I stumbled into a new program on my local NPR station tonight called, "The Really Big Questions." The "really big question" that was being explored tonight was "Why do people share?" I was intrigued, and I listened with rapt attention. Soon I was taking notes. Before I knew it, I could feel a blog post forming.
Contrary to what is suggested by the "economic survival of the fittest"--the assumption that we survive by trying to get more stuff for ourselves, it ends up that just the opposite is true. That didn't totally surprise me since, in my field of organizational behavior studies have long proven that people are more driven intrinsically than by external rewards, but I didn't really realize the extent to which research has shown that we feel better when we give than when we take and that asking people to do something for free leads to better inputs than when we pay for results.
In a number of studies, the results of a number of workplace studies demonstrated the same thing in other settings: offering to pay money for certain behaviors "messes up motivation." People won't do what they might have done without pay after money is offered. Even in settings in which we might normally have expected selfishness to prevail--sales teams--when team members gave to other members, the resulting team was more cohesive and performed better over the long run. There are even studies in which people will refuse their own reward if they feel that others have been treated unfairly but less equally.
Researcher Michael Norton at Harvard gave people money to spend. Some were told to spend it on themselves, and others were told to spend it on someone else. The least happy were those who spent on themselves, more happy were those who spent on someone else, and the most happy were those who gave to someone/something else that would make a positive difference in the world.
In all settings, people who gave with no expectation of receiving anything in return were happier than those who expected some kind of reciprocity.
Even Darwin from whom we have come to expect a one-against-another battle for survival, filmmaker Tom Shadyac told us in his film "I am," only used the term "survival of the fittest" twice, while using the word "love" 95 times. Cooperation, the film tells us, is the order among the most successful species.
A number of years ago I lived on a lake. I always loved this time of year when young life was springing forth in nature all around me. What I noticed very quickly is that baby geese survived at a much higher rate than baby ducks. The difference: geese parent communally, sharing the responsibility for the next generation, while ducks parented individually.
The geese would "post sentries" on the banks when their little ones where out of the water, and the sentries would happily "goose" passersby that came anywhere near their young. In the water, the adult geese would encircle the young, protecting them in all directions. In a given cohort of say 20-24 goslings, rarely would more than one or two lose their lives.
By contrast, a single duck might start with 12-14 ducklings, and within days that number would be cut in half. Rarely did more than one or two of a brood reach maturity, as the ducklings fell victim to house cats, snakes, catfish, and other predictors. Clearly the strategy of a single mother duck parenting her young flock was not as effective as the sharing and cooperation of the geese.
Last night I watched "It Could Happen To You," an old Nicholas Cage film, which explores three lottery winners and how they used their winnings. The one selfishly went on a spending spree, buying expensive clothing, furs, and enlarging her home. The other two had fun sharing their wealth. One day they showed up in a subway station and gave away subway tokens. Another day they rented Yankee Stadium for poor kids to play baseball like the big leaguers. One was a waitress who bought the diner in which she worked and set up a special table for those who couldn't afford to buy a meal. In the end, as you might expect, the two who gave the money were the happiest and were soon beloved by their whole city, while the greedy one ended up losing everything and being alone except for her mother.
"The Really Big Question" of "Why do people share?" was never definitively answered, but clearly we not only come out ahead, but we feel better when we do. I think I used to share more than I do now, but even as a small child, I was taught to tithe--give away 1/10th of what I earned. I am sure I no longer hit 10 percent, but there are a number of "causes" that I support because I think they make the world better. Like those in the study who were happiest giving to make the world better, I am happiest when I feel like in some small way I am making the world better.
We do have many things to give other than money. I think that is where I've fallen short. So, this evening, like many others, I give my words in this blog post in hopes that it will make the world better for all of us. Tomorrow I will look for others ways to share more of my time and talent.
Showing posts with label I am. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I am. Show all posts
Sunday, April 13, 2014
Saturday, January 18, 2014
Finding Kay
This is the second weekend this year that I've designated for working on my memoir. At a writer's conference I once heard a woman, who is a much more financially successful author than I am, say that when she was starting to write a book that she had to clean the oven. I've been restless today. It happens every time I write a book. Because I write from my heart and of the heart, I have to really be aligned with who I am: I have to find Kay.
Finding oneself may simultaneously be the easiest and most difficult things any of us ever does. I find it particularly challenging in my current life because so much of what I need to do to survive is very unnatural to me. (Get up at 5 a.m.) Clearly, what I do to survive are the very things that get in the way of me thriving. But surviving is important. With our wind-chill of 20 degrees today, I am glad that I've done some of those unnatural things to have a warm place to live and food in my belly.
But before I can write, I have to get back to that place of thriving. For me, that means listening to my natural rhythms and doing the things for which I have passion. I go to sleep when I am tired...usually very late. I sleep until I wake...almost always later than most mature adults would think acceptable. I do what I my inner knowing directs. Today that meant a lingering bath and facial, followed by enjoying our beautiful sunny day with a brisk walk into Cleveland Park to the post office. I love to cook (and fortunately I also love to be active,) and I listened to Splendid Table while making sun-dried tomato jam to accompany a risotto dish I will make for one of my adopted families next weekend. I felt like capturing these thoughts for the blog. Now, I am feeling like a nap.
What I notice about those days during which I listen to my natural rhythms is that I give much more attention to what is working in my life and that leads to much more appreciation for what I have. I noticed how much I am grateful that I can go for a brisk walk and how I appreciate being a 15- to 20-minute walk from most places I need to go, so I don't have to depend on a car. After too much time this week in offices and at computers, I loved moving.
I was pleased that I could go to the grocery store and purchase the ingredients for things I wanted to cook. Then, I delighted in using my kitchen, which was renovated in the last year and is full of things that remind me of time over food in Italy. From time to time, I have gazed out my living room window and felt satisfaction as I looked over the leafless trees in the park silhouetted against the cobalt-blue sky.
I've breathed more deeply and exhaled more regularly. I notice my body and how comfortable I am in it (although I would love to shed 6 more of my holiday pounds.) Unlike much of the time when I feel like I couldn't satisfy all the things others expect of me, today I am perfect in who I am: I don't need to be more or less. I just am.
Whenever I find Kay, I frequently have passing thoughts about how I lose her...again and again. Today I had the same question, but today it doesn't really matter. Today I found Kay, and her muse will inevitably follow.
Finding oneself may simultaneously be the easiest and most difficult things any of us ever does. I find it particularly challenging in my current life because so much of what I need to do to survive is very unnatural to me. (Get up at 5 a.m.) Clearly, what I do to survive are the very things that get in the way of me thriving. But surviving is important. With our wind-chill of 20 degrees today, I am glad that I've done some of those unnatural things to have a warm place to live and food in my belly.
But before I can write, I have to get back to that place of thriving. For me, that means listening to my natural rhythms and doing the things for which I have passion. I go to sleep when I am tired...usually very late. I sleep until I wake...almost always later than most mature adults would think acceptable. I do what I my inner knowing directs. Today that meant a lingering bath and facial, followed by enjoying our beautiful sunny day with a brisk walk into Cleveland Park to the post office. I love to cook (and fortunately I also love to be active,) and I listened to Splendid Table while making sun-dried tomato jam to accompany a risotto dish I will make for one of my adopted families next weekend. I felt like capturing these thoughts for the blog. Now, I am feeling like a nap.
What I notice about those days during which I listen to my natural rhythms is that I give much more attention to what is working in my life and that leads to much more appreciation for what I have. I noticed how much I am grateful that I can go for a brisk walk and how I appreciate being a 15- to 20-minute walk from most places I need to go, so I don't have to depend on a car. After too much time this week in offices and at computers, I loved moving.
I was pleased that I could go to the grocery store and purchase the ingredients for things I wanted to cook. Then, I delighted in using my kitchen, which was renovated in the last year and is full of things that remind me of time over food in Italy. From time to time, I have gazed out my living room window and felt satisfaction as I looked over the leafless trees in the park silhouetted against the cobalt-blue sky.
I've breathed more deeply and exhaled more regularly. I notice my body and how comfortable I am in it (although I would love to shed 6 more of my holiday pounds.) Unlike much of the time when I feel like I couldn't satisfy all the things others expect of me, today I am perfect in who I am: I don't need to be more or less. I just am.
Whenever I find Kay, I frequently have passing thoughts about how I lose her...again and again. Today I had the same question, but today it doesn't really matter. Today I found Kay, and her muse will inevitably follow.
Saturday, November 23, 2013
Be still! Know!
When I sat today and listened, I heard: "Be still and know that I am God" from Psalm 46. I smiled. How many times have I talked with my intentional living intensive clients about these words. Somewhere in the course of the three-day intensives, my spiritual coaching clients would hear these words, and we would talk. Usually, we would talk about stilling the noise of the world and taking time in prayer and meditation. I know I don't spend nearly enough time being still and knowing God in that way.
In Exodus 3:13 Moses asks God in the form of a burning bush who he should tell the Israelites has sent him, God replies in the next verse, "I am who I am." Depending on where my client went, sometimes we would talk about the reference of "I AM." I've often pondered God's humor, which I think is significant. How could it not be? Was God trying to tell us that each of us (who I am) is part of God? If so, was the Psalm reference God saying that we should spend more time knowing our godliness? I don't spend enough time there either.
In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, God is a verb**. What if 'God' is a verb? Not an entity or state, but an action. What if "God" as "I am" is a verb that says who each of us chooses to be is how others experience God? If God is a verb, how have I been doing on "God-ding" today? I am afraid that often the answer isn't what I would like it to be.
This morning when I heard "Be still and know that I am God," I instantly plugged in to all of these old conversations and thoughts and pondered for a bit more before asking, "What more am I to know?" The answer: "Google it!" God does have a sense of humor. :-)
Obediently, I went to Google and found a description of the Hebrew meaning of the phrase. The verbs "be still" and "know" are imperative forms that might more appropriately translated "Be still!" and "Know!"* These words were not gentle suggestions: they were orders and strong ones at that. I was struck speechless. I am ordered to be still. I am ordered to know the nature of God. I don't think this order was intended to be an activity that I fit in after work, exercise, dinner, making lunch and coffee for the next day, and watching yesterday's episode of "The Daily Show."
Whether we may think of God as a field of Love that connects us all, which I do, or we think of God as an old white man with a white beard, or various other possibilities, we are ordered to be still and know God. Maybe it is just knowing the God in each of us. We are ordered to still our minds, let all the clutter from the world around us drop away, and "know! God." I wonder if our world would be as crazy and violent if everyone of us followed our orders to "be still!" and "know!" before we go into the world each day. "Being still!" and "knowing!" is a priority, not something that we fit in if we are not so tired from all the other stuff that we fall asleep, as happened to me yesterday.
For years, I've taken at least a few minutes almost every morning to meditate, but in truth, more often than not, those few minutes are exhausted by just calming my mind from the rush of starting my day. If I am to really "be still!" and "know!" then I will need to take more time. Really?! I already get up at 5:20 more mornings. I am not sure I can get up earlier. Or, it seems to me that maybe this is really about focusing my intention on paying attention in a different way. I expect that if I focused my attention on knowing the God in me, all that other mind chatter would just fall away. Ah! I suspect that is it.
*http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Meditations/Be_Still/be_still.html
**God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism by David A. Cooper
In Exodus 3:13 Moses asks God in the form of a burning bush who he should tell the Israelites has sent him, God replies in the next verse, "I am who I am." Depending on where my client went, sometimes we would talk about the reference of "I AM." I've often pondered God's humor, which I think is significant. How could it not be? Was God trying to tell us that each of us (who I am) is part of God? If so, was the Psalm reference God saying that we should spend more time knowing our godliness? I don't spend enough time there either.
In the Jewish mystical tradition of Kabbalah, God is a verb**. What if 'God' is a verb? Not an entity or state, but an action. What if "God" as "I am" is a verb that says who each of us chooses to be is how others experience God? If God is a verb, how have I been doing on "God-ding" today? I am afraid that often the answer isn't what I would like it to be.
This morning when I heard "Be still and know that I am God," I instantly plugged in to all of these old conversations and thoughts and pondered for a bit more before asking, "What more am I to know?" The answer: "Google it!" God does have a sense of humor. :-)
Obediently, I went to Google and found a description of the Hebrew meaning of the phrase. The verbs "be still" and "know" are imperative forms that might more appropriately translated "Be still!" and "Know!"* These words were not gentle suggestions: they were orders and strong ones at that. I was struck speechless. I am ordered to be still. I am ordered to know the nature of God. I don't think this order was intended to be an activity that I fit in after work, exercise, dinner, making lunch and coffee for the next day, and watching yesterday's episode of "The Daily Show."
Whether we may think of God as a field of Love that connects us all, which I do, or we think of God as an old white man with a white beard, or various other possibilities, we are ordered to be still and know God. Maybe it is just knowing the God in each of us. We are ordered to still our minds, let all the clutter from the world around us drop away, and "know! God." I wonder if our world would be as crazy and violent if everyone of us followed our orders to "be still!" and "know!" before we go into the world each day. "Being still!" and "knowing!" is a priority, not something that we fit in if we are not so tired from all the other stuff that we fall asleep, as happened to me yesterday.
For years, I've taken at least a few minutes almost every morning to meditate, but in truth, more often than not, those few minutes are exhausted by just calming my mind from the rush of starting my day. If I am to really "be still!" and "know!" then I will need to take more time. Really?! I already get up at 5:20 more mornings. I am not sure I can get up earlier. Or, it seems to me that maybe this is really about focusing my intention on paying attention in a different way. I expect that if I focused my attention on knowing the God in me, all that other mind chatter would just fall away. Ah! I suspect that is it.
*http://www.hebrew4christians.com/Meditations/Be_Still/be_still.html
**God Is a Verb: Kabbalah and the Practice of Mystical Judaism by David A. Cooper
Monday, October 21, 2013
Feeling My Heart
In less than a minute, I can transform my world. All I need to do is to close my eyes, concentrate on my heart space, and "breathe into my heart." I can't really explain how I "breathe into my heart." I understand the physiology of breathing which involves nose, mouth, windpipe, bronchial tubes, lungs, and diaphragm. There may be other parts, but I am fairly confident that the heart isn't one of them.
Yet, as I concentrate on my heart while I am breathing, something magical happens, my heart seems to get bigger and "vibrates"--a warm and wonderful sensation that defies description. Even more remarkable is when I imagine the breath coming through the front of my body directly into my heart. All I need to do is 3-5 of these "heart breaths" while saying "I AM." It reminds me that I am here to reflect God.
Every bit of tension melts from my body, my jaw relaxes, and suddenly I am able to be present only to what is in front of me.
What is really remarkable, other than a part of my body that isn't supposed to be involved in respiration actually "breathing" is that I don't do this more often during the day. I am back to work again today, and as much as I had pledged to stay present--to reflect God and receive God from others--I quickly slipped into autopilot. I was nearly home when I noticed the tension in my shoulders reminding me to breathe into my heart. Almost as fast as I had the thought and started to breathe, the magic happened, as it always does.
This should be a no-brainer, but clearly the only "no brain" part of it for me is no brain between my ears engaged in remembering how simple it is to connect. Another choice point for me--that time and place when I become conscious, recognize that I have a choice, and choose differently...in this moment. For this moment, I am choosing differently.
Yet, as I concentrate on my heart while I am breathing, something magical happens, my heart seems to get bigger and "vibrates"--a warm and wonderful sensation that defies description. Even more remarkable is when I imagine the breath coming through the front of my body directly into my heart. All I need to do is 3-5 of these "heart breaths" while saying "I AM." It reminds me that I am here to reflect God.
Every bit of tension melts from my body, my jaw relaxes, and suddenly I am able to be present only to what is in front of me.
What is really remarkable, other than a part of my body that isn't supposed to be involved in respiration actually "breathing" is that I don't do this more often during the day. I am back to work again today, and as much as I had pledged to stay present--to reflect God and receive God from others--I quickly slipped into autopilot. I was nearly home when I noticed the tension in my shoulders reminding me to breathe into my heart. Almost as fast as I had the thought and started to breathe, the magic happened, as it always does.
This should be a no-brainer, but clearly the only "no brain" part of it for me is no brain between my ears engaged in remembering how simple it is to connect. Another choice point for me--that time and place when I become conscious, recognize that I have a choice, and choose differently...in this moment. For this moment, I am choosing differently.
Tuesday, October 8, 2013
Remembering Who I AM
We are now seven days into the government shutdown. Can it only be seven days? I feel like September 30, my last worked day, was a different lifetime ago. In many ways, it was. Just a quick review of what these seven days have brought to me: regular exercise and meditation, healthier eating, sufficient sleep, and a week up close and personal with my last book -- The Game Called Life.
A week ago I was numb. Intuitively, I knew what I needed to do to reawaken, but I had so lost touch with Kay Gilley, the human being, that there were times I could hardly remember who she was. I knew that I felt most alive when I was writing. I could recall the deep satisfaction of coaching people on their spiritual paths. An image of myself on stage delivering my last speech--maybe my best ever--was emblazoned on my brain, but so distantly that I struggled to think that it was really me. Yet, no matter what I tried, I couldn't find that person again.
I had taken leave to write several times over the last couple of years, but nothing came. How could it be? Words used to come tumbling out of me like a gushing waterfall after a heavy spring rain. Once there was a list of titles for books that I wanted to write some day. But, I would sit and stare at my computer, and nothing came.
Then I was furloughed.
The work on The Game Called Life has helped me awaken the spiritual coach/guide/mentor. Writing this blog has gotten the words flowing again.
As I have been doing since the Jewish New Year, this morning I started my mediation with the affirmation with "I am Love." An "almost echo" came back at me: "I AM." In the stillness, I repeated "I AM." After a few moments of repeating "I AM," I saw Kay again. I saw myself on the keynote stage again, delivering a keynote address that brought the audience to joyful tears as they remembered who they were. In a line of the speech was born a new book. Then came another.
I remembered who I AM. I am not sure how I lost her, but there is one thing about which I am absolutely certain now: I am Kay Gilley--author, speaker, spiritual coach.
A week ago I was numb. Intuitively, I knew what I needed to do to reawaken, but I had so lost touch with Kay Gilley, the human being, that there were times I could hardly remember who she was. I knew that I felt most alive when I was writing. I could recall the deep satisfaction of coaching people on their spiritual paths. An image of myself on stage delivering my last speech--maybe my best ever--was emblazoned on my brain, but so distantly that I struggled to think that it was really me. Yet, no matter what I tried, I couldn't find that person again.
I had taken leave to write several times over the last couple of years, but nothing came. How could it be? Words used to come tumbling out of me like a gushing waterfall after a heavy spring rain. Once there was a list of titles for books that I wanted to write some day. But, I would sit and stare at my computer, and nothing came.
Then I was furloughed.
The work on The Game Called Life has helped me awaken the spiritual coach/guide/mentor. Writing this blog has gotten the words flowing again.
As I have been doing since the Jewish New Year, this morning I started my mediation with the affirmation with "I am Love." An "almost echo" came back at me: "I AM." In the stillness, I repeated "I AM." After a few moments of repeating "I AM," I saw Kay again. I saw myself on the keynote stage again, delivering a keynote address that brought the audience to joyful tears as they remembered who they were. In a line of the speech was born a new book. Then came another.
I remembered who I AM. I am not sure how I lost her, but there is one thing about which I am absolutely certain now: I am Kay Gilley--author, speaker, spiritual coach.
Friday, October 4, 2013
Helpers
I've learned a lot this week from working on the book I wrote. Almost every page has seemed to offer a spiritual lesson that I'd been choosing to ignore. Just yesterday I was reading/writing about spiritual helpers--those people who are in our lives to help us learn spiritual lessons, to perform spiritual service, and to encourage development and use our gifts and talents.
Sometime they are people who are there in an obviously helping way. My friend Amy Frost has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since we met after she read Leading from the Heart right after it came out in 1996. She has done more to bring The Game Called Life into the world than anyone. Thanks, Aim!
Other times our spiritual helpers are difficult people in our lives, but they present us with lessons we need to know but with which we struggle. I find it extremely difficult to make the leap from intellectualizing that they are spiritual helpers there for me to actually being grateful for their challenging presences in my life. There are a couple in my life right now, but I won't mention any of them by name. I will say that my friend Evelin was sent as a spiritual helper to support me in some of those lessons.
Often spiritual helpers show up in a most unusual way in our lives. I met Amy in the elevator at a conference in Mexico when she recognized my name as the author of the book she'd just read on my name badge. Another reader/helper ended up appearing in my life over Easter Dinner at her daughter's home, both of us from very different parts of the country brought together at a still different part of the country to provide me encouragement at a time when I really needed it.
Most of the time, we don't recognize spiritual helpers as such. They are just people in our lives. Today I talked with a spiritual helper that I was certain was there as a spiritual helper even as we spoke for the first time. Darwin Gillett and I have communicated by email for at least a couple years, but we couldn't remember how we knew each other. We had a conversation that would not have happened if I had not been furloughed. He had shared by email that he's between books and wants to refocus his business more specifically about the role of heart in building an effective business. Since that is something I did for many years, I thought I might have some useful thoughts to share, and I had time to actually talk with him this week.
The miracle occurred as I spoke with him. I needed to hear what I was saying to him about allowing the business to grow organically, the right people finding me, and listening to my heart. I spoke about how totally aligned I'd felt when I was writing, speaking, coaching, and consulting. I am so grateful for this furlough and so grateful I decided to reach out to him. As we spoke, I finally honored my knowing that I have several books to get out. Choice Point has been gathering dust since the late 90s, and Leading from the Heart has been crying for a second edition since Butterworth-Heinemann closed the division that published it and The Alchemy of Fear over a decade ago.
When I think about how lifeless and under-utilized I feel on my current job and how energized I've been this week, working on my blog and my e-book, it doesn't take a magician to figure out what I should be doing. But, then there is that money thing. I don't know how that part works out, but I do know that I am awake again. This afternoon I am able to feel who I AM again. That's all I need to know for now. I am confident a spiritual helper will come along to show me the way.
Sometime they are people who are there in an obviously helping way. My friend Amy Frost has been one of my biggest cheerleaders since we met after she read Leading from the Heart right after it came out in 1996. She has done more to bring The Game Called Life into the world than anyone. Thanks, Aim!
Other times our spiritual helpers are difficult people in our lives, but they present us with lessons we need to know but with which we struggle. I find it extremely difficult to make the leap from intellectualizing that they are spiritual helpers there for me to actually being grateful for their challenging presences in my life. There are a couple in my life right now, but I won't mention any of them by name. I will say that my friend Evelin was sent as a spiritual helper to support me in some of those lessons.
Often spiritual helpers show up in a most unusual way in our lives. I met Amy in the elevator at a conference in Mexico when she recognized my name as the author of the book she'd just read on my name badge. Another reader/helper ended up appearing in my life over Easter Dinner at her daughter's home, both of us from very different parts of the country brought together at a still different part of the country to provide me encouragement at a time when I really needed it.
Most of the time, we don't recognize spiritual helpers as such. They are just people in our lives. Today I talked with a spiritual helper that I was certain was there as a spiritual helper even as we spoke for the first time. Darwin Gillett and I have communicated by email for at least a couple years, but we couldn't remember how we knew each other. We had a conversation that would not have happened if I had not been furloughed. He had shared by email that he's between books and wants to refocus his business more specifically about the role of heart in building an effective business. Since that is something I did for many years, I thought I might have some useful thoughts to share, and I had time to actually talk with him this week.
The miracle occurred as I spoke with him. I needed to hear what I was saying to him about allowing the business to grow organically, the right people finding me, and listening to my heart. I spoke about how totally aligned I'd felt when I was writing, speaking, coaching, and consulting. I am so grateful for this furlough and so grateful I decided to reach out to him. As we spoke, I finally honored my knowing that I have several books to get out. Choice Point has been gathering dust since the late 90s, and Leading from the Heart has been crying for a second edition since Butterworth-Heinemann closed the division that published it and The Alchemy of Fear over a decade ago.
When I think about how lifeless and under-utilized I feel on my current job and how energized I've been this week, working on my blog and my e-book, it doesn't take a magician to figure out what I should be doing. But, then there is that money thing. I don't know how that part works out, but I do know that I am awake again. This afternoon I am able to feel who I AM again. That's all I need to know for now. I am confident a spiritual helper will come along to show me the way.
Sunday, September 29, 2013
Being
Yesterday I wrote about being present--being fully where we are when we are there. As I've continued to ponder "being present," I am brought back to one of my favorite topics: being. Leading from the Heart, my first book, was about our being: who each of us is, stripped away from the "having" and "doing."
Sometimes I have waves of "knowing" when something seems perfectly clear for the first time, and then I realize I had known that before. So it is with "being" today. I had this realization that "being" is looking inwardly to listen, feel, and hear who we are. Earlier I spoke (Beginning Again, 9/22/13) about the message, etched on the back of each of our hearts, that we brought into this life. When we are "being," we are attuned to that message. We may not be able to articulate what it is, but we "know" who we are and why we are here. It is the internal of "being present," except that this "being present" is being present to this moment on the inside.
Then, I realized that is what I wrote in Leading from the Heart. I've known it for at least 20 years. But I also knew it 15 years ago when I wrote Choice Point and 11 years ago when I was writing The Game Called Life. Why does it suddenly seem like such a spiritual breakthrough? Because I am writing again? When I am writing, what I know in my heart pours onto the page without passing through my brain. I think what is different this time is that I seemed to really "get it" without my keyboard. It was just there when I was making a salad for lunch, and it was there when I was watching something on TV, and it was still there when I awakened from my nap.
When I am present to what I know in my heart, I am perfectly attuned to the larger "I Am," a knowing of what we all know when we are in the ribbon of love that connects us, heart to heart, across time and space. I suspect that it is part of the universal message that we all know in our hearts, but maybe it is my message to bring to the world. Or maybe when I bring it to the world, others will awaken to that universal message.
There is a line in the Hindu sacred text The Upanishads about "the sleeping state that men call waking." I was struck speechless when I read it for the first time. We autopilot through life, moving about as if we are awake, but really we are in some kind of trance. It is only in the moments when we choose to "be present" to the world around us or "be" present to our hearts that we are really awake. We re-member our purpose, and we find the courage to be it. Now. Being...in the present.
Sometimes I have waves of "knowing" when something seems perfectly clear for the first time, and then I realize I had known that before. So it is with "being" today. I had this realization that "being" is looking inwardly to listen, feel, and hear who we are. Earlier I spoke (Beginning Again, 9/22/13) about the message, etched on the back of each of our hearts, that we brought into this life. When we are "being," we are attuned to that message. We may not be able to articulate what it is, but we "know" who we are and why we are here. It is the internal of "being present," except that this "being present" is being present to this moment on the inside.
Then, I realized that is what I wrote in Leading from the Heart. I've known it for at least 20 years. But I also knew it 15 years ago when I wrote Choice Point and 11 years ago when I was writing The Game Called Life. Why does it suddenly seem like such a spiritual breakthrough? Because I am writing again? When I am writing, what I know in my heart pours onto the page without passing through my brain. I think what is different this time is that I seemed to really "get it" without my keyboard. It was just there when I was making a salad for lunch, and it was there when I was watching something on TV, and it was still there when I awakened from my nap.
When I am present to what I know in my heart, I am perfectly attuned to the larger "I Am," a knowing of what we all know when we are in the ribbon of love that connects us, heart to heart, across time and space. I suspect that it is part of the universal message that we all know in our hearts, but maybe it is my message to bring to the world. Or maybe when I bring it to the world, others will awaken to that universal message.
There is a line in the Hindu sacred text The Upanishads about "the sleeping state that men call waking." I was struck speechless when I read it for the first time. We autopilot through life, moving about as if we are awake, but really we are in some kind of trance. It is only in the moments when we choose to "be present" to the world around us or "be" present to our hearts that we are really awake. We re-member our purpose, and we find the courage to be it. Now. Being...in the present.
Friday, September 27, 2013
The Truth Will Set Me Free
This post is longer than usual, but spiritual wrestling matches are rarely short and sweet. I hope you will ride this one with me.
Several religious traditions have some concept of God as mystery. I have written and spoken at length about "Not-Knowing" as a place where we know we don't know but we are consciously seeking the Truth. Ambiguity reigns. I've called "Not-Knowing" the most quintessentially spiritual state that we can hold. These ponderings--and they truly are ponderings--come from that place of "Not-Knowing," where I know two things that appear to contradict each other. AND, I have not yet reached a higher level of Truth where I can see how both are true.
Two or three times a year I adopt a few spiritual statements to guide my growth over the next few months. I recently adopted seven new ones. Four I can get my head around, but I am still learning to live them. Three are really stretching me:
I believe it was the I Ching that first said, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Apparently, this student must be ready, because before the ink was dry on my affirmations, my Socratic teacher began presenting questions. Three big questions have presented me with the opportunity (translate that as hard spiritual work) to discover the Truth that will set me free. Lest you think I've gotten there, spirituality is a journey, and right now I have no idea where this one is going.
I've often had people ask me after an address or presentation, "How can you say that someone like Adolf Hitler is Love? How can you say that we should want to connect with him?" Twenty years ago I hadn't really "gotten" exactly how complex and ambiguous the Mystery could be. I would often reply that what Hitler did was horrible. However, because things were so horrible, we now had the United Nations where we could work things out and hold dictators accountable over a conference table instead of a battleground. (OK. I admit that was naïve even in the mid-90s when we thought that global transformation was right around the corner.)
Now, I ponder. There are people who do evil things. Genocide does still exist. Dictators continue to kill their own people. One ethnic group kills another on a massive scale over and again. On a smaller scale, individuals walk in with guns and regularly shoot a dozen others (or more) before they are stopped. Individuals steal pensions or homes from hard-working individuals. Other individuals lie, cheat, and steal to intentionally harm others. Can they and I both be Love?
In my as-yet unpublished book Choice Point--Seven Keys to Living with Intention I quote columnist Tom Ehrich from his "On the Journey" newsletter:
I am a pacifist by nature, and I have opposed most military actions of this government in my life time. I think there can almost always be a better way to resolve a problem than war. Solving violence with more violence has never made sense to me on either a micro or macro level. Violence is self-destructive. From my ribbon of love perspective, violence injures what connects us. When we hurt others, we hurt ourselves. Yet I have been horrified as I have watched several genocides where the world saw fit to do nothing. What are we to do?
The more immediate questions that my teacher has presented are much more personal. The second troubling question was presented almost as quickly when one more mentally ill man who had acquired a gun shot a large number people and did so not very far from where I work and live. It is much easier for me to have compassion for someone with mental illness than it is for all the people that crossed his life (or those of several before him over the last few years) and chose not to show him the compassion to insist he get help. I have to go back to what Arent said. Have all of our consciences stopped working that it is easier to turn the other way than to insist than to get help for someone? And perhaps the bigger question is why it is so difficult to get help for someone before they commit massive acts of violence. If the Truth will set me free, what am I to do with this?
On a much more micro level, the third question my teacher has presented to me is how to relate to a person with whom I must interact almost daily who engages in behaviors which are destructive to others. I am keenly aware of the consequences in saying something: the history and career trajectory of whistleblowers is ugly. Yet the consequences of not saying something is even uglier: think of all the people who lost everything in scandals like Enron and the 2008 financial melt-down.
I am grateful that I have been blessed with extremely high integrity bosses and those business owners that patronized my business were almost always scrupulous about doing the right thing. I don't know if I had just been lucky in the past or if things have changed, but clearly some of the people around me in recent years have been aiming lower.
A few years ago I sat in a meeting and listened to my boss lie to a client. When we walked out of that meeting, she literally looked at my colleague and me and said, "It isn't ever going to happen." When I probed more, "Everyone does it," was the answer. I wrestled with what the right thing to do was, but about that time the client retired and I was offered a different assignment. I started to write that it was easy to just forget. That is not the Truth. I never forgot. That I did nothing and didn't know what to do still eats at my soul.
Just a few months later, the same boss was misrepresenting what we could and would do to my new client. I knew I couldn't continue to work in that environment. I was just beginning to recover from the havoc the dot.com bust had wreaked in my life: I needed the job. I began praying for a door to open, and at warp-speed one did. Within an hour, I had a job offer, and they wanted me as soon as possible. I was able to get out of the situation, but once again the fact that I didn't do anything has eaten at my soul--pinpricks in my integrity is what I called this in The Game Called Life. In both situations people and organizations were hurt. I am certain that I couldn't have stopped the behavior in either case. If I am Love, and my clients are Love, how could I do nothing? A few months later I contacted the second client, met him for lunch, and apologized. He said that he knew it wasn't me. That felt a little better. But I am back to Arent's proposition that multiple consciences have stopped working for us to get to the point that doing bad things is OK if everyone else is doing it.
Once again I am in a situation in which I am witness to bad behavior, don't know in advance to stop it, and observe deaf ears from those who could and should stop it. Ugly personal consequences to me resulted when I attempted to stop it. I could live with those consequences if something changed, but they didn't. Things got worse instead of better.
Thank you, teacher. I am really grateful for this lesson. ;-) How do I act from love and compassion, how do I avoid injury to others including the perpetrator, and how do I feed the ribbon of love in this situation? I am certain the Truth will set me free. Sooner would be nice.
What I know in my heart today is that knowing the right thing to do isn't always apparent or easy, but staying in the Mystery to allow a Higher Level of Truth to become clear will set me free.
Several religious traditions have some concept of God as mystery. I have written and spoken at length about "Not-Knowing" as a place where we know we don't know but we are consciously seeking the Truth. Ambiguity reigns. I've called "Not-Knowing" the most quintessentially spiritual state that we can hold. These ponderings--and they truly are ponderings--come from that place of "Not-Knowing," where I know two things that appear to contradict each other. AND, I have not yet reached a higher level of Truth where I can see how both are true.
Two or three times a year I adopt a few spiritual statements to guide my growth over the next few months. I recently adopted seven new ones. Four I can get my head around, but I am still learning to live them. Three are really stretching me:
- I am Love.
- The Truth is: We are all Love.
- The Truth will set me free.
I believe it was the I Ching that first said, "When the student is ready, the teacher will appear." Apparently, this student must be ready, because before the ink was dry on my affirmations, my Socratic teacher began presenting questions. Three big questions have presented me with the opportunity (translate that as hard spiritual work) to discover the Truth that will set me free. Lest you think I've gotten there, spirituality is a journey, and right now I have no idea where this one is going.
I've often had people ask me after an address or presentation, "How can you say that someone like Adolf Hitler is Love? How can you say that we should want to connect with him?" Twenty years ago I hadn't really "gotten" exactly how complex and ambiguous the Mystery could be. I would often reply that what Hitler did was horrible. However, because things were so horrible, we now had the United Nations where we could work things out and hold dictators accountable over a conference table instead of a battleground. (OK. I admit that was naïve even in the mid-90s when we thought that global transformation was right around the corner.)
Now, I ponder. There are people who do evil things. Genocide does still exist. Dictators continue to kill their own people. One ethnic group kills another on a massive scale over and again. On a smaller scale, individuals walk in with guns and regularly shoot a dozen others (or more) before they are stopped. Individuals steal pensions or homes from hard-working individuals. Other individuals lie, cheat, and steal to intentionally harm others. Can they and I both be Love?
In my as-yet unpublished book Choice Point--Seven Keys to Living with Intention I quote columnist Tom Ehrich from his "On the Journey" newsletter:
"...As Hannah Arent wrote in her disturbing study of Nazi German, that evil empire could not proceed unless evil became banal, or common. For something obviously wrong to proceed, multiple consciences must stop working. Entire communities must grow numb and choose not to see any connection between abusive behavior and oneself."After the recent gassing of 1300 people in Syria, I was incredulous that polls showed that most Americans could see no reason for our involvement. We could only have grown numb and chosen not to see any connection between the chemical attacks and ourselves. (I am delighted that a diplomatic alternative to military action emerged. My issue is that a large percentage of people--70 to 80 percent-- were unable to connect the dots between what was happening in Syria and the harm we were allowing to ourselves as part of the larger human community.)
I am a pacifist by nature, and I have opposed most military actions of this government in my life time. I think there can almost always be a better way to resolve a problem than war. Solving violence with more violence has never made sense to me on either a micro or macro level. Violence is self-destructive. From my ribbon of love perspective, violence injures what connects us. When we hurt others, we hurt ourselves. Yet I have been horrified as I have watched several genocides where the world saw fit to do nothing. What are we to do?
The more immediate questions that my teacher has presented are much more personal. The second troubling question was presented almost as quickly when one more mentally ill man who had acquired a gun shot a large number people and did so not very far from where I work and live. It is much easier for me to have compassion for someone with mental illness than it is for all the people that crossed his life (or those of several before him over the last few years) and chose not to show him the compassion to insist he get help. I have to go back to what Arent said. Have all of our consciences stopped working that it is easier to turn the other way than to insist than to get help for someone? And perhaps the bigger question is why it is so difficult to get help for someone before they commit massive acts of violence. If the Truth will set me free, what am I to do with this?
On a much more micro level, the third question my teacher has presented to me is how to relate to a person with whom I must interact almost daily who engages in behaviors which are destructive to others. I am keenly aware of the consequences in saying something: the history and career trajectory of whistleblowers is ugly. Yet the consequences of not saying something is even uglier: think of all the people who lost everything in scandals like Enron and the 2008 financial melt-down.
I am grateful that I have been blessed with extremely high integrity bosses and those business owners that patronized my business were almost always scrupulous about doing the right thing. I don't know if I had just been lucky in the past or if things have changed, but clearly some of the people around me in recent years have been aiming lower.
A few years ago I sat in a meeting and listened to my boss lie to a client. When we walked out of that meeting, she literally looked at my colleague and me and said, "It isn't ever going to happen." When I probed more, "Everyone does it," was the answer. I wrestled with what the right thing to do was, but about that time the client retired and I was offered a different assignment. I started to write that it was easy to just forget. That is not the Truth. I never forgot. That I did nothing and didn't know what to do still eats at my soul.
Just a few months later, the same boss was misrepresenting what we could and would do to my new client. I knew I couldn't continue to work in that environment. I was just beginning to recover from the havoc the dot.com bust had wreaked in my life: I needed the job. I began praying for a door to open, and at warp-speed one did. Within an hour, I had a job offer, and they wanted me as soon as possible. I was able to get out of the situation, but once again the fact that I didn't do anything has eaten at my soul--pinpricks in my integrity is what I called this in The Game Called Life. In both situations people and organizations were hurt. I am certain that I couldn't have stopped the behavior in either case. If I am Love, and my clients are Love, how could I do nothing? A few months later I contacted the second client, met him for lunch, and apologized. He said that he knew it wasn't me. That felt a little better. But I am back to Arent's proposition that multiple consciences have stopped working for us to get to the point that doing bad things is OK if everyone else is doing it.
Once again I am in a situation in which I am witness to bad behavior, don't know in advance to stop it, and observe deaf ears from those who could and should stop it. Ugly personal consequences to me resulted when I attempted to stop it. I could live with those consequences if something changed, but they didn't. Things got worse instead of better.
Thank you, teacher. I am really grateful for this lesson. ;-) How do I act from love and compassion, how do I avoid injury to others including the perpetrator, and how do I feed the ribbon of love in this situation? I am certain the Truth will set me free. Sooner would be nice.
What I know in my heart today is that knowing the right thing to do isn't always apparent or easy, but staying in the Mystery to allow a Higher Level of Truth to become clear will set me free.
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