Do This, Don’t Do That

Do This, Don’t Do That

by Michelle Katz

I am a full follower of the Dalai Lama’s advice on learning the rules to know how to break them properly.

This week has been a real hardship for me in regards to “the rules”.  I have begun to ask myself if some rules are just made for rule-making sake? Or because some person’s indiscretion or exploitation, one bad seed creating an unjust system for everyone else? Or some practice of authority that is unchecked? 

Often times it seems like rules block progression, is keeps us caught in a system that doesn’t work and doesn’t benefit the majority.  Hoops to jump through that are actually not in service to the greater whole, leave me baffled.  This week, working my day job, has revealed to me how rules can be overly absurd and actually lead to people not seeing a greater purpose or keeping people from being of service to those who they are meant to be of service to.  It was as if rules were made to keep people down and powerless.  Then it occurred to me, that is what our systems have been doing for a long time to those who are disenfranchised.  My anger grew with the awareness of how the microcosm of my experience mirrored the larger injustices of the world due to rules created and imposed upon us. The world is trying its best to change, to struggle its way out of this restrictive cocoon we have found ourselves in: activists hitting the streets or bending the rule in back rooms hoping to not be discovered, young people with fresh ideas (the ideals of our country’s founding) fighting to be involved in politics which is over occupied by the older generation not wanting change.  Change is the purpose of the younger generation, listening to those who are younger helps our world move forward exponentially.  People have known and lived “the rules” for too long, it is time to speak about how they just don’t make sense anymore!

I come from a lineage of holocaust survivors.  All my grandparents lived though that traumatic act of injustice and genocide, rules that didn’t make sense to disempower people. One of the major teachings for the generations that followed: question.  We were taught to question what doesn’t make sense, what subjugates people, question, before it is too late to say something. Question, because silence and blind obedience can often lead to great loss.

I wanted so wholeheartedly to believe that in a post-covid world; a world full of loss, a world that’s practices have been challenged, had us stifled in our homes, had us hyper conscious about our health and wellbeing for the better of two years – we would prioritize a world of health and possibilities.  I wanted to wholeheartedly believe that in a world with racial upheaval; a world that watched George Floyd take his last breath in front of our very eyes, by the people we should entrust our safety to, the people who should hold all its citizen’s wellbeing as the soul purpose of their work in the world –that  we would take a good look at our systems and spring into action about changing them.  I wanted to wholeheartedly believe that in a world that is witness to an unnecessary war based on one man’s desire for power, we would question what leadership really means and how the heart of people is much more powerful than their might.  But unfortunately, all I seem to see is more injustice, more big brothering, less freedoms, less emphasis on caring for human beings over the systems we live in, more requirements and restrictions, and expectations gone rampant.  Less listening to each other and less actual change.  I am disheartened by the rules that keep us stuck, and for those of us brave enough to step out and question or find a way to break them, I applaud you, I implore you, keep going! Even though you face the hardships of the repercussions, I know you are doing it for all of us, for the better collective. Question.

With such great aggravation, I take a walk.

I walk the land behind my house, up and down the hills, navigating to now avoid newly (just in the last year) built fences of newly bought plots of land, fenced in.  “No trespassing” signs that once were never part of the neighborhood are now peppered throughout.  Rules, boundaries we are forced to move with when the space was once open and shared among the community.  I can’t help but wonder, rather than what are they keeping out, what are they hiding?  I’ll admit, we put up a “no trespassing “sign at one point to stop the construction workers building new properties from coming into our area to defecate, leading our dogs to eat it and get sick, we put a sign to explain our request, next to our “no trespassing” sign. A month later, when we realized our request was clearly understood, we took the sign down.  The others have not, and new signs are posted regularly.  “Signs, Signs everywhere a Sign, marking up the scenery, breaking my mind, do this, don’t do that, can’t you read the sign.”  How did a broken world leave us pushing away humanity?

Passed the hills and boundaries of new fences there is an opening.  My favorite part of this daily walk.  The opening to a large field that the monsoons have left bright green and covered with yellow coreopsis, towering over the dogs, leaving pollen on our tickled hands.  It is hard to not smile when reaching this bright and beautiful open scene.  Even in the winter, it is my favorite part of the walk, covered with a blanket of untouched snow that glistens in the late afternoon sunlight.  And when there is neither flowers and bright green grasses nor angelic snow, there is still an expanse and feeling of openness, a view of mountains or hills in every direction, an place that ask us to take perspective, and take in what is real and true.  A place that thrives with life: from owls and crows overhead, the coyote chasing the mice scurrying across the earth, vibrant juniper, blue grama grasses, and coreopsis and asters.  Life lives in this wild place surrounded by the starkness of a sandy arroyo and rocky hills.  It is soft here, things are flourishing in every direction of growth, unbound by hard edges that stifle development.  Even when standing on those rocky hills overlooking this part of the land, I say to yourself, “that’s where it’s at, where the beauty is, where I want to be.”

I sit here a while. Taking in this landscape that speaks to me of what is so needed in today’s world.  The hard edges all around this place, they are not thriving.  But, these special few acers, somehow, it knew how to break the rules of the surrounding landscape, it knew to make something different happen.  I look to this place, again and again for inspiration, for how to break the rules and thrive.

Defining Cerros

Defining Cerros

 by Michelle Katz

Over the years, many people have asked me why I named Cerros Consulting, “Cerros”.  As a storyteller, I feel this is an important one to tell.

I began this company just shy of a decade ago at a very pivotal rite of passage for myself.  At the time, the name of this business was “Oaks Counsel” named after the Oak tree I would visit frequently in adolescence, when home was Cleveland, Ohio.  Martin Shaw said, “All a tree wants is our fidelity.” And in the naming of the business, my fidelity to this oak seemed important. I remembered how that tree always had my back and I would turn to it for counsel as I watched a swift river flow below, teaching me of life being every changing, tumultuous at times, and still life giving.  The Oak gave me counsel and also consistency and trust.  There were oak trees around where I lived when Oaks Counsel came to be, in a sweet small California town, so the name seemed appropriate and related to the landscape of the practice.  Though a part of me always knew that I would return to Santa Fe at some point and the name would not be so relevant, Oaks Counsel remained the name of the business from its infancy into its adolescent stage. 

I returned to Santa Fe in 2016; but it took years after my return, in the first few months of the global pandemic, for me to seriously begin to contemplate what would bring this organization into full maturity.  I asked myself what was needed to reflect this notable time.  A rebranding/renaming was being called into actuality.  A connection to its new home and the natural landscape that surrounds this work. A step into adulthood and a clarity of purpose and gift to the world. Adulthood is about perspective taking, is includes being prepared and seeing the bigger picture. Santa Fe offers this in the most literal way through its mountain views and its desert lessons. 

Cerros whispered into my ear as I sat on the earth pondering this transformation. Cerros is the Spanish word for hills and peaks. Spanish being a largely spoken language of this city, thus more deeply connected the name to its landscape and people, the landscape, and people I know to be home. There are many places in the region with Cerro embedded in the place name, Cerro streets, Cerro trails and Cerro parks, Cerro often followed by a descriptor word or surname.  But Cerro truly can stand alone, strong and grounded at its foundation and base. Each Cerro is uniquely created of various ecosystems evolving off each other as the ground grows upward to its peak.

In reflection and contemplation of a name for what I wish to bring to the world, Cerros spoke to me of the life I have had and the lessons it has taught me.  Life’s turns and edges brought me to various trials and trails, the uphill battles, and the tumbles downhill, the landscapes of pause sometimes forced upon me and sometime self-created, unexpected experiences and long-awaited harmonious experiences, transformative and all contributing to who I am/am becoming.  Experiences that take us out of the comfort zone and reveal ourselves to ourselves are largely unpredictable and never straightforward in their lessons. Experiences can be ugly, though we must be able to see they are also encircled by beautiful ones.  I have had challenges beyond measure, bringing up questions of self and the world that I have wrestled with along my way. I’d find myself in a meadow of wildflowers with a trickling creek alongside me one moment only to turn a number of zigzags into a scene of rocky grounding, dry, windy and desolate.  I think we all know what the very top of the mountain looks like, and we all decide that the view is worth every bit of the uncertain footing along the way.

We all know the journey to the top is never a clear or carved to be a straight upward path.  It is full of switchbacks, different terrain, ducking down into the ravens, climbing up crevasses, pattering down paths, trudging up cliffs, meandering around boulders or trickling slippery streams, hopping across rock fields to avoid the cracks, screeing shale, and taking long breathers every now and again all before we stretch our arms victoriously to take in the peak.  And you know once we are up there for a while, the cold sets in, the sandwich and snacks get eaten, the storm clouds look to be rolling in or the sun ducks behind the western ridge and we must turn our backs to the glorious view and begin the journey down.  We cannot stay up there for too long.

The fact of the matter is that the peaks don’t exist without all that surround it.  Cerros gets its name from this deeper truth.  Hills don’t exist without their base and valleys between them, without their rounded and gaged and jagged edges, their changes in elevation and the different sceneries that are part of its makeup. It is important that we learn to wander and amble all the terrains to and from the top.

It is often overlooked that Cerro is also translated to mean backbone.  An important part of our physiology. The structure of our being, our standing in the world, our central support that is connected to our entire musculoskeletal system, the part of us that empowers us to move in the world: sit, stand, walk, twist and bend.  Our strength and foundation are in this essential part of our body. It is easy to note that our backbone is also made up of bones with valleys and peaks, curves, and bends in all directions, hard and flexible all at once.  It is also easy to connect the word backbone to the long-used idiom of “have a backbone” meaning to have strength in character.  To commit and live into your knowing and hold strong to your own decisions and feelings.  This knowing of self is the core value of the organization.

Cerros is named such for these two very essential reasons: 1.) It is a reminder that peaks and valleys exist together, and all inform/make up the fullness of a life, the perspective from the top is important in revealing this truth. And 2.) Cerros teaches us about the backbone, the base, the foundation of who we are. Remembering, connecting, and returning to this again and again, no matter where you may be on the journey, is what the organization aims to evoke in every person that steps in and enrolls into the services and offerings of Cerros Consulting. If we strengthen our knowing of ourselves it allows for us to find our home all along the way.  And if you care for a bonus reason, it is the story of my transition into true adulthood, the movement toward seeing a great perspective and knowing even in this great big world, connecting to my base self, day in and day out, is the practice of living into my best self.

Grief to Gift

Grief To Gift

by Michelle Katz

After my first break up with a serious boyfriend, in my grief and heartache, confusion and scrambling to make sense of it, my dad said to me, “when the groom leaves the bride at the altar, no one knowns who is the lucky one.”  I remember it stopping me in my tracks.  This statement, that I gave tribute to as some Ukrainian adage I imagine he heard somewhere along the way in his growing up, created true pause in my experience of loss.  Like a Zen Koan landing in my lap through the wisdom of a man I would never expect such a turn of a phrase be expressed.  Years and years later, I still remember that moment, that saying, and have applied it to the many loses throughout my life: relationship losses, career losses, losses that contributed to major paradigm shifts, the most brutal experience of friendship losses, even the losses and battles with my own ideas. 

This simple and profound saying offers me the greatest contemplation about loss: ”What if it was meant to be?” “What if this terrible unbearable feeling of grief, is actually for the best?”  Holy wow!  As the Dalai Lama wrote “Not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.”

We all have had losses in our lives.  Many of which have defined us, taught us a lesson about how to be in the world, taught us about great love and surrendering to what is.  In hindsight, all those losses can be seen as circumstances that were meant to be.  Grief for something that was once so wonderful can later be understood as necessary loss for the becoming who we are meant to be.

Loss happens in nature every day, from predator hunting prey to the extinction of a species due to the climate crisis.  There is even the line of thought that the global pandemic and it’s enormous impact on the loss of life can be contributed to nature running its course for the creation of a world that is more sustainable, conscious, community oriented.  It is a hard heart wrenching thought to bare, but, what if it’s true?  Could we bare it? There is much we grieve these days that is hard to bare. We are meaning-making-machines and it is often more about how we feel about how we feel than the feeling alone. What is the work of seeing the crack as also being the place that the light comes in (as Leonard Cohen wrote)? Are we able to see that a light is in both the broken glass and the diamond (Mark Nepo)?

Byron Katie, a great psychological thinker/author, among many others of her kind, teachers us to look at what is.  To ask the questions of what is really true? How we know it’s true? What is our reaction to our thoughts? Who would we be if we didn’t have that thought?  And what if we flipped that thought around and discovered ways that new thoughts might be true.  What an incredible, interesting, and unbearably challenging practice to take on!

Another great explored or grief, Francis Weller, teaches us the wildness of our sorrow and how the other side of it is gratitude.  Greif can be transformed into fertile ground for use to embrace the realness of life.

Vulnerably, I tell a story of the loss of a career I had been dreaming of for as long as I could remember.  My identity, who I defined myself to be, was wrapped up in this career. The loss of it left me utterly bewildered.  I failed, I wasn’t worthy of anything good, I felt depressed, hopeless, I could not see my life ahead of me.  Who was I?  How was I going to move forward?  Joseph Campbell offers, “We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”  The freedom of this terrifyingly challenging action is inexplicable.  It feels like sometimes this action of letting go could kill us, it is that threatening to our existence.  But I have to tell you, every time I have been able to practice this letting go, it has been liberating. Acceptance of what is the greatest way to lead a peaceful life. 

I watch the trees move through the seasons, loosing their leaves in the autumn without resistance.  I watch the long days become shorter.  The fruit fall from the carefully planned and tended to garden.  I watched the winter come and cover the sands and soils that are marked by footprints that hold memories of walks with a lover or friend, the small plants that took root but may not make it to another spring, the tree trunks that once invited us to sit awhile.  I watch the once pristine glistening heavenly snow turn brown and dirty, patchy and slushy on its way to melt. I watch the buds of tress become leaves and flowers in the spring, the grass growing back the best it can in the face of drought remembering what it once was in the rainy year; the wind blowing the pollen of a juniper to it’s mate like a soul leaving a living being. I watch beautiful full forests become on fire and then turn into flood grounds and then become the landscapes the elk come to know and love as their greatest buffet. I see the bunny picked up by the raptor, the snake eat the mouse, the coyote on the side of the road and it’s mate howling in the loss. I see the fallen and decaying tree, becoming a home for burrowing animals and then on its way to become soil and new plants. The world is full of loss. The loss is an energy that creates something new, something equally or even more beautiful.  If we are able to do the important work we are meant to do with the experience of loss.

My losses created resistance, morphed into grief that spoke to an enormous love, initiated a creative process and revealed some beautiful gifts that would otherwise have been unseen.  So, if the groom leaves the bride at the altar, yes, no one knows who is the lucky one, but my bet is on both of them eventually grow lucky enough to live happily ever after.

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! 

Don’t Miss the Opportunity to Be Bored

Don’t Miss the Opportunity to Be Bored

by Michelle Katz

I have been hearing a lot about boredom lately. Bored in relationship, afraid to retire because of potential boredom, bored when alone at a restaurant. I listen and watch as people avoid boredom. Interpreting boredom in relationship as not working, staying in a job that’s sucking the life out of them, scrolling on their phones in order to avoid any sense of this very important experience. In my observations and listening I cannot help but see the disconnection from self in the desire to avoid boredom.

I am truly a believer in the wisdom of boredom, it can be the birthplace of genius, if only we approached it as such.

We live in a world full of distractions. Daily, I recognize my shortcomings in this world. I cannot keep up with all the waves of communication I receive, plus the 24 hour news and social media cycle. For someone who values boredom...this is all too much. I am distracted to the point that I cannot find presence. My partner, on weekend days, use to wake up asking questions like “what are we going to do today? Where are we going? What should we do with the dogs? How do you want to get there?” I ask him these questions jokingly and preemptively when we sit down for Saturday morning coffee and we laugh. He has grown increasingly more comfortable with just being in the year and a half we have known each other. What makes us so uncomfortable with unstructured time to truly be?

The amazing thing to me is that there is actually so much that happens in what we would call “bored” space! I learn this again and again and especially during 10 day meditation retreats and wilderness quests, where boredom is central to the experience. In these times, yes there is an unbelievable amount of time spent considering the struggle of every moment, noticing all the discomforts, letting the mind wondering into worry until your face becomes a big pimple, picking dirt from your finger nails with the pine needle you find beside you. But beyond the discomfort, which comes in waves, there is also the incredible realization that so much is happening when you are doing nothing! There are all these sensations in the body we never pay attention to that are truly magnificent and when noticed, can be all encompassing, sparking curiosity, interest and presence. On quest, there are all these way in which you come awake to the world alive around you and in the realization of that you too become awake to your own aliveness, knowing life is beautiful and precious.

This morning I walk out on the land, my daily walk for years now, and especially with public lands currently closed, it has become a bit mundane to me. I go over the first hill and plopped down into the first arroyo, fighting the urge to take this time to call a friend or my mom (something to distract the boredom). I see the way the shadows and sunlight make up my path. Staying with the boredom makes me awake to the present. I see a piece of litter (more now than ever with the high winds we have had) I pick it up to see it’s an answer page of a college board prep-test book, algebra answers explained in detail. I look up to the sunlit and juniper shaded arroyo, algebra answers in hand. I smile at this truly unique moment. I cannot help but think about how this page landed here, and the potentially bored teen who studied from that book, perhaps ripping this page out due to frustration. I carried it with me.

I climb to the top of a hill to my sit spot, where I speak words that are habit, meaningful but somewhat boring in the recital, after years of the same blessings. My dogs await for me ready to move, but I stay in it. I remember my last week’s writings about the Uvalde shooting as I look at the dead and living trees surrounding me. I remind myself to never forget these continual shootings, to feel them fully, to not allow them to become commonplace and to not forget it in two weeks time because all that is in place to distract us to do so. I look at the small rocks around my sit spot that I collected overtime. I imagine the cut of one particular rock was once an almost perfect square one side having sharp edged and the other side with well rounded edges. I contemplate perfection and how it never lasts, something cuts it and we must then figure out how to cope. What we do when perfection leaves is what matters. I place it next to my other collected rocks to honor this truth. I walk on, impressed with how the path I created with my steps has truly craved into the landscape. A testament to walking the same path over and over without deviation. The repetition is now hard to break and could have unintended consequences on the landscape.

I wonder about not only how I greet the two rocks to my left or the two infant pinon I walk between, these landmarks like friends guiding my way, but also how bored they may be, how they meet my passing. Life is not simply about our experience of the world but how the world around us experiences us as well. Perhaps I am the highlight of their day. Perhaps the movement through the boredom of our days could provide the most pivotal moment for someone along our way? Boredom seems to evaporate when I can see the world in the lives of other beings.

I take my usual route, but backward, utterly and totally inspired by my 13 year old dog’s decision to walk down the path we usually take back to the house. She looks back at me with a smile and I surrender to this invitation for something slightly different. The same path taken in a different direction can feel like a different path. I love that simple truth. Perspective is up to us and can color everything.

We meander through the juniper and pinon, familiar yet different, and drop down to the second arroyo, wider and more wild. I remembered seeing a healthy and beautiful coyote here just last night, the dogs strangely unaware of her until much later, as if her appearance was only meant for me. It is hard to not initially feel fear at the sight of her, but then it settled into curiosity. I worried about my dogs for a moment and stayed in one spot holding their collars. The coyote looked straight at me, a clear message of the trickster while I hold my questions about boredom and the stories of friends and family avoiding it. She pranced happily by and then was out of sight between the bush. As if she said, “Bored? Ha! Just stay still, that is when things happen.”

I heed this good advice this morning, I sit on the arroyo floor, the dogs, ahead of me, turn around to see me sitting still and come to sit down beside me, one on each side. Staying still, (what some may perceive as boring), that’s when things happen! The birds have a whole conversation, I get to ease drop on their events, joys and alertness. When you think nothing is happening, just listen to birds. I notice the growth of the trees over the years I have walked here, so much growth, seemingly slow as if nothing is happening, trees are always changing, adapting, learning how to be their full selves! Windstorms, rainstorms, snowstorms all come to rattle them a bit but they seem most content in the quiet still moments. I see that what has fallen dead has become new homes and the place of new life, lifelessness is actually a whole world of aliveness. I hear a pregnant silence that I know is the sounds of the process of creation. I pet my dogs and their desire to move seems to subside, perfectly content and in the feeling of love. I cannot help but smile at the beauty of boredom.

Staying still in boring relationship can stimulate the creation a new element of relationship, a new spontaneity to listen to, a new slow and quiet of growth, a presence with love. Retiring to embrace boredom can reveal a life in which you finally live what you value, knowing what is most important to you. Not grabbing for your phone when alone at the restaurant, you may actually hear the laughter from across the room that actives your joy. Take a new preservative on your usual “boring” path and bring your loyal companions with you because love is needed no matter what. Boredom is our greatest ally, it asks us not to create distraction but rather to become wildly creative and utterly present. I don’t know about you, but to me, this is an amazing opportunity we seem to frequently miss.

The mentorship groups provide unstructured time to connect to self and creativity. The summer session starts July 11th. Explore time outside to explore the beauty of what is within.

Summer Threshold as a Birthplace for Genius

What if we allowed summer breaks to be an actual break!? Young people have built in time to connect with themselves, nature and their calling every year; adults should be so lucky to do this too! The intention of this time is rarely practiced but could have amazing benefits if we actually utilized this time to practice pause, reflection, and connection to self.

The Cerros Mentorship group program is all about creating space for unstructured time to explore who you are. The summer season mentorship group starts on July 11th, let’s come together to create space for you to discover yourself!

Finding Friendship in a Broken World

Finding Friendship in a Broken World

By Michelle Katz

I have been contemplating friendship a lot lately.  I attended a conference about the Adolescent brain in which Dr. Daniel Seigel spoke about the ESSENCE of adolescent brain remodeling, an acronym standing for Emotional Spark, Social Engagement, Novelty and Creative Exploration.  All of these elements are worthy of discussion, but for the purpose of this post, I am going to focus here on social engagement.  Dr. Seigel explained that social engagement is vital for adolescences because connection to peers, away from parents, helps create a sense of belonging and understanding through similar ideas, thoughts and experiences.  He explains that at this age, feelings of death can emerge in the experience of not associating with peers. I recall being young and wildly upset when my parents told me I couldn’t meet my friends for any myriad of reasons.  I can only imagine what it’s been like for young people during the pandemic.

A couple days after this conference, I had a meeting in which someone spoke about how children are going to friends to discuss problems they are having rather than coming to their parents or other trusted adults, implying that youth are not being raise by adults anymore, but rather raised by each other.  I found myself growing curious about this.  Is this developmentally appropriate?  Is this a sign of growing into adulthood, of turning more strongly to those who we feel belonging with?  Or even more so, those who we will inherit this new world with, those who we will come alongside to address today’s most pressing issues and hopefully offer an evolution for humanity?

Today’s young people face uniquely different challenges than pervious generations before them.  Doesn’t it make sense for them to bond closely with those who face similar challenges, to share stories of overcoming difficulties or navigating situations with those who can relate deeply to those situations.  Friendships have always offered me a foundation for understanding the world.  I think there is a way to access and connect with the wisdom of our parents but the color of our lives, from adolescents onward, is painted by our friendships and that truly grows us into who we are.

This week, I started with a new mentee. We are in a state of inquiry about her life up to this point, collecting stories that help me see her in the context of her greater life.  In exploring memories of significant events, friends have been central to her stories.

I recall reading a Guardian article about friendship and how the pandemic has effected these meaningful relationships.  This article spoke about populations most vulnerable to loneliness (single people, folks with mental health challenges like anxiety or depression, those in the midst of major life changes, and very particularly, youth).  The opportunity to make or cement friendships has been curtailed by this global event.  A counselor cleverly named that lockdown brought folks back to a schoolyard dilemma of picking their one best friend to be in their covid bubble.  She endearingly mentions the fear to ask and the fear of not being asked.  The pandemic became the grounds to rank and order our friends or the grounds for rejection, putting a dent in our confidence.  Now that things are opening, those who may not have felt lonely during lockdown, are suddenly struck with a deep loneliness.  The pandemic has changes how we all do friendship.

I love that there are so many different words for love in the Greek language, one of my absolute favorites is Philia- intimate, authentic friendship with a focus on freedom, joy, and deep understanding and also wanting the best for the other person. 

Throughout the pandemic I had a period of being single, experiencing some major life changes, and depression, making me wildly vulnerable to loneliness and the loss of friendship. At the start of the pandemic, I felt asked and did some asking in creating my covid bubble of close friendship. But, with ever changing circumstances, this bubble popped.  In the months of a fully open world post-pandemic, I feel vulnerable to loneliness. I struggle to know Philia in friendships I once certainly classified as such love and meeting new friends seems harder then ever, all while I avoid the effort to explain my story to friends I lost touch with in the last two years.  If I’m feeling this…I know young people are feeling it tenfold. 

The loss of long term and meaningful friendship is hard, especially if friendship is the central crux of your life. The question becomes, where do we go from here?  We must ask ourselves how do we truly honor ourselves by the people we surround ourselves with?  Is the one we ask to be our best friend during the pandemic, still our friend? If the friendship ground below us sifting in order to best promote better growth for all of us?  My mentee spoke about seeing changes in her friends and making the choice to lean on other friends in the face of those changes.  What courage! I recall a similar experience in my youth and choosing to actually keep my own company over companionship with others who I felt didn’t truly see me.   I remember turning to nature and finding the best connection to rivers, big oak trees and the stars in the night sky.  Eventually, this led to me finding 2 of the best people in my life.

I believe in order to harvest our true selves we must find a fertile ground of Philia.  I believe that in belonging to a nurturing group of genuine friends we certainly can grow each other into the people we are meant to be. Friendship, according to Aristotle, is central to a good life and what it means to be human.

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

Living and Being Alive

Living and Being Alive

By Michelle Katz

I tend to have these particular habits when something is missing in my life. Addictions are easy to fall into in these moments. For me, it tends to be watching TV or shopping. (I say this vulnerably and know I am not alone.) Another habit that’s equality addictive is searching or researching for what I think will help. Endlessly seeking a new job or taking an online class that I cannot find the time to finish and I keep signing up for another and another. I recognize these as addictive behaviors because I truly have difficulty resisting them. These, perhaps silly, habits/practices help me feel like I can grab a hold of some control when I truly have none. A feeling I know many of us experience.

In my work in the mental health field, I have seen this “something missing” feeling again and again. What becomes clear to me every time I see it, is that that the individuals experiencing this feeling are wildly intelligent and spiritual at their core. These seem to be the elements of self that are in hiding, somehow suppressed by some trauma, a sense of responsibility or life circumstance, or any number of other reasons I won’t pretend to know about. This begs the question, is something spiritually and intellectually engaging missing from my life when I turn to these particular habits?

I look to nature and I see nothing is missing. The spirit and intellect fully intact (despite any trauma or repressive occurrence). Storms, erosion, pollution, climate change – nature faces some pretty real hardships. I contemplate this in the shadow of my own personal hardships. In the natural world, when there is not enough of something, the creatures come out of their homes to hunt and gather what is needed, the branch of a tree stretches in the direction of the sun, the root reaches for the water. We are all find our way to what we need. Through challenges and comforts, the desire to live outweighs everything. It is the primary focus. Living. “Things just want to live,” a farmer once told me when I complained about not being a green thumb, “they will do whatever it takes to live.”

How is this defined for humanity? Is living...surviving? Is it following your heart? Your dreams? Your impulses/desires? Is it feeling joy in every day? What is living and is it different than being alive?

When something is missing, humanity seems to find a way to live. Though over time, living may not be enough. I wager to bet that folks, with all basic needs of survival met, a feel of something more will arise. Not knowing what to do with that feeling and going about business as usual, may lead to a huge sense of loss or longing or an experience depression or anxiety. This may lead to self medicating or doing whatever we can to feel better moment to moment with the latest and greatest purchase, the glass of wine at the end of the day, binge watching, etc. Surviving a pandemic does not mean we have lived through it. As things open up, there is an invitation to be alive, not just live.

For me, I have to ask, when something is missing, what is actually being asked to come in? I aim to reframe the problem. What is the desire/need/longing informing us about? When the mouse is hungry in mid-winter, when the plant looks thirsty, when the fox wants companionship...yes, it’s the food, watch and love we all need to live but it also asks us to be alive in the world, to participate actively in our purpose of exchange in the diverse gifts we offer. The mouse coming out in mid-winter offers it gift of keeping other unique species alive, but they also aerate the soil, spread seeds for more vegetation and spread fungi to supply nutrients to plants. Living contributes to thriving.

Purpose. What if purpose is a basic need (alongside love, food, shelter)? What if a sense of purpose is needed to truly live? It may be what’s called for when our other needs are met and we start to feel the missing of something?

Living creatures in nature participate in purpose as they contribute to biodiversity. Each elements of nature, the mouse, tree, fox survives through it acquisition of necessary resources. Collectively, however, these individual living beings show up as who they are with all their gifts and talents to create biodiversity, a better world. Nature creates and enhances our world beyond survival, it teaches us what thriving can be. It supports, consumes and produces. It provides oxygen, supplies, joy. It knows the power of resiliency, adaptation, health, and connection toward the wealth of a system. It unabashedly expresses it’s identity- the rainforest, the alpine desert, the ocean deep- each element contribuing to the greater whole.

What if we all lived into our purpose in such a way? We live our purpose and it betters the world. More and more I see the something-missing state and more and more I know what’s being called in is a depth of knowing the answer to the great overarching question: what are we here to really do?

It’s time for me to stop watching TV and buying things. My purpose is to mentor, to support others in knowing who they are and their gifts to better the world. I’ll be starting a teen/young adult group on April 25th. Do connect to learn more or sign up.