The Spiritual Sweet Spot

I find it interesting how sometimes variations in a theme repeat throughout the day. Today the theme was about being comfortable with not knowing.  In a coaching session, an executive wrestled with planning for five years from now in a world so dynamic that no one could really know what that world would be like.

Later in the day I met with another executive, who knew his organization needed to change, but how it needed to change was unclear.

Over dinner before my tango class I received an email from a friend, who related a tumultuous summer during which she has continually had changes thrown on her path over which she's had no control... and all have left her hanging without answers. I found myself responding, "Ah! The spiritual sweet spot!"  I've written a lot about not-knowing "as a way of life," but I don't believe I've ever used that term.  Yet, it seemed just right.

I googled "the sweet spot," and it said the sweet spot is "the point or area on a bat, club, or racket at which it makes the most effective contact with the ball."  It added that the sweet spot was "an optimum point or combination of factors or qualities."  Just the right term.  The spiritual sweet spot is that point in our relationship with All That Is where we make most effective contact--an optimum point or combinations of factors to allow us to really connect with God.

My intention in my comment was that most traditions have some dimension of "God," which is mystery.  The times when I feel closest to God are the moments during which I am conscious that what happens is really out of my hands, so I might as well surrender to divine wisdom rather than attempting to control the uncontrollable.  To be "the sweet spot," I believe we really must be conscious that we are out of control but be both available and vulnerable to divine inspiration. 

When I've written about "not-knowing as a way of life," my message has been that we choose to embrace life from a place of knowing that we never really know, so we allow ourselves to always be available and vulnerable to divine inspiration.  It is about consciously holding the intention to allow ourselves to be guided--to live in sweet surrender.

I related yesterday that this evening I would walk to my dance class, take the class, and then perhaps write this post on my smartphone on the way home on the train.  As I walked from class to the Metro station, I puzzled over what to write.  I was tired, and nothing seemed to be there.  Quite appropriately, the moment I sat down and took out my phone, the thought of "the spiritual sweet spot" came to me.  That is often how these posts happen.  I just sit in "receive mode," and something always comes.  So, this article on the "spiritual sweet spot," was born from the spiritual sweet spot.  What could be truer?

 

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Being in the Not-Knowing

Yesterday I wrote that "Not-Knowing as a Way of Life" had been being pushed into my face a lot recently.  Then, when I wrote about it, the floodgates burst open.  Mostly, nothing huge has been turned over, but little things that I thought might be true have been upended all day.  One larger idea has been set spinning, not enough to be totally upended, but certainly enough to cause me to examine it for depth and complexity.

So what is all of this about?  When I started this blog I said that I didn't intend to share answers but to examine questions with which I grappled on my spiritual journey.  That has never been truer than today. 

History tells me that when I write about something I am issuing to the Universe an invitation to send me lessons.  From the onset of writing Leading from the Heart, a book about courage, I was repeatedly tested for courage.  By the time it was published three and a half years later, my life had been taken apart, piece by piece, and put together again, once again piece by piece, very consciously and intentionally.  The putting together required me to look into the crevices and the foundations of my life and discover what was true...and then have the courage to act upon it. 

Leading from the Heart had not been released when I started working on The Alchemy of Fear, obviously a book about fear...and love...and once again, everything that I truly feared in life looked me in the eye and demanded that I choose the love/God option rather than fear.

At that point, I said I was going to stop writing. I'd spent five to six years learning about fear and courage.  Not a walk in the park. Well, of course, it is ridiculous to say I was going to stop writing.  I'd been writing since I could hold a pencil and have a permanent knot on the side of my middle finger to prove it.  I could no more stop writing than I could stop breathing.

So, I thought, I'll write about a subject that will be fun to learn about.  Choice Point is my as-yet-unpublished book on intention.  Now, one might think that intention would be a trip.  Not!  I was writing about the intentions of our soul to do what we came into the world to do.  Unless you are really dense, you've already figured this one out: I had to really listen...a lot...to what my soul wanted.  You will note that I said my "as-yet-unpublished book"--I am still in lesson on that one.

The Game Called Life was easy.  I love it.  It has been straight-forward and describes how I aspire to live.  Yet, even my beloved The Game Called Life has been playing games with me as I prepare it for electronic version.

Last night, I wrote about "not-knowing."  I really don't know (appropriate) how this one is going to turn out.  I do know that things I hoped to be certain 24 hours ago are much less so now.  I have no answers on this one.  I am sitting with the questions, which, in truth, seems appropriate for a topic like "not-knowing."  I am back in school, as if we aren't always.  :-)

Not-knowing as a Way of Life

Most of the time I sit quietly before writing this blog, and a topic gently floats into my awareness.  Then I write. Not so today.  Sometimes it feels to me like the Universe is beating me over the head with a topic that I need to revisit.  So it is with not-knowing as a way of life. I've been writing about it for at least two decades, and I am still a student of its wisdom.  Everywhere I've turned in the last couple of weeks, I have found myself talking about this topic. I can really tell it is serious when I start nervous eating when I think of it.  I am going to save myself a few thousand calories and explore it more.

There is a relationship between chaos, complexity, and spiritual growth.  I've observed it in individuals; I've observed it in groups.  The simplified, I'm-not-a-physicist explanation of chaos theory says that chaos is always implicit in order.  The easy way to explain this is that no matter how much we think we know how things are in our lives, every now and then, the Universe sends us a learning moment.  This happened to me when my husband came home from his run and told me he wanted a divorce.  He was showered, shaved, packed, and gone in 30 minutes!  Wow! I really didn't see that one coming.

I had a client once who came home to his "happy" home at the end of his normally long work day to find an empty house.  I am not saying no one was at home, although that was true.  I am saying it was empty.  Not a lick of furniture...or anything else. Four walls: that was it. He says he had no clue.  Someone else was awakened in the middle of the night with a call from the police, saying that his teenager had been arrested. One of the most fit 40-year-olds that I have known was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease. You get the idea: we are coasting along in la-la land, and something is hurled at us with no warning.  That creates a moment...or many moments of chaos.  If we are honest with ourselves in the moments that follow, we really are clueless about what is real.

In that period of exploration--for purposes of chaos theory, let's call it complexity--we know that the world is certainly not what we thought it was, but we are in the figurative "wilderness," trying to figure out what is true.

I have observed two ways in which people explore the "wilderness."  The unconscious way takes many forms, but in short, this approach uses whatever will numb the reality that our life isn't as we thought.  Drugs, alcohol, sex, food, starvation, purging, the three-gallons of ice cream break-up...you get the idea.  Inevitably, if we take that journey, weeks, months, or years down the line, knowing nothing more about what is real, we will have another wake-up call, telling us that our world isn't as we thought it was.  Normally, a succession of wake-up calls will continue until the Universe has our full attention.

For those of you who have read my book The Game Called Life, this is the space where Lizzie found herself when she fell across her steering wheel, sobbing for help, "There has to be a better way."

 Let's call that the second way, what I call "not-knowing." In this approach, we can engage the wilderness. I would like to distinguish "not-knowing" from "I don't know."  "I don't know" is passive.  It is the shrug of the shoulders of not caring. 

"Not-knowing" by contrast is active.  Instead of coasting through the wake-up call, we engage in self-exploration, attempting to know self and the world around us in a new way.  "Not-knowing" embraces this transition as an opportunity to grow in wholeness.  This is where Lizzie found herself after Helen answered her call for help.

If we kick around in "not-knowing" long enough, an Aha! moment inevitably burst into consciousness.  Suddenly one day when we least expect it (walking down the street, and it hits you,) you will see the world in a whole new way. Almost always this new world offers rich possibilities we had not considered before. 

For those who dislike uncertainty, I hate to relate that life is a sequence of wake-up calls: they cannot be avoided.  "Not-knowing as a way of life" is an attitude toward life that assumes the chaos as a given.  If chaos is always implicit in order, why not just accept it, embrace it, and flow with it.  Life becomes a series of opportunities to learn and grow into ever expanding possibilities.

I am not a surfer, but this is how I imagine it must be life to go for ever bigger waves.  What might once have been intimidating can become a real rush...without drugs, alcohol, sex, or any of those numbing agents...a natural high that leads higher and higher.  Stepping into our potential by growing regularly, not just when the Universe grabs us by the scruff of the neck and says, "Hey, dude! Listen to me."

During a webinar that I took today, the facilitator teaching about improving communication and listening said, "Just assume you don't understand."  She may have been talking about "not-knowing as a way of life."  Just assume you don't understand, and embrace the adventure of learning and growth.  What else is there that is really important?

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 am Love.
• The Truth is: We are all Love.
• The Truth will set me free.

I have written and spoken at length about the first two, yet when I really "sit" with them now, incongruities have been bubbling up.  I truly believe that "I am Love" and that "We are all Love," and I believe my purpose is to help people to live from conscious connection between the "Love" that each of us is with the "Love We All Are."  I've called it the ribbon of love that winds from heart to heart connecting all of us. 

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.