I've been writing about thoughts I've had while reading Blue Zones--9 Lessons for Living Longer from the people who've lived the longest. The last of the characteristics which centenarians in "blue zones"--those regions that have a disproportionate number of individuals who live to be over 100--shared across the globe was a "sense of purpose." I particularly liked the Okinawan's embrace of "ikigai"--the reason they get up in the morning.
While I've always felt like we have a reason that we are in the world, and I've also thought that it evolves over our lives, I've generally had the mental model of life purpose as a major contribution to the world. However, in the blue zones the reason that gets people up in the morning is a focus of activity that individuals take with them through life. For one, it is maintaining his ability to do certain physical exercises. For another, it is hiking to the top of a ridge he has scaled every day for 80 years to see the spectacular view. For still another, it is caring for her grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and sheer delight in holding her first great-great-grandchild.
Whatever it is for each of these, it is something that gets them out of bed in the morning.
I've actually been struggling with getting up in the morning during my transition period. Not in a depressed way. After a lifetime of bouncing up and hitting the day running, as the old commercial used to say, "My get-up-and-go got up and went." I have shifted to a night-owl schedule which is more natural to me. And, I really wanted not to have to b aroused by an alarm ever again. I used to wake after 7-1/2 or 8 hours of sleep, even without the alarm, so why should I need it? At first, when I slept long, I thought it was years of exhaustion accumulated and demanding rest.
Once I am up and moving, I can focus from activity to activity, and I get a reasonable amount accomplished. I've been ticking things off my to-do list, and I am pleased to say that a long Outlook task list was completed today. I've taken a number of webinars and am reading several books in parallel. When I start moving, I have plenty of focus and energy.
It's just getting started. About a week ago, I even started setting the alarm again, but except on the day when I had to report for surgery, I've shut it off and gone back to sleep. Then I read about ikigai. While I have lots to keep me busy once I am awake, I don't feel like I have a reason that compels me to get up in the morning. In large part, that is what this transition is about--finding that new purpose. But perhaps I've been aiming too high. Maybe my purpose could be as simple as living the best life to carry me to 100 or writing in this blog every day, even though there are many days when no one reads it.
What, I've been asking myself, will make me want to bound from bed the way serving my clients did when I had a regular job? (And when that was gone, it told me that it was time to find something different to focus on in my life.) I'm not there yet, but having the question will allow me to play around with some options when the alarm goes off in the morning.
Showing posts with label life's purpose. Show all posts
Showing posts with label life's purpose. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 28, 2017
Sunday, August 28, 2016
Making Meaning
I finished Cameron Diaz's Longevity Book a few weeks ago. It is a fascinating study of all of the human systems and how we age--not necessarily getting old; it describes how our bodies age, pretty much from birth. As the book is drawing to a close, Diaz relates that when she turned 40, she was interested in understanding what it meant physically to pass this milestone.
This natural curiosity propelled her into an intriguing scientific investigation, which she generously shares with readers. She continues to say that in this process, she came to understand that it was her job to create meaning in her life, which she did in researching and writing the book. Then, she challenges the reader to create meaning in their own lives.
I've heard this message countless times. I've even written it a few dozen times...or more. But this time, as I read her words, they took me in a different direction. As someone who had little formal education in science until a few years ago, Diaz followed her natural curiosity like a string she was following to see where it led. The reader can feel her excitement throughout the book. There is a breathless quality to it.
I recall that over 20 years ago now when I was in one of many edits for Leading from the Heart, one of the leaders I'd asked to read the manuscript criticized it saying that there was a breathless quality to it, just like I was discovering something new. While there was nothing I wrote that was new to me, following my own inspiration was an exciting journey. I recall going many hours without food, water, or other biological relief because I was so excited about what was unfolding on the computer screen in front of me.
Last week I began briefings at the conclusion of a five-month organization assessment. This one was particularly intriguing because of the interrelatedness and complexity of the organizational dynamics. I said more than once over the last month as I was pulling my data together that it was like pulling apart a knotted ball of yarn.
Reading Diaz's charge, I realized that, while I enjoy making change in organizations, what really flips my switches is figuring out the puzzle and developing a hypothesis about what will address the challenges that people in that situation face. I love getting things started. Grinding it out over several years, not so much.
That is important to me, especially as I move to a new job. As I define who I am in my profession, I will do so more intentionally with what brings meaning to me as the focus of my work. I've used the "What brings life to me, what brings me to life" guideline in this blog before. Too much of what I've done in recent years has sucked the life right out of me...and I let it.
Over the years, I've coached a number of people who were bent upon discovering what their life's purpose is, and I've always encouraged them to think about purpose as more of a process than a destination. If we think of purpose as an endpoint, we have no room to grow as the world changes and as we grow and develop. If, by contrast, we think about making meaning in this moment, we are able to continue to evolve for the rest of our lives.
As I think about Diaz's book which gracefully describes what happens in every one of our physical systems, I see great parallel. Our cells don't leap frog from birth to death in an instant, they go through many stages of life. Similarly, our respiration, our hearts, and other systems are vastly different as a newborn, a toddler, a teen, a young adult and a senior citizen.
Our purpose should evolve similarly. Tomorrow, I start my last week in a job that has borne frustrations and accomplishments. I will be very mindful about how my spiritual development is transition as I end this job and move next week to another.
This natural curiosity propelled her into an intriguing scientific investigation, which she generously shares with readers. She continues to say that in this process, she came to understand that it was her job to create meaning in her life, which she did in researching and writing the book. Then, she challenges the reader to create meaning in their own lives.
I've heard this message countless times. I've even written it a few dozen times...or more. But this time, as I read her words, they took me in a different direction. As someone who had little formal education in science until a few years ago, Diaz followed her natural curiosity like a string she was following to see where it led. The reader can feel her excitement throughout the book. There is a breathless quality to it.
I recall that over 20 years ago now when I was in one of many edits for Leading from the Heart, one of the leaders I'd asked to read the manuscript criticized it saying that there was a breathless quality to it, just like I was discovering something new. While there was nothing I wrote that was new to me, following my own inspiration was an exciting journey. I recall going many hours without food, water, or other biological relief because I was so excited about what was unfolding on the computer screen in front of me.
Last week I began briefings at the conclusion of a five-month organization assessment. This one was particularly intriguing because of the interrelatedness and complexity of the organizational dynamics. I said more than once over the last month as I was pulling my data together that it was like pulling apart a knotted ball of yarn.
Reading Diaz's charge, I realized that, while I enjoy making change in organizations, what really flips my switches is figuring out the puzzle and developing a hypothesis about what will address the challenges that people in that situation face. I love getting things started. Grinding it out over several years, not so much.
That is important to me, especially as I move to a new job. As I define who I am in my profession, I will do so more intentionally with what brings meaning to me as the focus of my work. I've used the "What brings life to me, what brings me to life" guideline in this blog before. Too much of what I've done in recent years has sucked the life right out of me...and I let it.
Over the years, I've coached a number of people who were bent upon discovering what their life's purpose is, and I've always encouraged them to think about purpose as more of a process than a destination. If we think of purpose as an endpoint, we have no room to grow as the world changes and as we grow and develop. If, by contrast, we think about making meaning in this moment, we are able to continue to evolve for the rest of our lives.
As I think about Diaz's book which gracefully describes what happens in every one of our physical systems, I see great parallel. Our cells don't leap frog from birth to death in an instant, they go through many stages of life. Similarly, our respiration, our hearts, and other systems are vastly different as a newborn, a toddler, a teen, a young adult and a senior citizen.
Our purpose should evolve similarly. Tomorrow, I start my last week in a job that has borne frustrations and accomplishments. I will be very mindful about how my spiritual development is transition as I end this job and move next week to another.
Saturday, June 4, 2016
Contemplation
A story bubbled up several times in my meditation today that I remember hearing years ago. A baby chick was struggling to break free of the egg shell in which it had been gestating. Tap! Tap! Tap! Its little beak hit the inside of the encasement. Tap! Tap! Tap! Finally, a tiny crack appeared. For hours this process continued, and at last the tiniest of holes appeared, and the beak could be seen as it worked to broaden the opening.
A well-meaning human observer thought he would help the chick so he broke the shell open to liberate the baby bird. Very shortly after breaking the shell open, the baby bird died. Apparently, process of fighting its way out of the shell develops the bird's lungs sufficiently that it will be able to sustain respiration when it finally emerges from the shell. By breaking the encasement open for the chick, the human helper robbed the baby bird of the work which would allow it to live.
During an interview a few months ago on Oprah's "Super Soul Sunday," author and philosopher Sister Joan Chittister described "contemplation" as "seeing the world as God sees it." I am in a period of transition, and sometimes it has felt to me like I am that baby bird, attempting to break free of the shell, or in my case the box, in which I've been trapped.
As the story of the bird breaking free drifted into my awareness today, I thought that God must be watching me struggle to break free, all the while knowing that the strength I gain in the struggle will be what enables me to thrive in whatever comes next.
An Eastern adage, from the I Ching if I remember correctly, advises that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. My own experience is that when a student is ready, many teachers agree. Everywhere I turn a lesson will be repeated for me until I "get it."
I am certain that it was not a coincidence that I ran into someone yesterday, who is a reader of this blog. As she walked toward me, she said, "No blog posts!" I gave the feeble excuse about my job consuming me that has become old and pathetic even to me.
Then I shared that I had given notice that no later than the end of the summer I was leaving the job with which I've struggled. I don't remember her exact words, but it was something like, "We've all been watching you struggle and wondering why you don't just get out of there." Once again I could imagine myself like that bird, struggling to break free.
As I contemplated the image of the bird struggling to develop its lungs so that it can sustain respiration outside the egg shell, I was able to see my life in three distinct phases. In two, I struggled significantly. In the third, between the periods of struggle, my life flowed like a daily miracle.
I thought about God watching me and wondered what had flipped the switches from struggle to flow and back to struggle again. Yet I saw no sign posts that pointed and said definitively, "This is what changed it," in either direction. However, from the perspective of looking at myself in those three distinct phases, I was struck that during the struggling phases I excelled as using skills I'd developed at doing work I didn't particularly like, but because it was valued by my employers and/or clients, I performed the work for money. It was usually important work that helped people, but it wasn't my work.
In the miracle phase, from early morning until I often fell into bed exhausted from a vigorous evening of dancing, life flowed from my natural gifts and talents. I embraced every moment of life passionately. Again, I performed important work that helped people, but in the miracle phase, it was my work.
While the most popular coach training and certification, both of which I have, requires that coaches work with their clients to set specific, measurable, achievable goals, during the period of my life which flowed easily I allowed my life to be led by intentions, instead of goals. Deep inner knowing guided me on mysterious journeys, which I could not have imagined from my wildest goal-setting mind.
One measure about which I have written in this blog previously is the intention to follow "life." To ask myself, "Does this bring me to life? Does it bring life to me?" If it "flips my switches," then it is almost certainly a path I should follow, and if it doesn't, that also is good data--information that I should walk away from that opportunity.
When my life was flowing, I didn't live by a goal to be a certain level in the company, revenue level in my business, or make a certain amount of money. I lived by the intentions from The Game that brought me to life. In my current struggled, I've focused too much on being of service (and I am certain that I have been of service,) to the neglect of the lessons I needed to learn and using my real gifts and talents.
In this moment of contemplation, I believe that I finally can see Kay as God sees her. After years of watching my struggle, this morning I am certain that God displays a broad grin, knowing that I have finally developed the strength to sustain me when I break out of my shell. What allows me to thrive is truly being who I know I am in my heart.
A well-meaning human observer thought he would help the chick so he broke the shell open to liberate the baby bird. Very shortly after breaking the shell open, the baby bird died. Apparently, process of fighting its way out of the shell develops the bird's lungs sufficiently that it will be able to sustain respiration when it finally emerges from the shell. By breaking the encasement open for the chick, the human helper robbed the baby bird of the work which would allow it to live.
During an interview a few months ago on Oprah's "Super Soul Sunday," author and philosopher Sister Joan Chittister described "contemplation" as "seeing the world as God sees it." I am in a period of transition, and sometimes it has felt to me like I am that baby bird, attempting to break free of the shell, or in my case the box, in which I've been trapped.
As the story of the bird breaking free drifted into my awareness today, I thought that God must be watching me struggle to break free, all the while knowing that the strength I gain in the struggle will be what enables me to thrive in whatever comes next.
An Eastern adage, from the I Ching if I remember correctly, advises that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. My own experience is that when a student is ready, many teachers agree. Everywhere I turn a lesson will be repeated for me until I "get it."
I am certain that it was not a coincidence that I ran into someone yesterday, who is a reader of this blog. As she walked toward me, she said, "No blog posts!" I gave the feeble excuse about my job consuming me that has become old and pathetic even to me.
Then I shared that I had given notice that no later than the end of the summer I was leaving the job with which I've struggled. I don't remember her exact words, but it was something like, "We've all been watching you struggle and wondering why you don't just get out of there." Once again I could imagine myself like that bird, struggling to break free.
As I contemplated the image of the bird struggling to develop its lungs so that it can sustain respiration outside the egg shell, I was able to see my life in three distinct phases. In two, I struggled significantly. In the third, between the periods of struggle, my life flowed like a daily miracle.
I thought about God watching me and wondered what had flipped the switches from struggle to flow and back to struggle again. Yet I saw no sign posts that pointed and said definitively, "This is what changed it," in either direction. However, from the perspective of looking at myself in those three distinct phases, I was struck that during the struggling phases I excelled as using skills I'd developed at doing work I didn't particularly like, but because it was valued by my employers and/or clients, I performed the work for money. It was usually important work that helped people, but it wasn't my work.
In the miracle phase, from early morning until I often fell into bed exhausted from a vigorous evening of dancing, life flowed from my natural gifts and talents. I embraced every moment of life passionately. Again, I performed important work that helped people, but in the miracle phase, it was my work.
While the most popular coach training and certification, both of which I have, requires that coaches work with their clients to set specific, measurable, achievable goals, during the period of my life which flowed easily I allowed my life to be led by intentions, instead of goals. Deep inner knowing guided me on mysterious journeys, which I could not have imagined from my wildest goal-setting mind.
One measure about which I have written in this blog previously is the intention to follow "life." To ask myself, "Does this bring me to life? Does it bring life to me?" If it "flips my switches," then it is almost certainly a path I should follow, and if it doesn't, that also is good data--information that I should walk away from that opportunity.
What I believe to be life's intentions were detailed in my book The Game Called Life. These are intentions that I say are written on the back sides of our hearts and were designed to be our internal compasses:
1. Lessons Learned--Will this help me learn a lesson that my soul needs to learn in this life? Or is it a lesson the world needs me and others to learn at this time to evolve humanity?
2. Develop skills and talents--Am I using the unique skills, talents and gifts that I was given for this journey to help me serve the world?
3. Do work put in front of you—What is the purpose for what you are doing at this moment? How will what you are doing serve to make the world a better place?
When my life was flowing, I didn't live by a goal to be a certain level in the company, revenue level in my business, or make a certain amount of money. I lived by the intentions from The Game that brought me to life. In my current struggled, I've focused too much on being of service (and I am certain that I have been of service,) to the neglect of the lessons I needed to learn and using my real gifts and talents.
In this moment of contemplation, I believe that I finally can see Kay as God sees her. After years of watching my struggle, this morning I am certain that God displays a broad grin, knowing that I have finally developed the strength to sustain me when I break out of my shell. What allows me to thrive is truly being who I know I am in my heart.
Monday, October 13, 2014
Do What You Love, and Love What You Do
In my "Layers of Learning" post (October 9,) I shared that my year-end/year-beginning reflective time this year had not led to any major Aha! moments, but instead kept presenting lessons that I have already been working on for years, only in different forms. Every time I would bump into a lesson and examine it, I would almost always see familiarity. "Oh, that again!" This week I'd like to explore the three big lessons that I will continue to focus on this year.
"Do What You Love, and Love What You Do" may actually be two, but they seem to fit together so I am going to consider them as one.
"Do What You Love" has haunted me for some time. I love writing. I love dancing. Right after those two come cooking tasty and healthy food and watching movies. I am actually much better about the cooking and watching movies than my core loves of writing and dancing. Perhaps that is because I need to eat every day, and I want to eat healthfully. In a lot of ways, I've let cooking become a survival activity rather than a passion.
The difference in how I approach what I love ties to the "Love What You Do" part of the lesson. Over the weekend, I watched a movie (twice) about a chef who really was passionate about his cooking. In the movie, we see him growing and harvesting his own vegetables and herbs and deriving great pleasure in "listening to his heart" as he cooked. At one point, viewers see him mentoring an aspiring chef by blind-folding her so that she will learn to listen to her inner knowing about food.
Too often, my cooking has fallen into an auto-pilot activity rather than being something I approach with the passion of the movie chef. It wasn't always so. There was a time when I approached cooking as a dance, engaging with the food I was preparing with great joy. I still enjoy going to the Farmers' Market around the corner on Saturday morning, but rarely do I stop and drink in the sights and smells and let my imagination run wild the way I used to do. I recall a time when I would walk out on my deck with a bowl and grab hands-full of fresh herbs, which I'd use to make up recipes.
It's been way too long since I had a relationship with the food I prepare. I blame time, but when I am honest with myself, I know that it doesn't take appreciatively longer time to engage and really experience the love of what I am doing than it does to do the same activity mindlessly. The difference isn't time. The difference is consciousness and intention. I bring the intention to be really awake to my passion for the activity, and then I am conscious of doing so.
What else is true is that when I bring that intention and consciousness to my efforts in the kitchen, my whole being changes. I am physically relaxed. I am spiritually engaged. I am joyful. I am creative. My activities are easy, effortless, and enjoyable--in a "flow" state when I lose track of time and everything else. When I consume the products of effortless labor, I truly en-joy them...I am in joy with what I eat. Until I face the dirty pots and pans, all lines are blurred into a single oneness of being. (Even clean-up is less onerous when I allow myself to flow to it.)
Although I watch a lot of movies, the same thing might be said of how I experience them any more. More often than not, the movie comes at the end of a very long day, and watching a movie is a passive activity to keep my exhausted body awake until a respectable hour for an adult to go to sleep. I don't really engage with the movie most of the time.
Saturday I joined in a ritual movie event with two friends who also love movies. Every couple of months, the screenwriter in our trio picks two classic films for us to watch. In the middle, we usually take a walk and cook/eat together. I was conscious this time about how different it is when I participate in these conscious-viewing events than the passive consuming, which has become my norm. As with cooking, I will bring more attention and intention to my passion for movies in the future. I will not only do what I love, but I will consciously bring love to the movies I watch.
I hesitate to call the other two things that I love "activities." Each is at the core of my being. I've had the conversation with people in the dance community before that there are "dancers," and there are "people who dance." "People who dance" can take it or leave it. They could as easily go bowling or play tennis if they were in a relationship with someone who enjoys those activities.
"Dancers," by contrast, are one with dance. They could more easily give up breathing than dance. Dancing almost instantly takes them into a "flow" state where the dimensions of time and space drop away. I've had evenings when I had a good partner(s), good music, and a good floor, when the time for the "last waltz" was announced, and I felt as if I'd just arrived. I had totally lost track of time. Once I danced for seven hours straight, and it felt like a flash.
There are often moments of "other worldliness" to a single dance, too, when the partners will just look at each other at the end of the dance because they know something magical just happened. (This is not a romantic thing; it is a dance thing. I really don't know how else to describe it.)
Similarly with writing: it is who I am. I carry a knot on the second finger of my right hand from writing since I could hold a pencil. When I sit and get in the flow, it just comes. I lose track of time and bodily needs, often going hours without food, water, or elimination. I just don't notice. I wrote The Game Called Life in five days, one day writing 32 pages. I really don't know how I did it. As with the "other worldliness" of the magical dance, I always feel like I am one with some divine force within me when I write.
There are excuses why I have not been writing and dancing much recently. I could blame the long hours at work, but that is getting lame. I know that I've been unconsciously choosing work over my passions. My colleagues with families leave work earlier to be with what they love, but until now, I've not made it my intention to put what I love first. I have other excuses, too, but they all boil down to being conscious of my intentions and then acting on them to assure that I do what I love.
A third dimension of loving what I do and doing what I love looms for me. It involves the actual work I do. Organization development is a wide field. Some parts of it I really love. Others, not so much. Some parts of the profession that I used to really love have burned me out. Call it compassion fatigue. What used to flip my switches now sends me into a semi-fetal position at my desk.
When I had my own business, I made a conscious decision to turn away work that I didn't enjoy. As an employee consultant, that is a luxury I no longer have. I do what I am assigned to do. "We all have to do things we don't enjoy," I am told. I have expressed my desires, but mostly they have been disregarded. I need to either learn to love the "not-so-much" stuff and do it with love, or I need to find another way to earn a living that allows me to do what I love. Maybe both.
As you can see, the Universe has left me a lot of room to grow myself this year in "Do What You Love, and Love What You Do," and at its essence that lesson is to be intentional and then be conscious of how I live my life. I should be "in love" all the time. That is how we are intended to be. At that point, I believe I've segued from spiritual lessons to life purpose.
Friday I Skyped with a friend in Canada, and I said to him that this was going to be a year of intense personal growth. He asked me how I knew. "The lessons I am working on this year are at the very core of who I am," I said.
While I am certain that I will pass through these lessons more times in what I expect to be a long life, I am confident that if I embrace them this year they will profoundly impact the rest of my life, bringing joy and resilience to my days. I feel like if I can "get it" this time, I may be in a position to really do the transformational work with others that I am here to do. While humbling, the prospect is exciting...and terrifying.
I recall the words of an executive that I coached 20 years ago. They resonated such truth that they are always with me. She said that she had become convinced that when we were on our uniquely defined, divine path that we would simultaneously feel unabated joy and sheer terror. As I embrace this year's lessons, they foreshadow just such a spot in my life.
"Do What You Love, and Love What You Do" may actually be two, but they seem to fit together so I am going to consider them as one.
"Do What You Love" has haunted me for some time. I love writing. I love dancing. Right after those two come cooking tasty and healthy food and watching movies. I am actually much better about the cooking and watching movies than my core loves of writing and dancing. Perhaps that is because I need to eat every day, and I want to eat healthfully. In a lot of ways, I've let cooking become a survival activity rather than a passion.
The difference in how I approach what I love ties to the "Love What You Do" part of the lesson. Over the weekend, I watched a movie (twice) about a chef who really was passionate about his cooking. In the movie, we see him growing and harvesting his own vegetables and herbs and deriving great pleasure in "listening to his heart" as he cooked. At one point, viewers see him mentoring an aspiring chef by blind-folding her so that she will learn to listen to her inner knowing about food.
Too often, my cooking has fallen into an auto-pilot activity rather than being something I approach with the passion of the movie chef. It wasn't always so. There was a time when I approached cooking as a dance, engaging with the food I was preparing with great joy. I still enjoy going to the Farmers' Market around the corner on Saturday morning, but rarely do I stop and drink in the sights and smells and let my imagination run wild the way I used to do. I recall a time when I would walk out on my deck with a bowl and grab hands-full of fresh herbs, which I'd use to make up recipes.
It's been way too long since I had a relationship with the food I prepare. I blame time, but when I am honest with myself, I know that it doesn't take appreciatively longer time to engage and really experience the love of what I am doing than it does to do the same activity mindlessly. The difference isn't time. The difference is consciousness and intention. I bring the intention to be really awake to my passion for the activity, and then I am conscious of doing so.
What else is true is that when I bring that intention and consciousness to my efforts in the kitchen, my whole being changes. I am physically relaxed. I am spiritually engaged. I am joyful. I am creative. My activities are easy, effortless, and enjoyable--in a "flow" state when I lose track of time and everything else. When I consume the products of effortless labor, I truly en-joy them...I am in joy with what I eat. Until I face the dirty pots and pans, all lines are blurred into a single oneness of being. (Even clean-up is less onerous when I allow myself to flow to it.)
Although I watch a lot of movies, the same thing might be said of how I experience them any more. More often than not, the movie comes at the end of a very long day, and watching a movie is a passive activity to keep my exhausted body awake until a respectable hour for an adult to go to sleep. I don't really engage with the movie most of the time.
Saturday I joined in a ritual movie event with two friends who also love movies. Every couple of months, the screenwriter in our trio picks two classic films for us to watch. In the middle, we usually take a walk and cook/eat together. I was conscious this time about how different it is when I participate in these conscious-viewing events than the passive consuming, which has become my norm. As with cooking, I will bring more attention and intention to my passion for movies in the future. I will not only do what I love, but I will consciously bring love to the movies I watch.
I hesitate to call the other two things that I love "activities." Each is at the core of my being. I've had the conversation with people in the dance community before that there are "dancers," and there are "people who dance." "People who dance" can take it or leave it. They could as easily go bowling or play tennis if they were in a relationship with someone who enjoys those activities.
"Dancers," by contrast, are one with dance. They could more easily give up breathing than dance. Dancing almost instantly takes them into a "flow" state where the dimensions of time and space drop away. I've had evenings when I had a good partner(s), good music, and a good floor, when the time for the "last waltz" was announced, and I felt as if I'd just arrived. I had totally lost track of time. Once I danced for seven hours straight, and it felt like a flash.
There are often moments of "other worldliness" to a single dance, too, when the partners will just look at each other at the end of the dance because they know something magical just happened. (This is not a romantic thing; it is a dance thing. I really don't know how else to describe it.)
Similarly with writing: it is who I am. I carry a knot on the second finger of my right hand from writing since I could hold a pencil. When I sit and get in the flow, it just comes. I lose track of time and bodily needs, often going hours without food, water, or elimination. I just don't notice. I wrote The Game Called Life in five days, one day writing 32 pages. I really don't know how I did it. As with the "other worldliness" of the magical dance, I always feel like I am one with some divine force within me when I write.
There are excuses why I have not been writing and dancing much recently. I could blame the long hours at work, but that is getting lame. I know that I've been unconsciously choosing work over my passions. My colleagues with families leave work earlier to be with what they love, but until now, I've not made it my intention to put what I love first. I have other excuses, too, but they all boil down to being conscious of my intentions and then acting on them to assure that I do what I love.
A third dimension of loving what I do and doing what I love looms for me. It involves the actual work I do. Organization development is a wide field. Some parts of it I really love. Others, not so much. Some parts of the profession that I used to really love have burned me out. Call it compassion fatigue. What used to flip my switches now sends me into a semi-fetal position at my desk.
When I had my own business, I made a conscious decision to turn away work that I didn't enjoy. As an employee consultant, that is a luxury I no longer have. I do what I am assigned to do. "We all have to do things we don't enjoy," I am told. I have expressed my desires, but mostly they have been disregarded. I need to either learn to love the "not-so-much" stuff and do it with love, or I need to find another way to earn a living that allows me to do what I love. Maybe both.
As you can see, the Universe has left me a lot of room to grow myself this year in "Do What You Love, and Love What You Do," and at its essence that lesson is to be intentional and then be conscious of how I live my life. I should be "in love" all the time. That is how we are intended to be. At that point, I believe I've segued from spiritual lessons to life purpose.
Friday I Skyped with a friend in Canada, and I said to him that this was going to be a year of intense personal growth. He asked me how I knew. "The lessons I am working on this year are at the very core of who I am," I said.
While I am certain that I will pass through these lessons more times in what I expect to be a long life, I am confident that if I embrace them this year they will profoundly impact the rest of my life, bringing joy and resilience to my days. I feel like if I can "get it" this time, I may be in a position to really do the transformational work with others that I am here to do. While humbling, the prospect is exciting...and terrifying.
I recall the words of an executive that I coached 20 years ago. They resonated such truth that they are always with me. She said that she had become convinced that when we were on our uniquely defined, divine path that we would simultaneously feel unabated joy and sheer terror. As I embrace this year's lessons, they foreshadow just such a spot in my life.
Sunday, January 5, 2014
Pieces of the Whole
I always look forward to my holiday greeting from colleague Suzan Thompson. I always enjoy seeing what new directions her work as a therapist has taken in the last year. However, because she is a fabulous and generous artist, her greetings often contain a small piece of art. I had a favorite on my refrigerator door for several years.
Yesterday was the big day, and I admit to ripping the envelope open in the elevator the minute I saw the return address. (I suppose it might have been more appropriate to wait until I could fully appreciate the opening experience, but delayed gratification has never been one of my strong suits.)
This year's gift was different than the individual pieces in the past. This year she created an incredible collage, called "Pieces For You." Then, she cut it up and sent pieces to her friends, along with a link to her blog where we could see the whole artwork*. I've inserted it below.
Yesterday was the big day, and I admit to ripping the envelope open in the elevator the minute I saw the return address. (I suppose it might have been more appropriate to wait until I could fully appreciate the opening experience, but delayed gratification has never been one of my strong suits.)
This year's gift was different than the individual pieces in the past. This year she created an incredible collage, called "Pieces For You." Then, she cut it up and sent pieces to her friends, along with a link to her blog where we could see the whole artwork*. I've inserted it below.
I loved the piece, but I have to confess to studying to see which piece of the whole I had received. (My piece came from the bottom right, and it included the heron and a key.) We emailed back and forth, and I said I loved being able to find where my piece was in the whole, and I added, "...if we only knew exactly where our piece was in the Whole." The truth of that statement stuck with me.
If we could only know exactly where our piece was in the Whole, what difference would it make? When I think of Suzan's lovely collage as a metaphor for our roles in the world, I can imagine that when one of us decides not to follow our intuition or chooses to take a job that was more money than the one for which we had passion, that there might be blank rectangles where our piece should have been. If many of us don't do our part pretty soon the beauty of the whole canvas is obscured.
This Aha! moment hit me particularly hard on a weekend in which I have gotten back to serious writing for the first time in a while. I'd hate to think that in the greater scheme of things that my busyness with other things has removed an essential component(s) from the Whole. Yet, I know that is true. The Universe isn't designed with extra or disposable parts. Each of us is essential, and we all make a difference.
In the future I plan to use Suzan's collage with my piece missing as a mental image of what happens when I choose not to show up for Life. I can't imagine her artwork with a missing piece, just as I'm sure the Universe can't imagine Life without my piece.
*For more details about the collage and appropriate viewing music, you may visit Suzan's blog at http://magicwonderandmiracles.blogspot.com/.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)