6/29/2023 0 Comments Hear them beneath their wordsYesterday I heard someone describe the experience of having someone hear them beneath their words. They described this experience, with great emotion, as life-changing.
Most of us can hear words. We simply need parts of our brain to translate sound waves into words as they pass through the ears. But for many of us, for many reasons, our words don't always say what we mean. They don't always say what we feel. Sometimes because we don't know how to say what we mean. Sometimes because we don't know how to - or want to - say how we feel. Hearing me doesn't always equal knowing me. In fact, it's probably rarely the case. The people who know me well, the people who know you well, they are the people who know your words are trying to say something but what you're really trying to say is likely beneath the words. These are people who have brains that hear but also hearts that long to know. These are people who hear and dive in and not hear and walk away. We live in a world that makes it easier than ever to hear because there are so many spaces within which to say our words. Some days it feels like there are just so so many words.... It makes it difficult to feel words. It makes it hard to hear beneath the words. Hearing beneath the words requires us to pause. To hear words and wonder, to be curious, is there something more here than what I'm hearing. Are these words crying for help without crying? Because there are a lot of people in the world crying out that we don't hear crying. We don't hear their tears because we only hear their words. Tears often live beneath the words. It's a gift to have someone in your life who is willing to hear you beneath your words. It can be life changing. I think we all need that gift. I think we can all BE that gift. It simply requires us to hear and then pause long enough to wonder and feel. Feel the feelings beneath the words. Because they are not always the same, the words and the feelings. Words rarely move us to act, feelings will. And feelings are easy to miss when we don't take time to hear beneath the words. When our hearts don't hear quite as well as our brains. What's the old saying, we have two ears but only one mouth, so we should listen more and talk less. Well we only have one heart, too. But it's big. And right now the world needs our hearts to be bigger than ever. So yes, keep hearing with those two ears. But maybe start listening a little more with that one big heart as well.
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6/23/2023 0 Comments Notice Someone TodayI had a moment in my work life yesterday where I felt unseen. When you feel unseen you can go to some unhealthy places.
You can begin to ask yourself, if what I'm contributing isn't worth seeing, is it really worth contributing? You can begin to ask yourself, if what I'm contributing isn't worth seeing, am I worth seeing? Fortunately for me, I've been through this enough in life to come to know those questions and the voice that asks them as evil. It's an evil that DOES see what I'm contributing. It's an evil that DOES see my worth. It's an evil that knows the difference I am making is the difference evil is here to prevent. Feeling unseen is not a great feeling; telling evil to shut the hell up is. But even after standing up to evil myself, I know there are a lot of people who never feel seen. Not in their work and not in their school and not in their relationships. It's deflating. It's unmotivating. It robs people of human dignity. One of the greatest gifts you can offer someone is the gift of noticing. Today, notice something someone is doing in this world that maybe no one else has ever noticed. It doesn't matter if it's something big or something small, being noticed always feels larger than life. In fact it often feels like NEW life. Today, challenge yourself to hear the words: "thank you, I don't think anyone's ever pointed that out before." You will make someone feel seen. You will give them a chance to make a difference in the world. And chances are, they will. If you've ever felt the defeat of feeling unseen, then you've discovered the power that can be found in noticing. So notice someone today. 6/22/2023 0 Comments Everyone fits in a welcoming worldI spoke at an event at George Mason University (GMU) yesterday. The event was a partnership between GMU, Fairfax County Public Schools and the Virginia Department of Education. The theme of the event was meaningful:
You don't have to fit in when you belong. The purpose of the event was to empower students to create welcoming and accepting school cultures. It always amazes me and equally encourages me to hear how much our youth know about acceptance and welcoming. One young lady said that too many people are focused on having amazing schools when all we really want is welcoming schools. She made the point that amazing and welcoming aren't always the same. I thought about that on a broader scale. I thought about how much of the leadership of our world focuses on building an amazing world when what most of us long for is a world we feel like we can belong to. So many people feel less amazing every day as they continue to lose the battle to fit in. When you listen to young people talk about building a welcoming world, you don't hear them talk about the things other people need to change to better fit in. Young people talk about how they can change to accept people for who they are. Young people more than anyone understand the pressures of trying to fit in. Young people more than anyone understand what it takes to alleviate that pressure. Young people more than anyone know no relationship grows if people don't feel safe in it. Young people more than anyone know no one learns in spaces where they don't feel safe. Young people more than anyone know the health of our future starts with going out of our way to make people feel healthy about theirs. It's hard to daily try to fit in. Exhausting, really. Wouldn't it be nice to have a world focused on reminding people they already do? Our kids know how to do that. I'm grateful for the teams I got to spend time with yesterday who not only recognize it but want to magnify it. And spread it. Because we're all spending too much time trying to fit in. And it's exhausting. Far more exhausting than just being welcoming. Maybe this will be a heavy question for a Monday morning. If it is, that's likely because you haven't considered this question in a while.
Or ever. But here goes. What possible future are you claiming this morning? That's an important answer to have. Because that answer will largely inform what you intend to do today. When we know where we want to go, chances are higher we'll be doing things on purpose to get there. When we don't know where we want to go, we will largely act in response to the whims of where someone else wants us to go. Which is often in the direction of a possible future they have claimed, not you. That's not always a bad thing. But not everyone's possible future is in line with a possible future you would claim. So helping someone else get their future can come at the expense of you sacrificing yours. Or at the expense of you never claiming a possible future at all. We can get pretty far into our future before we realize this is not the future I would have claimed. And we realize we got there because we never took the opportunity to claim a future at all. We jumped on the boat of life. Followed the captains orders. Then one day frantically asked the captain for a map because we had no clue where we were. We went on a ride to nowhere, but suddenly it seemed important to know exactly where nowhere was. That is not a bad day. Because whether you are a teenager or a middle ager or much older than a middle ager, it is never too late to claim a possible future. As long as you have a breath, you have the promise of a future. The question is what future are you going to claim. Write it down. Describe it. You may discover what you're describing doesn't look like the boat you just got off. It may be an entirely different looking boat. That's okay. In fact, that's great. Because now you're the captain. You no longer need to ask where am I, because you know. You know because you are on the path you chose to get to the possible future you have claimed. Maybe that possible future doesn't work out. But discovering impossible by chasing possible is a whole lot more fulfilling than never imagining what is possible to begin with. Claim your possible future. Then work for it. Shortly after becoming the first woman to train a horse to victory in one of horse racing's triple crown races, Jena Antonucci said, "never give up, and if you can't find a seat at the table, make your own table."
Horse racing's triple crown consists of the Kentucky Derby, the Preakness Stakes and the Belmont Stakes. Each of these races have been run since the late 1870's. So when Antonucci's horse, Arcangelo, won the Belmont Stakes yesterday, that was a significant addition to history. It was telling of who she is when she used her moment in the spotlight to inspire rather than to celebrate. It was clearly her dream come true moment, yet she used the moment to encourage others to dream. Many of us have dreams of living or working or creating in spaces that don't look like us. Spaces that through various messaging - some messages direct and some implicit - tell us we don't belong. We can accept that we aren't going to get an invitation to the table and walk away, leaving our dreams behind. Or, as Antonucci suggests, we can just bring our own table to the space. Maybe I can't sit next to you, but excuse me while I put my table right up next to yours. What a story. What persistence. What a table. Rejecting over 150 years of history and tradition and likely a whole lot of exclusion and declaring, I don't need to be welcomed, I just need a little corner to build my table. Antonucci had another message I thought was powerful. She said, “you fight for that spot and you feel you have to prove your worth. Horses don’t care. They don’t care who you are. They know who you are. To have a horse believe in you, and your team, the way this horse does … I wish more people could be like horses.” I wish more people could be like horses..... It would be nice. It would be nice if we'd start looking at our tables and asking who is missing and not who belongs. It would be nice if we'd start wondering how much more we could achieve inviting people to tables and not excluding them. How much different would the next 150 years of history look. Invitation, not exclusion. Well done Miss Antonucci. I'm a big fan of your table. Here's hoping we will all build more tables. Great big tables. Big enough to invite everyone. Because we all deserve a seat at the table. The ultimate power in life is acquired when we discover how powerful it feels to make someone else feel powerful.
The road to that discovery hasn't been easy for me. It's littered with moments where my desire to be powerful came at the expense of other people's power. It's littered with moments of believing there is only one barrel of power in this world and we are all fighting for that one barrel. Powerful used to feel very cut throat. I guess in many places power can still be cut throat. It can be cut throat in politics. Each party believing power is about being in charge and not helping others take charge. It can be cut throat in parenting. Parents believing power is about being in charge and not helping their kids take charge. It can be cut throat in the corporate world. Managers believing power is about being in charge and not leading their team to a place where they can take charge. It can be cut throat in marriage and friendship and all relationships, where the goal can be to be in charge of the relationship and not cheering someone else on in their charge. A big consequence of all that cut throat, it can lead one to believe that's who God is in our lives. We can come to believe in a God who wants to be powerfully in control of me instead of a God who lovingly wants me to discover the best of me. More than ever these days, I long to help people discover their best selves. I got to this place guided by people who came into my life and helped me find my best self. That's a jarring experience at first, experiencing people who will give up self in the interest of others. Experiencing cheer leaders and not cheer gatherers. But then you come to discover, these people don't look like they are giving up anything at all. They look content. They look fulfilled. They look powerful. I see God that way these days. Like, the more I move in the directions I'm capable of moving - the more I live out my fullest potential - the more powerful God comes to look and feel in my life. God goes about his work being a cheer leader, not a cheer gatherer. And in turn, there's no one I cheer more loudly for than God. I suppose we could all be a little more like God that way. A little more like the orchestra conductor. Whose greatest joy is seeing and hearing us all sound our best together by playing our best as individuals. But that doesn't start by a longing for individual power. It starts by being willing to give power away. I watched the final episode of Ted Lasso last night. I advise against watching it if you're feeling the least bit emotional or under the weather. 😭
The truth is I like shows that find my emotions. When they do, I find myself asking why. Why am I laughing? Why am I trembling? Why am I crying? Ted Lasso left me asking the latter: why am I crying? I think it was the whole Ted Lasso experience. So many people in the experience, certainly not the least of which was Coach Lasso, were set up to fail. The coaches and players and team owner and fans and friends and family, they were all in what looked like a no win situation, yet, that's what they did. They won. No, they didn't walk away with the trophy, but they all walked away feeling like winners (with the possible exception of Rupert). Is that one of the secrets in life? Learning to feel like a winner when someone else is getting the trophy. Is that one of the secrets in life? Having people see you as a winner when the headlines declare it's someone else? I think so. And I think Ted Lasso showed us how that's done. A lot of times in life we will land in a place where we feel like we've been set up to fail. Never, though, in any of those situations, are we required to act like a failure. We can land in places in life when doing the right thing can look and feel like the hardest thing to do, but never are we required to do the wrong thing. I'm amazed that through 3 seasons of Ted Lasso, when you were able to see so many characters change, Ted Lasso never did. In many stories the beauty and emotions come from watching what a character becomes. With Ted Lasso, though, the beauty of that character was how he managed to stay the same. If you think about it, it was his ability to stay the same that sparked the dramatic changes in so many people around him. Ted Lasso showed us all that situations in our lives can change. Sometimes dramatically. Yet, we don't always have to. Situations can feel unkind, but we can remain kind. Situations can feel discouraging, but we can be an encouragement in the middle of them. Situations can feel hopeless, but we can be the hope. The situation can be losing, but we can walk away feeling like a winner. Especially when our goal is to make the people around us feel like winners. It's always challenging to change in life, but maybe the biggest challenge is staying the same when life is tempting us to change. I know some of us are in situations where we feel set up to fail today. Well, Ted Lasso would have us all 'believe' that we are always set up to win. Be kind. Be encouraging. Be accepting. Be humble. Believe. Win. I have a friend who is a passionate runner. She has been battling an injury and is wearing a boot and hasn't been able to run for many weeks. I know her story is distressing. Yet, the story she's been telling has been quite the opposite.
I've seen her posting pictures of being a mom having fun with her daughters and pictures of riding a stationary bike instead of running and pictures of family camping trips. What I have NOT seen from her is a story lamenting the loss of something really important to her. Even as I know there IS lamenting going on. Something important to her IS missing, that's a fact. But my friend isn't letting the facts of her story stand in her way of telling a hopeful story. I sat with a friend on a deck last week. I told her some of the list of events in my life. Some of that list is ugly. Some of it I'd like to take an eraser to. Some of the events I never include on the list when I talk about the list of events in my life. But I included all of them. I didn't edit the list, but in many ways I found myself editing the story. I found myself, like my friend, speaking my list onto the pages of a more gentle story. We can use the facts of our lives against ourselves or for ourselves. We can call the facts of our lives our friends or our enemies. The facts of our lives are just there. Immovable. What is mobile, however, what is hopeful, is how we carry those facts with us. What is hopeful is how we interpret the facts of our lives. I told my friend recently that she is quite a running story. But her 'not-running' story has been quite a testimony as well. We all have our facts of life. Facts that are no longer up to us. What is up to us is how we interpret those facts. How we share them with others. What is up to us is our story. Be kind to yourself with your story. And in turn, you may find your story being kind to others. |
Robert "Keith" CartwrightI am a friend of God, a dad, a runner who never wins, but is always searching for beauty in the race. Archives
February 2025
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