I am pretty sure I coined the phrase “cashiering as a spiritual practice.” I don’t know any other job where I could get this much practice to be my best self with scores of unique people every day. Of course, it’s easy and rewarding to serve someone who is competent, friendly, and polite. The actual spiritual practice happens when someone is not blessed with these qualities. How do I feel when a customer is on her cell phone during the entire transaction, never making eye contact, and barely a thank you? What are my thoughts when someone is overtly rude, demanding, or both? What if someone is looking down on me, as they perceive my “station in life” beneath theirs? How about the customer whose eyes are burning a hole in me because she is in a hurry and thinks the long line is my fault? With humility, I realize I’ve been “that impatient customer” before, too. See how many opportunities I have to practice every day?
Posts filed under Personal Growth
Squirrel Sense
They call it birdseed for a reason, but squirrels don’t know that. For those of us who enjoy feeding birds, squirrels can be crafty, and sometimes costly, adversaries. A hungry fox squirrel can chow down a dollar’s worth of sunflower seeds faster than a small flock of finches, which can be annoying. Or it can be entertaining.
Rite and Recognition ~ A Crazy Wisdom Exploration of Rites of Passage
What are the significant milestones along a life’s path and how do we give them meaning? The deep human need for ritualization around life’s biggest transitions — most commonly at birth, coming of age, marriage, parenthood, and death — calls us to engage in personal and communal meaning making.
The ManKind Project — First Person with Callan Loo
The ManKind Project nonprofit (MKP) hosts a signature weekend retreat program called New Warrior Training Adventure. Callan Loo answers questions about his experience.
Abandonment Blues — An Adoption Memoir
I was adopted when I was six months old. My adoptive mother told me this when I was nine. Whenever I asked whom my birth mother was she said that she didn’t know. After she died at age sixty-one, when I was thirty-five, I found letters from my birth mother amongst her papers. I found her, we met her once, but she would never tell me who my biological father was.
Coffee with Chris Forte, Author of The Humble Warrior
Chris Forte is a Birmingham-based yogi, author, spiritual fitness coach, former Division I athlete, and creator of The Humble Warrior podcast and memoir. On Christmas Day, 2014, in the midst of his marriage dissolving, Chris hit his knees on the floor and heard, “Book, blog, podcast.” He spent two years doing yoga and meditation every day, attending Hay House writing and speaking conferences, and getting certified as a yoga teacher. His book, “The Humble Warrior: Spiritual tools for living a purposeful life” came out in June 2017.
What Propels a Journey? The Peripatetic Career of Kate Soper
Kate Soper came of age in the early 1960s. She is part of the generation that ushered in a new wave of women. She is a quiet but active feminist.
