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At the Blog Herald: Getting Jazzed for Real

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It’s Like Music

In the groove, in the zone, time slips away; action follows action naturally. It’s as if what we do is what was meant to be. It’s exhilarating.

Did you ever notice that you get in the zone when you’re perfectly prepared for a task — one you’ve been waiting for? When it’s “bring it on” kind of task, you’re likely to jump into a flow state.

Read the whole feature in today’s Blog Herald by clicking the logo.

The Blog Herald

It’s about blogging and real life.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

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Liz Strauss at The Blog Herald, The Blogging Times, and Who’s One in a Million?

Change the World: Learning to Learn

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Head and Heart Open Wide

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Gaizabonts writes so well. I can’t help but read him. It’s really more like listening and seeing. Sometimes I stay for a while to read the same piece over and over . . . the way a small child might take in a favorite tale.

It’s not just the writing. It’s the truth and the wisdom. This thought about learning has been with me since yesterday.

The tool can do only as much as the skill allows. The skill can be honed, only as much as the mind can train. The mind can train only as much as the heart believes.

Each of us has blind spots, those places in which we’ve placed a fence on our growth. One of mine for the longest time was that I didn’t know how to learn by being taught. I learned by watching and by following my curiosity.

When I needed to learn something that required lessons, I was sure I couldn’t do it. I would get stuck. I would freeze, imagining the universe watching, imagining me failing miserably. Maybe that’s why I became a teacher — so that I could learn with no one watching.

In all of these years, I’ve taught many people — people of every age. I’ve taught so many kinds of things. I met many folks who believed that they could not learn some simple thing.

I can’t draw a straight line . . .

I’ll never be good at folding shirts . . .

Even simple numbers confound me . . .

Just last week, someone said, “I have faith that other people can . . . ”

Why do we do that? Why do we believe more in other people than we do in ourselves?

I never met one person for whom I believed all of their limits were true, yet I’ll argue until Sunday why mine are. Sure as I’m sitting here, I can see the fallacy and the loss there.

Why was I afraid to admit to not knowing for that moment? It was a scary thought on some level — It sounded like what if I try and I don’t learn? Now I so value the beginner’s mind. Teachers are everywhere.

I have lost nothing. I’ve gained a lot.

The world is so much more exciting when there is so much more to learn.

I’ve learned that trying didn’t fail me. I am learning to learn.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss

The Paradox of Lifelong Friends

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I’ve been thinking . . . ”

about how Friendship goes two ways. So does every gift.

Give yourself away and beauty comes back in unexpected fashions. Send off a kind word. Get back a melody. Offer hand to hold and find yourself surrounded by people who care. Invest your time in a person’s future, end up finding a person you want to be part of your own.

Soon it’s all of the time. What can I give you? What do you need? How might I help? Might I set this bit of love over here next to the flowers by the porch swing?

Food, clothing, and shelter. What good are these? . . . without color and feelings and an “I know what you mean?”

With a lifelong friend, laughter takes new dimensions — bass becomes tenor, alto, and soprano. Imagination dances. Even sadness has a place for relief.

And we don’t ever notice who we are when we are together, but, if we stop to consider, we suddenly understand that we like who they see.

It’s what friends do. They give and they receive without thinking, but with eternal gratitude.

A paradox, yes.

A lifelong friend doesn’t need explaining, . . . or fixing.

Lifelong friends, we just are.

It’s what we do.

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In the end, to make a life better . . .

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I’ve been thinking . . .

about Mihaela, Robyn, and Adam, .all three asked me a question — not the same question, but somehow leading to the same answer . . .

I know that on that last day, I will look upon what went before and see that every hurt I caused could have been avoided, if only I had a little more unconditional love to go around.

The words — words that I wrote in beauty and wonder came from love. . . . But sharp, thoughtless replies could not have left their mark, if I had lived the idea of unconditional love at a trying moment.

The father’s hand that held mine gave me unconditional love. I knew it in my soul, in my fingers. I might have passed that love on with a touch, a kind word, a care to someone’s feelings.

If only . . .

Mihaela, Robyn, and Adam, I made this contract once.

I will be the writer that strives to keep alive the music of the language, to hold head and heart together in the words, and to write with hope and passion that one person is better because he or she read what I wrote. — — Contract with Lisa.

On that last day I will have lived it. I will be that writer, that human being.

I have the power to make a life better through the unconditional love inside me.

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Finding Your Frequency in Business and in Life
Change the World: That One Person Is Better

Change the World: With an Open Heart

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Letting Go Is Hope, Belief, Aspiration

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So few things we need. So many more we want. The wanting, the needing, the holding tight ties us to where we are. We can’t move, if we can’t let go. Holding things in our hearts keeps us closed.

I tighten my hand into a fist. It’s hard. It’s hard to keep my hand that way. So many things I cannot do with my hand that way. So many things I cannot do when my heart is that way too.

How can we reach when our hands, our hearts, hold tightly to where we are, when they’re tightly closed holding things inside?

I open my hand. The stress is gone. My hand is free to touch, to move, to help a friend who needs me, to type these words to you. So many things that I can feel and understand when my heart is open too.

Letting go is hope. It is belief, and aspiration. It becomes reaching for a dream. It has passion for a noble vision. Letting go can open eyes; it can open minds; it can open hearts to understanding.

We cannot hold our hand closed when we are reaching. We cannot stand stubbornly when we are moving forward. We cannot turn away from each other when our hearts are open wide. We cannot lose sight of forgiveness or compassion when we surrender our needs to be the center of the universe.

There is no defense for an open heart. An open heart needs nothing. It sustains itself on unconditional love and understanding.

An open heart is a gift to ourselves that calls our to the world, “I love you,” and expects nothing in return, yet somehow hears so many echoes in so many voices.

We can change the world — just like that.
–ME “Liz” Strauss