From Susanne: Loving With Intention and Without Agenda

Today is the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. The day with the most light to accomplish or illuminate.

This season gives us an opportunity to observe and see into our own self-led journey. I am just recently home from leading some important corporate programs and people often ask me about choice. They often ask, “How do I bridge the gap between my vision and the vision of my partner or the vision of the company I work for?” So let me tell you this story.

When I was a single parent living in Boulder. I had a wonderful housemate. His name is Charlie. While I would go off and work at the bomb plant, Charlie owned and operated a small high end acoustic company in Boulder. I remember one summer day simply making the choice to love him—not romantically, not sexually, not in any kind of a woo-woo way, but as a human being and as someone with whom I was sharing my home. Charlie was part of my physical atmosphere, the atmosphere where I was raising my two boys. This all happened well before I created the Lightyear methodology, yet what I can tell you is that as soon as I made that choice everything got easier. Whether deciding who was going to do the dishes, how we were going to divide the cost of a lawnmower or the cost of a washer and dryer—it all came from this choice of being loving.

I never stopped Charlie and said, “Hey Charlie, I’ve made a choice to love you.” I didn’t need to. I could feel the difference in how he responded to me and how I was able to assist him in making strategic decisions about his small business. In my self-led journey of love and choice, much of what I learned, experienced, and discovered led me to build the methodology that many of you know as Lightyear Leadership.

Charlie and his business partner Peter were cyclists and they would go on rides all the time as many people in Boulder do. One morning while I was clearing the back porch and playing with my boys, Peter and Charlie brought over this guy named Brett. I was a single Mom and at that time I often invited men into my life to do things with the boys and I called them my “Bench.” What I didn’t know was that Charlie and Peter were giving Brett the “Susanne tour,” and I was actually being set up.

In choosing to uplift my own personal and intimate environment by loving Charlie, I was rewarded with many things including an introduction to my husband of 25 years. On this day at the peak of light as you engage in your own self-led journey, where can you love someone without agenda yet with intention?

In September of 2004 Charlie was hit by a motorcycle and became a paraplegic. I am seeing him finding freedom from pain and walking.