Who Do You Listen To? 19Sept18

Lots of people want to talk with me.  Lots more say they want to, and then don't quite follow-through for a variety of reasons.  Sometimes, people just need to hear themselves speak out loud about their concerns, worries or issues to a listening and compassionate ear, and then they figure out for themselves their best way forward.  Sometimes they really do need to speak with someone who has ideas or suggestions of books they could read, or actions they could experiment with, that help them find a beneficial or productive way forward.

I'm going to make an assumption (risky, I know) based on conversations with everyone I have ever had in any circumstance, with every book about psychology I have ever read, and my own personal experience, each of us has an internal dialog that goes on constantly within our minds.  And that internal dialog bears a lot of similarities with, but may not be exactly the same as, the exchanges that happened in our homes as young children. If you had critical parents, as I did, then that internal voice can have a strong bias towards being critical and judgmental.  It wasn't their fault. Critical parents raised them too. Further, there's a commonly-held belief based in fundamental Christian and parenting methods at the time, that children were all hedonists at heart and needed structure, rigidity and control, so that 'they would grow up right'.   

As a result, many (all?) of us have this critical voice that resides in our minds. The first challenge is to recognize that this voice is part of our history and the story we tell ourselves, and that it is not who we are.  Once we are aware we have this critical voice, we can recognize that we get to decide whether to listen to it and try to satisfy it (impossible, by the way), ignore it by numbing out (effective, but not ultimately useful), try to outrun it, argue with it, or make some peace with it. Running away doesn't work, this critical voice is like our shadow, always present. Arguing with it, while sometimes effective, tends to create an argumentative point of view towards life, so that's no fun at all.  So how do we make peace with this critical voice?  

Thich Nhat Hanh, in his little book How To Love, shares these thoughts, As long as we're rejecting ourselves and causing harm to our bodies and minds, there's no point in talking about loving and accepting others.  With mindfulness, we can recognize our habitual ways of thinking and the contents of our thoughts.  Sometimes our thoughts run around in circles and we're engulfed in distrust, pessimism, conflict, sorrow or jealousy.  This state of mind will naturally manifest in our words and actions and cause harm to us and to others.  When we shed the light of mindfulness on our habitual thought patterns, we see them clearly.  Recognizing our habits and smiling at them is the practice of appropriate mental attention, which helps us create new and more beneficial neural pathways.

Self-kindness and compassion is a great place to start.  And sometimes, that's enough.  It we want to increase our management of our interior world, we decide to choose how we want to treat ourselves, rather than just acting out our default programming.  (I'm carefully avoiding the 'c' word, control, because even the thought of control empowers the critical voice.)  Another action we can take that increases our interior awareness is to practice meditation.   As one of the basic spiritual practices that we teach (and practice), CSLT provides many opportunities for learning, experimentation, and practice. If you don't know how to meditate, don't know who to ask, or would like support in this, please ask me, or our practitioners.

This blogpost was inspired by 'World Suicide Prevention Day' (September 10th).  Have a look at this powerful article (qz.com/1381952/suicide-hotlines-really-do-save-lives-i-know-because-one-saved-mine/) written by Corrine Purtill, who reached out when she was suicidal and spoke with a compassionate person at a suicide hotline.  That action saved her life.  We never know how we can help ourselves, and others, by being kind and listening with an open heart.  

"You Spot It, You Got It" 12Sept18

There are a couple things I really despise about being on this path of becoming more awakened or more conscious.  The first one is probably 'If You Spot It, You Got It'.  I have no idea where I heard that first.  I know I've heard the idea over and over again, through the years. It lurks in the back of my mind, just waiting for me to be irritated at someone or something, or annoyed because someone else doesn't do what they say they will, or live up to some agreement that I think they/we made.  One of my hottest hot buttons is when I feel like someone is acting 'out of integrity'.  If I'm present enough in the moment of the situation, I stuff my momentary reaction until I have a chance to mull it over in depth and detail.  What I usually discover, upon reflection, is that whether another is acting in integrity or not, that's not in my control.  What is in my control is when I become conscious that I have acted out of integrity or out of alignment with my values and ideals, and that is what is in my control to change. Ahhh....  That self-responsibility clause that is just so ...  freakishly annoying, and so ever-present.

This week, one of the shipments that showed up in my mailbox from Amazon was a book calledThe Family Virtues Guidewritten by a couple of psychologists, published in 1997.   When I opened the package, I wondered what I was thinking when I had so intentionally clicked that 'buy now' button.  So, I skimmed through it last night, marveling at how even the notion of virtues seems to have gotten lost, or at least significantly transformed, in the last 20 years.

This book lists 52 virtues and a way that a family, or any group I suppose, could work with one each week and pay attention to how they enact and experience the highlighted virtue during the week.  Is there something quaint or archaic about ... caring, cleanliness, compassion, confidence, consideration, courage, courtesy and creativity as virtues, or values?  Is it that the prospect of living out of our virtues-- requiring a certain amount of familiarity with, and trust that, life is for us, for our benefit--seems to be in such short supply? What about tact, thankfulness, tolerance, trust, trustworthiness and truthfulness?

Part of me wonders if we still have the capacity and wherewithal to be that present to/with ourselves. The rest of me knows that we do, and we get to continuously and perpetually choose and re-choose whether to live from that consciousness, or not. This isn't a new issue, though it seems like it. A snippet of a poem by William Wordsworth, written sometime between 1800 and 1850, came to mind.  It will be familiar to you, too.  "The world is too much with us, late and soon.  Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers; Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon!" and from our old friend Henry David Thoreau (in the chapter "Economy" from Walden), "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. ... A stereotyped by unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind.  But there is no play in them..."

I know that we do have the capacity within ourselves to be self-reflective, to recognize the good of the many also serves the individual good, once we get a broad enough perspective, and own up to our own selfish tendencies and motives. Dr Martin Luther King spoke/wrote, in his sermon Loving Your Enemies(you'll recognize this too), "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. ... Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies -- or else?"  Of course, he was writing during the Cold War, and we seemed on the abyss of worldwide annihilation.  Perhaps, still true. 

And yet I see lights in the darkness when I choose to look for them and focus my intention and my resolve on upholding them, enlivening them and becoming them.  One such 'light' is Liz Kleinrock, who taught 4th grade in a charter school in Los Angeles and taught her kids about how to be an ally or an advocate instead of an uncomfortable or unconscious bystander.  (www.karmatube.org/videos.php?id=8195)  From Stoic philosopher Seneca, "The rational soul is stronger than any kind of fortune -- from its own share it guides its affairs here or there, and is itself the cause of a happy or miserable life."  So let's hear it for continuing to be attentive to our own lives, and striving to become the kinds of individuals who intentionally create the lives they choose.   

Wherever You Go... 26May18

I haven't written here for a long while. A lot has changed.  And in some ways, nothing has changed. Just like life. Superficials change.  Deep content changes much more slowly, if at all.

Seth Godin wrote in his blog today, "You can't please everyone.  We know this.  Each of us knows it. From experience. From logic. By doing the math. It can't be done.  Okay, fine.  So, what are you doing about it?  When you're creating something, are the possible reactions of the people you can't please weighing you down? And when you inevitably end up disappointing someone, how do you react or respond?  It doesn't do any good at all to know that you can't please everyone but not use that knowledge to be bolder, walk lighter and do better work for those you can please."

I woke up this morning contemplating 'running away from home'.  This is nonsense of course, because there's nowhere to run to.  John Kabat-Zinn wrote (and he probably wasn't the first), "Wherever you go, there you are."

The last time I remember really having this thought for more than a second, I was trying to decide whether to apply for a job out of the country.  It would have been outrageously exciting and new, a challenge for sure since I didn't know the language and it was a huge stretch for my skill-set.  I knew I could do it.  I wasn't sure I wanted to.  It was pretty clear though, since I was pondering it, that there was something 'there' for me to look at.  

That night I had a dream.  In that dream, I was riding the biggest, baddest wave I have ever imagined on a short stubby surfboard.  And I was doing it successfully.  Mind you, I can barely swim, so the notion of riding a wave like this is really beyond my tolerances.  Then the dream shifted, as dreams do, and I was looking at myself in a scene that was ... well, simply dull, boring and utterly normal.  The thought that rose up in me was that I could do whatever I desired to do, be and become, regardless of where I was.  Place didn't matter.  Circumstances didn't matter.  Situations didn't matter.  The bulk of  'my work' is internal, my primary work on me and how I chose to engage with my world, no matter how it appeared.  

I'm giving a talk tomorrow.  It's called 'Freedom's Price'.  I think I'm going to be talking about the perceptions of ourselves we have to give up in order to live as full expressions of ourselves as divine beings, or children of the divine (if that is an easier concept to wrap your mind around).  We live and move and have our being in, of, as and through (our experience and expression of) the divine, as us.   

In order for me to be free, I have to give up my stories that say otherwise.  I have to give up my story of being helpless, small and insignificant and somehow victimized by my life.  I have to give up the story that the stuff has happened to me, has happened tome, and I've had nothing to do with its creation.  I also have to give up blame of others, blame of myself, any sense of shame and any belief in guilt.  These are very tall orders.  That's the price of personal (and collective) freedom. 

In Spiritual Economics, Butterworth wrote, "You are an unborn possibility of limitless life, limitless intelligence, limitless substance, and yours is the privilege and responsibility of giving birth to it."

In The Four Agreements, Don Miguel Ruiz wrote, Be impeccable with your word, Don't take anything personally, Don't make assumptions, and Always Do your Best.  Many of us have studied this text more than once.  These four 'simple' agreements seem to be impossible to consistently achieve, and yet the primary benefit is in their practice.  In The Companion Book to the Four Agreements,Ruiz wrote, "The Four Agreements are a tool of transformation, leading you to stop judging, mainly yourself, and to start practicing another way of life.  They lead you to stop to guilt, the shame, and the self-rejection; they help you break the agreements that limit the expression of your creativity, and replace them with new agreements that facilitate the expression of your love."

I'm game. Are you?