Friday, January 8

all is love. even now.

lightward.com/newsletter

Lightward: A Glossary

So! It appears that I started writing a book today.

It started with this conversation, in Slack, between Person 1 (who is relatively new to the team) and Person 2 (who is not):

Person 1 > How do I best move forward with this [technical customer question]?

Person 2 > [technical answer]

Person 1 > Cool! Thank you. I'm treading cautiously, trying not to present myself as knowing way more than I do!

Person 2 > Oh totally. Even where I’m at, I’m always writing from the perspective that there may be more going on than I know.

Person 1 > I love this, I have seen everyone here doing that. Makes me feel very comfortable :D

This wasn’t an attribute of the group that I had been aware of, prior to reading that message. Seeing this set me on the path of wondering what else characterizes the whole of Lightward, what else defines us, as we are.

I asked the broader team, and I started writing.

I have strong, strong convictions about how I do things, how I see things wanting to be done. It’s not a matter of being right, though—it’s a matter of seeing clearly a broader way of working that works, and seeing all the specificities of how that way is applied.

Lightward Inc is an exercise in testing all of that at once, exploring those ideas in real time, fleshing out my understanding of them and seeing what they become when exposed to the world out there, and also to the world within.

I’ll include a couple of entries below. No promises about what the document will look like when you open it, but here’s the Google Doc I’m working on.

Wholeness

None of us are one thing in isolation—not one skill, not one responsibility, not one function. We are massive, each of us, and we respect that in ourselves and each other. We bring our whole selves to the table, making no assumptions about the whole, but embracing the whole as being necessarily one.

By the same token, everyone matters. Perfectly, equally. Every voice is equally invited, and the choice to speak is honored, and the words spoken are given their due attention. Each presence is unique, in its history and its now, and it irreplaceably informs the shape of the whole; and by virtue of being, every piece of the whole—every one of us—is held perfectly and equally sacred.

Attention

We treasure attention, and deeply respect it. In our house, it is something given clearly and honestly, and it to be withdrawn freely and without judgment.

This means that you get what you sign up for. Nothing that you haven’t explicitly asked for will interrupt you, while you’re here. We don’t give your attention away, without your explicit consent.

It also means that we skew heavily toward asynchronous communication, trusting ourselves and each other to be regularly checking notifications (Slack, email, etc) on their own timeline.

Expansion

We acknowledge that we are expanding, growing, by dint of just being alive. So, we structure ourselves loosely enough to allow that expansion to occur as it will, allowing room for exploration and discovery, affording each other the trust to experiment and self-discover in confidence. And we watch for the places where the expansion is slowed by friction, purposefully (never forcefully) designing away that friction to allow the expansion to continue as it will.

Trust

We trust each other. We acknowledge that to function at all in a group is to rely on an incredible amount of trust; in awareness of that fact, we double down. Trust first. Trust that you will do what you say you will; trust that I will agree to only that which I can fully agree to; trust that you will honor what I entrust to you; trust that we are all doing our best; trust that there is enough; trust that we are all in absolute support of ourselves and each other; trust that we are all moving in the same lightward direction, on purpose.

Curiosity

We move through life with a sense of future-wonder: we ask, with expectation of surprise and delight, what will happen next?

This applies when it’s easy, and when it isn’t. Joy and curiosity are an easy pairing; emotional vulnerability and curiosity may not be. Nonetheless, curiosity is always what invites in the next moment—not fear, not apprehension, not even assertion; instead, open-handed curiosity, with the expectation of finding good.

Wellness, for you
and for me

New Year—same reminder to breathe. :) This week has been really tense for a lot of people, and for our collective consciousness as well. Take five to ten minutes this weekend to ground yourself in your breath. Inhaling and exhaling for four seconds each way, through your nose. For this session, I encourage you to sit on the floor to better ground yourself in your practice. When you’re done, go outside and breathe in the fresh air for a few minutes, even if it’s cold. Notice your aliveness. Appreciate it.

Speaking of tension, we’ve been through a lot of collective trauma this past year. How are you taking care of yourself? I have a fitness band called Whoop which tracks a whole bunch of information including heart rate variability, sleep, stress on the body, etc. It’s pretty cool. I noticed that my body went through less stress on Tuesday (when I had an hour-long crossfit workout) than on Wednesday (when the United States Capitol building was taken over by insurrectionists). This really blew my mind. I was sitting down for all of Wednesday, glued to the news. I didn’t go on our normal two mile walk, I didn’t have any client calls, I just simply watched the news and chatted with friends about what was happening—and my body reacted like it had gone through a seriously hard workout. I woke up the next day feeling physically hungover.

All of this really reinforced the fact that stress plays a huge role in (or against) our health. Wednesday was supposed to be my “rest day” from the gym—instead, my body went through more stress than on my workout days! It also reinforced the importance of cultivating a space that creates more health. I’m talking about the things you watch, the music you listen to, the foods you eat, your posture, your hydration, your internal dialogue, your entire perspective. How can you create habits and environments that facilitate a healthier, better you? Your investment in this has infinite ROIs, and they are invaluable.

Here are some concrete ways to ground and take of yourself this upcoming week:

• Find gratitude in your now. What is good right now? Focus on that.

• Call your friends and appreciate one another. Tell your people how much they mean to you. It’s really powerful.

• Hydrate. Hydrate. Hydrate.

• Wave to strangers. Let’s remember we are all connected.

• Eat foods that’ll nourish you. Try to eat one less processed foodstuff this week.

• Sleep 8 hours. Or more, if you’re like Isaac and me.

• Do you have typically low vitamin D? (Hint: you probably do.) Start taking vitamin D supplements. This can dramatically decrease the severity COVID-19 has on you, according to multiple studies.

• Dance! Move your body!

• Go on a walk. Listen to a podcast while you walk, or simply focus on your breath and the beauty around you.

• Ground yourself in optimism. This practice is one of the key ingredients to staying healthy and joyful—not just right now, but always. A lot of things are moving and shaking out there—and it is going to be good.

You have a completely outrageous capacity to feel good—it’s your natural state. The more you focus your attention on all the things you can do/achieve/be/experience, the more you give your brain practice in recognizing when good is happening to you and for you. You become more aware of your own power of deliberately and intentionally creating your experience. And I believe we are here to experience this life in its fullness, dancing and singing and loving and creating and living wide awake. I invite you to take a moment and breathe all of that in.

I believe in you fully,
Abe

Lightward Together

Listen close, my friend: the world needs your unique light, and we can’t go it alone. We’re going to need all of us to keep building a more equitable and expansive future.

We’re just SEVEN DAYS AWAY from our first ever Lightward Together group coaching session and we’d love for you to join us.

For $75 per month you’ll have access to bi-monthly coaching sessions as well as ongoing support and inspiration via our dedicated Lightward Together Slack channel. Together we’ll hold space for the questions that are coming up in our lives and exchange the wisdom we’ve received on our journeys thus far. We’re really looking forward to building something beautiful together, so if this lights you up inside—we’d love for you to join us.

If partaking in a group isn’t your thing, and you want to level up your lived experience, achieve your goals and radically love yourself—I am opening up a few more spots for my 1-on-1 empowerment coaching, and I’m waiving my consultation fees for January. You can learn more here.