Spreading Love

On Sunday of a weekend, which began with reports of the simultaneous and horrendous attacks in Paris, I am still digesting and attempting to make sense of the world in which we live.  My friend and frequent contributor to this blog, Amy Frost, texted me on Saturday, "I pray this will evoke people to stand up and do what they can to create a loving world."

In a similar vein, a survivor of the concert attacks, interviewed on the BBC, said that he heard many evoking revenge, but continued, "When I thought I was about to die, what I thought about was those I love.  It is love we should be spreading," he said.

For almost 30 years, I've been writing about the love that connects us all and how it its the duty of all of us to keep that connection alive, vital, healthy, and flowing.  I still believe that to be true.  And, increasingly, I've struggled with what that means exactly.

Yesterday afternoon, I went to see the newly released movie, "Suffragette."  Unfolding on the screen in front of me were extremely difficult scenes of ordinary women, attempting to listen to a speaker who was advocating for giving women the vote. They were brutally beaten and jailed, just for association, assembly, and listening.  One woman is kicked out of her home by her husband and loses her son.

"Suffragette" was set in Britain, but similar scenes played out in the US as women attempted to get basic rights. In the US it was common to send women to mental institutions because, of course if they wanted the vote, they must be mentally ill.  Here, too, women lost their children. Could that evil have been confronted by love?  I'd like to think so, but given the brutality, I am doubtful.

Last Wednesday much of the world marked "Veterans Day" or "Armistice Day," observed on the date of the end of World War I, but generally recognizing all those who had served in foreign wars. Most often, speakers use language about those who made "the ultimate sacrifice" while fighting for the freedom we hold dear.  I can't imagine anyone advocating that we should have taken on Hitler with love instead of bombs.  Even I, a devout pacifist since I was 19, cannot conceive that would have worked.

In 2001, I was an advocate that instead of dropping bombs, we should spend the same money dropping packages of food, books, and other gifts into an impoverished Afghanistan.  We will never know if that would have produced more favorable outcomes, but that surely would have been a closer to a love response to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.  Yet the warfare response has certainly not produced the results for which we had hoped either. I am no longer ready to suggest that I think dropping groceries on Afghanistan would have brought either the Taliban or bin Laden down.

Muddying the waters still further are the consequences of our wars.  We see our Wounded Warriors come home absent limbs and suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD,) but this is nothing new.  How many Civil War veterans came home without an arm or leg?  What we call PTSD now was called "Shell Shock" in World War I.  My grandfather spent 20 years in a mental institution in a catatonic state as a result of his service.  I would love to have had a present grandfather instead.

Can the world really be dominated by love if we don't weed out evil?  Having come from the Christian tradition, I can't forget that even Jesus, often described as the Prince of Love, violently turned over the tables in the temple to weed out evil.  A friend, who knew him, told of how she once saw the Maharishi Maresh Yogi exploding angrily--once.  Clearly these men of peace and love understood that there was a time and place for anger, rather than love.  But, just when is that time and place?  So, I struggle.

I started this blog with the hope that by wrestling with the difficult issues that, if we faced them on a heart and love level, the answers would be clear.  However, as I write more about both personal and universal dichotomies, I become more aware that those crystal clear, right-as-rain love answers just aren't always there.  As I seek the Truth, the answer I often find is to listen deeply to our hearts to what the appropriate response is in each situation, rather than having a go-to automatic response.

With somewhat regret I say that while I hate violence was required, I am glad the suffragettes responded to brutality with violence, and I am glad that our world is without Hitler, Stalin and bin Laden.  In the end, the Truth seems to be in the wrestling.

Woman's Work

What is "woman's work"?  While the very question may suggest to male readers that this is not a post that relates to them, that would be inaccurate.  What I am writing about here is the spiritual growth of the feminine in each of us, both male and female.  The Father of Modern Psychology Carl Jung and his followers believe that mythology offers archetypes of aspects of the human psychology, which describe spiritual lessons that we must learn in order to become more whole.

Jungians generally point to the myth of Psyche and Eros as the myth that describes the spiritual journey of the psychological feminine in all of us.  For those who like all the details, I apologize for what will be the 50,000-foot view of this myth.*  Conveying the details of the myth are not my purpose here.  Suffice it to say, the name "Psyche" means soul and also means butterfly. The myth is about the transition that our soul's make in transforming from chrysalis, the soul as promise, to beautiful and mature butterfly.

The myth symbolizes Psyche's work with a lamp and a knife, and her work is to take a good look at the person she is in relationship to other people, things, and situations.  At the start of the myth, she is pretty much unconscious, simply doing what she is told or expected to do.

As her transition progresses, she is forced to look at things differently, creatively, and intuitively because a set of tasks that she must complete would be impossible, given the context from which she starts. Along the way, Psyche learns to listen to her own rhythms and to not get emotionally attached. For the feminine in many of us, her lesson about learning to say "no" and protect her boundaries will resonate.

The lesson of  Psyche is often described as "sorting," and it is in that context that I've been revisiting this myth that I first read at least 30 years ago.  Both literally and metaphorically, I am in a transition period wherein I have the opportunity to work away from the toxic environment of my normal job for four and a half months.  What a perfect opportunity to be able to play around with options in my life without making any permanent commitments.

A former colleague and I lunched on Friday about how transforming it had been to be out of that work environment, freed of the pain-generating physical tension both of us had experienced.  With literally a full day of extra time each week, we actually have "a life" again.  I have found my humor and creativity return as I work in a respectful and supportive situation.

I confess that the Adrenalin withdrawal has been a struggle, but like any addict who has gone through withdrawal, I have come through the other side happier, healthier, and with more than a little trepidation about slipping back into the addiction when/if I go back to my real job.  That brings me to my first sorting.  Symbolically, using Psyche's lamp and knife, I am examining my relationship to my job, and maybe to work in general.

Because of a later in life business failure, I have felt driven to rebuild financial assets to support me through retirement.  Confronted by age discrimination all around me, I've forced myself to do more and better in whatever I do to counter the occasional ageist jibe.  I've also taken jobs that didn't use my strengths, abilities, or creativity to have a regular paycheck.  While I do seriously need a regular paycheck for several years, I am no longer willing to work to my weaknesses.  That is the lamp shining on my relationship to work.  I haven't yet mustered the courage to use the knife to sever ties, but it is much more difficult to keep doing what I've been doing with the light of exploration shining on it.

There is other sorting I choose to do.  The house of a friend was flooded about a month ago.  He texted me about all the things he was having to throw away.  I was more than a little jealous.  For some time, I've been bumping into an accumulation of things that are no longer useful or desirable, and, when I do, I wonder, why don't I get rid of that?  There is also a growing accumulation of things that I've received for gifts that I don't and won't use, but I have felt that I need to hang onto for fear of offending the giver.  For several years, I've asked friends to not give me material gifts but instead plan to do something together, but largely my pleas have fallen on deaf ears.

I am also recognizing the need to sort activities more judiciously, so step away from habitual activities or things that I "should" do and to plan to devote time to things that are important to me. During the six weeks I've been in my temporary job, I have started to exercise regularly again, and tomorrow I will meet a colleague after work to practice a dance routine for a talent show which will raise money for charity.  Still on the list of things to choose, strengthening exercise in addiction to aerobic.  Live theater is working its way back into my schedule.

Using the knife to cut away other activities that I have missed and enjoyed to make time for writing has been more difficult.  While I say it is a priority, choosing to write regularly is something that regular readers of this blog will attest is not something I've made time for as I did even two years ago. Cooking is a delight, and I know that I spend a disproportionate amount of time doing so.  Is it wrong to spend too much time in something which brings me pleasure? Is that even the correct question? Perhaps I need to weigh writing against cooking before I decide where to use the knife of sorting. I enjoy volunteering and I believe service is how we make a life, but knowing where to say "no" among things I enjoy is challenging.

I have my lamp out and my knife in hand to do the "woman's work" to which the myth of Psyche points.  I am eager to take the chrysalis of awareness and transform it into the butterfly of conscious living.  Doing so, though, is, well, work...the work of my soul.


*For an extended discussion of the Myth of Psyche and Eros, see: http://www.peace.ca/mythofpsyche.htm

Boundaries and Priorities

I went by my old office today to plug my computer into the network, which updates software and allows me to perform functions that I can only perform when I am "in house."  I thought I would coach two clients from there rather than by phone since I was in the building.  I needed to chat with my boss about my detail. Slam dunk, I thought: three hours tops.  Out by 4 p.m., I guessed. Wrong!  I walked out just before the 7 p.m. closing of the entrance to our building closest to the Metro.

How did this happen, I thought, as the security guard swung by our office at 6 to see why I was there so late.  I've continued to ponder that question into the evening.  I took a walk and thought about it more.  I need to be better about establishing priorities and setting boundaries.  I have made the assumption that if something was on my plate, I had to do it.

As I walked, I thought, I need to be better about assessing the consequences.  If bad consequences will result, I should probably do a task.  If really bad consequences will result, I should definitely do it. But, what, I asked myself were bad consequences.  I've learned during this detail that I can push things off for several months that I used to think needed immediate attention.  No bad consequences. No dire consequences.

I also thought about what were bad consequences.  I actually sat and brought my relaxed self to conversations with three colleagues.  I took time to embrace and connect with another colleague who is battling cancer and was back in the office.  Sitting and talking have not been luxuries that I thought I could afford, but the truth is that neglecting those relationships may have carried the worst consequences.

Yes, I will submit my input for my evaluation for to not do so would be foolish and may have significant consequences.  But, my email box that is in Outlook Limbo, I have no ideas what will happen if it overflows.  So I don't get email.  I have an out-of-office message that says I won't be back until February.  Shrug!  Somewhere in between is the password that I need to update, which seems always to need to be updated.  Maybe yes, maybe no.

Most important of my discoveries today is that I need to make myself a priority.  I am much better leaving an office at 5 than at 7, especially since my days start at 7:30.  Getting my exercise, having a relaxed dinner, reading a book, and getting a good night's sleep have been the bottom on my priorities, which I've learned are really nourishing to me.

If this all seems like common sense that I could/should have figured out decades ago, you're right.  I should have.  I didn't.  I am getting it now.  Better late than never.

Spiritual Loneliness

Most of us have seen movies or television depictions of addicts in drug withdrawal.  One of the most moving performances that I recall was that of Diana Ross in the 1972 movie, "Lady Sings the Blues," which portrays the struggle that jazz icon Billie Holiday had with heroin.  Ross made her audience feel Holiday's pain. (I still think she deserved the Academy Award for the performance.)

As I've been withdrawing from work addiction, I too have been adjusting to physical changes.  While I have been working fewer hours and having more fun, I do find that I am often very tired, and I've been sleeping...a lot.

Work addiction triggers other addictions, and it ends up that one of the most destructive is adrenaline addiction.  Adrenaline is a powerful hormone, which nature gave us for emergencies--when we needed to pull out the stops and do something extraordinary.  The classic example is the mom which finds it within herself to lift a car when her child is trapped beneath it.  Adrenaline is supposed to help us do something extraordinary in unusual circumstances.

However, increasingly, adrenaline is being used just to get through our normal daily schedules, where multi-tasking and long hours have become the order of the day.  We, myself included, have often used it to keep us focused on what is in front of us in that moment...and the next...and the next.

I am sure that, rarely having needed the addictive hormone in the last month, I should expect some withdrawal symptoms.  Most troubling to me is how detached that I must have become to my body's physical needs.  Somehow the adrenaline has allowed me to push down my exhaustion so I didn't notice it until I was out from under the destructive influence of the hormone's destructive power when it is used habitually to just get through life.

More important than the physical withdrawal is the spiritual loneliness that I've been feeling.  Back in the day when I lived a normal, relaxed life, I meditated daily, and I prayed off and on all day. Dancing gave me a physical creative outlet almost daily.

My writing kept me in touch with my soul and how I connected with all of human kind through my soul.  Although I've had more time recently, I haven't written much in this blog for these weeks.  I have almost never, even as a child, sat down to write and not had words flow through me.

But, they just haven't been flowing.  I would sit and stare at the computer screen, and nothing would come.  Or a thought would come, and it would be gone as fast as it came because I'd be so physically tired from the adrenaline withdrawal.  Only this week have I been able to sit and get my words again.

Almost always in my life, I've been able to push through what was in front of me and get done what needed to get done.  I've thought that a good thing.  Determination and perseverance of qualities valued in our culture.  Now I am not sure that the ability to push through whatever is in front of me is a good thing, certainly not for me.  I've used those qualities instead of establishing priorities and setting boundaries.  I've tried to prove I could do it all, without ever asking myself "What is the value of doing it all?"  And even, "Is that value something that is meaningful to me?"

I've written a lot about intention, and I've even written about buying into our culture's expectations to the exclusion of our personal spiritual intentions.  And without adrenaline masking what was happening, I can see how I've been seduced by the cultural norms.  Now, stripped of the adrenaline, relaxed, and much more conscious, I feel spiritual loneliness.  I am aware that I've lost important pieces of myself along the way, and I haven't really known exactly how to begin reclaiming them.

As I write, deep within me is a muffled chuckle: "You had to come to this," it says.  On New Year's Eve 1997, I finished my first draft of a manuscript for the book Choice Point.  I worked on it for another couple of years after that, polishing it.  About 50 people read it and thought it was an important work.  I was never able to find a publisher for it.  In the craziness of the last 15 years, Choice Point has gathered dust on a shelf, becoming badly dated.

The book is about choosing your soul's intention for its life, rather than buying into expectations of the popular culture around us.  I believe the principles are solid, but when I wrote it in the 1990s, I was in my relaxed period, and I couldn't really understand, or maybe remember, what it was like to make those hard choices.  I hadn't made them for a very long time.  In the frenetic years, I couldn't write about them, because I wasn't conscious enough.  Now, in my spiritual loneliness, I see the potential to bring life to the manuscript with full consciousness of the spiritual sacrifices that we often make, without even being aware we are making them.  That is the knowing of the muffled, "You had to come to this."

My experience reflects this truth: when I am writing a book, I need to live it before it can be birthed into the world.  So it was with Leading from the Heart, subtitled "choosing courage over fear."  I repeatedly had to reach deep within myself to find the courage of my heart.  As I was birthing The Alchemy of Fear, I had to face some of my deepest fears.  I am not surprised then that the Universe has provided me with this opportunity to step into my spiritual loneliness and find the truth of Choice Point.

Welcome back...to the world, that is!

Today I have completed one month on my new temporary assignment.  Two days ago I went back to my home agency to spend a few minutes with each of several people with whom I had loose ends to tie.  It was unanimous:  "You look so relaxed!" each of them said.  I actually had to sit for 15 minutes outside the office of one of them, waiting for her to be free.  And, I just sat there...relaxed, breathing.  What a difference a month makes.

How did I get here in just 30 days?  Well, let's start with where I was a month ago.  I'd been working 12-hour days for years.  I almost never got to eat lunch unless it was grabbing a bite, quite literally on the run.  Meetings were scheduled back-to-back, every 30 to 60 minutes, with no breaks, meaning that drinking water and bathroom stops were luxuries about which I'd forgotten.

When I walked out of the office at 7:30 most evenings and commuted home, I usually hit the door, headed to the kitchen to make coffee for morning, prepare lunch for those fleeting pass-throughs of my office when I might grab a morsel on the run, and cooked dinner, which I then tried to eat without falling asleep in my plate.  (Usually, but not always successful.  Success was usually contingent on the day of the week.  Higher likelihood of staying awake through dinner on Monday than Friday.)

That had been my life for years. So, when I started this new job which allowed me to work a "normal" workday and then walk to a Metro stop that was closer to home, My old programming was still in place.  One of the first evenings, I came home and did all of the above without falling asleep, and when I was cleaning the dishes from dinner, I glanced over at the clock, and it was 7:00!  I had done all that stuff, and it was still earlier than I had been accustomed to leaving the office.  I literally heaved a sigh...and then laughed out loud.

I quickly adjusted to being able to do things after work--run an errand or two, go to a dinner at my church or with a friend, go to a movie, volunteer for a local theater and see the play without falling asleep, do my laundry or pay bills on a week night, leaving time for more fun stuff on the weekend.  And, I started breathing and moved at a normal, rather than break-neck, pace.

When each of my appointments acknowledged how relaxed I looked Monday, I felt  acknowledgement that I was back in the world--I am a real person again.

On September 29, just days after starting the new job, I wrote in this blog that I had discovered that my accelerator had stuck in high gear, and I pledged to use these four and a half months to remember how I used to live.  I have to admit that early in my career, I had been a workaholic, and like any addiction, once an addict, always an addict.  When things got tight, in the early 2000s, I just fell right off the wagon and back into those old habits.

But, I do remember a very long time when I lived a sane life, stopping at the gym on the way home from work, having a drink and going over mail with my partner, and cooking together joyfully in the kitchen.  After it was established and when my business was going well, I both exercised and danced almost every day, and I took time to write. I cooked for fun and even played the piano occasionally, although never well.  My life was full but relaxed much of the time.

I have proven that I can reclaim that part of me again.  I have yet to prove that I can sustain it.  I do know that I need to be clearer about my boundaries, and I am optimistic that with a new boss when I return, I can maintain them.  Yet, I know the Universe abhors a vacuum, and the Universe of a recovering workaholic certainly abhors a vacuum.  I am being very intentional about identifying and exercising practices which will solidify my resolve.  Writing regularly again is one of them.  So is exercising. Pleasure reading is up there too.  I want to learn to do those things so regularly in the next three and a half months that my new healthier habits will sustain me when I go back to my old job.

I understand that having a life is a choice, and it is a choice that I am going to make, each and every day in the future.

In Service

A few weeks ago when Pope Francis was in the United States, he said, "Live authentically in a concrete commitment to our neighbor."  The following Sunday our pastor's sermon was on the duty to serve our fellow humans.

This week the scripture once again pointed to service, but this time to service to God.  You might easily summarize the text with President John Kennedy's famous quotation, "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," except substituting "God" for "country."

In his remarks, our pastor ran through a litany of things that we ask God for: to get the job we want, to get in the university we want, to get the promotion we want, to have the romance we want, to have or recover health, to receive an important reward, to bring rain, to have the rains stop...you get the gist.  I have heard God referred to as the great carhop in the sky that we constantly turn to in order to bring us something we want.

Without doubt some of us do pray, "God show me where you need me," or "Allow me to be of service." And, often that comes with a caveat.  When I was spiritual coach to executives in the 1990s, one woman tearfully said how she wanted to be of service, but wasn't getting guidance.  As we talked, she clarified, God wanted her to do something up north, and she couldn't stand to be cold. Really?  "Oh, God, please use me between 9 and 4 on weekdays and only in places that aren't too hot or cold or wet or dry."  I am not sure that is how the prayer to be of service goes.

When doing the spiritual coaching, I used to remind clients that when they prayed, they needed to listen at least as much as talk, but most of us who do pray tend to talk a lot more than listen.  When we do listen, it is with filters about what we find acceptable to hear.

Spiritual listening is like a muscle, which must be worked regularly to become strong.  I am finding that in my own life.  In the 1990s when I had my own business and more or less controlled my schedule, my spiritual listening muscles were strong.  I regularly received very clear and precise guidance from whatever it is out there that I call God.  I was quite comfortable with totally changing course on a speech right in the middle of it, calling someone I didn't know for a conversation, and even moving across the nation to a place where I knew no one and didn't have work.  Things always worked out.

As those of you who follow this blog know, I am in a 4-1/2 month stint in a different job, raising money for 20,000 charities in an annual giving campaign.  I love being of service.  I am one of a group of loaned executives working with groups of managers with whom we brainstorm, track progress, share ideas, and even cheer-lead as they run their individual campaigns.  I love it.  I truly feel like I am serving--I am serving the agency campaign managers, and I am serving the charities who will do service with the money we raise.

The more normal work schedule I now have allows me to do some other things as well.  I have done some things at my church on week nights, and last week I volunteered at a theater, which I used to serve.  But I need to give more of myself.  My listening muscles have grown flabby from lack of use, or maybe I stopped getting messages because I was so regularly finding myself needing to ignore them. (Neither my boss nor my clients would have taken well to me not showing up for an event I was leading because I'd been called to write that day.) I truly don't know if I stopped getting them because I didn't follow, or if I got so good at ignoring them that I no longer hear them.

This morning in church I noticed a line in our "prayers for the people" that I have missed before.  I truly don't remember it, but I think I was listening differently this morning, "Free us from lack of vision, and from inertia of will and spirit."  Ouch!  I am not sure, but I think "inertia of will and spirit" may be the result of flabby listening muscles. It took me a few weeks to physically recover myself from the long hours of my regular job.  I am now entering a stage of spiritual recovery in which I intend to recover my listening muscles.

Winston Churchill once said, "We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give."  Whether I follow Pope Francis's encouragement to "Live authentically in a concrete commitment to our neighbor" or this week's scriptural encouragement to be of service to God, which in the end is likely to be the same,  I think it doesn't matter.  What does matter is that I step into a space where I am focused on giving instead surviving.

Engaged

Jose Carlos was the evening desk clerk at the small hotel where I stayed in Madrid.  Late one evening I went down to ask him for some directions that I needed for the next day.  He was so gleefully into whatever he was working on that I just stood and watched for a few minutes.  Now I want to clarify that this wasn't the situation which I've often encountered where someone is on their email or having a person conversation.  Jose Carlos was doing work.  I think he was working on something so unglamorous as charges for those checking out the next day.

Finally, I said something, and it was immediately apparent that he had no awareness that I had been standing there.  As soon as he saw me, he shifted his focus completely to me and my question. Whatever he had been consumed by was instantly a million miles away, and there was nothing in his attention except me and my need for directions.

Over the few days that I was stayed in the hotel I witnessed Jose Carlos being completely engaged in what he was doing a number of times.  Sometimes it was helping other guests. On a couple of occasions he was helping me.  But, always he was completely engaged in whatever he was doing.  In an era of multi-tasking, he was a sight to behold.

Since taking the psychology of happiness class this summer and being reminded of the "flow" state, I've increasingly been aware of how rarely I am fully engaged in activities.  I am doing a Spanish class on my iPhone while making dinner.  I am talking on the phone while checking email.  I am taking calls and responding to emails and people stopping by my office while attempting to design a session.  As research on multi-tasking has been proving, when we multi-task, we don't do anything well. I know that I don't do my best at anything when I am multi-tasking.

When I think about times when I was really into designing a session or writing a book, nothing else crept into my mind.  I was totally focused and extraordinarily creative. Work flowed through me. Time stopped.  At the end of the day, often I felt more energized than I had at the beginning.  And, it has been a long time since I worked like that.

For four months I am working out of a different office and doing a different job.  It is a job I've done before, but a long time ago and in a different setting.  I do have to pay attention to new particulars to the job, but it is still familiar enough that I can do a lot on autopilot.  What I've noticed in my first nine days on this job is similar to what I wrote about on September 29 in "The Accelerator is Stuck." I've been in a situation that has required multi-tasking for so long that I've forgotten how to focus.

My friend Amy who is a frequent contributor the this blog recently was guest on the "Transformation Cafe" radio program.  She spoke of finding God in the messiness of our lives.  I've known for decades that is where the real spiritual learning and growth occurs.  If, as spiritual teacher Carolyn Myss has said, "being present" is our most important spiritual lesson, then the ability to be fully engaged in what we are doing at any given moment is an essential aspect of that lesson.

Like taking my foot off the gas pedal of my life, being engaged might actually be more of an exercise in learning to say "no" to things that are less important so that I can focus on what I consciously choose to be really important in any moment.

A little bit ago, I received a phone call from someone while I was working on this blog post.  I really didn't want to talk on the phone. In looking back I was so disinterested in the conversation that I am certain that message came across.  I might even have been perceived as rude.  What I really wanted was to write.  I've missed it, and I actually had a 30-45 minutes in which I could write, and I'd been interrupted.  But, the truth is that I didn't have to answer the phone.  I could have stayed focused on the writing.

That was when it occurred to me how important it is to say "no".  Just because my phone rings doesn't mean that I have to pick up.  I can say "no" to it, let it roll to my voice mail, and return the call later when I could be fully engaged in the phone conversation.

I recently took samurai training.  We learned to live by a set of values, and the lines aren't always clear.  How to I choose between loyalty and compassion or commitment and compassion.  I need to say "yes" to both.  How do I do that?  At the end of the day of training, I wrote that to make this work I need to stay centered and stay present.  I need to be fully aware of what I am choosing and as importantly to what things I choose to say "no."

Jose Carlos was such a wonderful example of being engaged and choosing to be fully present to whatever has his attention.  I can imagine remembering his model as I choose to find God in the messiness of everyday life.  If I don't, God could be talking directly to me, and I might just miss it.