Keep High Watch

Keep High Watch

by | Sep 27, 2021 | Blog

I scribbled this sign the day after Sept. 11, 2001 and stuck it on a fir outside my door. I had just moved from Boston to Rhododendron, Oregon, the week before—and, like everyone, was turned inside out. It helped me feel a little more grounded.

The line came from a book, Gervase, that my mother had and that I loved so much as a kid. In it, a young girl befriends a fawn who grows into a mighty stag. The townspeople fear the stag’s wild nature and make a plan to kill him. Just before he goes off with them, knowing his fate, he tells the girl, “Hither world, thither world, all worlds are one. Keep high watch.”

When I was 10, I took the words to mean that maybe death wasn’t so scary, that the smallest of creatures was as important as all others. That you look out for everyone, and don’t get so lost in the details you miss what really matters.

I have moved often and brought this sign from house to house. Over the last wild year, I’ve glanced at it and thought, “Jeez, NOW I know what this means.”

May I remember this in the coming days and may we all keep high watch for each other. 

Queen for a Day

Queen for a Day

by | Jul 2, 2016 | Blog, Featured, Inspiration

Screen Shot 2016-03-22 at 8.53.49 PM

“You have a lot of queen energy,” Star says.
 
“Like a queen on the Scottish moors.”
She paints a feathery design on my forehead.
  A bird or headdress or crown.

I’m at a retreat in Topanga, California. Sipping wine outside in March.

Having my face painted by an intuitive body painter.

Who talks to me about the queen.
Something in me resonates.
I tell Star, “Yes, that kind of feels right.”
 
And then something else butts in.
 
“Wait a minute, I’m the scullery maid, not the queen.
I provide the service. I am not royal.”

This very flip is what I often experience with clients after a Golden Thread session-
after your stories have revealed the truth of your essence.

And it is hard to stay there. It is so easy to drift back to what’s familiar.
I so get it.
 
Like this. It feels good to walk and breathe like a
queen with this paint on my face. Not too long after the retreat,
however, the scullery maid comes knocking at my door.
It takes muscle to keep her out. She’s so familiar.
 
I want to share with you something I wrote in my journal
in the moment when I did feel like a queen.
 
Not because I want to dump random journal-writing on you.
 
But because I want to encourage you to explore and claim your true essence. Really, take courage.
If I can share this, you can SO share yours!
____________________________________
 
I am a Queen.
 
I am the blue flame of clear expression. Dreamer and seer.
 
I am here to awaken you to the story of you. Of all that you are.
 
My kingdom is expression. I sit on a simple throne of earth, water and wood. I was born in mud.
Crowned by experience. Dripping details, intuition, inspiration. Alchemy. Pulling pearls from your dreams.
Polishing diamonds from your coal.
 
My heart opens more each time I listen.
I take in. I let go.
 
I let a tear fall–and paint the spot silver.
 
It’s part of me. It’s part of you.
 
Nothing to fear. So much room.
 
Together we step into the old, the new and this royal moment.

 ________________________________

Ok, now it’s your turn. 
 
I’ve got an invitation for you:
 
If you’d like to learn how you can discover your life’s Golden Thread—
and tap into YOUR Queen for a Day essence—
click the link below to schedule your complimentary 30-minute call.
 

https://calendly.com/madeleine-eno

Here’s to you.

The very essence of you.

 

Tangled

Tangled

by | Jun 23, 2016 | Blog, Featured

Tangled

“You either walk inside your story and own it or you stand outside your story and hustle for your worthiness.” Brene Brown

thread

As I was making a present for my baby niece a few weeks ago, this kept happening. With just about every stitch, the thread would transform from straight and smooth to  a crazy thrashy tangle.
 
I untangled that night more than I sewed… and the big vision I had for what I was making kept fading.
 
It felt so familiar and it struck me the same thing happens when you go looking for your own story… you find it, and for  a while it’s smooth and straight. You spot that thread and follow its path and it’s helping connect all the pieces together. Nice and clear.
 
Then when you tug it a little it devolves into an unrecognizable mess, looping back on itself, requiring you to stop everything and just unravel.
 
Makes you want to throw the whole thing out the window, no?
 
The big vision of YOU definitely fades.
 
You move outside of your story again, like Brene Brown describes.
 
You start hustling for your worthiness.
 
Ugh.
 
There are lots of threads in your story. Lots of emotions. Lots of shame, regret, fear dancing around in there. Seriously, when it comes to sorting it all out, tangling like this is a guarantee.
 
Sometimes the way through is to have someone sit and look at that whole tangled mess with you.
 
What I’ve learned in the last few years is that we all have an inability to look at our own story and see if for what it is. Friends shouldn’t let friends dive into their story alone. It can be gnarly in there.
 
If you want to start exploring your story with someone who is not afraid of a few knots, schedule your complimentary Golden Thread session here.
 
Let’s jump on the phone for 30 minutes and see if we can’t do some untangling. Let’s just stop the hustling and start counting ourselves and our own story as worthy right now.
 
Can I Get a Witness?

Can I Get a Witness?

by | May 14, 2016 | Blog, Featured

Can I Get A Witness?

  12011264_10206682858203870_5421968449188314862_n   The guests start zipping up their down jackets, attempt to pull last bits of meat off the roast pig, and the microphone just sits there on the grass. Come on, it says, now or never. I grab it and then grab Jen. Falling into a rhythm so ancient and familiar, we start to sing Grand Funk Railroad’s “Some Kind of Wonderful,” just like we did 100,000 times when we were 10. Listening to it now, it’s a grindy-sexy and male anthem, but we loved delivering it in opera voice and cow voice in the way back of the station wagon and as we walked up West Street in our Dr. Scholl’s. One of my oldest friends, Jen, got married a few days ago and her new husband had requested there be no formal, tear-jerking toasts at the wedding. No hilarious yarns from the golden days of decades-old friendships. So I didn’t prepare anything. But as the day started to wind down and the couple headed off to their future, it felt wrong not to call up a single moment of the past. Jen was a great sport and we gave the song as good a go as we could. (I was so in the moment, I didn’t even put down the cupcake I was eating.) So often I wait for the perfect moment. Hit pause until the better technology comes along. Put it off until the right alignment floats into place like a magical dove. Even typing these words of hesitation  feels like sinking my fingers and mind into muddy quicksand. Blahdy-blahdy-blah. It’s so, so, so tiring to wait, isn’t it? It felt so great and free to be up there singing that song all out, in a grabbed-at moment with my oldest friend that would never come around again. What about you? And what is right on the other side of putting it out there? If you were a child of the amazing 70s, you might remember the line in the song, “Can I get a witness?” I didn’t know what that meant when we were little and just assumed it was a witness in court. Later I learned it was a tradition in certain African-American churches for a speaker who shared a testimony or insight to invite others to clap or shout “Amen!” by asking, “Can I get a witness?” It’s kind of what we’re all trying to do, isn’t it? Just get a witness? When you share your stories, you’re really asking others—your people, your tribe—to shout out their Amen. So, the thing is, you’ve got to give them something to witness. If you’ve been hitting pause on telling your story or sharing your message, let’s get on the phone. Let me be your witness, because, man, do I get it! Grab your complimentary 30-minute clarity session right here. And here’s a fun little clip of Grand Funk Railroad in their heyday.   Grand Funk  
What Happens When the Truth Stinks

What Happens When the Truth Stinks

by | Feb 6, 2015 | Blog, Featured

What Happens When the Truth Stinks

 

I recently woke at 3 a.m. to a woman screaming under the bed. I soon realized it wasn’t a woman—it was Simon, the skunk who’d been living beneath our house the last few months.

The peaceable arrangement we’d enjoyed with him seemed to be over.

And, the story, as I liked to tell it, was over, too.

Here’s the way I liked to tell it: 

We tamed a skunk! He eats from the same bowl as the cat. He waddles over when we shake the kibble bag. He stands still as we pass him on the way to the car.

He’s SO amazing!

   

And here’s the way it actually is:

Twice now, we’ve burrowed under the covers as an oily, eye-burning, stomach-wrenching cloud seeps into the bedroom. Simon is just doing what he does when under duress. As for me (also under duress), I’m not quite clapping for a dancing skunk. I’m washing the floors with vinegar, burning incense, and hanging our clothes outside in the trees.

Part of me still wants the story to go a certain way. (We tamed a skunk! He’s awesome!)

The truth is, though, I’m sleeping with a lavender-doused bandana wrapped around my face while John loads peanut butter and cat food in the Have-a-Heart trap. I love this line from the author David Foster Wallace:

“The truth will set you free, but not until it is finished with you.”

If you’re like me, there’s a way I WANT to tell a story, but then the truth of it ends up to be a very different matter by the time it’s finished with me.

One of the most common things I hear from business-owners who want to share their story, is that they don’t know where to start.

So, here’s a handy little exercise, inspired by Simon, as you’re working with yours.

What’s a story you wanted to tell one way… then the truth kept coming around and telling you something different? Take a peek at your relationships, career, or just your long-held-onto-expectation that something in your life was supposed to be a certain way, until it was clear that it wasn’t that way anymore.

I promise, there is some good juice in there.

And if you’re ready to learn more about what to do when you’ve got it, just click here to sign up for a 30-minute complimentary clarity call, so you can see how this story relates to your business and your message. Here’s to the truth, no matter what it smells like, Madeleine
How do I get out of this?

How do I get out of this?

by | Oct 6, 2014 | Blog, Featured

How Do I Get Out of This?

  I just read the War of Art by Steven Pressfield. What a perfect book. He writes about Resistance, something at which I consider myself an expert. Hand me a great topic to write about that would move me forward, and watch me run outside to rake leaves or vacuum the car. But it’s been my desire to work on the issue, and this year, life doled out a few experiences to do just that… and the book got me thinking about what it all means. Here are a few moments from my resistance highlight reel: Resisting jumping into the jungle. In January, I went to Mexico with my good friend Joanne and her daughter, Manami. Joanne was in the final stages of cancer (I was really resisting that) and this trip would be her last. Manami and I went zip-lining one day. We hiked a few miles, then from high on a rickety platform, we peered down into an endless and dense jungle. Monkey-mind starts Ziplineworking: This is so high and so rickety. I am so going to plunge right into that jungle. There’s no way in freaking hell I’m going to be able to do this. This was a huge mistake. How do I get out of this? Mind you, I was standing in gloves and helmet, tied to the cable, with a line of people raring to go behind me. I wanted only to sit for an hour, getting ready to get ready, but could only resist so long. I closed my eyes and jumped. Gravity took care of the rest. It was really fun and so free. And every successive (12 of them) jump was fine. Resisting writing a eulogy, part 1. Joanne asked me to speak at her funeral. I really wanted to show her what I was going to say before she died, but it wasn’t finished. OK, it wasn’t even started—I was totally resisting writing it. The memorial service got closer and closer and I knew the story I wanted to share, but something was missing. I wrote in the car on the way to California. Not it. Not yet. JoOn the morning of the service, I still didn’t have it done, and went walking by the ocean in San Rafael. I found a trail she’d once shown me. Oh, hello, monkey mind: What the hell am I doing going for a hike? There are going to be a TON of people there. This has to be something she would love. Help me, help me, help me. OMG, I am so not the person to do this at all. This was such a mistake. How do I get out of this? I kept walking into the mounting panic. Then a poem I read when I was in my 20s dropped into my head. I got back to the hotel and Googled it. It was the perfect missing piece. I put it in. Before I got up to speak at the service, my heart was pounding so hard the friend sitting next to me said he could hear it. Then when I was up there, Jo smiled down from her big picture on the screen behind me. It all went just fine and felt so good to talk about our long friendship. And I think she would have gotten a kick out of it. Resisting writing a eulogy, part 2. Two weeks after Jo’s service, my dad died unexpectedly. We had a complex relationship and part of me had already been PRE-resisting giving his eulogy for years.Dad Though writing the obituary (thank you, newspaper deadline) and sharing stories about him was a good warm-up, on the morning of the funeral I still didn’t have a clue what I was going to say. Cue ol’ monkey mind chorus: There must be some mistake. Who am I to do this? How do I get out of this? Blah-dee-blah–dee-blah. Then, in the shower, the whole thing just dropped into my weary brain. Four qualities, four stories about him that showed the gruffness that covered his generous and tender heart. Complete. And again, heart pounding, I stood up there with my prompt words written on an index card—and it was fine. I think he might have liked it, too. In all this, here’s what I learned… Resistance to speaking the truth, taking the next step, starting the new project, etc. is very real. But that Big Moment is also real—the urgency that so many people I talk to seem to be feeling right now. A time of no turning back. The moment when your little zip-line trolley leaves the platform, when the audience’s eyes all lock on you… and there is no stopping. My mentor Heidi calls this “crossing the border” and I think that’s a perfect description. It goes something like this:
  1. You get the inspiration to create something, share your story, launch that project or just go beyond a previous limit.
  2. Welcome to the border. Resistance steps in. Monkey-mind refrain begins: OMG, how do I get out of this? Get me out of this. This was such an enormous mistake.
  3. The Big Moment. Gravity/stepping on stage/pushing “send.” Whoa, whoa, whoa. It’s happening!
  4. Ahhhhh, ok. It’s fine, I am safe, and this actually feels really good.
Now, I wish I could say that everything has changed since this summer. That resistance is gone and I’m just living in the flow. But that would be a lie. For instance, it’s taken me a solid week of procrastinating to write this article. Here’s another passage from The War of Art: Resistance is directly proportional to love. If you’re feeling massive Resistance, there’s tremendous love there too. If you didn’t love the project that is terrifying you, you wouldn’t feel anything. The more Resistance you experience, the more important your un-manifested art/project/enterprise is to you—and the more gratification you will feel when you finally do it. Today, shards of resistance glitter all around me. The internet connection is funky. I am second-guessing writing about Joanne and Dad. The newsletter program keeps giving me an error message. I have a ton of client work to do. It’s the last sunny Sunday before the rains and I would much rather hike. There is so much that feels MORE urgent.  But I know that writing this is part of a bigger dream that I love… even more than hiking. And I know it will be fine once I just press “Send.”   Feeling resistance about telling your story? Podcast2 Just click here to watch a quick video, 5 Ways to Getting To Your Story that will help you move beyond it. This snippet is from an interview I did on the Paycheck to Passion Podcast (which you should definitely subscribe to.)