Lead with Love: Becoming your own best friend

I taught a session on cultivating friendship last month down at True Nature in Carbondale as part of our Care for Caregivers Program. These monthly sessions are designed to support the people who are the givers and the helpers out there in our valley, to give them a safe and sacred place to chill, move, breathe and restore energy and a sense of self. 

Life is pretty overwhelming and busy for everyone, I know. Even retired people like my parents are too busy to clean out their closets because there is 24/7 TV with addicting content that makes it seem constantly like the world is going to end. And, I think it is because we are treating our planet like a trash dump then acting surprised when it burns down. Actually, the Covid shutdown proved the planet will be just fine. Do you remember just how quickly polluted ecosystems started to thrive without us trampling all over it? It was truly remarkable and such a wake-up call that we pushed the snooze alarm on instantly back to the same ol’ behavior.

Speaking of behavior, it sure is hard to change, isn’t it? I find that to be so. I have started to actually feel the grooves in my brain where my conditioned responses to stimuli go. It’s like a water slide — wooosh. So easy and somehow satisfying and could be considered fun. The fun part is that ego gratification of being right — woooosh! Let me tell you why I am right and give you all the years of evidence I’ve built up to prove it. Pulling out of those grooves is hard. It’s like traversing on Bell Mountain versus just skiing the fall line. Why would I ever want to do that? I will tell you, from the one exciting thing about aging that is knowing and doing better, that traversing to a new groove that is more open, curious and soft there is a lot less of those death cookies that are inevitably at the bottom of that conditioned response. I mean, I know better, I’ve done it a thousand times — if I traverse into new territory, I have the potential for a new result and that result could be epic! 

It can feel like an epic powder run to listen and soften with an open heart and mind and feel a wooosh! — not of being right but of compassion for actually being with another human being and listening to them and what’s going on for them. This is the revolution that will change our world from one of division and hate to compassion and love. And, it might take a million years like geologic time based on how divided things are, but we might as well start now to build those new grooves and the Grand Canyon of love that is possible when we change one damaging and judgmental thought at a time. 

So, back to this kiva space that is so magical and intentional down in Carbondale. This is a place where this soulful spelunking can happen. This is a place to slow down and get out of the grooves that say this is how it is, this is always how it will be and there is no hope. We get expansive down there just by slowing down and listening to ourselves and each other. 

Last month, the practice centered around being your own best friend. So often we are looking to others to fill us up, to say or do the right thing that’s going to make us feel better. And, so often they don’t. When that happens, resentment can build and a projection that if only they were different, things would be different. And things would be different, but I think we know by now that we can’t change other people, right? So, the one point of leverage we have is to change ourselves. You want something that you’re not getting from someone else? Give it to yourself. Cultivate a practice of presence, and love with the most important person you will ever be in relationship with. What doesn’t that look like? Come down to the kiva to find out. 

Gina Murdock is the founder and director of Lead with Love, an Aspen, Colo. based non-profit dedicated to cultivating and nurturing heart-centered leaders. To join the free and open monthly sessions at the True Nature Kiva or their upcoming retreat at Beyul June 14-17 go to http://www.ileadwithlove.org.