Are you afraid of having a party that no one comes to? Of giving a talk to an empty room?

Doing our best, putting it all out there, asking a big question … and hearing crickets: it’s a core fear that can paralyze us.

But what if sitting with the wobbles in your voice and singing, even if for now it’s to an empty row of chairs, is actually the point?

As a fundraisers, whose job is it to be generous? Is it possible YOUR generosity might be more important than your donor’s?

Have you ever stumbled?

This is me, two months after – you have no idea how much I wish I had a better story! – I stepped backwards away from my kitchen counter and tripped over my dog’s favorite stuffed bee, which felt, under my foot, like my dog’s leg.

It was a literal stumble, in which I tried to shift my weight off what I thought was a dog – but it has had me stumbling around emotionally, as well.

A few years ago, Rick Tamlyn, a business coach I respect deeply, urged all of us in his workshop to start “collecting nos” as an essential activity for anyone trying to bring money in.

At the time, I remember thinking, as one does, I’m sure this guy is onto something, but frankly, I’d rather collect chocolate chip cookies. Or photos of puppies. Or, you know, yesses.

But the real truth is that my snarky mind-meandering was actually a cover for terror. Collecting nos? The thought put me into a panic. Why would I go out looking for rejection? Why would anyone?

 I know, I know. No one is talking about their intentions for 2023 anymore.

But my friend, Janice, posted her word for the year – and challenged me to do the same. The fact that I have taken my time suggests how much I still need my word.

Yeah, laugh all you want: my word for 2023 is focus.

It is wildly uncomfortable for me, this feeling of anger heating up in my body like a volcano. It starts as dread, as the seeping out of something that feels uncontrollable, shadowy, dark – at odds with an identity I’ve long lived in. My instinct is to avoid, to suppress, to sleep or cry or bake instead of feeling it. But there is no stopping it anymore.

Because it turns out that anger is actually the correct response to a substantial list of things.

Despite my new red helmet, I hurt myself pretty badly in that ski crash. In fact, I later – like a couple days later – learned that I had a severe concussion and a broken arm, but right away in that moment, I popped up out of that snow immediately, attuned only to my bleeding fat lip.

That, I have since learned, was a form of gaslighting myself.

I don’t surf, personally, because I have a deep aversion to getting water up my nose and drowning, both of which seem inevitable when I consider paddling myself out into waves. Yet, there is something about the metaphor of it that feels pretty helpful right now.

This story began for me in middle school and circles back, 40 years later, when a murder occurred that has me standing face-to-face with my 7th-grade self and wondering, what did I miss?

Last week, a woman my son dated was murdered by a man she didn’t know who came into her place of work and stabbed her to death.

As I look back on 2021 – this is meant to be a “year in review” blog, after all – I see a lot of resistance in our collective space to letting go of what’s old. We are standing in a doorway, not quite sure whether to go in or out.

What compelled me on this day last year, in the middle of Covid and in the middle of winter, to lie down in the street with an injured man I would have taken great care to stay away from not 90 seconds earlier?

Making my opinions “right,” and other people’s paths “wrong” has given me an uneasy sense of power: if I could just say the right thing, make the right suggestion … then he would do this the “right” way.

Last week, a dog named Griz came to live with me as a foster. And all week long, I waited to swoon. To fall in love. To bond to this sweet guy who seems to have been dropped into my lap.

But that hasn’t happened.

Sometimes seeing the person that is actually standing in front of me – rather than the person I wish were there – feels like standing in the rain with a painting I spent my whole life perfecting, watching all the colors run down my legs and into the street.

What does it look like to make decisions only using my head? When I am in danger of talking myself into something that I haven’t gotten any confirmation about from my wise body? It doesn’t look like YES, PLEASE!

Yesterday morning, I woke up in tears – not uncommon for me right now. But these tears were like a dry heave: nothing released, nothing satisfying or alive about them. And into that state, my friend texted, what is in your God-shaped hole?

So, how DO we get the wisdom to know the difference? To find that serenity? Many people use prayer, and I respect that. But for me, looking back: I could have been braver

This morning, I had a tree falling in the forest philosophical moment. You know, the query about whether the tree actually makes noise when it falls even if no one hears it? So, what happens to me – in me – if I am spending time alone and there is no one available to hold a mirror for me to see myself in?

Every time something new or promising entertainment or distraction — real or otherwise — peeked through the window of the four walls I’ve spent most of the last 8,760 hours within, I sat up. Hard.

When we in the nonprofit world are in apology about money, it becomes something that oozes through the culture and keeps our organizations from doing their best work. Not surprisingly, I have an opinion about this.