I continue to be soulful in my consideration of my uncontrollable desire to get on the Greyhound bus and ride across the northern US in the middle of January.
I've share my spiritual journey with a friend for decades, and we've been through the ups and downs of the mystery together. Today I was having the "how do you know?" conversation that I wrote about in yesterday's post. "I want to follow my guidance, but how do I know that it is real?" I repeated.
In yesterday's post I mentioned that sometimes guidance comes out of my own mouth in conversation with someone else. As I shared my dilemma, my friend respectfully held space until the words came out of my mouth, "You know, my busy little brain makes things up to keep me from doing things I am afraid of." It occurred to me as I talked that I have embarked on this monumental cleaning out project of getting rid of things that I don't want to be part of my next nine years.
As I look at boxes, piles, and bookshelves brimming over, I am certain that I could really benefit from cleaning out. There are some things that clearly are part of my future and other things that definitely are not. But, what about the sea of things in the middle? If I don't know what my future is--what I want, how can I know what to do with this vast expanse in the middle?
Now, talk about doing something that scares me: that is it. Why am I scared? I don't think that I would be throwing out anything that couldn't be replaced. Then, what is it? I am certain that the answer lies in committing to my future. What will it be? Some people at my age are winding down and would say, "Why bother?" But I have exceptionally good longevity genes. I will most likely live another lifetime for most people. It does matter. I want this bonus life to matter.
If you'll excuse the word, this is "huge."
As I pondered my trip, it occurred to me that this whole Greyhound trip thing may be the invention of my tricky little mind to help me avoid making a commitment about my bonus life. Oh, my, I thought. That rang truer than I could have imagined.
This evening I've psychically been weighing, sometimes even holding out my two hands, palms upward, as if the mass of thoughts could be measured. Divine guidance? Trick of my mind? Divine guidance? Trick of my mind? Oh, dear.
My big cleaning out project for today has been getting the Amazon/kindle version of The Game Called Life, a considerable stack of paper, off my desk. As I started the finishing up project, I discovered that I had gotten it 95% done in November of 2014. It took me less than 20 minutes to correct the handful of typos. I've been waiting 26 months because I was too busy to make 20 minutes-worth of corrections!
The down side of the 26-month delay is that I had marked my proof copy very deliberately for something other than typos, and it had been so long, I couldn't remember what the markings meant. I am sure that it never occurred to me when I edited it that I wouldn't pick it up again until 2017. The more of the markings that I found, the more concerned I became about putting the book "out there" without giving attention to whatever these markings were.
I read through whole pages with the markings. I could find nothing wrong. What was it that I was missing? Finally, I relented. I would sit and read the book, again, for maybe the 20th time. Maybe then it would be clear to me. This book is life-changing, at least for me. About 30 pages in, I figured the mystery markings out: they were talking points for lectures and interviews, which inevitably follow a book release.
Mystery solved. I could have stopped, but each time I've read the book, I've learned things that I had long-since forgotten. So, I kept reading.
About two-thirds of the way through the book, I stumbled onto a process for getting clarity. I tried it. In an instant, even before I could articulate the full question, the answer was there. This time, I was told, it didn't matter what I did as much as why I did it. Consequently, I will muster up my courage, stay home and sort, and in that vast middle, I hope to find my future.
Monday, January 9, 2017
Sunday, January 8, 2017
How Do I Know?
A young man sits talking with his pastor before his marriage. "How do you know?" he inquires. Like many people about to marry, they want to make sure this is the right one because the decision will inevitably change their lives in some, probably many, ways. The pastor gives him some signs, but mostly says, "You just know."
Not unlike the young man about to marry, over the years many of my friends and clients have asked me about the guidance I receive. "How do you know?" some ask. "How do you get it?" others want to know.
Yesterday in a meandering conversation with a former Intentional Living Intensive client, now friend, we wandered into the topic. This time it was me attempting to establish parameters for myself. My most important guidance, or what I assume to be my most important, has usually been boldly clear to me, and many times it has been the response to a simple question. Often a booming voice spoke to me in a bold but loving way.
When I knew that it was time for me to leave Eugene, Oregon, 22 years ago, I stated simply, "I want a more friendly environment in which to live. I asked, "Where would you have me go?" Instantly, I received the names of three cities "you should explore." Over the next 18 hours, I received six "signs" about the Research Triangle Area of North Carolina. The last was a banner headline of my Oregon newspaper, which read: "Raleigh/Durham named best place to live."
Almost a decade after settling into my home in Durham, N.C., I found myself writing the words, "You are to move to Washington, D.C." while I was journaling. I tried to ignore them. I liked living in N.C. I had never considered living in Washington, what to me seemed like a "big city." I had usually lived in smaller cities and just didn't have a clue how to move into a city that I didn't know, without a job, and knowing almost no one. The prospect was overwhelming.
Other times I've gotten repeated guidance that I wasn't excited about receiving, and it has persisted. Over a couple of years, I had frequently gotten guidance to take a month-long pilgrimage to a place where English wasn't the dominant language, make no plans, take very little cash and no credit cards. I would be guided I was told. I wasn't ready. Finally, on a flight between two islands in Greece at the end of a physically exhausting conference, the bold voice was there again, this time tinged with more than a little impatience.
The message was the same except for a couple details to take the wiggle room out for me. "You are to return to Greece within three months for a pilgrimage. You are to make no plans, take very little cash and no credit cards." The open-endedness of previous guidance was erased by very specific place and time frames. I did receive two very small details over the intervening three months, but mostly I went with little more than initially directed. It was a wonderful, growthful, and insightful exploration. I will never be the same.
Insights haven't always been of the life-changing kinds, like moving across the country or going to an expensive tourist country with no credit cards and very little cash. On one of my open-ended vacations a few years later, as the day was growing toward an end, I said to my travel partner, "I wonder where we should stop." Within 1/4 of a mile, a large billboard stated simply in foot-high letters, "This is your place." It was.
Although it has been a long time since I had one, I used to occasionally, I have what I call a "cosmic marquee." Like a theatre marquee, a message for me is highlighted by flashing lights around it. The "cosmic marquee" seems to be reserved for really big messages.
Whether big or small, much of my guidance has been very specific. However, other times, it has been subtler. When I find myself having the same conversation with several clients in the same day or two, I believe that to probably be a sign that I should give the topic some inner reflection. When I have done so, it has usually ended up being dead-on for me.
Other times, words just come out of my mouth as if I didn't know the source but was keenly aware it was my mouth that was moving. In the years just after my first two books came out, I did a lot of keynoting, and because I was being paid very well, I always dutifully wrote my speeches in advance. But once I started speaking, other words came out. At some point, I started a file called, "Speeches I never gave." I've also found myself asking coaching clients questions that meant nothing to me, but were spot-on for the recipient.
Yesterday's conversation went in a different way, though. We talked about the even subtler forms of guidance. A hunch. An explained desire to do something I've never done. My intuition? Maybe my insatiable quest for adventure?
Recently, I've had the urge to get on a Greyhound bus and travel across the northern part of the US...in January. Really?! Our wind-chill factor in Washington today is 2 degrees Fahrenheit, and I don't even want to go near a window much less travel across the breadth of the country in places that often get much colder than this. This isn't a lingering desire I've suppressed that is emerging from the depths of my psyche. Although I've often jumped on a bus for travel in Europe, I've never even considered going anywhere on a bus in this country.
Is that guidance, I wondered to my client/friend? I do know that timing is critically important when following guidance. Not unlike the Butterfly Effect, which describes the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in New Mexico causing a hurricane in China, there are a lot of moving parts in God's world. God knows the plan, but the rest of us don't get the site map.
Let's say I am supposed to bump into someone at a truck stop near Fargo, North Dakota, on January 25. I have to take the bus because if I was driving, it is a place I wouldn't stop. The encounter may be brief, maybe totally unmemorable. In the course of a casual conversation, say with a waitress while ordering lunch, I say something that makes her understand an aspect of her life differently. We don't talk about going back to college or moving to Arizona, but there is something that is said that makes her connect to doing those things. As a result of those bold moves, she makes a discovery in her research that alters the course of humankind.
If I didn't leave until weather is more pleasant in spring, I don't make that connection, which means that a conversation we may have had never happens. Following guidance isn't like using God as your personal travel agent. It is very precisely about allowing God to change the world through you.
Think about Moses saying to God that he doesn't want to go that way because there's no way to get around the sea. How could he have known? He just followed his guidance.
So, back to the question, "How do you know?" As I sit in my apartment contemplating whether I want to walk half a block in this weather to get to a car to go to a dance tonight, I ponder, "Do I really want to get on a bus and travel across the northern US?" It is a question heavy on my heart. My intention is to make the world a better place, and if this is guidance, I would do almost anything to do my part. Yet, what if this isn't guidance, and traveling on a bus in January is really a fool's errand I'd rather avoid? How do I know?
I will meditate on this more...and ask simple questions. In the end, I will trust that with my intentions clear, I will know in my heart what I am to do.
Not unlike the young man about to marry, over the years many of my friends and clients have asked me about the guidance I receive. "How do you know?" some ask. "How do you get it?" others want to know.
Yesterday in a meandering conversation with a former Intentional Living Intensive client, now friend, we wandered into the topic. This time it was me attempting to establish parameters for myself. My most important guidance, or what I assume to be my most important, has usually been boldly clear to me, and many times it has been the response to a simple question. Often a booming voice spoke to me in a bold but loving way.
When I knew that it was time for me to leave Eugene, Oregon, 22 years ago, I stated simply, "I want a more friendly environment in which to live. I asked, "Where would you have me go?" Instantly, I received the names of three cities "you should explore." Over the next 18 hours, I received six "signs" about the Research Triangle Area of North Carolina. The last was a banner headline of my Oregon newspaper, which read: "Raleigh/Durham named best place to live."
Almost a decade after settling into my home in Durham, N.C., I found myself writing the words, "You are to move to Washington, D.C." while I was journaling. I tried to ignore them. I liked living in N.C. I had never considered living in Washington, what to me seemed like a "big city." I had usually lived in smaller cities and just didn't have a clue how to move into a city that I didn't know, without a job, and knowing almost no one. The prospect was overwhelming.
Other times I've gotten repeated guidance that I wasn't excited about receiving, and it has persisted. Over a couple of years, I had frequently gotten guidance to take a month-long pilgrimage to a place where English wasn't the dominant language, make no plans, take very little cash and no credit cards. I would be guided I was told. I wasn't ready. Finally, on a flight between two islands in Greece at the end of a physically exhausting conference, the bold voice was there again, this time tinged with more than a little impatience.
The message was the same except for a couple details to take the wiggle room out for me. "You are to return to Greece within three months for a pilgrimage. You are to make no plans, take very little cash and no credit cards." The open-endedness of previous guidance was erased by very specific place and time frames. I did receive two very small details over the intervening three months, but mostly I went with little more than initially directed. It was a wonderful, growthful, and insightful exploration. I will never be the same.
Insights haven't always been of the life-changing kinds, like moving across the country or going to an expensive tourist country with no credit cards and very little cash. On one of my open-ended vacations a few years later, as the day was growing toward an end, I said to my travel partner, "I wonder where we should stop." Within 1/4 of a mile, a large billboard stated simply in foot-high letters, "This is your place." It was.
Although it has been a long time since I had one, I used to occasionally, I have what I call a "cosmic marquee." Like a theatre marquee, a message for me is highlighted by flashing lights around it. The "cosmic marquee" seems to be reserved for really big messages.
Whether big or small, much of my guidance has been very specific. However, other times, it has been subtler. When I find myself having the same conversation with several clients in the same day or two, I believe that to probably be a sign that I should give the topic some inner reflection. When I have done so, it has usually ended up being dead-on for me.
Other times, words just come out of my mouth as if I didn't know the source but was keenly aware it was my mouth that was moving. In the years just after my first two books came out, I did a lot of keynoting, and because I was being paid very well, I always dutifully wrote my speeches in advance. But once I started speaking, other words came out. At some point, I started a file called, "Speeches I never gave." I've also found myself asking coaching clients questions that meant nothing to me, but were spot-on for the recipient.
Yesterday's conversation went in a different way, though. We talked about the even subtler forms of guidance. A hunch. An explained desire to do something I've never done. My intuition? Maybe my insatiable quest for adventure?
Recently, I've had the urge to get on a Greyhound bus and travel across the northern part of the US...in January. Really?! Our wind-chill factor in Washington today is 2 degrees Fahrenheit, and I don't even want to go near a window much less travel across the breadth of the country in places that often get much colder than this. This isn't a lingering desire I've suppressed that is emerging from the depths of my psyche. Although I've often jumped on a bus for travel in Europe, I've never even considered going anywhere on a bus in this country.
Is that guidance, I wondered to my client/friend? I do know that timing is critically important when following guidance. Not unlike the Butterfly Effect, which describes the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in New Mexico causing a hurricane in China, there are a lot of moving parts in God's world. God knows the plan, but the rest of us don't get the site map.
Let's say I am supposed to bump into someone at a truck stop near Fargo, North Dakota, on January 25. I have to take the bus because if I was driving, it is a place I wouldn't stop. The encounter may be brief, maybe totally unmemorable. In the course of a casual conversation, say with a waitress while ordering lunch, I say something that makes her understand an aspect of her life differently. We don't talk about going back to college or moving to Arizona, but there is something that is said that makes her connect to doing those things. As a result of those bold moves, she makes a discovery in her research that alters the course of humankind.
If I didn't leave until weather is more pleasant in spring, I don't make that connection, which means that a conversation we may have had never happens. Following guidance isn't like using God as your personal travel agent. It is very precisely about allowing God to change the world through you.
Think about Moses saying to God that he doesn't want to go that way because there's no way to get around the sea. How could he have known? He just followed his guidance.
So, back to the question, "How do you know?" As I sit in my apartment contemplating whether I want to walk half a block in this weather to get to a car to go to a dance tonight, I ponder, "Do I really want to get on a bus and travel across the northern US?" It is a question heavy on my heart. My intention is to make the world a better place, and if this is guidance, I would do almost anything to do my part. Yet, what if this isn't guidance, and traveling on a bus in January is really a fool's errand I'd rather avoid? How do I know?
I will meditate on this more...and ask simple questions. In the end, I will trust that with my intentions clear, I will know in my heart what I am to do.
Saturday, January 7, 2017
What is My Why?
Heart Magazines is challenging my commitment to feel free to throw away unwanted gifts. Over the last 10 days I've probably received a dozen unsolicited and unwanted magazines. Most I have immediately taken to the recycling bin. I passed some along to a friend. Because a couple had articles about wellness, fitness, or nutrition, all topics of interest to me, I kept and mostly skimmed before contributing them to recycling.
This evening I skimmed an interview with Biggest Loser fitness icon Jillian Michaels in the current issue of Redbook. In it she shared that if we wanted to stick to a healthy regime, how important it was to know "why" wanted it. She shared that now that she has children, instead of choosing between doughnuts and skinny jeans, her "why" has changed to choosing between doughnuts and seeing her great-grandchildren.
The concept of knowing our "why" is not a new one. Management guru Simon Sinek has one of the most popular YouTube videos* describing that it is the "why" behind an action that really motivates people. As a long-time organizational consultant, I believe the failure to build shared commitment to why something should change is probably the biggest single shortcoming of senior leadership teams. So, Michaels' comments only reinforced what I already know to be true. If we don't really understand why something is important to us, we aren't likely to stick to it.
I am doing so-so with my relationship with sugar recently. As I read Michaels' words, I thought maybe that is it: I don't know why I want to avoid sugar. Well, that isn't quite true. I am badly addicted, and I don't want any substance to own me like sugar does. But along with knowing why, it is important to know in positive terms what we want to move toward. In Michaels' case, she wants to move toward seeing her great-grandchildren.
Not wanting a substance to own me is a negative. Our brains aren't motivated by negatives. I stopped reading and sat quietly and ran through an exercise I use with coaching clients to ascertain their "why." I struggled for a bit, and then finally it came to me. I want to avoid sugar so that I am in spiritual integrity. I made a commitment to myself to avoid sugar. The commitment has nothing to do with sugar and everything to do with my spiritual discipline to keep a promise I make to myself. When I indulge, and certainly when I overindulge as is so easy during the holidays, my lack of spiritual integrity sucks spiritual energy (and life) from me. When I keep commitment to myself, I am in spiritual integrity, and I attract supportive, spiritual energy.
As anyone who has grappled with an addiction knows, winning those battles happens one day at a time. I make no sweeping predictions about how I will do with my struggles with sugar. Now that I understand that, rather than avoiding a destructive substant, my commitment is one to spiritual integrity, I have a definite "why."
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sioZd3AxmnE
This evening I skimmed an interview with Biggest Loser fitness icon Jillian Michaels in the current issue of Redbook. In it she shared that if we wanted to stick to a healthy regime, how important it was to know "why" wanted it. She shared that now that she has children, instead of choosing between doughnuts and skinny jeans, her "why" has changed to choosing between doughnuts and seeing her great-grandchildren.
The concept of knowing our "why" is not a new one. Management guru Simon Sinek has one of the most popular YouTube videos* describing that it is the "why" behind an action that really motivates people. As a long-time organizational consultant, I believe the failure to build shared commitment to why something should change is probably the biggest single shortcoming of senior leadership teams. So, Michaels' comments only reinforced what I already know to be true. If we don't really understand why something is important to us, we aren't likely to stick to it.
I am doing so-so with my relationship with sugar recently. As I read Michaels' words, I thought maybe that is it: I don't know why I want to avoid sugar. Well, that isn't quite true. I am badly addicted, and I don't want any substance to own me like sugar does. But along with knowing why, it is important to know in positive terms what we want to move toward. In Michaels' case, she wants to move toward seeing her great-grandchildren.
Not wanting a substance to own me is a negative. Our brains aren't motivated by negatives. I stopped reading and sat quietly and ran through an exercise I use with coaching clients to ascertain their "why." I struggled for a bit, and then finally it came to me. I want to avoid sugar so that I am in spiritual integrity. I made a commitment to myself to avoid sugar. The commitment has nothing to do with sugar and everything to do with my spiritual discipline to keep a promise I make to myself. When I indulge, and certainly when I overindulge as is so easy during the holidays, my lack of spiritual integrity sucks spiritual energy (and life) from me. When I keep commitment to myself, I am in spiritual integrity, and I attract supportive, spiritual energy.
As anyone who has grappled with an addiction knows, winning those battles happens one day at a time. I make no sweeping predictions about how I will do with my struggles with sugar. Now that I understand that, rather than avoiding a destructive substant, my commitment is one to spiritual integrity, I have a definite "why."
*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sioZd3AxmnE
Friday, January 6, 2017
Dreams
I've long felt that the dreams we have while sleeping are memories from "soul school"--where we go at night to learn lessons to use in waking lives. For years, I captured my dreams on waking, and then immediately afterward, I would journal about them. Rarely did a day pass that I didn't find useful insight from "dream school."
A key component of the Intentional Living Intensives that I used to facilitate with coaching clients was work with their dreams. Most were busy executives or professionals, and when we started, most would say they didn't dream. I had a process that I used to bring dreams forward, and I would just ask them to follow the process. Every time the client started remembering dreams on the first night. By the end of our three days together, some were remembering as many as six, which we then used for our intention work during the day.
I believe that acknowledging and using our dreams is key to remembering them. They are a gift, and when they are treated as a sacred gift, we get more. If we shun them, gifts pushed away stop coming to us. Because my clients were actively using their dreams, an abundance of dreams were available to them.
A few years ago I either stopped having or stopped remembering my dreams. When I am being honest, I had become like my Intensive clients before their retreats. I was so busy that if I remembered any of them, it was just gibbets, and because I always seem to race through life, I didn't make time to write down what I did recall. Over time I stopped remembering them at all except for an occasional one on a vacation, when I did record them.
When I embarked on this week's retreat, I had two intentions. Since I am cleaning out and thinking about this new nine-year cycle, one was that I wanted insight about what I should be dreaming about--what I want--in these next years. I've shared a number insights which I got during my retreat. However, as I put the retreat behind me, I was little disappointed that I'd not received any insights about the direction for my metaphorical hopes and dreams.
Then, this morning, I "got it." The Universe is very precise about our requests. When I created my intention, I had metaphorical dreams in mind. The Universe took me very literally. The third night of my retreat I had, and remembered, at least one dream from my sleep. I recorded it in my dream journal and then wrote about it. This morning I recalled three related dreams from last night. They were much more complex and insightful. The gift of just one dream appreciated has been reciprocated with more dreams.
After finishing my dream journal, I meditated on the dreams and the day ahead. Only in that meditation did I realize that I had asked for metaphorical dreams as an intention for my retreat; the Universe sent literal dreams. I literally laughed out loud.
In my case, that's a very good thing. My dreams have been rich sources of insight over many years and I couldn't be more grateful if someone handed me a check for a million dollars. Really!
I expect that when I start working my nighttime dreams regularly again, I will probably get insights on what to dream about metaphorically for this new cycle of life.
Lessons learned: be exact in what I ask for and be grateful when the Universe responds literally.
A key component of the Intentional Living Intensives that I used to facilitate with coaching clients was work with their dreams. Most were busy executives or professionals, and when we started, most would say they didn't dream. I had a process that I used to bring dreams forward, and I would just ask them to follow the process. Every time the client started remembering dreams on the first night. By the end of our three days together, some were remembering as many as six, which we then used for our intention work during the day.
I believe that acknowledging and using our dreams is key to remembering them. They are a gift, and when they are treated as a sacred gift, we get more. If we shun them, gifts pushed away stop coming to us. Because my clients were actively using their dreams, an abundance of dreams were available to them.
A few years ago I either stopped having or stopped remembering my dreams. When I am being honest, I had become like my Intensive clients before their retreats. I was so busy that if I remembered any of them, it was just gibbets, and because I always seem to race through life, I didn't make time to write down what I did recall. Over time I stopped remembering them at all except for an occasional one on a vacation, when I did record them.
When I embarked on this week's retreat, I had two intentions. Since I am cleaning out and thinking about this new nine-year cycle, one was that I wanted insight about what I should be dreaming about--what I want--in these next years. I've shared a number insights which I got during my retreat. However, as I put the retreat behind me, I was little disappointed that I'd not received any insights about the direction for my metaphorical hopes and dreams.
Then, this morning, I "got it." The Universe is very precise about our requests. When I created my intention, I had metaphorical dreams in mind. The Universe took me very literally. The third night of my retreat I had, and remembered, at least one dream from my sleep. I recorded it in my dream journal and then wrote about it. This morning I recalled three related dreams from last night. They were much more complex and insightful. The gift of just one dream appreciated has been reciprocated with more dreams.
After finishing my dream journal, I meditated on the dreams and the day ahead. Only in that meditation did I realize that I had asked for metaphorical dreams as an intention for my retreat; the Universe sent literal dreams. I literally laughed out loud.
In my case, that's a very good thing. My dreams have been rich sources of insight over many years and I couldn't be more grateful if someone handed me a check for a million dollars. Really!
I expect that when I start working my nighttime dreams regularly again, I will probably get insights on what to dream about metaphorically for this new cycle of life.
Lessons learned: be exact in what I ask for and be grateful when the Universe responds literally.
Thursday, January 5, 2017
To Thine Own Self Be True
As I settle into the final day of my Winter 2017 meditation retreat, two lessons have emerged in countless forms. The first and most constant has been the question: "Where am I in my becoming?" Interrogating me in almost every thought, its answers have taken me closer and closer to my Truth. The companion haunt has been the challenge to move away from my viewpoint and explore whatever comes up from every perspective.
I should not be surprised then that in my morning meditation on my last day that they once again present themselves to take me deeper. Most of all, they have distilled to its essence most of the challenges with which I've grappled over these days.
Over the course of this retreat, when I've meditated, I've slowly and deeply breathed in "Where am I in my becoming?" My exhales have also been slow as I breathed out the name of God. Today I was surprised that with each exhale what came from my inner voice, "To thine own self be true," Polonius's admonition from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Polonius continues:
"And it must follow, as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
Over the last day and a half, I'd been accumulating "material" for a forgiveness exercise that I often facilitated with coaching clients for my Intentional Living Intensives. Three lists are compiled:
I should not be surprised then that in my morning meditation on my last day that they once again present themselves to take me deeper. Most of all, they have distilled to its essence most of the challenges with which I've grappled over these days.
Over the course of this retreat, when I've meditated, I've slowly and deeply breathed in "Where am I in my becoming?" My exhales have also been slow as I breathed out the name of God. Today I was surprised that with each exhale what came from my inner voice, "To thine own self be true," Polonius's admonition from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Polonius continues:
"And it must follow, as the night the day
Thou canst not then be false to any man."
Over the last day and a half, I'd been accumulating "material" for a forgiveness exercise that I often facilitated with coaching clients for my Intentional Living Intensives. Three lists are compiled:
- Those people you need to forgive
- Those people you need to ask for forgiveness
- Things for which you must forgive yourself
I've done the exercise many times with clients and a few times previously with myself. I've never witnessed a time when the results weren't dramatic. So, it shouldn't be a surprise that as my theme for yesterday was "Trust and Relationships" that the forgiveness exercise came to mind. I'd expected to do it last night, but when I did my sundown meditation, my guidance was that the time wasn't yet right. I spent the evening probing other aspects of my consciousness, adding a few more items to my lists along the way.
As I shared in my post of two days ago*, I was chagrined to think how selfish I'd been when I explored the topic of scheduling time from the perspective of those who wanted to schedule. Since then, I've learned something surprising from almost every lesson I've had in front of me when I examined it from different perspectives.
When "Where am I in my becoming?" was coupled with "To thine own self be true," my forgiveness exercise changed dramatically. Now, my guidance was to look at these lists from the perspective of what my role was in creating every one of these situations. While I don't think I had much role in eliciting my mother's treatment of the newborn me, every other item on my list, I could have influenced if I'd been true to myself.
There are a companion pair of saws that are often used among self-help practitioners:
All of that brings me back to "Where I am in my becoming." On this mapless journey of spirit, I am at the place of honoring my Truth...honoring what I know in my heart. When I am present, I can no longer point a finger without recalling there are three more pointing back at me. If I don't ask the questions that will help me know whether the assumptions I am making are accurate ones, who will? In the clear daylight of open communication, I can be true to myself and true to those with whom I am in relationships.
*"Seeking all Sides of a Challenge," 1/3.
When "Where am I in my becoming?" was coupled with "To thine own self be true," my forgiveness exercise changed dramatically. Now, my guidance was to look at these lists from the perspective of what my role was in creating every one of these situations. While I don't think I had much role in eliciting my mother's treatment of the newborn me, every other item on my list, I could have influenced if I'd been true to myself.
There are a companion pair of saws that are often used among self-help practitioners:
- We teach what we need to know
- We write what we need to learn
Over decades, central foci of my work have been to communicate, listen, ask questions, dialogue--learn from each other, and collaborate. Whether I've been facilitating workplace Bickersons, strategic planning, or culture change or writing a book or this blog, these topics have always been central to my work. When I looked at my forgiveness lists, I could almost always have influenced the outcomes if I'd done just those things...but I hadn't. I hadn't to my own self been true: I hadn't been true to what I knew in my heart. And, I hadn't be doing what I'd been teaching for decades.
Years ago when I was facilitating an intentional culture creation exercise with a small group of leaders from Hewlett-Packard for their newly created Line of Business, a key player and the person who had hired me for the exercise came to me on the first break. She asked me, "Do you know what your gift is?" Duh! I stumbled. "I guess I don't." She continued to say, "You are a master at asking questions."
At the time, I thought it was a dumb gift. Since then, a number of people have made observations about how a single question completely changed how they'd looked a challenge. I don't think it is such a dumb gift now, but as I revisited my forgiveness lists this morning, the most common failure on my part was the failure to ask questions--before I got into a situation, when I was in it and something didn't feel right, when someone did something that didn't add up. I've just made assumptions, which often times were incorrect and which eventually resulted in something hurtful occurring.
Years ago when I was facilitating an intentional culture creation exercise with a small group of leaders from Hewlett-Packard for their newly created Line of Business, a key player and the person who had hired me for the exercise came to me on the first break. She asked me, "Do you know what your gift is?" Duh! I stumbled. "I guess I don't." She continued to say, "You are a master at asking questions."
At the time, I thought it was a dumb gift. Since then, a number of people have made observations about how a single question completely changed how they'd looked a challenge. I don't think it is such a dumb gift now, but as I revisited my forgiveness lists this morning, the most common failure on my part was the failure to ask questions--before I got into a situation, when I was in it and something didn't feel right, when someone did something that didn't add up. I've just made assumptions, which often times were incorrect and which eventually resulted in something hurtful occurring.
All of that brings me back to "Where I am in my becoming." On this mapless journey of spirit, I am at the place of honoring my Truth...honoring what I know in my heart. When I am present, I can no longer point a finger without recalling there are three more pointing back at me. If I don't ask the questions that will help me know whether the assumptions I am making are accurate ones, who will? In the clear daylight of open communication, I can be true to myself and true to those with whom I am in relationships.
*"Seeking all Sides of a Challenge," 1/3.
Wednesday, January 4, 2017
Where Am I On my Becoming?
"Where am I on my becoming?" That question has haunted me nearly since I began this retreat. I am intrigued, and playing with Rabbi Kula's description of commandments in Yearnings as things to which we are to examine from the inside-out, I continue to play with it as I breathe the question in and out. (See yesterday's post for the commandment.)
Knowing where I am on my becoming would be much easier if I had been handed a map at birth to which I could look periodically to see how I am doing. Is my journey one from Portland, Oregon, to Miami, using the Pythagorean route of the shortest distance between two points being a straight line? In which case it would be significantly more helpful in knowing where I am on my becoming if I could see I was in Boise, Denver, or Atlanta...or, dread, in Boston.
But, my route might be from Portland, Maine, to Miami, meandering the Inter-coastal Waterway, or from Seattle to Houston. It might be the T.S. Eliot route:
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." -- T.S. Eliot*
Maybe where I am on my becoming is somewhere between Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, knowing it again for the first time. (Since I haven't been there since high school, and only then rarely, knowing it again for the first time wouldn't be much of a stretch.)
I still have to believe that if we listen and follow what we know in our hearts, they will inevitably take us on the right route, assuming there is a right route. My sense is that our hearts tell us what is True North for us but Kula would probably challenge whether there is a right or wrong route or if it matters. Perhaps dallying in Philadelphia might prove rewarding, even if it is out of the way. At this point, I am so unclear (a good thing, I think,) I am not sure there is a wrong route. I am, after all, the maven of "not-knowing as a way of life." I am pretty confident that we will know were have gone astray if we aren't truly present to the journey or if a stop sucks the life out of us and we linger there too long.
As I ponder "Where I am on my becoming," I've had a compelling desire to get on a bus and ride across the country, stopping wherever I feel called to stop. (Alas, I am not free to do that right now, but arrangements could be made to do so soon.)
Like Alice Through the Looking Glass, I am not sure of much. I could be falling down or up, but I am assured that friends cannot be neglected, and I've probably been doing a bit much of that in recent years. So, where am I on my becoming? I cannot know for sure, but at about 12:45 this morning I felt like the Universe had flipped my switches and I was more alive than I've been probably since 2000. Every cell in my body tingled. I awakened lighter, more joyful, and definitely more hopeful. So the journey continues...
*Brainy-quote.com"
Knowing where I am on my becoming would be much easier if I had been handed a map at birth to which I could look periodically to see how I am doing. Is my journey one from Portland, Oregon, to Miami, using the Pythagorean route of the shortest distance between two points being a straight line? In which case it would be significantly more helpful in knowing where I am on my becoming if I could see I was in Boise, Denver, or Atlanta...or, dread, in Boston.
But, my route might be from Portland, Maine, to Miami, meandering the Inter-coastal Waterway, or from Seattle to Houston. It might be the T.S. Eliot route:
"We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time." -- T.S. Eliot*
Maybe where I am on my becoming is somewhere between Fort Wayne, Indiana, and Fort Wayne, Indiana, knowing it again for the first time. (Since I haven't been there since high school, and only then rarely, knowing it again for the first time wouldn't be much of a stretch.)
I still have to believe that if we listen and follow what we know in our hearts, they will inevitably take us on the right route, assuming there is a right route. My sense is that our hearts tell us what is True North for us but Kula would probably challenge whether there is a right or wrong route or if it matters. Perhaps dallying in Philadelphia might prove rewarding, even if it is out of the way. At this point, I am so unclear (a good thing, I think,) I am not sure there is a wrong route. I am, after all, the maven of "not-knowing as a way of life." I am pretty confident that we will know were have gone astray if we aren't truly present to the journey or if a stop sucks the life out of us and we linger there too long.
As I ponder "Where I am on my becoming," I've had a compelling desire to get on a bus and ride across the country, stopping wherever I feel called to stop. (Alas, I am not free to do that right now, but arrangements could be made to do so soon.)
Like Alice Through the Looking Glass, I am not sure of much. I could be falling down or up, but I am assured that friends cannot be neglected, and I've probably been doing a bit much of that in recent years. So, where am I on my becoming? I cannot know for sure, but at about 12:45 this morning I felt like the Universe had flipped my switches and I was more alive than I've been probably since 2000. Every cell in my body tingled. I awakened lighter, more joyful, and definitely more hopeful. So the journey continues...
*Brainy-quote.com"
Tuesday, January 3, 2017
Seeking All Sides of a Challenge
On November 11, the Veterans' Day holiday, I had the opportunity to participate in a simulation of The Bigger Game.* If you imagine a room-size game board that roughly approximates a Tic-Tac-Toe grid, you will get the idea. On each of the squares is written a word. At the start of the game, the facilitators instruct participants to survey the words and to choose the one to which they are most called.
I was probably the first to choose, and I moved to "Hunger." Now while I might have been a little physically hungry, due to oral surgery two days earlier and limited intake of solid food, but that was not the reason I chose "Hunger." We were told that "Hunger" is that "deep 'fire in my belly' impact that must be satiated." I felt it in my soul, and I've felt it for a long time as I've increasingly lost myself in my work. Choosing "Hunger" was a no-brainer.
Yesterday, after my post, I went to my over-flowing bookcase filled with unread books. I usually like to start one of my retreats with inspirational reading, and I was immediately drawn to Yearnings, by Rabbi Irwin Kula. The book was copyrighted in 2006 and the pages were yellowed. Like many of my unread books, I am not sure how long I'd had it. Yearnings seemed to follow nicely my call to "Hunger" in The Bigger Game.
I am not sure that Yearnings ended up being exactly what I expected, but as always occurs when I allow myself to be led, it has nudged me in places that I needed to explore. Although the book makes references to several faith traditions and some non-religious traditions, the rabbi leans heavily on stories from the Abrahamic faith traditions.
In explaining the creation "poem," as he calls it, he relates that the phrase that is most often translated into "Where are you?" in English at the point when God comes to the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge might more accurately be translated as "Where are you in your becoming?" Rather than asking a question with a one word answer, God is asking those he has created a question about where they are in their process of knowing themselves. I was quite moved by this question, and I have used it several times to guide meditations in my retreat.
Later in the book, Kula talks about the Ten Commandments in a different way than I've generally heard them discussed. Rather than being edicts, we are encouraged to explore our actions around each of the 10 topics fully and completely: to look at them inside-out, if you will, and really understand the ramifications of what is being asked from each "edict."
"Where are you in your becoming?" is particularly poignant for me as I have thought about a number of questions with which I've openly wrestled in this blog. When coupled with exploring every side of a topic, my meditations have predictably taken me to places I'd rather not see in myself, like arrogance, Narcissism, and even selfishness.
The two topics with which I've often grappled in this post that kept coming up in my meditations when enlightened by these new perspectives were those of getting "stuff" I didn't want and scheduling time with people rather than being spontaneous. I realized that there is a major flaw in my understanding about what to do with divine guidance that we receive. Is that perhaps, I've asked myself, why Choice Point, my long unsold book on the topic of walking moment-by-moment as we are guided, still gathers dust on my shelf?
What moved me as I explored each of these topics more fully was what the people who want to schedule and want to give me stuff must feel. My spontaneous approach is fine for a single person with little family, but when I think of one friend with a very busy job involving travel, two grown kids and a husband to keep up with, and an art interest she is growing, I thought how terribly selfish of me. I should want to work with her to find a time when she can be available. When I only thought about my relationship with God and where I was to follow, I totally neglected her needs. I am so sorry!
Similarly, when I thought about the people who persist in giving me stuff, I recalled how as children we had a special aunt and uncle who refused gifts. They were younger than I am now, but I am sure that not unlike me, they were at that stage in life where they really wanted to live smaller. When they were not much older, they sold their larger home in Ohio and moved to a smaller one in Florida. From my current perspective, I totally understand their desire to avoid adding "stuff," but I really didn't when I was 9. I really don't want stuff, but looking at the concern from different perspectives has been humbling.
Now, back to the question about "Where am I in my becoming?" For today, I am certainly becoming more humble, and I have new perspectives to bring to what seem like easy questions to me. In The Alchemy of Fear I wrote about who we are becoming as a solid endpoint. "Becoming" as a process offers me much more opportunity to grow and fewer excuses to not get moving.
In the bigger Universe of "Where am I in my becoming?" I have a still-unwinding, albeit very different, perspective on what it means to follow guidance.
I am reminded of an image I used to create on stage when I was delivering a speech. It would start with a single heart (Valentine kind.) Then I'd draw another...and another...and another. Finally, I would connect them with a ribbon and say that every person in the world is connected through that ribbon, heart to heart to heart. That image now takes on new meaning. Rather than a one dimensional relationship to divine guidance, I now see a complex, multi-dimensional relationship in which we are all supporting each other in who we are becoming and how we will change the world.
*The Bigger Game: www.biggergame.com. Our game was facilitated by David Andrews (davidtoddandrews@gmail.com) and Catherine Allen (catherine@allenimpactgroup.com.)
I was probably the first to choose, and I moved to "Hunger." Now while I might have been a little physically hungry, due to oral surgery two days earlier and limited intake of solid food, but that was not the reason I chose "Hunger." We were told that "Hunger" is that "deep 'fire in my belly' impact that must be satiated." I felt it in my soul, and I've felt it for a long time as I've increasingly lost myself in my work. Choosing "Hunger" was a no-brainer.
Yesterday, after my post, I went to my over-flowing bookcase filled with unread books. I usually like to start one of my retreats with inspirational reading, and I was immediately drawn to Yearnings, by Rabbi Irwin Kula. The book was copyrighted in 2006 and the pages were yellowed. Like many of my unread books, I am not sure how long I'd had it. Yearnings seemed to follow nicely my call to "Hunger" in The Bigger Game.
I am not sure that Yearnings ended up being exactly what I expected, but as always occurs when I allow myself to be led, it has nudged me in places that I needed to explore. Although the book makes references to several faith traditions and some non-religious traditions, the rabbi leans heavily on stories from the Abrahamic faith traditions.
In explaining the creation "poem," as he calls it, he relates that the phrase that is most often translated into "Where are you?" in English at the point when God comes to the Garden of Eden after Adam and Eve have eaten from the Tree of Knowledge might more accurately be translated as "Where are you in your becoming?" Rather than asking a question with a one word answer, God is asking those he has created a question about where they are in their process of knowing themselves. I was quite moved by this question, and I have used it several times to guide meditations in my retreat.
Later in the book, Kula talks about the Ten Commandments in a different way than I've generally heard them discussed. Rather than being edicts, we are encouraged to explore our actions around each of the 10 topics fully and completely: to look at them inside-out, if you will, and really understand the ramifications of what is being asked from each "edict."
"Where are you in your becoming?" is particularly poignant for me as I have thought about a number of questions with which I've openly wrestled in this blog. When coupled with exploring every side of a topic, my meditations have predictably taken me to places I'd rather not see in myself, like arrogance, Narcissism, and even selfishness.
The two topics with which I've often grappled in this post that kept coming up in my meditations when enlightened by these new perspectives were those of getting "stuff" I didn't want and scheduling time with people rather than being spontaneous. I realized that there is a major flaw in my understanding about what to do with divine guidance that we receive. Is that perhaps, I've asked myself, why Choice Point, my long unsold book on the topic of walking moment-by-moment as we are guided, still gathers dust on my shelf?
What moved me as I explored each of these topics more fully was what the people who want to schedule and want to give me stuff must feel. My spontaneous approach is fine for a single person with little family, but when I think of one friend with a very busy job involving travel, two grown kids and a husband to keep up with, and an art interest she is growing, I thought how terribly selfish of me. I should want to work with her to find a time when she can be available. When I only thought about my relationship with God and where I was to follow, I totally neglected her needs. I am so sorry!
Similarly, when I thought about the people who persist in giving me stuff, I recalled how as children we had a special aunt and uncle who refused gifts. They were younger than I am now, but I am sure that not unlike me, they were at that stage in life where they really wanted to live smaller. When they were not much older, they sold their larger home in Ohio and moved to a smaller one in Florida. From my current perspective, I totally understand their desire to avoid adding "stuff," but I really didn't when I was 9. I really don't want stuff, but looking at the concern from different perspectives has been humbling.
Now, back to the question about "Where am I in my becoming?" For today, I am certainly becoming more humble, and I have new perspectives to bring to what seem like easy questions to me. In The Alchemy of Fear I wrote about who we are becoming as a solid endpoint. "Becoming" as a process offers me much more opportunity to grow and fewer excuses to not get moving.
In the bigger Universe of "Where am I in my becoming?" I have a still-unwinding, albeit very different, perspective on what it means to follow guidance.
I am reminded of an image I used to create on stage when I was delivering a speech. It would start with a single heart (Valentine kind.) Then I'd draw another...and another...and another. Finally, I would connect them with a ribbon and say that every person in the world is connected through that ribbon, heart to heart to heart. That image now takes on new meaning. Rather than a one dimensional relationship to divine guidance, I now see a complex, multi-dimensional relationship in which we are all supporting each other in who we are becoming and how we will change the world.
*The Bigger Game: www.biggergame.com. Our game was facilitated by David Andrews (davidtoddandrews@gmail.com) and Catherine Allen (catherine@allenimpactgroup.com.)
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