Two of the questions we pondered in the Being a Leader course were these:

Is my word generating something new?

Or is it keeping something in place?

I’ve been thinking a lot about these two questions and taking care in my own speaking—my own use of words—to notice what I use them for. I often use them to generate connection, acknowledgment, and transformation. When I do, I feel powerful and free.

I also use words—the same words, over and over again—as an exercise of habit. I say the same things about people, to people, to myself, and about my life. When I do, I feel in control, false, and flat. None of those things are bad, necessarily. They’re just not the same as free, true, and lively.

Today I sent someone an honest and not-so-nice email. It wasn’t hard to write. I’ve been frustrated for some time now, and I needed to say what I needed to say. It also wasn’t as not-so-nice as it could have been. I was somewhat careful with my words, not to keep something hidden, but to avoid generating something I wasn’t intending to generate.

I realized that although my email was not-so-nice, it was generating something new. Nothing I had said had worked so far. Everything I had said had fallen flat. It was time to say something distinct and to tap into some authenticity. I stopped being positive, and I got real. I got an unexpected result almost immediately after I clicked send.

I’ve noticed that in our current fascination with positive thinking, we often use our words to create positivity, gratitude, love, and other ways of being that occur to us as productive and worthwhile. Meanwhile, we limit ourselves from saying things we perceive as negative, fearful, angry, or otherwise. We belief that we can only generate something new by using words and collections of words that are positive. We avoid words we think are negative.

What if we can use any kinds of words to generate something new? What if generating something new is more about authentic expression and less about careful or positive expression?

What would our world look like if our authentic words comprised generative thinking, speaking, and acting?

In love and liminality,

Annie Rose

I’m currently taking the Money Seminar through Landmark Education. The intention of the seminar is to transform my relationship to money to one of freedom and power.

It does not teach me how to be rich, make money, or take care of my finances. Instead, it gives me access to transforming the way I relate to money. Pretty cool, I must say.

In the beginning of the seminar, I was instructed to write down my relationship to money. Here’s what I wrote:

• I don’t know how to make money.
• I have no idea how much money I’ll make.
• I have no control over how much money I’ll make.
• I don’t work hard enough to make money.
• People are poor or rich. Money is good or bad, right or wrong.
• It’s my fault I don’t have much money. (I’m lazy and incapable.)

I then wrote that I really love money! It provides security, comfort, ease, challenge (like a good puzzle), room for generosity, and space to easily do more (travel, etc.).

I also wrote that I really hate money! It’s scary. It’s out of my control. It’s the root of all evil.

The assignment then asked us to come up with a statement that captures our overall experience of money. Mine was clear: Money is elusive, troublesome, and completely out of my control.

Totally empowering, eh? I cannot imagine why I’ve resisted making and having money my whole life.

I also noticed a quirky habit of mine. When I have very little money and no stability, I spend more and act less responsibly. When I have more money and stability, I spend frugally and act more responsibly. That seemed strange to me—didn’t it make more sense to spend carefully in those moments of low income and financial insecurity? My actions seemed strange and out of my control.

Our next assignment asked us to write down our families’ relationship to money. For three pages, I wrote about my parents’ relationship to money, my grandparents’ relationship to money, and my own relationship to money. By the end, I had a super simple insight: While I was growing up, my mom always had very little money. She spent more than she had, and she sometimes acted irresponsibly. (Mind you, this is not necessarily the truth—this was based on my perspective as a little girl.) Meanwhile, my dad and stepmom always had enough money. Not a lot, but enough. They always spent frugally and acted responsibly with money.

 The habits I had formed for spending my own money were directly correlate to how I perceived my parents had spent their money. I simply inherited their habits and relationships to money.

This whole time I thought I was in charge. I thought I was the adult who made decisions about my financial lifestyle. But no. My brain was in charge, and it was programmed by a little girl. It told me what to do in various financial situations.

And my parents inherited their habits from their parents, and my grandparents inherited their habits from their parents, and my great-grandparents inherited their habits from their parents. None of us have been at choice. It’s a bit ridiculous, really.

The assignment then asked us to create a new possible relationship to money. If our inherited ideas and brains weren’t in charge, what would we create?

I began to explore. I wrote:

I know I love perfection. I love budgeting and sticking to a budget. I love the challenge of living inexpensively and taking care of my resources. I love giving money to people. I love having freedom. I love being mentally free from concern. I gain great satisfaction from paying my bills and still having money in my accounts. I love the look and feel of cash. I love being able to help people when they need help. I love giving gifts to people.

Through my journaling, I arrived at a point of inspiration.

I took on being at choice. I get to decide how I relate to, grow, and utilize my resources. I don’t have to please anyone, and I don’t have to feel guilty about my perceived shortcomings. I don’t even have any shortcomings—I just have my inherited, and certainly not created, relationship to money.

I also took on being cause in the matter of growing my financial resources. This means that I can take clear, steady actions towards realizing my financial goals. I don’t have to pay attention to any of the pesky voices that try to convince me that money is elusive, troublesome, and completely out of my control.

I get to make money, and I get to have fun doing it.

My life already feels different!

The seminar has ten sessions, and tonight is my fourth. I’ll keep you posted as I have insights and continue to transform my relationship to money!

In love and liminality,

Annie Rose

Sometimes I’m shrouded in insecurity.

Some parts of life can be so uncomfortable.

I have this commitment to having clarity and authenticity in my life.

Sometimes that means that I have to say the hard thing or ask the hard question.

Sometimes that means that I have to stand up for myself, which does not come naturally to me.

I hate how my body feels when I’m doing the hard thing. My stomach gets queasy, my throat gets tight, and my heart beats uncomfortably fast.

I feel sad and scared.

I feel ashamed and unloved.

When I’m in this space, nothing seems right. My writing isn’t good enough. I’m on the wrong path. My friends don’t really love me.

I become filled with anxiety and doubt, fear and discomfort.

Just writing about it helps me feel better.

Just noticing it and granting it being makes it feel less real.

I think that part of why I love people so much is because I too just want to be loved.

We all do, really.

In love and liminality,

Annie Rose

I can be such a jerk.

On Tuesday I honked my horn at a couple in a van who was, by my estimation, taking way too long to park. There were at least 20 open spots and nothing in their way. So annoying.

They turned into a spot, and I saw that they were an elderly couple with at least 160 years between them.

The guilt. The shame.

I pulled up beside them, rolled down my window, and apologized for honking and being a jerk.

They nodded and smiled, and I realized that they didn’t speak English.

So I mimed an apology for my actions until they seemed to understand my point.

We ran into each other in every aisle of Trader Joes, and each time we did, we smiled, laughed, and waved at each other.

When we stand in a place of knowing and righteousness, we take ourselves out of the liminal space. I knew how long it should take a person to pull into a parking spot. I also knew I had a right to move as quickly as I wanted and needed to, especially since there was no reason for them to move so slowly. I also seemed to know that some people are justified in moving slow while others are not.

When we stand in the liminal space, we cease to know. When we cease to know, we eliminate opportunities for righteousness. We stop basing our actions on norms, rules, obligations, and expectations, and we start to take actions consistent with what’s actually happening in the moment.

Choosing to stand in the liminal space is like choosing to focus on one’s breath. Gone is the fixation of the mind on its thoughts and habits and there is the simplicity of the inhale and exhale.

I thought about this incident in the Trader Joes parking lot while I was out for a walk. Ironically, I got annoyed with yet another driver. This time, I was planning to turn left to cross the street as soon as his car passed. He crept slowly down the street, making it impossible to cross. Exasperated and annoyed, I stopped, turned around, and made it clear that I was trying to cross. The man smiled, waved, and turned right into his driveway. The whole time, he was waiting for me to cross his driveway so that he could turn without hitting me.

Seriously, I can be such a jerk.

But I call myself that lovingly because I know, on some level, that I’m not a jerk, I’m human. We all make judgements and take actions based on our thoughts, feelings, and emotions, and we often do so according to what we think we know about people, events, and circumstances. It’s human nature. We all do it.

But we can choose to embrace the liminal and let go of what’s familiar and easy. We can move a moment beyond our immediate thoughts and reactions and act from a space of presence and clarity.

We can move, if we choose to, moment by moment and breath by breath through life.

In love and liminality,

Annie Rose

Last Sunday morning I went for a surf. The ocean was warbling and full, and it bobbed me and my board up and down, up and down.

As I sat in the ocean, I considered how to describe my experience. I fake-typed instructions to my readers, telling them to imagine a full waterbed and the way it would move if two people laid across it, making passionate, wild love.

The image was clear and vibrant in my head, and I wondered, how many people have actually seen a waterbed?

However limited the description, it seemed to fit.

As I moved up and down at the command of the ocean’s breath, I cried. I cried over the loss of my friend, and I cried as I mourned the conclusion of my recent trip to Kenya. Both were great trips, and I am sad that they’re over. I’m also ecstatic that they happened.

It’s one of the great contradictions of life, isn’t it? We’re often happy and sad at once. We’re “had.”

After I cried, I sat still, just me and the heaving mother, my husband 50-feet away, engaged in his own oceanic love affair. Sea, you see, is his first wife.

He looked over at me, the sun in his eyes, and me a simple silhouette. He waved. I waved back, my feet dangling from my board.

I turned to catch a wave. I paddled, I pushed, I popped up. My feet landed, but the ocean launched me into the air, its warble laughing in my face. The ocean lovingly sighed.

Warbles happen when the tide is such that waves push into shore even as the shore pushes waves to sea. The result is an awkward dance between to and fro, in and out, up and down. Warbles, I like to imagine, are the ocean’s way of reminding us that life is unpredictable.

Surfing is the most unpredictable sport in which I’ve engaged. The ocean always moves. It is never the same. The board, surely concrete, moves as the ocean moves. I, as concrete as physical form allows, attempt consistency: I paddle, I arch my back, I pop up, and I squat with precision and intention. I dig in my feet, and I push. But my mind is never the same, and my body often has ideas of its own. My interaction with the ocean, it seems, is always a reflection of my internal state.

Surfing puts me in a liminal space. Each paddle out is new. Each wave is distinct. Each pummeling has its own flavor. I never know what will happen. Even if I sit, certain of my next moves, the interaction between the ocean, my board, and my body are entirely unpredictable. Beautifully so, I’d say.

Thank you ocean. Thank you.

In love and liminality,

Annie Rose