Author: Kim Lehmann

I am known as mother, grandmother, firefighter, paramedic, writer, and lover of the great BC outdoors. Who am I really? That, for me, is what the journey of life is about... discovering who I really am when all the false personas and masks are stripped away... who am I and what am I all about? I feel very passionate about making space for those who are silenced and walking with those who journey through dark places alone. This world is so big and yet so small.... our neighbours are getting closer and yet we know each other less and less... we look down, look away, or falsely smile as we hurry past those walking toward us.... how did we get here? It is in my heart to live as openly as possible, to help where I see a need, to be authentic in every moment of every day. That means being honest with myself and with others. That means taking a risk and sharing what rests within my heart. That means refusing to be silenced or to silence. That means taking off the armour that society has dressed me up in. That means knowing I am taking a risk and choosing in advance to live full on and full out and taking hold of the moments and hours and days that I have been given. That means refusing to settle for less. That's me... :-))

Authenticity…

Authenticity in a society built on sand…

Living in a society that has built itself up around technology and the social media network has cost us a great price and many of us are so caught up in it that we do not even notice. Like frogs in a pot of water that is slowly heating on the stove…. we have not noticed the price because it started out lukewarm. It was new and fun and the latest way to connect with those we love around the globe. Then the heat got turned up but, not quite enough to notice. Suddenly our pictures and captions and thoughts became available to hundreds of people by the press of a button and, like magic, we were no longer simple people in a small social network, we became seen by the world. A little hotter was now welcomed because those who once felt unnoticed and unimportant now had a platform to stand on and be seen. We exchanged the value of the few close knit friends (remember that word?) we had for being known by the masses. “Friend” no longer holds value and deep meaning, now it means that people we really don’t know get a birds eye view into the life we live. And, in this success driven, positive mental attitude society, it means never showing who we really are for fear we loose the following we have created….. The following of false friends that read the posts that we deem are presentable enough to show that we have our act together.

I remember when we chose the word friend for those that we trusted with our soul’s secrets and darkest hours. Those same friends that also celebrated our victories and suffered with our losses. Those friends, that during times of war, were known as “brothers in arms” and allies that stood with us through thick and thin. Men and women we counted on and who knew they could count on us. We were community. We cared for each other’s children and made food for each other in times of need. We welcomed opportunities to meet new friends when the new person moved in next door. Off we went with a dish of our best food in hand to say hello and open the door to the possible relationship ahead. Those days when we knew our neighbours and our friends and we new the community in which we lived.

Today, I sit here and consider what I have done over the past few months…. as I chose to return to the roots of my own authenticity….

The first question I asked myself was, “Who do I really know?” The desire to discover the answer took me to my contact list. If I did not really know a person or if I did not not actually want to really know them, I hit the delete button. I let that settle for a day expecting to feel something bad about what I had done and yet, I somehow felt a touch of freedom. And so I continued to follow my thinking….. “Who really knows me?” This is a question only I could answer because only I knew who I had let in and how far. I went back through my contacts and hit the delete button so many times I shocked myself. I knew that would need to settle a little longer as I was concerned about being judgemental somehow. And yet, after a couple of days, I felt even freer. I suddenly realized that I was on to something…. Something that was important for me and my own authenticity. And so I continued to follow the path I was now on…. “Who in this list do I not trust to stand up for me and with me when the rubber hits the road and my back is against a wall?” This question had a powerful impact because I found myself deleting names from my contacts that I was holding onto for dear life. I believed people to be my “friends,” as I know the word to really mean, that were, in fact, people that I knew had no backbone and had already proven they would not stand up for or with me. That was almost the remainder of my contact list. I sat and ran through the list over and over and over….. would I regret this?? To be honest, this time I felt it. I felt my choice in my soul. I needed to sit with it a few days and I needed to really feel what it meant to have eliminated so many people from easy access. No one knew what I was doing, it wasn’t for anyone else, it was for me. Three days passed by and I knew I was on the road to discovering the fullness of what the word friend used to mean. I needed to go back to the last point on my lifeline where I knew someone authentically….

It has been several weeks now and I only have the doctor and dentist in my contacts now because those people who I know and who know me authentically are so few that I decided to memorize their numbers so I could call from a payphone if I needed. I chose to memorize their numbers because they hold a place of value in my heart. They are my “allies” as I stand in the battlefield. They are what I have come to call splint trees (read the next post for that explanation). I used to feel isolated with a hundred “friend” contacts and now…. now I am aware of how deeply I cherish the very few allies I have and oddly, the sense of desperate isolation is gone. Yes, I have lonely days, but it seems those lonely days are becoming an odd thing as I rest in the knowing that who I call friend is one who really is just that. now, I write

So, on the road to authenticity that weaves through cities of false personas and fake smiles, there is a beautiful countryside that borders a new way of being in the world. Off I go on a new and exciting adventure….

Holy Awakening

I need to call this time in my life a Holy Awakening. It is holy because it is sacred…. Sacred because it deeply involves all that is within me. Sacred because with my deep faith I would never have endured these years. Sacred because I am here, only by grace. In this Holy Awakening I am stirred to the core of all that I am and all that I know….

My mind travels back to the war in my childhood home…. The remembrance of holidays and seasons based solely in memories of the events of the trauma that enveloped those days…. and I scan the years that followed…. Wishing, dreaming, hoping for a rescue from a life of pain and sorrow and complete isolating loneliness…. Weeping in the forest, Pretending I was safe, Caring for the physical and emotional wounds that covered me, Hiding in the shadows as fear became extreme….

I look at back at all the entangled connections….. and the far too many broken relationships….. Searching for love, For the place of belonging, Longings unsatisfied….. Emptiness engulfed my lonely heart…..

Today I see the broken foundation, The confused idea of love, The familiar found in the broken and in the breaker……… Today I can look back and see the pain, The loss, The sorrow…. And then I turn to look ahead and I see…. The wholeness that comes after brokenness, The hope found after despair, And the strength that rises from weakness…..

Today I stand between Bethel and Ai…… Ancient mountains holding a symbol of old…. Bethel meaning holy… Ai meaning ruins….

In this Holy Awakening I stand…. Facing Bethel….. For I have left Ai.

Moments of Impact….

the moments that we notice only when we choose to be really in them…

Can you see it? Can you see the image of the bird?

While I was sitting on the ferry from Horseshoe Bay to Bowen Island yesterday I was captivated by the warm sun pouring through the windows. For me, it has been a long winter, but then again, for this sun loving person, winter is always long. As I gazed out the ferry window I sensed the constantly shifting movement of someone around me. As I looked over I saw a man determined to take a picture. He chose a variety of angles as he looked around to see if anyone had noticed what had captured his attention. No seemed interested in his frenzied efforts to photograph something that seemed to really stir him. I had to ask him what he was so interested by and he looked at me like I was blind. I am, in my opinion (ooops…dangerous thinking there), a fairly aware person and I could not see what he was looking at…. that is…. until he pointed it out….

There, on the huge front window of the ferry, was the dusted picture of a bird (looks kind of like an owl to me) and once I could see it, I could not stop seeing it. Once it was pointed out, once it entered into the forefront, once I was willing to accept that it was there, and once I was willing to accept that I could not see it on my own… there it was…. in full glory. I had to photograph it. I suddenly understood the man who first saw it and I understood his shock that no one else was seeing it. ~~~~~~~~~~

I struggled to find the angle of view that would allow it to be photographed. I had to grab this moment and hold it in a tangible way. I needed to have a reminder of just how easy it is to miss a moment, to be blind to the creative, to have a scotoma (blindspot) that actually blocked my physical vision…. wow… I needed that picture. As we walked off the ferry, all I could think about was what else I was missing…. and then I began to connect some dots in a very real way…

Just as I could not see the reflection of the bird in the window until I allowed it to be brought to the forefront, I have also not seen who I really am, what I offer through my creative courage as I move through the world, the gifts and talents that are embedded in my soul like blood in my veins, and the impact of my compassion on a single human life. I have done so much inner work as I have traversed this journey called life. I have made daily choices to see and experience the people and the natural world around me yet, I did not realize the importance of choosing to look for me beyond the blindspots. I believe that blindspots can occur through so many ways including the lies that others tell us about ourselves. Lies like, “You are too much…(pick your word)”, “You will never…”, “You are not… .” Lies that diminish who we really are in the world and the impact we make. In believing those lies we make ourselves smaller and smaller until we disappear into the background.

Moments…. moments that impact, that stir, that challenge… these moments continue to inform me that there is soooooo much more to this life, to people, to experience, and to myself than can be seen on first glance. Single moments have the capacity to create an awakening in places within that have been just waiting rise up and say, “Here I am!!” Allowing those moments, making space for their teaching, accepting their glorious and challenging insights, helps me to become even more open, more aware, and more ready to grow and hopefully be witness to a truth I have come to believe wholeheartedly….. Just a little Hope is all it takes.

Change Makers – Lux

Morning for me is a time where thought unravels into words and the words collect to form what I feel in my heart and soul. It is a special time of day that I have come to call “sweet.” It is a sweet space where my heart and soul communicate with my thinking, rational (or irrational 🙂 ) brain. I love morning.

As I was resting in that sweet space this morning, I watched as my mind captured the picture of a powerful Change Maker in my life. I met this powerhouse six years ago as she came into my life like an F-5 tornado. She turned my world upside down and then rearranged it to work for her. I needed her in ways that only the passing of time has revealed. My soul smiles when I think of her and our experiences together. Her presence alone fills the space around her with all the fullness and excitement life could possibly muster. She is a truly remarkable human being who truly suits her name… which means…. “light,” but not just any light… in its oldest translation it is from a verse from the old text of the book of Genesis where God says, “Let there be light.” This light was daylight, not just a hundred watt light bulb, and let me tell you, Lux is no hundred watt light bulb!! She is ten thousand lumens of light……

I knew she was who I would be writing about this morning as I opened my eyes and jumped out of bed. As I sat down in the morning sun, coffee in hand, I opened my phone and the picture above was waiting to be opened. I read that sign and smiled because Lux, my six year old granddaughter, is in this world to create a new one. And when I am wrestling with knowing that I also do not fit, Lux seems to find a way to teach me that it is okay. It is okay to be in the constant process of change and to live this life full on and full out. It is a gift to be here and to touch this planet and its inhabitants with authenticity, compassion, and love. Yeah, she can be hard for some to handle because she refuses to be contained, but that is a remarkable part of her. I am finding myself becoming me as I spend more time watching her and learning from her the ways to be in the world. To not make myself less so that others can handle me but to just simply let me out and let others adjust… or not.

There is a great deal I have learned from Lux. Her way of teaching is the action behind the words of such people as Mahatma Gandhi when he said, “It is easy to stand with the crowd, but it takes courage to stand alone.” Lux is simply unafraid to stand alone. When her peers are doing something she would rather not, she simply turns around and goes off to do her own thing. She does not sulk and, if some come to join her, she makes space for them. It’s really very simple. Oh, there are times when she feels there is an injustice afoot where her voice volume rises up to match her, and we all take notice, but even in that, there is something to be learned.

As I was growing up I learned, like many, to adjust me and my voice to the world around me. Therefore, I became silent. Invisible. A shadow observer. Lost. I scaled me down so as to not make waves or make people uncomfortable. I turned my volume down so much that I lost my voice. I gave away what Lux refuses to give up. My voice. I allowed people, and the expectations they had of me, silence me. I allowed people to determine whether or not I was worthy to be seen and when people decided I was not worthy, I hid. I became unseen. When I did step from the shadows because of an injustice that stirred my soul, I was not understood. I went so far inside myself that I lost my capacity to feel like I even had a right to be in the world.~~~~~~~~~

I have lived what feels like a million lifetimes of heartache, loss, pain, and trauma and through it all I have learned there is significant healing power in being seen, heard, and understood by at least one person. Lux has always seen, heard, and somehow had the profound capacity to understand me. My healing journey has shown me that the capacity to see, hear, and understand another is the foundation of the Change Makers in this world. It is also important to be aware that, as we heal and grow, we evolve and a new sense of Self arises. This is a process that requires continuity. As I evolve, my need to be seen, heard, and understood also evolves. At times I need more connection and other times I need less. For me, true healing work begins in the inner landscape first and, healing within means change without…. and so my need to be seen, heard, and understood changes to reflect my new way of being in the world. There was a day I needed desperately to be seen, but right now, I just know I am seen by some that have the capacity to see me where I truly am. Words don’t confirm that knowing, action does. The action of those who, like me, are on a journey. I see the reflection of this thought in Lux. As she grows and fills out her way (not her parents way) of being in the world, it is important that I seek to see her as she is, not as she was when she was a tiny baby. I find myself needing to acknowledge the new way we communicate and the way she needs to be snuggled or even how we play. I can no longer cradle her tiny body in my arms and sing a gentle lullaby… we now sit closely, side-by-side, as she talks in full form of her experiences in the world. How I communicate with her evolving Self informs her as to whether or not I see, hear, and understand her and, when I miss something she has great capacity to inform me of my miss. I am grateful for her capacity for a couple of reasons; 1) it gives me the opportunity to try again, to consider what I must do in order for her to know that I got the message and that I care enough to deal with it and make the necessary changes ; 2) it causes me to look into the adult world through a fresh lens. I have noticed in myself and others that, as we mature (?? lol) into adults, we far too often adjust ourselves to how others choose to see, hear, and understand us and, when it is a total miss, we choose to push our Self into silence rather than to speak up and say what we need. It seems as though we are more afraid of being rejected for being “too much of something” than we are of loosing our voice. There is something very important to be learned here…. something that will stir in each of us differently….

I long to be as courageous as my granddaughter and inform my world when they miss seeing, hearing, and understanding my true Self and the me that I have become….. I pray that my heart knows that many will not see the need to make a correction and that it is not about me but rather it about their capacity for change and my capacity to forgive…. I hope that I seek always to see, hear, and understand others with the same courage that I hope to be seen with…. and, may I always remember the teaching of little six year old Lux for she truly is a Change Maker.

Change Makers – Who are they?

Change Makers, for me, are those people that influence moments of impact in the lives of others.

The people I will be writing about are mostly unaware of their ability to influence change, they are mostly unaware of how greatly they have impacted me and the world around them, and they are mostly unaware of how amazing they are as they move through life.

I want to share these people with the world. I want the world to know that we do make a difference every time we step outside of ourselves and reach into the world of another. The capacity to see, hear, and understand people is a gift, the gift of Change Makers.

Through the telling of these stories another story will be told. My own. It has become so obvious to me that my story IS because of those who saw me, heard me, and understood me. Change Makers gave rise to the opportunities for moments that impacted me and in some cases provided the beginning of a total paradigm shift to my way of seeing and being in the world.

Journey with me now as I begin to gather into the Sacred Place of Story all those who I have come to know as Change Makers.