Visiting an orphanage takes you to places you don’t expect. It’s not the orphanage, the kids, the conditions, and the needs. It’s the places in your heart that become opened and exposed. First to yourself, and then, if you let it, to your companions. As you meet the eyes of a child, a connection is made. The only language the heart can truly hear is love. When in a foreign land, it may be the only way you can communicate.

Today we visited two orphanages in Bangkok, Thailand. The first was for kids with disabilities. We come as six friends and colleagues to see how we may bring some joy, if even for a moment to a child. Scott has toys, stickers and magic tricks. Jana brings her guitar and gift of song. Laurie is ready to lead the Hokey Pokey. Shari will demonstrate the three kinds of laughter. Mark will film and capture some magical moments and me… well I get to share a word or two though the translator and then loose myself in holding children who reach out for hugs or to be picked up.

We are careful ask how we may interact and the do’s and don’ts and protocols. It is our desire to strive to bring dignity to each moment. Yet, once within the orphanage with our gracious hosts from Hope Worldwide… Well it’s six friends and a group of kids.

So in we go for our first visit and within moments it seems that all is forgotten and children begin to coax us out of ourselves with their smiles and hugs. As the barriers of communication begin to quickly drop, so do the walls around each of our hearts. It’s our gentle prodding of our play coupled with their joy that meets across the atrium and within moments kids are reaching out for hugs and to be lifted from the concrete, into your caring embrace. Try to set a child down and they lift their feet as to say, “I can’t touch the ground, so not yet. Please, not yet. Just play with me in such a way that I get to be hugged.”

So this morning we both give and receive hugs for hello. The trinkets we leave behind are memories of the play and touch, the smiles and song, the laughter and the grace of connecting hearts… even if for just a moment.

It’s interesting that as we come to reach out, hoping to make even a small difference, they in turn give us a gift of opening our hearts. Often the waves of tears we experience are not about the conditions of the orphanage; it’s the condition of our own hearts being revealed. So you meet and know each other a bit… and yourself even more. Hugs for hello…

Here I sit at the airport as I wait to depart to Asia for two weeks of adventure, presentations and orphanage visits with several friends and colleagues.  It is a time of introspection when I go this far away to open my heart to the unknown.  That is retreat. To take time away to be still, ask bigger questions and reflect upon my life and purpose.  It begins by separating myself from the familiar, the tasks, responsibilities and busyness of the day and asking the questions; “Am I really living the way I want to live? Is this the life that I was given to live, be and do? Is what I choose to trade it all for meaningful?”

To have a deeper life, a life filled with meaning, I need to step back and ask deeper questions.  It’s within the quality of my questions that I invite new discovery into the fabric of my life.

To step back is to retreat, yet retreat is not surrender. When I step back I reflect on my deepest values and priorities and seek areas of alignment.

I invite you to share in my questions, asking yourself: “Do my beliefs, goals, and values match my own behaviors? What are the deeper voices within my heart saying about the work, relationships and activities that make up my day? What if they are telling me the truth about who I am and about the course of my journey? Will I listen?”

It’s possible that the quiet whispers within you are not supposed to go away until you respond. Maybe it’s time to reshape the landscape of your future, work, family and life purpose.  Will you allow yourself, challenge and even force yourself to slow down and create space to be present to the answers?
The next two weeks I travel throughout Asia. The greater distance may very well be the distance from my head to my heart. Possibly the gift that I think I am to deliver to others is really a discovery of what is waiting for me. Will I be still, be present and allow all that this may bring?

I encourage you to take the time to make way for what’s next. Can you take the risk to let go of what stands in the way? Will you show up to embrace and hold up to the light the promptings of your spirit that give you the gift of a different, more authentic, fulfilled future. Celebrate who you were created to be Say yes to all of you.