dare to dream

Seeing with new eyes

The real voyage of discovery lies not in seeking new landscapes but in seeing with new eyes. Marcel Proust

About two years ago I was participating in a continuing education course for work when my instructor commented, “You're really good at math.” I remember thinking -- Really? Could he be right? Could it be true that I am good at math? Because I can pinpoint the moment when I began to write the script that I wasn’t. In 5th grade, when we started word problems, I wrote a first draft. In 6th grade, when my teacher told me to stop asking questions, and just figure it out on my own, and I thought I couldn’t, I finalized the script. It read: I'm bad at math.

The "I'm bad at math" script wouldn’t be so problematic except that girls and women in the U.S. have a tendency to believe we are bad at math, and boys don’t. Meanwhile we live in a society whose systems and social structures value math skills. The script was problematic for me specifically because it wasn't entirely true.

Now, for the sake of argument, let’s say that it were true, that I have always and will forever struggle with math. Does this mean I’m dumb?

Howard Gardner, in his book Changing Minds, would argue absolutely not. He posits there isn’t a single intelligence that we either have more or less of. There are instead multiple intelligences, which include not only linguistic and logical-mathematical (the two forms of intelligence most highly prized by our society), but also musical, spatial, kinesthetic, naturalist, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and existential.

So if you’ve gone through school and even some of your work life feeling dumb (as I often have) because you weren’t particularly strong linguistically (being adept in written AND spoken language) or mathematically (good with numbers), and these were the two intelligences that most schools and standardized tests measure, it’s time to re-view, to see ourselves with new eyes.

And to recognize just how smart and capable and competent we are.

Musical intelligence -- This isn’t just about composing music, playing an instrument, singing well/or even learning a new language. Gardner writes: “the principles of organization involved in almost any kind of public presentation, whether organizing a conference or event, producing a play, or giving a speech have their origin in musical structure.”

Now I know why I can sense how an event or a speech should be organized; because of my musical intelligence and training.

Spatial intelligence –- Are you comfortable with architecture, interior or landscape design, organizing physical or cyberspace? Do you design tools, furniture or toys?

Puzzles, Rubik’s Cube – no thank you. But my daughter Miranda loves puzzles, follows the diagram, assembling Lego toys easily. One of my friends , a professional space planner, was able to look at my garage, and immediately visualize what needed to be done to organize it. Which is why I hired her because I can't see it.

Bodily-kinesthetic intelligence –- Do you create products using your whole body or parts of your body, like your hands? Do you paint, build furniture, scrapbook, sew, dance, play tennis?

My friend Carolyn instinctively knows what to do to remodel a room or build furniture. My sister is a beautiful dancer. When her body moves, she tells a story. And my young friend Sara – at 9 years old – would race 12 year-old boys across the pool and win. Her body just knows what to do.

Naturalist intelligence –- Can you tell the difference between one flower or one animal and another? Anyone involved in the preparation of food, construction of dwellings, or protection of the environment, draws on their naturalist capacity. And in our consumer society, do you have a heightened sense of discernment when it comes to the details that distinguish one shoe or one purse from another

My friend Margaret is a self-described brand junkie. She’s the kind of buyer I’d want to hire if I were a retailer. Margaret has a knack for choosing just the right shirt, shoe, and especially purse. Another friend, Bator, with whom we just spent Thanksgiving, draws on her naturalist capacity as a cook. Her gourmet Thai twist made our Thanksgiving feast extra special.

Interpersonal intelligence –- Can you look outward, toward the behavior and feelings of others, figuring out their motivations and working effectively with them?

Are you able to understand what children or your colleagues want and broker win-win situations? I haven’t known too many people with this intelligence in the workplace, but I have known MANY mothers with this intelligence. Daniel Goleman popularized this concept in his book Emotional Intelligence.

Intrapersonal intelligence –- Can you identify your personal feelings, goals, fears, strengths and weaknesses?

Here's how I gauge this one. Do you find that because you examine your life – see what’s working and what isn’t – and make changes, you are happier today than you were five years ago?

Existential intelligence –- can you pose and ponder the biggest questions: Who are we? Why are we here? What is going to happen to us?

Many of the world’s great leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Winston Churchill have addressed these questions, helping us to make meaning of life’s experiences in uplifting, redemptive ways. Filmmakers tackle these big questions too. Remember Schindler’s List or Star Wars?

Is it really possible to see our selves, our minds, with new eyes? I believe it is; it happened to me just last week. In the process of organizing my home (under the direction of my friend who possesses spatial intelligence), I found a media-training videotape of myself. When I first saw the tape six years ago, I remember perceiving myself as dumb, tongue-tied, fat – all negative. With time, I’m seeing with new eyes, and am finding things to be proud of in that tape.

Shall we read through the list of intelligences one more time?

Did you discover one, two, or even three of your intelligences?

Now write one down.
Whisper it.
Say it out loud.

Then tell the dumb woman you’ve been keeping company with to kindly move aside, because an intelligent woman has just entered the room.

Giant baby steps

We gain strength, and courage, and confidence by each experience in which we really stop to look fear in the face. Eleanor Roosevelt

Last night I auditioned for a part in a local play. For several days prior to the auditions I imagined myself wowing the directors with memorized words, music, and oh, the feelings that I would evoke as I graciously, confidently, joyfully sang.

Now let me tell you how the audition really went.

I was far more nervous than I had anticipated. The last time I auditioned for a soloist role was – well never. To make matters worse, I actually knew the two women for whom I was auditioning – both of whom have beautiful voices. So, I looked at the music the entire time, was slightly off key, and there was a quiver in my voice. And it wasn’t a vibrato. It was nerves.

For several hours afterward, I kept thinking – I am so embarrassed. Why did I do this?

But with some hindsight, I realized that despite my poor performance, this audition was, for me, a giant baby step.

Reason 1: Singing is one of my dreams. I’m not very good at singing yet. I was scared. And I did it anyway. I’m actually beginning to feel a slight fondness for those feelings of embarrassment, because they cue me to know that I'm throwing down my pom-poms, and walking through my fear.

Reason 2: In auditioning, I listened to my intuition. When I first heard about the play, my immediate and automatic response was – we are too busy. But then I heard a little whisper that said: “That’s what used to be true, but no longer is. You need to do this. Your family needs to do this.” And so I announced to my husband and children that I felt strongly we needed to take part in this opportunity – and they gamely said yes.

Reason 3: Participating in a play will draw us closer together, building happy memories for our family.

Reason 4: One of the unintended consequences is that my husband will start singing again. He used to love to sing in high school and his early college years, but he hasn’t sung much since. As I heard him audition, I realized that part of my “you need to do this” wasn’t about me, but about my husband coming back to something that he used to love. And, with the supply-demand imbalance that exists so often with male roles and men to fill them, he’ll probably get a pretty fun part.

Reason 5: Another unintended consequence (I wish I could have planned this) is that my ten-year-old son will start to sing. I have wanted him to take music lessons. He fought and fought, using precedent against me. His words: “your mother made you take piano and you didn’t like it. Are you going to do that to me?” (I couldn’t argue that.) I then tried the voice lesson route, to no avail. Finally I resorted to buying A Pocketful of Music music appreciation CD’s. And then these auditions came up. Initially my son was hesitant, but as the audition approached, he wanted to sing, he practiced, he prepared. He wants to participate.

Reason 6: As I continue to daydream about bursting forth into song without fear, about finding my voice – not just when I am alone, but when others are around, and keep taking giant baby steps, some day, a lovely voice will no longer be just a dream.

What fear do you have to face as you dream? How has it felt to walk through the fear? What have been some unintended, but happy consequences of facing your fears?

Stories we love and live by

The destiny of the world is determined less by the battles that are lost and won than by the stories it loves and believes in. Harold Goddard

One of our family’s beloved traditions is bedtime reading. We snuggle with our children, have real conversations with them (they think they are successfully deploying a stall tactic – we know better), say our goodnight prayers, and then we read stories. We have loved reading Come on Rain by Karen Hesse, a picture book which recounts the anticipation, and then the sheer delight, of a young girl and her friends and their mothers, as they revel and romp in the rain on a hot, humid day. Frindle by Andrew Clements left us agog at Nicholas Allen’s ingenuity, amazed at the power of words. And then there is The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. We were deeply touched by the magical grandmother’s gentle mentoring of her princess granddaughter.

One story that I hope to share with my daughter soon is the myth of Psyche. This is a story that I love, a story that I believe in. It is one of the few, according to Jungian psychologists Jean Shinoda Bolen and Robert Johnson, that help us understand the psychology of feminine, rather than masculine, development.

Let’s take a look.

Psyche is a mortal woman who wants to find her estranged husband, Eros, God of Love and son of Aphrodite. Aphrodite, whose jealous fit led to their meeting and falling in love in the first place, holds the key to their being reunited: it often happens that whatever has wounded us is instrumental in our healing.

Aphrodite assigns Psyche four tasks, all of which are symbolic of skills she needs to develop. Note that while each task requires her to do more than she feels capable of, and she is initially paralyzed by fear, they are part of a course that Psyche has chosen.

Task 1: Sort seeds

For the first task, Psyche must sort a huge jumble of corn, barley and poppy seeds into separate piles before morning. The task seems impossible – and is impossible – given her timeframe, until an army of ants comes to her aid, and helps her sort the seeds.

Sifting through possibilities and establishing personal priorities in the face of conflicting feelings and competing loyalties requires a sorting of the seeds. Sometimes we need to sleep on the problem letting the industrious collective of ants – our subconscious – work things out. As we learn to trust our intuition, clarity will emerge.

Task 2: Acquire golden fleece

Aphrodite next orders Psyche to obtain golden fleece from the rams of the sun, huge aggressive beasts who are in a field, butting against each other. This task also seems impossible, for if Psyche goes amongst the rams, she’ll be trampled. This time, instead of ants coming to her aid, the reeds on the river’s edge call to her, advising her to wait until sundown when the rams disperse so she can safely pick strands of fleece off the brambles the rams have brushed against.

Psyche’s ability to acquire the golden fleece without being crushed is a metaphor for a every woman’s task of gaining power without losing her innate sense of connectedness and compassion. My friend Lori Richards shared these words from Suzanne Brogger:

If a woman can only succeed by emulating men, I think it is a great loss and not a success. The aim is not only for a woman to succeed, but to keep her womanhood and let her womanhood influence society.

Task 3: Fill the crystal flask

For the third task, Psyche must fill a flask with water from an inhospitable stream, etched into a jagged cliff and guarded by dragons. To help her in this seemingly impossible task, the eagle of Zeus, CEO of Olympus, has the ability to see what it wants and plunge from the sky and grab it with its talons.

Psyche’s ability to fill the crystal flask is symbolic of her learning how to set a goal, avoid the pitfalls that will inevitably come, and to then achieve her goal.

Task 4: Learn to say no

For the fourth and final task, Aphrodite orders Psyche to descend into the underworld and fill a box with the beauty ointment. This task is more than the traditional hero’s test, for Psyche is told she will encounter people on her way who will ask for her help, and she will have to ignore their pleas and continue on.

To set a goal and pursue it in the face of requests for help from others is especially difficult for women whose lives are focused on care giving. In completing the task of saying no, three times, Psyche exercises choice. Many women allow themselves to be imposed on and diverted as they set about their goals. They cannot accomplish what they set out to do, or to determine their life course until they learn to say no. I love these words attributed to Oprah Winfrey:

We can’t ever REALLY say yes, until we learn to say no.

As Psyche completes these four tasks, she grows and develops. Yet, despite ALL she achieves, her basic feminine nature remains unchanged. For she never would have undergone this hero’s journey, risking everything, had it not been for a relationship.

Why do I love this story? Why do I want my daughter to live by it?

Because to become who she is – to accomplish all that she was meant to do – she needs to not only love and nurture and care and connect, she needs to know how to sort through and prioritize her possibilities, to learn when and how to obtain power without selling her soul, to keep her eyes on her prize, and to learn to say no.

As she does so, she will say yes to who she really is.

May we each say YES!

What stories do you love and believe in? What stories encourage you to dream? Tell me more.

sisterhood + synergy = systergy

One person with a belief is equal to a force of ninety-nine who have only interest. John Stuart Mill

This morning I read a story in The San-Jose Mercury News, my hometown newspaper, titled Woman Grows Oprah’s Gift 30-fold. In the article, reporter Truong Phuoc Khanh tells of 46-year-old Michelle Hall, one of 300+ Oprah audience members who were each gifted a $1,000 debit card, courtesy of Bank of America; their mandate was to give away $1,000 within a week.

Michelle did indeed give the money away. But the total donated wasn't $1,000, it was $30,000.

When she returned home to San Jose, she called her friends, who called their friends, who called their friends, who then approached Ikea, Orchard Supply Hardware, Beverly’s Fabric and Crafts, Mancini’s Sleepworld, and Westfield Valley Fair.

This past weekend, having already raised $15,000, Ms. Hall attended a charitable fundraiser in San Francisco. When the host Don Bleu told the crowd of her initiative, the guests dug into their pockets and contributed $14,000.

Total funds raised and, in turn, contributed to charitable causes during one week?

$30,000.

I do not know Ms. Hall, nor have I spoken with her, but I think her story illustrates quite nicely the mechanics of the Intellectual Immigration Fund, as well as the importance of systergy.

Intellectual Immigration Fund, n. Women borrow and repay loans of intellectual capital in the form of mentoring, allowing them to emigrate from one level of knowledge to another.

Systergy, n. An organization of women, who by daring and dreaming together, will make synergistic contributions to their own lives and the world.

Let’s suppose that Ms. Hall had dreamed of contributing to her community in a more meaningful way. She was already involved in one charitable organization, but she wanted to do more. So she went to the Intellectual Immigration Fund and said, “I want to make a more meaningful contribution to the community. Can you brainstorm with me on how to do this? And help me find a mentor who can teach me about charitable giving?”

Ms. Hall’s case is unique in that she had $1,000 of seed money -- and the Oprah brand that she could leverage. What isn’t, and doesn’t have to be unique, is that she was so committed to growing this $1,000 exponentially within a very specific timeframe, she was willing to draw upon the support and encouragement of others (a sisterhood – with kudos to Don Bleu), which helped her increase that original grant thirty-fold.

Having now drawn on intellectual capital, and with systergy to power her efforts, Michelle is now in a position to contribute to the community in a far more meaningful way than she has in the past. She can also become a resource for other women who want to contribute to the community through fundraising, thus recycling the intellectual capital back into the Intellectual Immigration Fund.

Many small people in many small places doing many small things can alter the face of the earth. Anonymous

Michelle Hall – you’ve altered the face of my hometown.

Atta girl!

Your very own voice

Once you have learned to trust your own voice… you have the basic tool to fulfill your dreams. Natalie Goldberg in Writing down the Bones

About two years ago, I started taking voice lessons. This was a big risk for me. Really big. I was a music major in college, but my specialty wasn’t voice, it was piano. I had accompanied hundreds of vocalists performing every kind of music - from classical to Broadway to religious music – and I was good at it. So for me to sing - removed from the safe comfort of my piano keyboard – was terrifying. Especially because even though I could generally sing on pitch, I knew that my vocal talent nowhere near approached my keyboard potential. (e.g. I wasn't going to be the next Diana Krall). My teacher kindly, pithily, and accurately described my voice when she said – “I’m sure there’s vibrato in there somewhere, we'll just have to find it.”

But after only two lessons, I got too busy, mostly too scared, and quit.

A year later, I started again. This time I’ve stayed with it. Partly because I've found in my teacher the “mentor’s spirit”, but mostly because, during my year-long hiatus, the need to find my voice had become greater than my fear.

Find my literal (singing) or figurative voice you may ask.

Both.

Especially my figurative voice – my who I am – my what I have to say – to do – to share.

In her book Writing to Change the World, Mary Pipher says it beautifully:

“Voice is everything we are, all that we have observed, the emotional chords that are uniquely ours—all our flaws and all of our strengths, expressed in words that best reflect us. Voice is like a snowflake--complicated, beautiful, and individual. It is essence of self, distilled and offered in service to the world….”

Our voice only grows stronger as we face our challenges. In the book, The Maiden King by Robert Bly and Marion Woodman, they make an interesting observation, that “for thousands of years, a powerful voice was a mark of personhood. The longer the person stayed in the Underworld (meaning, the more difficult the challenge faced, and overcome, on the hero’s journey), the more powerful the voice.”

Composer Richard Strauss said, “The human voice is the most beautiful instrument of all, but it is the most difficult to play.”

Ah...but when we learn to play our very own voice, finding and truly appreciating the "everything we are", we can finally become the "who we were meant to be".

If you have additional thoughts or ideas on finding your voice or on how facing a particularly difficult challenge helped make your voice more powerful, we'd love to hear them.