Day 214: Carol Moss
“I’m a new dog owner. I fell for the oldest trick in the book of children saying please ‘Please, please, we’ll take care of the dog,’ and of course they bailed as soon as the dog came along. But there’s such a pure energy that comes from him, and I just have learned so much about staying calm about ways to work, about when I relax to really relax, and to play crazily.”
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Toni Reece: Thank you so much, Carol for agreeing to be part of the Project, and before we begin, can you please introduce yourself?
Carol Moss: Sure. And first off, thank you for having me as a guest. This is really fun and exciting. My name is Carol Moss. I’m a licensed clinical social worker living outside of Chicago.
Toni: Carol, when you think of inspiration, who do you think you inspire, and how does that happen?
Carol: Well, first off, inspire is for me a divine term, so I speak from that perspective. So the people I inspire, I guess, would be my clients hopefully, through my individual work one-on-one where I work to help people feel better and to become whole. I’m also a singer, so I use my voice to inspire people, my choice of music to reach people and touch them in certain ways.
Toni: What type of music do you sing?
Carol: I love to sing cabaret music, and so those are sort of story songs that go in and have a journey — a beginning, a middle, and an end — and they’re usually a little more sophisticated than maybe some other types of music. But when people go to hear cabaret, they feel gypped if they didn’t cry a little bit. You have … we expect to have people feel.
Toni: Absolutely.
Carol: Yeah.
Toni: So how do you think you inspire others? You said that you believe that you inspire your clients, and then also the people who hear you sing – what happens? How do they become inspired?
Carol: Well, I see myself as a bit of a vessel, and I … it’s not so much what I do, it’s what I’m able to open up in them so they can see this possibility in themselves, and it may be through example. But it’s really not my intention to stand up and go “Look at me, look at me” or “Listen to me” – it’s really asking the types of questions that will lead people to look at a part of their lives that maybe they’ve been ignoring or they weren’t even aware wanted some attention, and leading them to a place of integration and wholeness. And can that happen with music? You betcha.
Toni: Can you give an example of that place of integration? What does that mean?
Carol: Well, what it means to me is that as we age, we are invited to take a look at the parts of ourselves that we may not have paid as much attention to. And what means is, let’s say we’re in the grocery store and someone cuts in line. There might be a part of us that reacts not as our chronological age, but maybe as a five-year-old like “Hey, hey! What did they just do?” So if that person … if that energy keeps showing up at other times, it could be that there’s a little piece of ourselves that needs some attention. And so the work that I do with people is we actually sit quietly and do certain things so that we can love that part of ourselves that maybe wants some attention. And by doing that, we’re not … we’re making friends with it, and we’re inviting it to become part of our whole personality.
Toni: How do you think you help others to explore their potential?
Carol: Oh, gosh. Well, I think I do that through my music, because when I get up on stage I’m basically giving other people permission to get up on stage and do that. That’s part of my intention. And certainly one-on-one or in groups, that’s how the nature of the session is to inspire people to see themselves in their fullest, most whole place and to work toward it.
I also do some coaching, so some of my coaching training shows up in that, you know, through visualization or through seeing yourself in the future and then moving backwards as to how you would fill in the gaps, but really, totally stepping into who they are as a person.
Toni: What inspires you?
Carol: Oh, a lot of things inspire me. My dog inspires me. I never thought I would like a dog.
Toni: What kind of dog?
Carol: He’s a Schnoodle; and I grew up with cats. I’m a new dog owner. I fell for the oldest trick in the book of children saying please “Please, please, we’ll take care of the dog,” and of course they bailed as soon as the dog came along. But there’s such a pure energy that comes from him, and I just have learned so much about staying calm about ways to work, about when I relax to really relax, and to play crazily. So he’s an inspiration.
I’m inspired by nature, going outside. And just right now spring is happening finally in Chicago and, boy, to see things in bloom, to see blue skies and green is just a huge inspiration and a reminder of the cycle of life that things do come back into bloom.
I’m inspired by music. Music just goes places where words can’t.
I’m inspired by my children. They are a never-ending source of frustration and growth potential and challenges. I’m inspired by my friends.
I’m most inspired probably by my clients, because I learn so much from them, and to join in with them and their struggles, and to get to a place of resolution or transformation is just the best.
Toni: Are there tools or resources that you find yourself consistently reaching for when you are seeking inspiration?
Carol: For myself or for others?
Toni: For you.
Carol: For myself, the first thing I do for inspiration is to get quiet and find a place to meditate, pray, just to go inward and to regroup, you know, sort of set that reset button. And I think after that I would rely on music, rely on physical types of things — walking, yoga, swimming. Those are more recharging sorts of things.
I’ve got tons of inspirational books, Marcus Borg and different, oh gosh, mystics and/or popular-day authors that I look to for inspiration. I get daily word of the day inspirations from a site called www.gratefulness.org that is part of David Steindl Rast’s website, and they are the most beautiful, well-put-together daily inspirations that go out.
So I don’t rely on just one thing. Sometimes a cup of coffee is in inspiration.
Toni: I would agree with that as well.
Carol: Hazelnut coffee in particular.
Toni: It has been an interesting phenomenon what’s happening with the Get Inspired! Project that a lot of people are either in the throes of their purpose and very passionate about it, or they’re at the crossroads of knowing that what they’re currently working on isn’t their purpose, and so they’re moving towards that. Have you always known what that purpose was, or has that been … did you have an “ah-ha” moment that led you there, or has it been an evolution for you?
Carol: I think it’s been an evolution for me. Hindsight, you know, 20/20 … I mean, you look back and it’s like “Oh, wow, it all fits in.” I think for me the “ah-ha” moment was when my son was five years old and was diagnosed with ADHD, and it really … I mean there are way worse things a person can be diagnosed with, but that was the biggest thing we had faced yet as a family, and it brought me to my knees, and it changed the course of my studies, my orientation to life. It just changed everything. There’s a certain … I mean, I’m very grateful in certain ways for this having opened up a different way of looking at the world to make sense.
Years later, my daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 diabetes, and as awful as that was certainly for her and for us as a family, I just felt I had so many more resources from which to pull, be it spiritual, medical, you know, just being able to look for many layers of meaning and hope.
So yeah, the “ah-ha” I think was, you know, having kids, your precious children who you have all these expectations and hopes and dreams, and when they have diagnoses of things that are … you know, it’s like “Geez, this isn’t fair,” and you have a choice to be pissed off about it, which is normal, or to say “Okay, what do I learn from this? Where’s the challenge? Where’s the gold?”
Toni: That’s pretty amazing advice, too, for people, and we’ve had some amazing stories that have been told on the Project by people who have lived through their child’s illness, and it’s been pretty amazing how they came out on the other side of it. So yes, it’s something else. What do you do, Carol, to explore your own potential?
Carol: Oh, gosh … well, self-care would be at the top of that, so I can’t do any of the other stuff if I haven’t, you know, gotten enough sleep, had enough water, and eaten good foods. Then past that, I guess, I’m always … I’m an avid learner, so I continue to train in my field. And that’s one thing I love about being a social worker is that I … it’s part of my job to keep abreast of things and then maybe even a few steps ahead of it.
So a couple of years ago, I went through a training with an organization called The Institute for Spiritual Leadership, which is in Hyde Park, and that was for me a three-year program – I did it part-time – so that I could call myself a Spiritual Director. And that was just hugely wonderful on so many levels. I met people from all around the world who are doing this work — and it’s not religious, it’s spiritual — so it’s getting into things like examining dreams and symbols and a process called focusing, and the enneagram – I don’t know if you’ve heard of the enneagram.
Toni: No, I have not.
Carol: But that’s a wonderful .. it’s a Sufi tool of analyzing personality that … it predated the … Myers-Briggs was based on the enneagram. So it really helps you to understand yourself and others. I try to take a retreat once a year, whether it’s just to go someplace and be quiet for a couple of days, or do something that’s restorative so that I can sort of regroup and remind myself of what matters.
I like spending time with my family as much as possible. That gets more difficult as they get older and they really don’t want to hang out with you. And you know, I guess on a daily basis I try to check in, you know, whether it’s through prayer, meditation, just to check in to make sure I’m filling up my wealth.
Toni: Thank you very much, Carol, for a very, very honest interview and lots of really good information for people to think about and take away what you do, you know, not only how you inspire others, but also what you need for inspiration. And sometimes those things really do go hand-in-hand, don’t they?
Carol: Yeah, they do.
Toni: It’s really been a wonderful interview, and I thank you so very much for being part of the Get Inspired! Project.
Carol: My pleasure.
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For more information about Carol Moss: www.CarolMoss.com, carolmoss.com/blog2
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