🌿 A poem a day keeps the blues away… 

THE WAY IT IS

or our life’s thread…

🌻 There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.🌻

— William Stafford, from Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems, 2014

🪴 I heard about this poem on the Association for Coaching’s newest podcast on “Coaching Men” hosted by the wonderful Rob Lawrence (you can find the link to the podcast in the “Resources” section below). His guest, Will Johnson, is as big a fan of poetry as I am and referenced it, so I got curious.

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.

🌱 It’s a faithful thread.
I imagine the thread to be fine, sometimes fragile, yet sturdy.
It’s faithful and reliable; for no matter the circumstances, no matter the landscapes it crosses, no matter the seasons, “it doesn’t change”

🌱 It’s a guiding thread.
It’s a thread I follow. It shows me the way, guides my steps, informs my decisions. And because it’s faithful no matter the circumstances, I know it can show me the way *in* as well as the way *out* when I need it.

People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread. 
But it is hard for others to see.

🌱 It’s a personal thread, unique to me just as I am unique to the world.

People may not always understand my reasons, the paths I choose, the decisions I make—they do not see what I see, because my path is not their path—and that’s OK.

While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.

🌱 Its promise of guiding us comes with a pre-condition: “Hold it”!
And if we’re weathering a storm—be it in our surrounding (external) or within us, the tighter that grip needs to be.

Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.

🌱 Doris Day’s “Que sera sera” comes to mind. There’s only so much in life we can control, predict, anticipate. There’s only so much risk management one can do. Life is made of complex intricacies; things we never anticipated; reactions we could have never predicted; connections we could have never foreseen; events that connect in ways that astound us…

So the only thing left for us to do is:

**You don’t ever let go of the thread.**

📌 What thread do you recognize in your life?

Are you holding it right now?
How close to the thread are you walking? Is it even in sight?
Was there a time when you let go of it?

🦋 Happy weekend everyone! 🦋

With love,
Dina 🫶🏽

Image of Shnaider landing that final strike that won her the quarter final against Sabalenka—taken at Place de la Concorde during my stay in Paris this week. An unexpected result, and I’m guessing a certain “thread” had something to do with it…

Resources:

• You can access Association for Coaching (AC)‘s latest podcast series on Coaching Men, hosted by the wonderful Rob Lawrence here: https://www.associationforcoaching.com/general/custom.asp?page=dl-hub_podcast-channel-coaching-men 
  I loved listening to the first episode with Will Johnson, and look forward to the other episodes.

• This week’s song is QUE SERA SERA, performed by Doris Day

🌿 A poem a day keeps the blues away… 

ON CHILDREN & PARENTING

🌻 Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable. 🌻

— Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931), from The Prophet

🪴 Last Sunday was Mother’s day. In my household, it tends to be a day like any other, which I don’t mind. In fact, the two people who wished me Happy Mother’s Day “proactively” were my friends Andy, Maryam, & my mum’s dentist, who had kindly offered to do a check-up on his day off after her operation…

🪴 As I was reflecting on parenthood, I found myself drawn back to Gibran’s words—a wise reminder of what it means to be entrusted with a life.

I love being a mum to my wonderful 16-year-old. It’s the most important and precious role I’ll ever get to play, and I’m immensely grateful for it—all the more so because I’m well aware that there are countless people who would love to be a parent but can’t. I was almost one of them… until I wasn’t.

🪴 Reflecting on what it means to be a parent also reminded me of all the important parental figures I had growing up. People I knew I could rely on, and who were always there for me, especially when my parents couldn’t. Sometimes without a family of their own, they became my parent and I their child all the same—not by blood, but by extension, by choice, through love. These wonderful souls also deserve to be celebrated!

🪴 I also believe in celebrating our children—every day! For the person they are the moment they’re born. For the person they become as they grow, learn, and explore. For every step they take, every fall they make, and as they stand up again.

I celebrate my daughter for the fresh perspective she brings—those youth-tainted glasses she wears that remind me of a time that was and of all that can be. The joy and pain of every first. The discovery of life’s promises. The carving of her own path into the world.

It’s an enormous privilege to witness a child’s journey—whether they are our own or not.

🎉 Today, I celebrate you and all your loved ones! 🎉 

🦋 Happy parent day ! Happy children day ! Happy Friday everyone! 🦋

With love,

Dina 🫶🏽

Image: My husband and I in Hawaii, 2012, renewing our vows a year and a half after our daughter was born.

Resources:

• In celebration of YOU and all your loved ones, this week’s song is CELEBRATION by Kool & The Gang

🌿 A poem a day keeps the blues away… 

WHY I WAKE EARLY

🌻 Hello, sun in my face.
Hello, you who make the morning
and spread it over the fields
and into the faces of the tulips
and the nodding morning glories,
and into the windows of, even, the
miserable and crotchety–

best preacher that ever was,
dear star, that just happens
to be where you are in the universe
to keep us from ever-darkness,
to ease us with warm touching,
to hold us in the great hands of light–
good morning, good morning, good morning.

Watch, now, how I start the day
in happiness, in kindness. 🌻

— Mary Oliver
(published in “Devotions: The Selected Poems of Mary Oliver”)

🪴 I haven’t posted a poem for a few weeks now. Life has been life, I guess, with its usual ebbs and flows. As I finally sat down to share with you a poem, I picked Mary Oliver’s book and it opened on page 171, revealing WHY I WAKE EARLY.

🪴 I think any analysis of Oliver’s words would defeat the whole purpose of this simple but powerful poem. It’s not just an ode to the sun, but an ode to our planet and the beauty that surrounds us. And it’s meant to be experienced rather than analysed.

🎂 I find it interesting that this is the poem that revealed itself to me today (Friday 08 May), the same day we celebrate Sir David Attenborough’s 100th birthday: someone who has dedicated his life to sharing the wonders of our beautiful planet with millions of viewers in a most iconic way. 

📌 So, instead of a question, I invite you to wake up early tomorrow and experience the wonder that is “morning” through all your senses.

🎂 Happy 100th Birthday Sir David Attenborough 🎂

🦋 Happy Friday everyone! 🦋

🌹 And Happy Mother’s day (on Sunday)! 🌹

With love,

Dina 🫶🏽

Resources:

• This week’s song is What A Wonderful World, cover by Sir David Attenborough—an ode to our planet
  

🌿 A poem a day keeps the blues away… 

On this blessed Good Friday, Maya Angelou’s poem ALONE came to mind.

ALONE

🌻 Alone
Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don’t believe I’m wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can’t use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They’ve got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I’ll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.🌻

—Maya Angelou

Creative, resourceful, and whole

🪴 There’s a persistent belief in coaching—not sure where it originated—that clients are creative, resourceful, and whole.

I always struggled with that mantra, but it took me some time to figure out why.

It sounds amazing, and it’s one of those mantras we sure as heck want to be true. But the question is, is it?

Creativity and resourcefulness sit on a continuum—some have it more than others. But I do believe that we all carry a seed of both. How that seed develops, and how it shows up in action, will greatly vary…

Wholeness, on the other hand, is rooted in this modern-day thinking that we can be anything we want to be, and do anything we want to do, all on our own, if we only put our mind to it. Bollocks. No man is an island. And no talents are infinite.

Relational coaching practices try to tone this idea down by acknowledging the importance of the coach-client relationship, and the coach’s use-of-self as an instrument of change. And yet, we still hold on to the idea of “wholeness” as an individual trait, rather than a communal one.

Why are we so afraid to admit that each one of us has limits?
That no one can be everything to everyone.
That my talents have limits.
My creativity has limits.
My resourcefulness has limits.
My knowledge has limits.
My resilience has limits.

And once we accept that—that we, human beings, have limits—we start to understand that we can only become WHOLE with one another.

“No human being is ‘whole’ in and of itself”

🪴 And I’m not the first one to propose such a sacrilegious hypothesis. I attended a brilliant webinar on existential analysis by Kate Hammer earlier this year, in which she shared the following quote by existential clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and close collaborator of Viktor Frankl—Alfried Längle, who said:

“According to existential analysis no human being is ‘whole’ in and of itself, even if healthy and with all drives satisfied. A human being as a person needs to transcend themselves and to turn to others (people, projects, tasks) in order to achieve existential fulfilment.”

Imagine my relief when I realised I wasn’t alone in my thinking. Which in itself proves Angelou’s point:

We need one another. We complement one another. We build on one another. We nurture one another. We protect one another. Fill in the blanks…

“Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.”

🪴 In today’s world, with the fires blazing across my beloved Middle East, Maya’s words pierce through the silence:

“Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
‘Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.”

Man is no island. Mankind is a highly sophisticated root system—similar to the mycorrhizal network—a Wood Wide Web—or in our case, a Soul Wide Web: connected, woven like a tapestry. Because when it tears somewhere, everyone hurts…

📌 Your turn… 

• What do you know to be your limits?
• Who completes you? Go and be with them!
• What completes you? Go and do it!

🦋 A blessed Good Friday everyone! 🦋

With love,

Dina 🫶🏽

PS : all em dashes are my own ;).

Resources:

• This week’s song is The Power of Love, cover by Josh Krajcik