Hang on!?

I've been in such a nice place over the last few days that I've been tempted to fall into a chair with arms and legs spread open, relax, and maybe even laugh out loud.  This feels so good.  I'm having fun with class. I'm delighted with my exploration and experimenting with new healthy recipes.  I've been getting exercise.  I'm clicking one or two items off my "things-to-do" list every day. I'm not even stressing about money.

Technology challenges have dominated that list, mainly because dealing with them is usually so stress-inducing that I put them off until I can't do so any longer. Yesterday I spent two hours on a technical support call with the nicest man.  I felt like I was in good hands. During long gaps while software was uploading, we talked about a lot of things.  We laughed.  At the end, I thanked him for taking such good care of me; he said I'd made his day.

Alas the problem wasn't solved. Today, at his suggestion, I headed to the Apple Genius Bar to continue working on it. While I was there, another technician worked on a problem I was having with my new iPhone. I felt really supported by the two technicians dealing with the separate problems.  I even laughed with one of them. Not once did I feel stressed.

That was the pinch-myself moment to make sure that efforts to induce more dreams hadn't resulted in daydreams.  No, I was awake.  This was all real.

I felt so good that I mused about maybe I'd learned whatever spiritual lessons I needed to learn in this life, and I could just enjoy the rest of my life just like I've been doing the last few days.

I remembered times in the past when I'd been in similar periods of my life.  There were different spiritual lessons: not easy but I felt like I was going with the flow of the lessons, instead of struggling. The last 17 years have been a struggle, or more accurately, I've felt like I was in a river of struggles, attempting to keep my head above water.

I recall a time decades ago when I'd been drifting down the wild and scenic Rogue River in Oregon with a friend. We were at a very wide and calm spot, where we were both splayed across the raft, drinking in the sun, hats down over our faces.  Suddenly, my friend let out with an expletive, followed by "Hang on!!" Our relaxed reverie was abruptly interrupted as we went crashing over a waterfall, dropping us several feet into a pool of whitewater where we struggled and fought to move out of the whirlpool.

Each time I've been in one of these "good spots," I have would be thrust into a pool of spiritual lessons for months or even years. Each time the lessons presented to me were more challenging than the previous cycle and developed different parts of me. I have dramatically evolved spiritually during this sequence of periods of challenge.  In each, like struggling to get out of the whirlpool at the bottom of the waterfall, one day I would realize I'd finally made it out.

I'd love to think that the last--the longest by far--would be the last, but for those of us with the intention to evolve our souls, I think there must always be lessons.  In The Game Called Life I say that in our lives we have three things to accomplish:

• Be of service
• Develop our gifts and talents
• Learn the spiritual lessons our soul chose.

Quite frankly, if it is OK with the Universe, I'd really like to scratch the last off my list or at the very least allow the spiritual lesson be to learn to enjoy these wondrous moments. That's a lesson I could really get into. I would also consider spending the rest of my life working on the first two, but even as I say that I know that even doing that will bring lessons.  

For today, I am enjoying being in a good place, and I'd really like to do that for a bit longer--maybe even years.  And, if another waterfall/whirlpool awaits, I'll worry about that when it gets here.

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.