Risk: A Recommendation for Living a Full Life

Risk, It’s My Recommendation

By Michelle Katz

Everything is in bloom as the rains have come to New Mexico.  We have had a very inconsistent monsoon season, heat and drought and fire, then early rain, then heat and no rain in sight for weeks, then little spirts of rain to something that resembles true monsoons. I have watched the roses in my garden risk their fill bloom and fall various times this year. Small buds seemed to burn off in the early heat of the season, small burst of blooming and then wind that carried them away.  Just in the last week they have become vibrant and full.  I cannot help but applaud them for their ability to risk again and again, to show themselves and then be hit by the weather again and again, until they found a perfect symbiotic union with the elements for the full expression of reds, yellows, and pinks in layered mandala like petals moving from the center into the world.

It is no small feat to bloom in the desert as the climate grows more and more unpredictable and harsh. It is no different for us. The world grows more unpredictable and harsh: in climate, politics, race relations, war, national health emergencies, the list goes on.  How are we to muster up the energy to attempt to bloom again and again if we get burned or tossed around and blown away from our base?  Risk. Risk and the courage to risk.  It takes guts to do what doesn’t quite make sense or is not popular, to embrace your vulnerability and show up regardless of how others perceive you or how ready the world is to see you in your fullness.

Love is a daily reminder of risk.  Before a relationship, we are vulnerable to the quick judgements of a potential mate, someone who doesn’t yet know us projects ideas (the good and the bad) onto who we are, while all we can do is risk revealing ourselves as we truly are. At the beginning of a relationship, the projections continue and the risk to show up as our true self becomes greater, worried about acceptance and reciprocity.  As the level of risk grows, the sense of potentially being obliterated increases, and so down goes our desire to show up. But if we do, if we risk to love consistently, eventually, love reaches a peak, a full seeing and showing up as our true selves with utter acceptance, reciprocity and the adventures together just get better!

Our hopes and dreams require risk as well. We risk every time we choose to step into the “arena”, (as Brene Brown calls the space where we are living our purpose). Especially right now, in the world of social media creating a platform for folks to rise each other up, but more often used to knock each other down. Following our purpose has the same path and require much risk.  We grow a bud, we are hit with the impossibilities and the nay sayers, we shrivel small and fall off our foundation. But our knowing still lives in us and under some almost ideal conditions we bud again, even unfold a few petals here and there watered by the few drops that nourish our ideas, until the failures and defeats let the purpose fly away. Still it lives in us. When the absolutely right conditions come to be and if we are consistent in following our heart, the bud shows itself again and flowers into its full bloom.  If we ever have risked to live into our dreams or to love another, we know this path well.  It’s the most courageous thing we do.

My path has had many iterations, and locations, many defeats, and re-creations.  Visions and loves that have come in and out of my life… tumbles and surrenders, abandoning and reviving, and oh so many beautiful revisions.  There have been truly huge defeats, circumstances that have caused me to question everything about myself, to reinvent, to become more vibrant in color with each reclaiming of love and dreams. The falls, in their incredible pain, more wholly defined my path, solidified my resolve, and brought depth to my being and my vision.  We never truly discard what lives in us, but it does require risk, despite the circumstances, if we are to live into our purpose, if we are to bloom.  I cannot help but risk myself for it again.  As Anais Nin reminds us, “and the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”  With this, I implore you, go out, bloom, risk it all to show your full self! 

A New Path: Young People Carve the Way

A New Path: Young People Carve the Way

By Michelle Katz

Every morning I take a short walk up a hill behind my house to my sit spot, a down juniper trunk decorated with red, black, white and yellow rocks I have collected in my explorations of the surrounding land.  My two dogs are my loyal companions as I sit, naming all my blessings, as I look out over the Jemez Mountain range. When I rise, I walk east along the ridge.  It is a great way to start the day, with perspective, a 360 degree view, I feel the possibility of the day. 

I then descend into the water-and-wind-carved crevasse between two hills, the decent it a bit rocky and the way from there gets complex for a bit. I step into the narrow ravine, and I am aware of my feet. I ramble up and down cliffs, etched and carved conglomerate rock and sandstone.  The metamorphic nature that surrounds me mirrors something inside me. I weave through the obstacles of fallen juniper and unsteady rocks, hindering a natural flow.  After years of this morning practice, I do this more seamlessly, a path that was once complicated with many hurdles has become an instinctive dance. 

The last third of the journey opens to an arroyo and a sense of ease sets in as I enter the expanse.  The sand is soft beneath my feet, live vibrant green juniper along the hills’ edges, some wild grasses reaching upward for resources and the brush of my fingertips. During certain times of year, flowers make their appearance, offering color and joy. During other times of year, untouched snow but for my footprints and dogs paw prints of the days before, some rabbit and coyote also leave their mark.  The threshold close to the house was once also a hurdle to pass, the last hurdle of the journey, a large down juniper across the width of where the arroyo meets the larger arroyo that leads home.  There was only one place to step to cross it and I had to hold the hand of a branch to assist me on the way.  However, with my partner moving in with me, just months ago, in his gallant way, removed a number of dead branches to make that threshold passage more effortless. After that, I am on my way home, with one last view of the Jemez before I cross the gate to the yard, and onward to start the day.

I think of this little walk every morning as beautiful metaphor for every day.  Starting the day with prays, perspective and possibilities and then navigating obstacles, complexities and challenges with as much flexibility and grace as possible, trying to keep my feet below me.  And then, after the hardships of a workday, the day opens to a feeling of relief, expanse, ease, beautiful connection and in the end, my partner makes my way home easier than it was before (though, I still hold the hand of the tree to assist me on my way, because the connection is just so splendid.)

Recent developments to the neighborhood have changed things.  New neighbors, construction and fences have created new obstacles at the beginning of my daily journey, barking dogs behind wire fences and loud noises and strangers.  I have had to reroute, abandon and establish a new sit spot, moving rocks and carving new paths.  This shift offers a contemplation on change.

In the last few months, I had grown increasingly unhappy at my day job.  I struggled daily, asking myself, “What do I do?”  With a massive student loan, inflation and the cost of living in Santa Fe becoming increasingly more expensive, I struggled between values and responsibility.  When a new and exciting but less profitable position opened up for me, I struggled with indecision. I read this article about Millennials and Gen Zers choosing unemployment rather than being unhappy at work.  In the inner-debate, I contemplated happiness while reflecting on the months of grief and depression I had just experienced.  Do I choose money or happiness? Affording what I am responsible for with ease or respect, appreciation, a deep connection to my daily work? All this corresponding with the creation of a new uphill path, a new spot to sit to look out on the mountains.  I returned to the knowing of my values of integrity, purpose and community relationships. The new job opportunity offered all this. The article emphasizes the way young people are not interested in paying lip-service to work/life balance and personal fulfilment, they want to live it, despite all odds. It also highlights the desire for the alignment of values and personal empowerment in their daily work life.

The article brings the older generation’s approach to work into question.  The older generation may look at this with the belief that the younger generation is entitled, ungrateful, irresponsible. To that, I say, let us remember the important role of young people in our society; they are here to shift old ways of thinking, to offer progress, a movement forward to something better.  More and more, millennials and Gen Zers are making different decision than previous generations, prioritizing connection, purpose and well-being above all else.  What an amazing evolution, an advancement to prioritize what is truly important. This is meant to be celebrated.

I took the new job, working for the local public education department on a mental health grant for the state, and I am thrilled to be in this role, while also being able to provide direct service to young people again, offering my mentorship program.  Making this shift invites me to show up fully again. I am no longer being asked to be small, to only do one role for some company that doesn’t value me.  I get to show up, offer my gifts again, share my dreams, make an impact!

The younger generation is here to teach us something, and it’s important that we listen, especially in the wake of the last two years.  There is this saying that 'If you are over 45 and don't have an under-30 mentor - not mentee - then you are going to miss the fundamental shifts in thinking that are happening'. As a millennial, much over 30, I see the practice of mentorship as reciprocal, there is much to learn from our youth as guides toward a new future.  Intergenerational relationships encourage us all to become the best Self we can become!

My dogs and I get lost on the new trail a lot.  Out of habit we often start off on the old path and reroute, a bit disoriented in the process. The new trail, not yet obviously carved in the dirt, creates alternative path foot steps that are misleading and create distributions on the landscape (something my partner, who is a biologist, frowns upon). An excellent metaphor for the process of paradigm shifts. My new sit spot offers a closer view of home, reflecting my movement from a global to more local focus in my life, which I enjoy. It is also quieter and has a more comfortable large rock seat, making my connection to the land and Self more amiable.  The way east from there, toward the ravine is slowly becoming more craved and known. My companions often find themselves weaving between the old and new. Every day we all get more familiar and comfortable with this new way and seem to be better at staying on the path, reconnecting to values with each step.  Gratitude floods in as I navigate and find my flow, parkouring my way through the ravine, to the gentle meandering about the arroyo, making my connection to the juniper who assists me across the threshold to start my day.  The challenging part had come more comfortable than the beginning 360 degree view of possibility part of the walk, but I know that will not be true for long. Humans have a gift to adapt, and it all about how we approach the change. I know that this new path supports me.

What Breaks Your Heart?

There is beauty in the message “do what makes your heart sing” but there is also beauty and inspiration in the question, “what breaks your heart?”

This is one of the questions young people will be asked to sit with and wonder, during the spring session mentorship program starting April 25th! Learn more or sign up.

#cerrosconsulting #whatbreaksyourheart #purpose #natureconnection #youngadults #teens #mentorship #santafenewmexico #leadership #selfinquiry #discovery

Growing in Groups

We are all just walking each other home---Ram Dass

There are vast expanses to leap across as we move through life and especially in the stage between childhood/adolescence and adulthood.  The terrain that must be traversed varies for each individual; it can be steep, rocky, smooth, slippery, deep, a narrow crevasse, or a grand canyon, it can be full of deep waters to swim or it may be a desolate desert to cross.  Skill is acquire as one moves through the terrain and faces monumental tasks of growth and development.  Some make it across the expanse unscathed, some injured, some barely clear it the first time but try and again with great success, and some don’t make it through at all and give up trying.  For those who cross and continue to cross, it is the community that supports the process, those that surrounds them and holds them in the leap, witnesses the aloneness of the jump and catches them on the other end with great encouragement.

The significant developmental shift during this time is the movement from one frame of reference to another; the frame of family shifts in importance as one moves toward valuing peers.  The very nature of groups coming together is to provide context in which one can begin to establish and increase a sense of their own identity as well as navigate way to being effective in the world.

As one moves through these expanses, it is important to remember that we cannot do it alone, we need each other.  Nature mirrors this for us:  Birds and fish move together for protection; elephants, lions and monkeys care for each other and each others’ young supporting and witnessing each other in growth; wolves hunt together in pacts, strategizing, completing and celebrating their tasks; ants communicate and create intricate systems of structure through understanding the unique role each plays in the greater community, often accomplishing pursuits 100x their size;  the forest needs all the animals, insects and plants within it to maintain is healthy ecosystem; and dolphins assemble in play as well in holding each other during difficult times, they even have been known to offer help to other species in distress, namely humans, they have a remarkable ability to empathize, creating complex social bonds.  Humans have and thrive in these ways of community too.

We are not only our family system, we are part of a greater system and we begin to learn this as early as 10-14 years old.  This is when the shift away from family and the movement toward relying and focusing on peers begins.  At this time a young person is able to learn to rely on their feelings, thoughts and reactions in relationships with peers that are experiencing similar feelings, thoughts and reactions during an time of physical, cognitive and emotional change.  Young teens share their experiences with those who are in a similar stage to know the similarities and difference of this transformational phase of life.

As adolescence continues, we grow more and more peer-oriented, establishing out identity and way of being in the social world.  We move toward individuation from the family system and look toward peers and adults other than parents for signs and clues as to what and who he/she wishes to become.  During this time, more intimate relationships and dating occur, providing an opportunity to explore differences with intensity and focus.  This helps us cultivate identity and character as our relationship with peers and family become more stable, complex, intimate, and reciprocal in our developing understanding of gains and losses.

Group processes provide a vehicle for struggling teens and young adults to be ushered through these huge and complex life phase tasks.  In this process, each person can lean into the natural tendency to look toward peers and other adults about who they are, what’s important to them, what they offer as a gift to the world and how to engage in living their unique lives.

As a facilitator of group process, it is a privilege and honor to create an environment for safe exploration of thoughts and feelings and ways to express oneself effectively.  In group processes, teens can find their way in meeting and resolving conflicts, setting boundaries, learning to value Self and others, building trust, speaking truths, establishing meaningful relationships and to develop a capacity for intimacy.  Furthermore, this is a place for leaning into the difficulties and scary places of our inner world with confidence in the ability to be seen, heard and valued.

The journey across this vast abyss is one of extraordinary change, growth, and self-discovery; this journey is not devoid of pain and confusion, yet it is ultimately a journey worth celebrating.  In the process of learning of and becoming our true selves, it is the group that surrounds us, which powerfully holds us to who we are meant to be and what we are meant to live.

Check out Oaks Counsel's group offerings.

#oakscounsel  #teens  #groups  #teengroups #adolescence  #youngadults  #nature  #ritesofpassage