What is Soltura?

Many of you who are regular readers may have noticed that about once a month, I disappear and go incommunicado for a few days. Where do I go, you might ask? Many would recognize that I have gone to Soltura, but not necessarily know what that means. So, today as I prepare to disappear again for a few days, I wanted to share my own little piece of “social action” where I see the world changing one person at a time. It is a challenge to describe, because I have never heard of or experienced anything so unique in my life. Soltura is the place I began to find healing for my soul and it is the place I go to be refreshed and restored as I pour my heart, time and energy into helping provide a space for others to either begin or continue their own personal journey.

So here’s a little bit of my personal history: While at therapeutic boarding school my then 14-year-old son went to his first workshop. My husband and I were subsequently invited to participate in our own workshop. Entering into the experience, I considered myself a pretty high-functioning individual who handled life’s ups and downs with reasonable “success”. I was very unaware, however, of how much I was just getting by and hiding behind defense mechanisms rather than fully participating in life.

Soltura gave me the space, the safety and the exercises to help me find my own best answers to the questions and roadblocks that stood in my way of truly knowing myself and therefore knowing the world around me. I came to know God in ways that I had never dreamed imaginable as I opened the door to new possibility. The tenet that I most admire and hope to live by is “Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.” What I have found is that if I do not know who I truly am I cannot love myself well and thus cannot love anyone else well; for I end up loving them exactly as I love myself which can be pretty crummy some of the time.

If you visit this website because you love Lucy and how she embraces life, you might be intrigued to know that I found Lucy (or she found me) through a Soltura workshop. I cannot imagine my life without her.

I have seen people from all walks of life experience Soltura…from Presidents of international companies to the abused mom who formerly slept in her car. Rich and poor. Ages 14 to 71. Addicts and teetotalers. Bold and timid. Christian and agnostic. Jews and followers of Zen. Businessmen and starving artists. Students and stay-at-home moms. People pushed by loved ones to get there and others seeking help on their own. I believe that Soltura is for everyone who desires to live life fully.

Soltura is where I go to work. It is where I go to play. It is where I go to be with God and be with friends and laugh and dance and be Lucy at her fullest. Soltura is a gift I am compelled to share with the world. I invite you to check out the Soltura website here. (The testimonies are really my favorite ☺.) Other posts are available here and here or check out the Soltura topics in my sidebar.

Anyway…that is where I will be from August 13-19. I’ll “see” you when I get back and pray you will come to find the Soltura of your life.

Adios!

Young at Heart

The playful side of Lucy is bursting at the seams these days. Possibly it is the amazing Seattle weather or the refreshment of returning from a fabulous vacation. It could be that my year of celebrating "50" is rapidly coming to a close and I want to capture every moment of delight before that next milestone comes around.

Quotes like "youth is wasted on the young," "how old would you be if you didn't know how old you are?" and "you don't quit playing because you grow old. you grow old because you quit playing" run through my head.

I want to play. I want to dance. I want to ride with the wind on my face and the feel of warm sunshine on my skin. I want to bloom and grow and blossom. I want to know the power of being me--shining, laughing star that I am. Lovely. Kind. Free.

Abbey of the Arts (who is also in a playful mood) reminded me of a wonderful poem by Lynn Ungar and particularly the following line:

“Imagine setting it all down—
papers, plans, appointments, everything,
leaving only a note: “Gone to the fields
to be lovely.
Be back when I’m through
with blooming.”

Mark Nepo says of blooming, "The simple rose, at each moment of its slow blossoming, is as open as it can be." I am reminded that I can be no more nor less of who I am at this very moment. Thus, I will embrace this day for what it is and who I am as I carry with me thoughts of laughter and play, youth and aging, blooming and slow blossoming."

"Gone to the fields to be lovely." Care to join me?

photos by bill. bermuda 2007

A Story of Laughter

"Laughter is carbonated holiness" -- Anne Lamott

"The human brain forgets ninety percent of what goes on."
--Jan Milner

"There were two women who shared a house and raised their daughters, two toddlers, together. Then one of the women got transferred to another city and moved with her daughter.

Ten years later, they had a reunion. The mothers asked their kids what they remembered about living together. Did they remember all the books? No. Did they remember a mom in the kitchen every morning, fixing eggs and toast? No.

What they remembered was playing in the pink bathtub for hours, pulling the pink shower curtain shut for privacy. And the morning the mothers sneaked in, turned off the lights, threw plastic cups and spoons over the curtain and cried, "It's raining spoons!" They laughed and laughed.

We are lucky in this life--our minds think laughter is what's worth remembering.

What laughter from yesterday can I remember today?"

from Today's Gift, author anonymous

No original words from me today, BUT I am most deeply known when I dissolve into fits of soul lifting laughter. It is impossible to fake a belly laugh. Think about it. :-)

photo by bill hughlett