took another journey.
Leaving home - part two. Stay tuned.
Godspeed amigos.
J
Fathers and Sons Day
By Jamie Gilroy
- Monday, June 16th, 2008
What a lucky man I am.
Yesterday I saw so clearly how truly blessed I am to have two sons. One of them is Nicholas Kai. Nick is 17 years old and a fine young man. He has experienced more in his 17 years than many people do in a lifetime. He is beautiful, kind, helpful, compassionate, smart, a great athlete and a Dreamer. He has seen that this life is his canvas and the choices he makes affects the quality of that art. People are constantly remarking on his maturity and wisdom. I love Nick so much and am incredibly proud of who he is and excited to see who he will become as a man.
My other son is 13 months old. His name is Bodhi Quinn. He just mastered walking. He is an amazing little light. Last night he woke up around 3am crying and hoping to nurse. Meg has been trying to wean him from the “midnight snacks” as we call them and Bodhi has not been too cooperative. So last night I went to his room and picked him up out of his crib and sat down in the rocker and started to sing him a Hopi song I learned long ago. He’s been hearing it since he was first born and gradually his crying slowed and finally stopped. He wasn’t asleep but he wasn’t in distress either. It felt so good to hold him and have him be still and not wobbling off somewhere. His little head on my shoulder. His heart next to mine.
I love the connectedness I feel with these two sons of mine.
On Sunday Nick called from Sedona to wish me a happy fathers day. Last night at 3am Bodhi lifted his little blond head off of my shoulder for a second and said “daaa da” in the softest sweetest little voice. Maybe like he was acknowledging the day too. A few minutes later he was softly snoring.
Fathers and sons day.
I saw a short segment this morning I had taped from half time of the NBA finals where Bill Walton was talking about his son Luke who plays for the Lakers. The joy in Bill was palpable as he reminisced about Luke as a boy. He final words were about his unconditional love for his four sons. That’s it isn’t it? Unconditional love.
Feel it. Spread it.
Be it.
Happy being alive day. Every day.
And to Nickle & Bo Man - be true to yourselves and let your love shine without a doubt.
Love,
Dad
Can You Hear Me now?
By Jamie Gilroy
- Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
This morning I was having a conversation with a client. I was on my cell phone and she was on hers. Where her project is located has sketchy cell service at best and when I see I have a signal and make a call I try not to move from that spot. Doesn’t always work though and often I’ll be talking and notice the other person is not responding. I wonder for how long was I going on and at what point did I lose them? That can be frustrating or humorous depending on the day.
Anyway, this morning I lost my client mid-way through our conversation. As I re-dialed her she drove up in her truck. Apparently she was right down the street suffering from her own minimal-signal-bar syndrome and had pulled over so as not to lose the call. Pretty funny the strategies we adopt to keep communicating in the 21st century. How did we live before cell phones? As she got out of her truck I could sense a feeling of inner relief that we could now resume our conversation in person without fear of having it “dropped”.
But even person to person the opportunity exists to have a miscommunication. I think about all the assumptions that get made in the course of my day - especially doing a construction project. Even having things drawn out on a set of blueprints or spelled out in a proposal doesn’t guarantee clear communication. I find myself being ultra cautious these days to make sure those things I’m communicating are understood by the other person. I also make sure I understand what is being said to me.
Sometimes blaming the cell phone is a satisfying albeit temporary excuse for poor communication. Ultimately though it comes down to the individual taking full responsibility for communicating clearly and effectively. I no longer point the finger and say it’s someone else’s bad for not getting it right. I make sure I got it right first now. I make sure that the words I’m using have meaning. That the meaning is understood. That we’re clear with what’s been communicated. I’m attempting to do this on both a business level and on a personal level.
I see the results of the bad communication. Endless litigation and wrangling…
I see the results of good communication. Enjoyable relationships.
The difference between bad & good? The difference is amazing.
Can you hear me now?
Yes I most certainly can. Thanks for listening.
J
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