Over the weekend I read an article about chronic pain, a condition which has often held me in its grip for 25 years. I've learned to manage my pain, letting it stop me from almost nothing. A long-time friend recently expressed astonishment that I'd suffered so much, and he'd never known. If I let the pain own me, then it would win. So, I own it. I've gone for months, perhaps occasionally even a year, during which my simple practices to manage the pain left me almost unconscious of it during the day.
The decision I made to own the pain two and a half decades ago was a good one, it seems. The article said that recent brain research shows that when pain takes control of us, our brains actually change shape. Depression often results. While I've often wondered at it, I don't believe I've ever been "depressed" more than having a down day or two, when I struggled to control the pain when it wrestled vehemently to prevail.
What has always interested me is that even after long periods without the pain, the very slightest aggravation can spin me deeply back into the very worst of it, leaving me to begin once again the slow journey back to relative comfort. I've often thought that there must be a switch in my brain which takes only a small trigger to flip. Perhaps this is what the recent brain research suggests. "Don't let it get started," was the message of the article.
Just as I've been pondering this new finding, I've been walking a parallel path of flipped switches, this time as a result of my decision to give up sugar during Lent. For decades I lived a healthy eating/healthy living regimen. I liked sweet things, but they didn't control me. I owned my decisions about what to eat and what to avoid.
I really wish I could see a scan of my brain on sugar. I suspect that like the brain on pain, my brain changes contorts and takes with it every modicum of self-control. Now a scarce six days after abandoning my sweet treats, my body seems to have remembered how to be healthy. Like the switch in my brain that flips bringing or alleviating pain, my control over sugar has valiantly returned.
As surely as dancing an athletic Viennese waltz at the pace of a sprinter reminds my body how to work, the absence of sugar has reminded my impulse controls how to be healthy. When I walked through the door this evening, I was starved. I'd missed my usual afternoon snack, and I was nearly shaky. Over the last year or two, I would have headed right for the cupboard for crackers, nuts, or pretzels, accompanied by a glass of red wine, or more recently a whiskey sour. Just one, but my sugar shot nonetheless.
This evening I made a beeline to the refrigerator for a pear and iced tea. Later I craved raw nuts. I wanted to exercise. I wanted to sit and write, rather than watching another TV show. Giving up the sugar has apparently flipped a switch in my brain: the healthy living switch.
A friend and I share the stage of life when we aren't inclined to go back for more education, but we've both said that, if we had it to do over again, and neuroscience existed then, we would like to study the brain. I am fascinated by the ability of some relatively insignificant thing to slip a switch and either bring health or pain, even changing the shape of our brains.
I find it equally compelling to reflect on how I have chosen to dominate my pain, but contrarily, I've let my addiction to sugar control me. Why is it that the moment I have even a single sweet treat that I forget how good healthy habits feel? I would like to say it is simply a process of remembering what I need to do, and I think I would be right. However, I don't think it is remembering the way we most often speak of it--the cognitive way. I am quite certain that this kind of remembering is seated deep in the brain, in a switch which determines who or what runs my life.
There was a line in a movie that I watched over the weekend, spoken by a newly converted vegan, "Nothing tastes as good as this feels." I want to remember every day for the rest of the year that nothing tastes as good as this feels.
Monday, February 23, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Rebirth
Last Wednesday marked the beginning of Lent--the 40 days prior to Easter--for Christians. Observers give up substances, foods, or activities that separate them from God. They also spend time in reflection and sacred study. The idea is to examine our lives--to learn what it means for each of us to be more Godlike, arriving at the holiest of Christian holidays ready to metaphorically start our lives anew.
Sadly, many miss the purpose. "I'll give up smoking for Lent."
"I didn't know you smoked."
"Oh, I don't, so it will be easy to give up."
Lent isn't supposed to be easy. It is supposed to be an annual reset, moving us to our higher selves. While Lent is a Christian practice, it is not unique. Jews mark Passover, which commemorates their escape from bondage in Egypt to return to freedom in God's promised land for them. Lent mirrors as we escape our bondage to bad habits in order to find our way to God's promise for us.
Although each is unique to its culture, the practice of marking the seasonal spring with observance of human rebirth is millennia old. Some may say that Lent isn't a lot different than marking the New Year and New Year's Resolutions, but to me it contrasts starkly, not the least of which is that many New Year's Resolutions are forgotten within the day. In Lent I am pledged to practice for 40 days.
"Practice" is the appropriate word. "Discipline" might be another, signifying that we are disciples or students. Lent is also marked by the personal reflection, which for me is a bit like peeling an onion. Each day I, the student, explore a different layer.
For many years, I have given up sugar for Lent. I am seriously addicted, and nothing distracts me more from my God-self than sugar. Giving up sugar (and consequently alcohol) is a no-brainer for me. Each year for a few days, I experience cravings and even shakes as I give up sugar, but by now, five days into Lent, I am feeling the freedom of having it out of my system.
A couple days ago I actually began to crave exercise instead, and yesterday I ventured out in the cold and snow for a long walk. I loved it. My body loved it more. This morning I walked again, although I did so indoors to avoid the treacherous sleet-encrusted sidewalks of Washington. After a lunch that reflected my healthier eating habits, I actually sat and read. Then I wanted to meditate, which brought me to writing today. As if each good habit naturally led to consciousness of yet another and another.
My meditation did more than return me to my computer to write. I found myself questioning what I spend time on and the level of stress I experience from trying to keep so many balls in the air. I actually laughed when I thought of forgetting to bring an activity sheet to a presentation I gave on Thursday. Although I expect I will be harshly judged for this oversight, it wasn't the end of the world, and we were able to complete the activity in another way. By contrast, letting exercise drop off my schedule for much of the week has had significant long- and short-term consequences.
I'd like to think that I will arrive at Easter pledged to really have learned and practiced my more conscious way of living so that I really will have a rebirth. History indicates that will not be the case. I've actually continued without sugar until my birthday in May one year and all the way until Christmas another, but there is always a piece of chocolate tantalizing me.
But, what if this year, I actually did allow myself to live my truth? Would staying off of sugar be like the domino that didn't fall and knock the others down? Would I keep exercising and meditating? Would I write this blog more regularly again? Would I be more like God envisions my potential?
That truly would be the potential of rebirth.
Sadly, many miss the purpose. "I'll give up smoking for Lent."
"I didn't know you smoked."
"Oh, I don't, so it will be easy to give up."
Lent isn't supposed to be easy. It is supposed to be an annual reset, moving us to our higher selves. While Lent is a Christian practice, it is not unique. Jews mark Passover, which commemorates their escape from bondage in Egypt to return to freedom in God's promised land for them. Lent mirrors as we escape our bondage to bad habits in order to find our way to God's promise for us.
Although each is unique to its culture, the practice of marking the seasonal spring with observance of human rebirth is millennia old. Some may say that Lent isn't a lot different than marking the New Year and New Year's Resolutions, but to me it contrasts starkly, not the least of which is that many New Year's Resolutions are forgotten within the day. In Lent I am pledged to practice for 40 days.
"Practice" is the appropriate word. "Discipline" might be another, signifying that we are disciples or students. Lent is also marked by the personal reflection, which for me is a bit like peeling an onion. Each day I, the student, explore a different layer.
For many years, I have given up sugar for Lent. I am seriously addicted, and nothing distracts me more from my God-self than sugar. Giving up sugar (and consequently alcohol) is a no-brainer for me. Each year for a few days, I experience cravings and even shakes as I give up sugar, but by now, five days into Lent, I am feeling the freedom of having it out of my system.
A couple days ago I actually began to crave exercise instead, and yesterday I ventured out in the cold and snow for a long walk. I loved it. My body loved it more. This morning I walked again, although I did so indoors to avoid the treacherous sleet-encrusted sidewalks of Washington. After a lunch that reflected my healthier eating habits, I actually sat and read. Then I wanted to meditate, which brought me to writing today. As if each good habit naturally led to consciousness of yet another and another.
My meditation did more than return me to my computer to write. I found myself questioning what I spend time on and the level of stress I experience from trying to keep so many balls in the air. I actually laughed when I thought of forgetting to bring an activity sheet to a presentation I gave on Thursday. Although I expect I will be harshly judged for this oversight, it wasn't the end of the world, and we were able to complete the activity in another way. By contrast, letting exercise drop off my schedule for much of the week has had significant long- and short-term consequences.
I'd like to think that I will arrive at Easter pledged to really have learned and practiced my more conscious way of living so that I really will have a rebirth. History indicates that will not be the case. I've actually continued without sugar until my birthday in May one year and all the way until Christmas another, but there is always a piece of chocolate tantalizing me.
But, what if this year, I actually did allow myself to live my truth? Would staying off of sugar be like the domino that didn't fall and knock the others down? Would I keep exercising and meditating? Would I write this blog more regularly again? Would I be more like God envisions my potential?
That truly would be the potential of rebirth.
Sunday, February 15, 2015
Looks good, feels bad
I continue to slowly work on my New Year's commitment to clear the reading stack from my bed stand before new books. I have had some success. I decided that I had no interest in reading a book that my boss had loaned me two or three years ago, but have felt duty bound to read it. I gave it back on Thursday. I have finished Richard Rohr's Falling Upward, the second half from which I found quick insights. (1/30/15) And, I am feeling some urgency to dispose of others since I have two new books that I am eager to start.
I've read another 40 pages in Creative Confidence, Tom and David Kelley's book on unleashing our creativity. Not unlike Falling Upward, I had gotten stuck on Creative Confidence just before I got to the spiritual meat. The early part of their book had looked at a design process they teach at the d.school at Stanford and use with corporate clients. Not long after I picked it up to resume reading, I found myself in a chapter, entitled "Seek--from Duty to Passion," and not far into that chapter is a section head "The 'Looks Good, Feels Bad' Trap."
Quickly, "Looks Good, Feels Bad" had my full attention. They talk about having a "safe and prestigious job that makes your parents smile, impresses classmates...or sounds good at a cocktail party...." That is the "looks good" part. The "feels bad" part comes when, no matter how impressive the job looks, the person in it just doesn't feel the job is a "fit." The thing is that we often slide into such a job without consciously visiting how it feels to us once we are in it.
The Kelleys quote Robert Sternberg, "People get so bogged down in the everyday trivial details of our lives that they sometimes forget that they don't have to be trapped."
I watched a movie over the weekend in which a man was fired from his job on Wall Street, and after much consternation, he came to understand that he has been much happier living in a small town than he ever was on Wall Street.
I recalled a number of the extremely successful executives whom I had coached who found themselves trapped in jobs they didn't enjoy simply because they'd become too successful to walk away. Some entrepreneurs had a great idea, and then they found themselves running a company, which was something they'd never wanted to do.
One extraordinary heart surgeon that I coached had never even wanted to even be a doctor, but it was "the family business." He followed in the steps of his grandfather, father, and older brothers because being doctors is what men in his family did.
Some were trapped by the cost of a lifestyle that they'd somehow slipped into--much more than they ever wanted, but now they felt obligated to their families to keep them in the style to which they'd become accustomed. Many times the family would have preferred to have them at home more than working to pay for the lifestyle.
Doing what Rohr would call "second half of life work," I have pondered the "looks good, feels bad" trap in which I find myself. Is it any different to be in a looks-good, feels-bad job out of financial necessity than to be trapped there by success? Until I honestly grapple with my shadow, that would be an easy go-to position, but I can't find any credulity in it for me when I am being honest with myself. Being in a Looks-good, feels-bad job is a trap regardless of where on the economic spectrum the job incumbent finds him- or herself. And, a trap is a trap. We can't seem to find our way to freedom.
One of the instructors in the leadership program for which I've been coaching recently told a personal story last week that reminded me of the old "Um Weg" experiments. "Um Weg" is German for "one way." There have been many "Um Weg" experiments with a range of species from earthworms to house cats to human beings. In all of them, when we feel trapped, we can't see an obvious and easy way out of our circumstance, but instead repeatedly throw ourselves at the same solution over and again, even though it never works.
As Sternberg said, "People get so bogged down in the everyday trivial details of our lives that they sometimes forget that they don't have to be trapped."
I still have 70 pages to read in Creative Confidence, and I look forward to learning if the Kelleys will share any helpful insights in getting out of my trap. I think they will not. If they had answers, then I wouldn't need to do my spiritual work. I am certain that I must remember that I don't have to be trapped. I simply need to metaphorically turn and look the other way in my life where I can find a Don't-Care-How-It-Looks, Feels-Good work situation. And, I am certain that I will find it when I tap into my passion again. Who knows? It might turn out to be a Looks Good, Feels Good role.
I've read another 40 pages in Creative Confidence, Tom and David Kelley's book on unleashing our creativity. Not unlike Falling Upward, I had gotten stuck on Creative Confidence just before I got to the spiritual meat. The early part of their book had looked at a design process they teach at the d.school at Stanford and use with corporate clients. Not long after I picked it up to resume reading, I found myself in a chapter, entitled "Seek--from Duty to Passion," and not far into that chapter is a section head "The 'Looks Good, Feels Bad' Trap."
Quickly, "Looks Good, Feels Bad" had my full attention. They talk about having a "safe and prestigious job that makes your parents smile, impresses classmates...or sounds good at a cocktail party...." That is the "looks good" part. The "feels bad" part comes when, no matter how impressive the job looks, the person in it just doesn't feel the job is a "fit." The thing is that we often slide into such a job without consciously visiting how it feels to us once we are in it.
The Kelleys quote Robert Sternberg, "People get so bogged down in the everyday trivial details of our lives that they sometimes forget that they don't have to be trapped."
I watched a movie over the weekend in which a man was fired from his job on Wall Street, and after much consternation, he came to understand that he has been much happier living in a small town than he ever was on Wall Street.
I recalled a number of the extremely successful executives whom I had coached who found themselves trapped in jobs they didn't enjoy simply because they'd become too successful to walk away. Some entrepreneurs had a great idea, and then they found themselves running a company, which was something they'd never wanted to do.
One extraordinary heart surgeon that I coached had never even wanted to even be a doctor, but it was "the family business." He followed in the steps of his grandfather, father, and older brothers because being doctors is what men in his family did.
Some were trapped by the cost of a lifestyle that they'd somehow slipped into--much more than they ever wanted, but now they felt obligated to their families to keep them in the style to which they'd become accustomed. Many times the family would have preferred to have them at home more than working to pay for the lifestyle.
Doing what Rohr would call "second half of life work," I have pondered the "looks good, feels bad" trap in which I find myself. Is it any different to be in a looks-good, feels-bad job out of financial necessity than to be trapped there by success? Until I honestly grapple with my shadow, that would be an easy go-to position, but I can't find any credulity in it for me when I am being honest with myself. Being in a Looks-good, feels-bad job is a trap regardless of where on the economic spectrum the job incumbent finds him- or herself. And, a trap is a trap. We can't seem to find our way to freedom.
One of the instructors in the leadership program for which I've been coaching recently told a personal story last week that reminded me of the old "Um Weg" experiments. "Um Weg" is German for "one way." There have been many "Um Weg" experiments with a range of species from earthworms to house cats to human beings. In all of them, when we feel trapped, we can't see an obvious and easy way out of our circumstance, but instead repeatedly throw ourselves at the same solution over and again, even though it never works.
As Sternberg said, "People get so bogged down in the everyday trivial details of our lives that they sometimes forget that they don't have to be trapped."
I still have 70 pages to read in Creative Confidence, and I look forward to learning if the Kelleys will share any helpful insights in getting out of my trap. I think they will not. If they had answers, then I wouldn't need to do my spiritual work. I am certain that I must remember that I don't have to be trapped. I simply need to metaphorically turn and look the other way in my life where I can find a Don't-Care-How-It-Looks, Feels-Good work situation. And, I am certain that I will find it when I tap into my passion again. Who knows? It might turn out to be a Looks Good, Feels Good role.
Friday, January 30, 2015
Knowing My Shadow
Personal growth has often been described as being like an onion: every time you complete one layer, there's another under it. The one under it is smaller but more intense, challenging the person on that journey to use everything learned in other layers to continue to progress. Often, it is so much tougher, the traveler doesn't feel like it is actually progress.
Jungians describe personal growth as a "hero's journey," also a circular sequence of lessons, but they would say that the one on the journey of growth is learning a series of successively more challenging lessons in a repeated set of archetypes, such as the lover, the warrior, or the magician.
One of my weaknesses is my appetite for books which significantly exceeds my time and energy for reading. Another is that I am easily distracted by the lure of a new book when the one I am reading ceases to fully engage me. The consequence is that, at any time, my nightstand hosts anywhere from six to ten books in some stage of reading, often overflowing to the floor beside it.
At the first of the year, while flirting with another new book, I looked at the daunting pile, and, after a deep sigh, I decided that I had to surrender to some of the ones on my nightstand before starting another. I slowly looked through them, sorting into two stacks--ones that I really wanted to finish and ones with which I'd become bored and was ready to quit. Sadly, when I finished my sort, they were all in the same stack--those that I really wanted to finish. After another deep sigh, I decided to pick one to concentrate on finishing first.
The one that I chose to start with had been a gift from friends who are also consciously on a growth journey. Falling Upward by Richard Rohr takes a different spin on the journey. He says we have one set of lessons in the first half of life and a different set for the second. His book was to be a guide for the second half.
I remember struggling with the first third of the book. I wanted to stay with it because I knew that, if my friends thought it was a fit, there must be something of value for me. Yet struggle I did. Although I was solidly in the second half of life, was my resistance to admitting so?
For whatever reason I found the book difficult, I've picked the book up a few times a year, read a page or two, and then placed it back in the stack for a few more months. And, for whatever reason that it has a different appeal to me this time, Falling Upward has completely engaged me. There is an Eastern philosophy that says, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Perhaps I had finally gotten to the place in the book that was interesting to me, or perhaps, I as the student was finally ready to hear its message.
The content that has intrigued me is about the role of exploring the shadow in the second half of life. The shadow is also a Jungian concept, but I've most often heard it described as our dark side--thus the name "shadow."
Rohr, by contrast, proposes that our shadow side is comprised as our weaknesses. Think of my overactive hunger for books and my habit of abandoning one I am reading for another. Those, who have read this blog for awhile, might also remember my addiction to sugar or my struggle to get back to my 30-year fitness regimen which was abandoned when I started working ridiculously long hours two years ago.
Suddenly, I had a whole different perspective on the shadow, and, almost as quickly, I realized much, if not all, of my posts in this blog have been an exploration of what Rohr described as my shadow side. It would seem that I have intuitively stumbled into this second half of life work without realizing what was occurring.
As I've laid my struggles with my "weaknesses" out in front of me for the whole world to see, I've often wondered why I would want to do that. Rohr says that owning our weaknesses results in a humility that is characteristic of the second half of life. I have certainly been humbled by my "weaknesses," which I prefer to call my life lessons.
While I haven't finished Falling Upward, I am near enough to know there is real truth in the shadow work. Yet on my journey, I've experienced a real sense of urgency about fully using my gifts and talents and being of service--an urgency to assure that I don't squander the precious opportunity that this life offers me to leave the world a better place--while feeling myself regularly thwarted in that resolve, often by my shadow.
A couple decades ago, someone wrote a book entitled something like The Destination is the Quality of the Journey. I never read it but I've loved the title. I have discovered that at this point in my life I am much less tolerant of goals and making things happen than I am with allowing and enjoying what wants to happen.
That change in perspective has certainly been enabled by the humility of admitting that some things are just not going to happen or at least not going to happen in my schedule. There was a time when I thought that determination and perseverance were good things. Now in my second half of life work I wonder if they weren't just part of my shadow, robbing me of the freedom to just enjoy life.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Jungians describe personal growth as a "hero's journey," also a circular sequence of lessons, but they would say that the one on the journey of growth is learning a series of successively more challenging lessons in a repeated set of archetypes, such as the lover, the warrior, or the magician.
One of my weaknesses is my appetite for books which significantly exceeds my time and energy for reading. Another is that I am easily distracted by the lure of a new book when the one I am reading ceases to fully engage me. The consequence is that, at any time, my nightstand hosts anywhere from six to ten books in some stage of reading, often overflowing to the floor beside it.
At the first of the year, while flirting with another new book, I looked at the daunting pile, and, after a deep sigh, I decided that I had to surrender to some of the ones on my nightstand before starting another. I slowly looked through them, sorting into two stacks--ones that I really wanted to finish and ones with which I'd become bored and was ready to quit. Sadly, when I finished my sort, they were all in the same stack--those that I really wanted to finish. After another deep sigh, I decided to pick one to concentrate on finishing first.
The one that I chose to start with had been a gift from friends who are also consciously on a growth journey. Falling Upward by Richard Rohr takes a different spin on the journey. He says we have one set of lessons in the first half of life and a different set for the second. His book was to be a guide for the second half.
I remember struggling with the first third of the book. I wanted to stay with it because I knew that, if my friends thought it was a fit, there must be something of value for me. Yet struggle I did. Although I was solidly in the second half of life, was my resistance to admitting so?
For whatever reason I found the book difficult, I've picked the book up a few times a year, read a page or two, and then placed it back in the stack for a few more months. And, for whatever reason that it has a different appeal to me this time, Falling Upward has completely engaged me. There is an Eastern philosophy that says, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. Perhaps I had finally gotten to the place in the book that was interesting to me, or perhaps, I as the student was finally ready to hear its message.
The content that has intrigued me is about the role of exploring the shadow in the second half of life. The shadow is also a Jungian concept, but I've most often heard it described as our dark side--thus the name "shadow."
Rohr, by contrast, proposes that our shadow side is comprised as our weaknesses. Think of my overactive hunger for books and my habit of abandoning one I am reading for another. Those, who have read this blog for awhile, might also remember my addiction to sugar or my struggle to get back to my 30-year fitness regimen which was abandoned when I started working ridiculously long hours two years ago.
Suddenly, I had a whole different perspective on the shadow, and, almost as quickly, I realized much, if not all, of my posts in this blog have been an exploration of what Rohr described as my shadow side. It would seem that I have intuitively stumbled into this second half of life work without realizing what was occurring.
As I've laid my struggles with my "weaknesses" out in front of me for the whole world to see, I've often wondered why I would want to do that. Rohr says that owning our weaknesses results in a humility that is characteristic of the second half of life. I have certainly been humbled by my "weaknesses," which I prefer to call my life lessons.
While I haven't finished Falling Upward, I am near enough to know there is real truth in the shadow work. Yet on my journey, I've experienced a real sense of urgency about fully using my gifts and talents and being of service--an urgency to assure that I don't squander the precious opportunity that this life offers me to leave the world a better place--while feeling myself regularly thwarted in that resolve, often by my shadow.
A couple decades ago, someone wrote a book entitled something like The Destination is the Quality of the Journey. I never read it but I've loved the title. I have discovered that at this point in my life I am much less tolerant of goals and making things happen than I am with allowing and enjoying what wants to happen.
That change in perspective has certainly been enabled by the humility of admitting that some things are just not going to happen or at least not going to happen in my schedule. There was a time when I thought that determination and perseverance were good things. Now in my second half of life work I wonder if they weren't just part of my shadow, robbing me of the freedom to just enjoy life.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
Monday, January 19, 2015
Ladybugs
I've been down with a humdinger of a cold for most of a week, and I'd been fighting it for at least 10 days before that. My body has seemed to be thumbing its nose at my "New Year's resolutions." I generally don't believe in "resolutions," instead favoring "intentions," which are renewed in the decisions of every moment. My "intentions" for this year were to 1) be regular about exercise and 2) to bring a special man into my life.
Unfortunately, I embraced my intentions with the zeal of resolution, and they bounced back in my face. I was off to a magnificent start on both. I walked an hour a day, beginning New Year's Eve and straight through the holiday week. Then the pre-cold fatigue set in, and I could hardly make it through my days at work.
Over the New Year's weekend, I also joined an expensive internet dating site, which boasts of a higher success rate of matches and marriages than others, while updating my profiles on others, and I've been faithful about checking "matches" every day even while being down sick. Quite frankly, I'm weary of it.
During the last week as I lay lifeless, dozing, and curled up under the quilt my grandmother handmade for me when I was 20 years old (literally my security blanket,) I've caught up on missed television programs, Golden Globe winners, Netflix that had been awaiting viewing, and even reviewing some of my favorites.
About 2 a.m. Sunday morning, I was out of new viewing and pulled a favorite movie, "Under the Tuscan Sun," from the shelf. I've watched it so many times that I know the lines before the actors even begin to speak them. Perhaps the movie is a favorite because there is some sage advice sprinkled through the picture. And some of the sage advice flies right in the face of my resolutions.
"Dolce far niente" is an Italian concept, which means "the sweetness of doing nothing." There was no sweetness in my doing nothing over the last week, but this concept, by contrast, connotes that we are capable of doing something and choose to do nothing. I think what it really means is "just being present" and "feeling alive." We choose to meander, following our hearts, instead of focusing on the goals of our minds. Savoring the moment, one moment after another, choosing in each moment the life I want in that moment. Clearly my body hasn't wanted to exercise in the last two weeks.
The protagonist in the movie is a middle-aged writer who has been jilted by her cheating husband. After months alone, she is ready to have someone in her life, not unlike myself.
The other bit of wisdom comes to her from a flamboyant but aging bon vivant relates who relates that, as a girl she would look hard for ladybugs, and when exhausted from her efforts, she would fall asleep in the grass, only to awaken to find herself covered in ladybugs--those delightful little red spotty beetles that just seem to come out of nowhere. The parable of the ladybugs being that some things can't be forced, they will happen in their own time. It was true of the protagonist in the movie, and it is true of me.
When I get away from the craziness of resolutions and settle back into my wisdom, I know that what I need to do it to relax and be what I want to be in a relationship to my body and to a potential partner--dolce far niente--and the ladybugs will find me.
Unfortunately, I embraced my intentions with the zeal of resolution, and they bounced back in my face. I was off to a magnificent start on both. I walked an hour a day, beginning New Year's Eve and straight through the holiday week. Then the pre-cold fatigue set in, and I could hardly make it through my days at work.
Over the New Year's weekend, I also joined an expensive internet dating site, which boasts of a higher success rate of matches and marriages than others, while updating my profiles on others, and I've been faithful about checking "matches" every day even while being down sick. Quite frankly, I'm weary of it.
During the last week as I lay lifeless, dozing, and curled up under the quilt my grandmother handmade for me when I was 20 years old (literally my security blanket,) I've caught up on missed television programs, Golden Globe winners, Netflix that had been awaiting viewing, and even reviewing some of my favorites.
About 2 a.m. Sunday morning, I was out of new viewing and pulled a favorite movie, "Under the Tuscan Sun," from the shelf. I've watched it so many times that I know the lines before the actors even begin to speak them. Perhaps the movie is a favorite because there is some sage advice sprinkled through the picture. And some of the sage advice flies right in the face of my resolutions.
"Dolce far niente" is an Italian concept, which means "the sweetness of doing nothing." There was no sweetness in my doing nothing over the last week, but this concept, by contrast, connotes that we are capable of doing something and choose to do nothing. I think what it really means is "just being present" and "feeling alive." We choose to meander, following our hearts, instead of focusing on the goals of our minds. Savoring the moment, one moment after another, choosing in each moment the life I want in that moment. Clearly my body hasn't wanted to exercise in the last two weeks.
The protagonist in the movie is a middle-aged writer who has been jilted by her cheating husband. After months alone, she is ready to have someone in her life, not unlike myself.
The other bit of wisdom comes to her from a flamboyant but aging bon vivant relates who relates that, as a girl she would look hard for ladybugs, and when exhausted from her efforts, she would fall asleep in the grass, only to awaken to find herself covered in ladybugs--those delightful little red spotty beetles that just seem to come out of nowhere. The parable of the ladybugs being that some things can't be forced, they will happen in their own time. It was true of the protagonist in the movie, and it is true of me.
When I get away from the craziness of resolutions and settle back into my wisdom, I know that what I need to do it to relax and be what I want to be in a relationship to my body and to a potential partner--dolce far niente--and the ladybugs will find me.
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Intentions or Resolutions?
We are now several days after most people have made...and many broken...their New Year's Resolutions. I have been very intentional about not making New Year's Resolutions for many years because of the meaning that intention has for me. Yet, each year at this time, I do soul-searching about that decision. I was in the final pages of proofing The Game Called Life, a book about living with intention, when the New Year turned over, so the internal debate took on new meaning.
First, I should probably clarify what living with intention means to me. I believe that our souls chose certain spiritual lessons to learn in this life before we are conceived. Those spiritual lessons are as much a part of our spiritual DNA as the color of our eyes or skin is to our biological DNA. Although we may not be consciously aware, we know in our hearts what those lessons are.
When I speak of living with intention, I mean that each of us tunes in and listens to our hearts in a moment-by-moment choice point about what to do. This process must bypass our brains which are programmed by the culture around us. Our hearts will never ask for a Mercedes, for instance; those kind of wishes are based on externally-driven mental models. The heart is about learning the lessons that are the purpose of our lives--those that serve the evolution of humankind.
By definition, we should be checking in moment-by-moment to ask our hearts what will serve our heart's intentions or what will serve the evolution of humankind. In that context, January 1 is no different than 5:20 p.m. on September 6, 4:28 a.m. on March 10, or any other moment on any other day of the year. We are starting over every second. For that reason, I have been intentional about not making New Year's Resolutions because, when I am being conscious, being intentional about a new start should be something I do hundreds of times every day. If I fail, I don't wait to January for a new start, I just wait for the next breath.
I am aware that if we write down resolutions (or probably intentions), we dramatically improve the chances that we will keep them. If we tell someone, we increase our success rate even more, and if we enlist someone to support us in keeping our pledges, odds of achievement are even greater. That all leaves me pondering, "Shouldn't I be able to live my intentions from a place of consciousness and spiritual commitment?" Theoretically, I suppose that should be the case.
Yet, over and over again, I slip from my heart's intentions, and, over and over again, I climb back up and refocus. I tune in and start over. This year, I have been wondering if I could reduce the amount of slip and slide, if I wrote my intentions down, shared them with someone(s,) and enlisted their help in holding me accountable.
One of the challenges of living with intention instead of setting goals or making resolutions is the complexity involved in tuning in to the heart. Instead of three or four resolutions, there are literally thousands of combinations in any moment. Only the heart understands what is the most important one at any given time. Without the spiritual True North of our hearts, all the conflicting goals are simply a jumble of "shoulds."
With all that said, I sit here at this moment, knowing that my heart wants me to be more regular about writing, my heart has the intention of creating health which involves exercise, and it also wants me to be more responsible about maintaining relationships. At least two people are waiting to talk with me and I would like to talk with a third. Even as all those intentions compete for these few minutes on a Sunday afternoon, I am really tired. Chronic pain has exhausted me. I can hardly hold my eyes open. As I take a deep breath and exhale, while asking for guidance, the answer about what I am to do is clear.
My mind struggles with how to get that kind of clarity from mental model resolutions, even if they deal with the same activities. Asking for help is key to living with intention. Even though I've usually written about asking for help with our soul's intentions in the context of asking God for help, this year I will enlist a couple close friends to help me with some intentions with which I've struggled. (Can we ever have too much help?) I don't know how this will work, but I hope that just having someone who reminds me to be conscious and to ask for help will be what I need.
First, I should probably clarify what living with intention means to me. I believe that our souls chose certain spiritual lessons to learn in this life before we are conceived. Those spiritual lessons are as much a part of our spiritual DNA as the color of our eyes or skin is to our biological DNA. Although we may not be consciously aware, we know in our hearts what those lessons are.
When I speak of living with intention, I mean that each of us tunes in and listens to our hearts in a moment-by-moment choice point about what to do. This process must bypass our brains which are programmed by the culture around us. Our hearts will never ask for a Mercedes, for instance; those kind of wishes are based on externally-driven mental models. The heart is about learning the lessons that are the purpose of our lives--those that serve the evolution of humankind.
By definition, we should be checking in moment-by-moment to ask our hearts what will serve our heart's intentions or what will serve the evolution of humankind. In that context, January 1 is no different than 5:20 p.m. on September 6, 4:28 a.m. on March 10, or any other moment on any other day of the year. We are starting over every second. For that reason, I have been intentional about not making New Year's Resolutions because, when I am being conscious, being intentional about a new start should be something I do hundreds of times every day. If I fail, I don't wait to January for a new start, I just wait for the next breath.
I am aware that if we write down resolutions (or probably intentions), we dramatically improve the chances that we will keep them. If we tell someone, we increase our success rate even more, and if we enlist someone to support us in keeping our pledges, odds of achievement are even greater. That all leaves me pondering, "Shouldn't I be able to live my intentions from a place of consciousness and spiritual commitment?" Theoretically, I suppose that should be the case.
Yet, over and over again, I slip from my heart's intentions, and, over and over again, I climb back up and refocus. I tune in and start over. This year, I have been wondering if I could reduce the amount of slip and slide, if I wrote my intentions down, shared them with someone(s,) and enlisted their help in holding me accountable.
One of the challenges of living with intention instead of setting goals or making resolutions is the complexity involved in tuning in to the heart. Instead of three or four resolutions, there are literally thousands of combinations in any moment. Only the heart understands what is the most important one at any given time. Without the spiritual True North of our hearts, all the conflicting goals are simply a jumble of "shoulds."
With all that said, I sit here at this moment, knowing that my heart wants me to be more regular about writing, my heart has the intention of creating health which involves exercise, and it also wants me to be more responsible about maintaining relationships. At least two people are waiting to talk with me and I would like to talk with a third. Even as all those intentions compete for these few minutes on a Sunday afternoon, I am really tired. Chronic pain has exhausted me. I can hardly hold my eyes open. As I take a deep breath and exhale, while asking for guidance, the answer about what I am to do is clear.
My mind struggles with how to get that kind of clarity from mental model resolutions, even if they deal with the same activities. Asking for help is key to living with intention. Even though I've usually written about asking for help with our soul's intentions in the context of asking God for help, this year I will enlist a couple close friends to help me with some intentions with which I've struggled. (Can we ever have too much help?) I don't know how this will work, but I hope that just having someone who reminds me to be conscious and to ask for help will be what I need.
Sunday, December 28, 2014
Taking Risks
It's been a while since I've posted, and while I could use the busy holiday season as an excuse, it would be just that--an excuse. While I often figure things out as I write, I have been restless and unfocused and, quite frankly, I just haven't known how to get started. Once or twice I've actually sat and stared at the computer, something that has never happened with this blog before. Over the last 24 hours, pieces have come to me. I still don't have a clear picture but I have enough to get started and feel my way along.
Last night at midnight...I actually looked at the clock, and it was straight-up 12 a.m....I finished watching a movie I'd been given for Christmas. It wasn't a great movie, but not a bad one either. What clicked last night was that several plot lines in the movie said the same thing: you're never going to get what you want if you don't stop doing what you've always done and risk doing something completely different.
That wasn't the first time I'd stumbled onto that theme this week. I've actually been proofing The Game Called Life before it becomes available as an eBook. I have been reading my own words, or more appropriately the words that moved through me a dozen years ago onto the screen of my computer. Three of seven steps to what the book describes as "living a prayer" are to: ask for guidance, follow fearlessly and risk greatness.
I haven't been so good at getting guidance recently, not because I think God has stopped handing out guidance, but because I think I've been afraid of what I'd hear. I've stopped asking. When I've followed fearlessly before, I have thought that I lost and lost big time. However, all I lost was money, retirement savings, other assets, and a business that I loved. It is true that I was homeless for a while, but thanks to the grace of a couple friends, I never slept on the streets. And while I was down to my last $300 with $600 in "must-pays" due, that was very moment that I got a job that made the situation moot.
From a very human perspective, I was terrified when I'd followed fearlessly, but I was really never in harm's way. I was so terrified that I have been unwilling to go there again. I stopped asking. It hasn't been a conscious decision, not one I even recognized until today, but a decision nonetheless.
What I was feeling before I watched the movie last night was that 2014 had been a fallow year. In the farm country, where I grew up, a fallow year is one during which the land has been plowed and harrowed but left unsown in order to restore its fertility. Several places in the Bible, we are told to allow the land to be fallow, usually every seventh year. For much of the year that is about to end, I've felt a restlessness. I've written about it here.
As I watched the movie last night, it became clear to me that until I was willing to let go of my security-focused existence and really turn my life back to God, I would probably continue to be fallow. In fact, I think I've fallow for much longer than 2014, unwilling to risk following fearlessly.
This morning our pastor seemed to speak directly to me. He said that God promises maximum support but minimum protection. He said, "There are no Kevlar vests," when we follow God's path of growth. He was right. I had had maximum support: I never slept in the streets and a job came when I absolutely needed it. (And not one second sooner.) But I'd also had minimum protection: my material assets vanished.
The pastor continued to say, "Growth is necessary. If we are not growing, we experience distress." It is our responsibility he said to create situations that require learning and growth. Just the kind of thing that happens when we "ask" and "follow fearlessly." Just the kind of thing that happened when I gave up my unsatisfying, minimum-wage teaching job to come to Washington to find consulting work that I had long loved.
The pastor talked about growing in our relationships. That was actually a theme in the movie as well. It suggested that we each have to give up how we've done relationships in order to grow into more satisfying and more rewarding ones. At this point, I am unwilling to risk losing my home and retirement again, although that day may be nearer than farther. However, I think I am willing to risk doing relationships differently. I don't really know what that means, but I am "distressed" at lying fallow any longer. I am certain that if I am willing to "ask" again, I will find out what it means.
Last night at midnight...I actually looked at the clock, and it was straight-up 12 a.m....I finished watching a movie I'd been given for Christmas. It wasn't a great movie, but not a bad one either. What clicked last night was that several plot lines in the movie said the same thing: you're never going to get what you want if you don't stop doing what you've always done and risk doing something completely different.
That wasn't the first time I'd stumbled onto that theme this week. I've actually been proofing The Game Called Life before it becomes available as an eBook. I have been reading my own words, or more appropriately the words that moved through me a dozen years ago onto the screen of my computer. Three of seven steps to what the book describes as "living a prayer" are to: ask for guidance, follow fearlessly and risk greatness.
I haven't been so good at getting guidance recently, not because I think God has stopped handing out guidance, but because I think I've been afraid of what I'd hear. I've stopped asking. When I've followed fearlessly before, I have thought that I lost and lost big time. However, all I lost was money, retirement savings, other assets, and a business that I loved. It is true that I was homeless for a while, but thanks to the grace of a couple friends, I never slept on the streets. And while I was down to my last $300 with $600 in "must-pays" due, that was very moment that I got a job that made the situation moot.
From a very human perspective, I was terrified when I'd followed fearlessly, but I was really never in harm's way. I was so terrified that I have been unwilling to go there again. I stopped asking. It hasn't been a conscious decision, not one I even recognized until today, but a decision nonetheless.
What I was feeling before I watched the movie last night was that 2014 had been a fallow year. In the farm country, where I grew up, a fallow year is one during which the land has been plowed and harrowed but left unsown in order to restore its fertility. Several places in the Bible, we are told to allow the land to be fallow, usually every seventh year. For much of the year that is about to end, I've felt a restlessness. I've written about it here.
As I watched the movie last night, it became clear to me that until I was willing to let go of my security-focused existence and really turn my life back to God, I would probably continue to be fallow. In fact, I think I've fallow for much longer than 2014, unwilling to risk following fearlessly.
This morning our pastor seemed to speak directly to me. He said that God promises maximum support but minimum protection. He said, "There are no Kevlar vests," when we follow God's path of growth. He was right. I had had maximum support: I never slept in the streets and a job came when I absolutely needed it. (And not one second sooner.) But I'd also had minimum protection: my material assets vanished.
The pastor continued to say, "Growth is necessary. If we are not growing, we experience distress." It is our responsibility he said to create situations that require learning and growth. Just the kind of thing that happens when we "ask" and "follow fearlessly." Just the kind of thing that happened when I gave up my unsatisfying, minimum-wage teaching job to come to Washington to find consulting work that I had long loved.
The pastor talked about growing in our relationships. That was actually a theme in the movie as well. It suggested that we each have to give up how we've done relationships in order to grow into more satisfying and more rewarding ones. At this point, I am unwilling to risk losing my home and retirement again, although that day may be nearer than farther. However, I think I am willing to risk doing relationships differently. I don't really know what that means, but I am "distressed" at lying fallow any longer. I am certain that if I am willing to "ask" again, I will find out what it means.
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