Resiliency Muscles

One of the coolest things developing within me right now is a much deeper appreciation of my resiliency. 

For a long time I viewed my dysfunctional, rough poor childhood and wildly redneck family as something that would always hold me down.  And I worried my natural tendency to take risks was somehow a block to real success.  What I’ve now come to realize is that the challenges and experiences of that particular crazy path have given me extraordinary resiliency. 

It’s one thing to stand strong when things are going smoothly but it’s something else again TO RISE UP STRONG after taking a hard hit.  I think it’s only when we really have to force ourselves to be strong that we learn how strong we really are. 

And those RESILIENCY MUSCLES are quicker to flex when they’ve had a lot of heavy and repeated exercise!  And just like after an intense workout, when you towel away the sweat, or in the case of trauma, the tears, and see that you were strong enough to make it through, the memory of the pain start to fade replaced by that delicious feeling of accomplishment. 

As the beautiful Maya Angelou said, “I can be changed by what happens to me.  I refuse to be reduced by it.” 

Here’s to knowing, growing, flexing and loving our resiliency muscles and all the hard exercise that developed them! 

Cylvia Hayes

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About Time -- And Taking it Back!

This August I’ll be speaking at the national Take Back Your Time conference. The conference will address how our choices in how we spend our time effects 

our wellbeing, our families and even the health of our environment.

One of the many points of change and growth for me this past year and a half has been how I treat my relationship with time.

I’ve had a lifelong struggle to be a human being instead of a human doing. I have based so much of my identity, my goals and my time prioritization on being productive and delivering in my professional endeavors. Certainly this has been a result of personality, ego and conditioning. However, I think it’s also because, as a lifelong and very passionate environmentalist, I feel such urgency to make a difference, to reverse the tremendous damage we are inflicting on this miraculous blue planet. I never felt like any of my efforts were enough or fast enough to match the urgency so I’d push even harder.

But when my life blew up under the media-driven public shaming my work came to a screeching halt. At first, I railed and thrashed and tried to force my work forward despite the trauma and turmoil but it didn’t work. I finally had to give in and realize that it was going to be some time before my life and my work would resume some sense of normalcy.  For the first time, reluctantly and resentfully, I really slowed down. And Holy Smokes, I liked it! I was shocked to realize how hard I had been working and pushing for so long.

During these past eighteen months I have spent hours meditating … unhurriedly. I’ve studied spirituality and consciousness, and made space for lengthy conversations about those topics instead of the “work” that I had been so focused on. I’ve read novels and watched movies. I’ve volunteered building fences for dogs living on chains and rehabbing injured wildlife. I’ve taken time to really be present with, talk and interact with strangers.

Now, my work is moving again and I am super grateful for that! And life is more normal despite the occasional, ongoing media hits. I’m rolling along again.

And yet, I’m not rolling so fast. I’m not working as long or as “hard” as I did before. I’m not allowing my meditation time to be the first thing to go when I feel the pressure of a deadline. I’m committed to maintaining this new, gentler, more open relationship with time.

I now really get it that I can’t do my best work for this Earth just by doing more work. To be most effective in my work to protect Earth’s environment I have to continue to prioritize my own inner environment. For that, and for these new, saner rhythms I am actually grateful for the recent challenges that presented the greatly unasked for gift of forcing me to slow down.

At the upcoming conference I’ll be delivering a plenary about how my “fall from grace” brought me to this more graceful relationship with time. I’m a little nervous about sharing this story publically, and a little nervous that I’ll get emotional while doing so. But I am also really looking forward to putting it out there and hearing from others who are also working on investing instead of just spending their time.

I’ll also be participating on a panel addressing the need to move to a more sustainable way of measuring economic success including valuing the economic contribution of volunteer time, stay at home mothers and caregivers.

Here is a link to the entire conference agenda.

I would love to know what you think about time. How would you like to change the way you spend your time? How have you changed over and around time?

Thanks,

Cylvia

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Here is my current piece on Huffington Post about how our current, sensationalized news-as-entertainment media model treats political campaigns like sporting events. This in large part is what created the Trump candidacy and we the public are largely responsible. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cylvia-hayes/moths-to-the-media-trumped-up-flame_b_10605454.html

Cylvia Hayes

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Where's the Tragedy?

A well-me­­aning colleague with the very best of intentions has several times described what happened to me as a tragedy.  Each time it made me uncomfortable but I couldn’t nail down why. Until now.

I finally realized that viewing these challenges as a tragedy leaves me feeling like a victim. It seems to suggest that the attacks, the ordeal of being publically shamed has irreparably damaged, derailed and diminished my work and my life. Well, in fact, for the first year or so part of me was terrified and tortured by that very belief. But not anymore.

What I’ve come to see is that the whole painful mess has been something of a spiritual intervention. It was the first time in my life that I really slowed down – because I was finally forced to. Not only was my work abruptly taken from me but I was so emotionally broken and exhausted that I finally surrendered to Spirit. I described the amazing beauty in that experience in one of my very first blog posts.

I feel so grateful, and a bit proud of myself, to realize now how much I’ve grown since those early blog posts nearly a year ago. And that is why I don’t view what happened to me as a tragedy. I have been a spiritual seeker and journeyer most of my adult life, but the ordeal of public shaming helped me to realize that in many ways I’d just been giving it lip service, skimming along the surface.

Though I’ve believed most of my adult life that we are spiritual beings in a physical phase I’d been letting the physical stuff dictate my actions, my thinking, my reality. Only occasionally did I dip beneath that surface and dive into the awesome beauty of deeper truths. Now that I’ve had so much time to explore those waters I realize how much I’ve been limiting myself.

I know it’s not irrational for my friend to view this situation as tragic. I also know it’s not irrational for me to sense the opportunities in the bigger picture and disagree.

I believe I was ready for this growth, this learning. Has it been hard? Yes! Life-changing? Yes. Gut and tear-wrenching? Yes.

Rich? Yes. Transformative? Yes. Beautiful in completely unexpected ways? Yes!

Definitions of tragedy include “a disastrous event”, a “calamity” and something that “has a sorrowful, disastrous conclusion.” I’m sorry but I refuse to allow what I am going through to come to a disastrous conclusion.

Did I want the pain, humiliation and bone-weary exhaustion brought on by the public shaming? Hell no!

Do I want to live the rest of my life immersed in this new, richer, deeper perspective on life? Absolutely!

Where’s the tragedy in that?

Cylvia Hayes

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Here is my most recent New Economy bulletin. It describes the largest anti-fossil fuel protest in history, the oil train explosion in Mosier, a great job opening at a great organization and a few other pieces. I would love to hear your thoughts!  http://conta.cc/1tnIdFR

Cylvia Hayes 

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