The Heroine's Coach

Yesterday morning Garrison Keeler quoted Richard Avedon, the photographer. (This is one of his photos of Barbara Streisand.) I really like the quote:

“Charm is the ability to be truly interested in other people.”

I am coaching someone on his hero’s journey.  He’s left the comfort zone of his “ordinary life” and is teetering somewhere in that limbo land of  between the known and unknown.  This is the rich, most promising territory also known as Opportunity, but he doesn’t see that in this moment.  I believe his words were, “I’m in a living hell.”

No, he’s not seeing it yet.

But, I’ve known so many who have traveled this path and have found themselves in limbo and haven’t recognized it as Opportunity, (including me).  It’s hard to recognize it when you’re in it.  Often, we see it most clearly when we’re beyond it, and then we say…

“Thank God that happened to me or I wouldn’t be where I am now!”

Thank God, indeed!

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”  Joseph Campbell

I was talking to a heroine about bringing, attracting “Mr. Right” into her life.  I shared my circle process…”Draw a circle.  On the outside put all the characteristics you don’t want this person to have.  On the inside, put the characteristics, behaviors you do want this person to have.  You have to ask in order to get what you want.”

BTW, this is what I did to attract the love of my life.

This heroine is funny.  She knew she didn’t want someone from a certain town.  “I’m urban.  They can’t be from ______.”

I said, “OK, but you’re limiting yourself.  How do you know the right person for you isn’t in that very town – for whatever reason?”  She was going to think about it.

This got me thinking about how we do narrow our options because we think we “know.”  We “know” where what we want is going to come from, how he’s going to appear.  The reality is that we don’t know at all and because we’re so sure of what he will look like when he shows up then sometimes when he appears, we don’t see him.

I’m thinking about being a mother, as we approach Mother’s Day.  I heard two stories today about mothers doing too much for their children and the children taking advantage.   Yesterday a mother was so sorrowful telling me about her only child going off to college.  Earlier this week a young mother of two told me about the power she found within herself once she knew she was pregnant, the power to stop her drug addiction.  Then there’s my friend who never gave birth but talks happily about her young women friends as the daughters she never had.

There are so many facets to motherhood.  It’s complicated,  It’s difficult.  It’s wonderful.  Ultimately, I believe it grows us.  We think we’re about “growing” the child and really, often, it’s the other way around.

“You say God speaks to you, but it’s only your imagination.” These are the words spoken by the inquisitor to Joan of Arc during her trial for heresy.

“How else would God speak to me, if not through my imagination?” Joan replied

Today I spoke with a heroine who, like me, gets messages from the Universe in all sorts of ways.  She told me about being on the verge of a very big decision in her life, “teetering on the edge” and then seeing a book title, Living Free…and instantly knowing she was making the right choice.  Another time she got just what she needed from the words on a billboard and another time from a sign in front of a church.

The same thing happens to me.   I get messages from license plates, words on the side of a bus, words on a sign by the side of a road.  For me, this all falls under the category of the Universe is always speaking to me…and I need to listen, look, pay attention.

I was just reading David Denby’s review of the new movie The Five-Year Engagement, directed by Nicholas Stoller in The New Yorker magazine.  I think he liked it.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell with The New Yorker reviews.

This comment caught my eye:

“The movie suggests that relationships work only when you help the other person to act selfishly.  If you don’t get that aid from your partner, and you’re forced to give up too much of your own happiness, the deal is off.  You can’t fake it.”

I wholeheartedly agree.  Having not had the encouragement to be myself and cultivate my own happiness in marriage number 1, I am so very grateful to have more than enough latitude to nuture my own happiness in marriage number 2.

And “the deal” has been on for 21 years!