Yes, Grace is AMAZING, and it is also amazingly extra ORDINARY. We humans are meant to live lives filled with GRACE, ease and a sense of flow, even through our struggles and what feels like life’s setbacks. Living in a state of grace is not only possible while in nature, meditation or a sacred place. We can live in a state of grace in the seemingly ordinary day-to-day activities that fill our everyday lives.
Perhaps your religion is kindness and you worship puppy paws, soft serve ice cream or the crackle of autumn leaves beneath your feet. Well, grace-full living is available to you, you and also you. Grace is available to us all, and is not just something that comes from outside of us (e.g. the Grace of God) and it doesn’t just belong to religious doctrine. It’s a spiritual approach to living.
Want more peace in the world? Start with cultivating grace at home, on your daily commute, at the coffee shop, and in conversations with others. Here are some ways to bring more grace-full living into your everyday life:
WAY #1: Lighten up– Last winter I was running my typical route around New York’s Central Park Reservoir. A man stood on the soft surface trail dressed in neon green running gear singly just as electrically in Spanish while dancing in place to the salsa music blasting from his phone. As I ran by he raised his right hand to high-five me and said, “Hola amigo!”
Salsa man didn’t recognize that I was an “amiga” until after I high-fived him with a “Hola!” in a vocal pitch higher than he had expected. He stopped dancing and said, “Oh Dios mio, es una MUCHACHA!” (Oh my God, it’s a GIRL!).
That was a particularly cold morning and I was dressed as any Floridian would dress for an hour of outdoor activity in the dead of an NYC winter – with a full facemask and enough layers to make me the size of an NFL linebacker. So it was no surprise that my amigo had mistaken me for an amigo. Later that day I told my friend that this dancing Latin had mistaken me for a man and she asked, “Weren’t you offended?!”
“Um, no,” I replied. “I thought it was hilarious. On the next lap around I high-fived him again and we both laughed.”
Speaking of high-fives, a comedian friend of mine, Kellan Breen has a joke about how 50 years ago men just shook hands with one another. Greetings were straightforward back then. But nowadays one guy will offer a fist-bump while the other guy goes for a wrap-around back pat. Even worse, a well-meaning elbow bump can poke the eye of a well-intended hugger. Mayhem! So Kellan decided to simplify life and high-five everyone, just like my amigo at Central Park. But then his Aunt Carol died. Kellan attended her funeral and high-fived his cousin with, “Your mom was such a great lady,” and gave another high-five to his uncle with “I’ll miss Aunt Carol so much!”
Hilarious.
My friend, Jackie, lost her 60-year old brother this summer after a sudden illness that came out of the blue for an otherwise healthy, vibrant musician, brother, uncle and friend of so many. Jackie and I sat on the bench of our boys’ elementary school playground and she told me, “You know, when it was my turn to memorialize him I told the congregation stories about my brother’s life that brought us all to tears. But we were crying and laughing. I almost still can’t believe it, how even at a memorial service hundreds of people were able to laugh together despite the tragedy of his loss. I guess he wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
Amen.
So far this blog is about high-fiving, funerals and the combination of both. What’s right with this writer?! (Versus the more commonly posed question).
I started performing stand up comedy in New York City earlier this year. When I posted about an upcoming show, a colleague I’ve known and worked closely with for over 15 years wrote on the Facebook post, “Wow, Kimberly! I never saw that coming!”
My trusted friend once again asked, “Weren’t you offended that she posted that?”
“Um, no,” I replied again. This time adding, “For most of my life I’ve been so goddamn serious that I’m not surprised at all that she’s surprised.” We both laughed.
During some of the most difficult times in my life I found myself getting seriously serious. During my divorce it seemed that weeks and months went by without much levity. When my ex and I broke the news to our then 5-year old son in our backyard in Amman, Jordan and told him, “Mommy and Daddy aren’t going to be married anymore. You and Oliver will stay here at home and Mommy and Daddy will move in and out each week to stay with you, but we won’t stay together,” I couldn’t hold back my tears. Samuel replied with, “Ok. Um, can I go ride on my fire truck now?” Leave it to the wise kindergarteners of the world to lighten up the most challenging of times.
Laughter is medicine. It heals all of us, and whether in the midst of a divorce, a difficult political discussion or a stressful workday, just a spoonful of humor can sweeten up the sourest of moments. When my 8-year old cries there are times when his howls of his delight sure sound like he’s just crash landed on glass splinters. Maybe that’s why crying and laughing sound so similar at times – they both heal us so deeply.
Here are some delightful ways to help life’s medicine go down:
1 – Watch comedy– You don’t need to be at Radio City Music Hall to laugh with Dave Chappelle and 6,000 other people to be a part of comedy. But heck, if you can see Chappelle, Schumer, Gervais, Gadsby, Gaffigan or whomever makes YOU laugh live and in person DO IT! There is nothing more healing than laughing together. Go to a local comedy club or watch your favorite comedian on YouTube or Netflix. Randy Rainbow’s “Desperate Cheeto” has 1.7 M views probably because my boys and I have watched it at least 255,983 times. If you prefer reading or listening to comedy, let your eyes and ears in on the treat too.
2 – Find the humor in YOUR situation– One of the first things my comedy coach, Stephen Rosenfield, teaches us at American Comedy Institute in NYC is that the spirit of a comedian is one that looks at his or her shortcomings and struggles in life and uses them to create laugher. Stephen says that well written and performed stand up material, especially the self-deprecating kind, isn’t the stuff of victims, but of heroes. I’ve performed at Gotham Comedy Club with heroes who draw humor from their struggles of being in a wheelchair, having Cerebral Palsy, being a disabled veteran, as well as challenges of unemployment, divorce and depression. When I’m able to tell jokes about the follies of single mom dating life and raising post-millennial kids you and I both know that I’m on the other side of the tragedy inherent in both (at least while on stage!).
3 – Don’t take everything personally– I could have taken offense that the salsa dancing amigo mistook me for a man or I could laugh about it. I could have taken offense that my colleague (and likely many other people in my life) was surprised that I was doing stand-up comedy, or I could be amused by that too. Be aware of how often you take something personally. When in doubt, give the benefit of the doubt.
4 – Smile – In the middle of yoga class my teacher, Lisa, asked us to close our eyes, put our index fingers on the outer edges of our lips and pull them upward. She then asked us to then open our eyes, and then choose another yoga pose while continuing to engage the smile. “See, the pose is easier when you smile through it.” Smile and the world, the yoga pose, the members of your yoga class, and even your life will smile back at you — even if you can’t do Tree Pose without falling.
5 – Get perspective–This summer while standing without a rail to hold onto on a hot, crowded subway cheek-to-cheek with a mass of sweaty fellow riders, my friend Susie said to me, “Well, at least you are tall!” as I held my 5’11” frame steady with one hand on the ceiling. The whole sweaty sea of riders in our area smiled. Sometimes it is hard to find the humor in the moment, so imagine looking back on that sweaty ride, on raising those post-millennial kids, or on your existential crisis in 10 years from now or however long it takes to get a big picture view or a shift in perspective.
6 – Bring out the silly– Even if we have different senses of humor and our own versions of funny, there is a lighthearted child inside of us all. Being around children is a great way to bring it out to play (especially if you aren’t their parent). If you loved Play-Doh as a kid, reading Dr. Seuss, filling out Mad Libs, or making snow angels chances are they can still light up the fun. Try it, I double dog dare you.
The school nurse called me to say, “You need to come pick up your son immediately. He has a case of live head lice.” As I walked to the school to pick him up, I literally scratched my head (sorry) thinking, Well where is the GRACE in THIS situation? I’ve never had head lice before and was disgusted and uncertain how best to de-bug us and our small NYC apartment. I cancelled my entire afternoon of work, asked a professional to come to our home to de-louse us all with coconut oil and a tea tree concoction, and then spent the entire evening with the boys at the laundromat cursing to myself and washing all the sheets, pillows, backpacks, clothing and towels. At the end of the day I wondered if it wouldn’t have been easier to shave all of our heads and move house. As we all laid down to sleep Oliver, my 8-year old, said, “Good night, sleep tight, don’t let the lice bite!”
Sammy and I both said, “Ewwwwww!” and then we all laughed to tears.
Buddha said, “One moment can change a day, one day can change a life and one life can change the world.”
Lighten up a moment today — even just one — it may just change your day and someone else’s. Lighten up your day and someone else’s day and you can change the world.
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Please join us over the next days for more ways to live grace-fully as we prepare to kick off “ExtraOrdinary Grace in Everyday Life: A 5-week Program for Women” in New York City on Tues, Nov 13 at the One Spirit Learning Alliance. Please see www.newyorkminutes.org/events for more info and to register.
