The Writer's View, 3Dec19

For some reason that still puzzles me, I signed up for, and participated in, a book-writers' boot-camp this summer.  The two dudes who ran it promised that if you did the exercises and activities when, and as, they described them, you would end up with a true first draft of a book by the end of four 8-hour days of constant writing.  Apparently, I thought the nudge would be worth it, and so I sent in my (non-refundable) full tuition payment, made my airline, hotel and rental car reservations, and cleared my calendar.  

I didn't enjoy the process, because I hate feeling pushed, and that's exactly what they did. The entire program was delineated into 6-minute increments.  Six minutes to brainstorm possible titles. (There was a little bit of guidance on the types of titles that generally are picked up by bookstore buyers, and by consumers.)  Six minutes to describe everything you know about, even stuff you don't think matters.  Six minutes to define your target audience.  Six minutes to come up with five chapter headings. And so on, ad nauseum.  And it did, indeed, work. 

One of the things about the week that I enjoyed was getting an increased awareness of the breadth and depth of stories I have in my own personal history. We all do, if we're paying any attention to the moments and interactions of our days. One of the leaders talked about his own process of practicing his story-capturing skills by challenging himself to write a story every single day and publishing them all on a blog.  By the time he stopped his daily activity, he'd written and published (if writing on a blog is publishing, which it is, sort of) 646 days straight.  Granted, they aren't all riveting and mind-expanding, but they are stories of his daily life, and remembrances of childhood that could be used to illustrate a point.  

One of the questions 'up' for me right now is how to mentally think about individuals who, for no apparent reason, walk out of my life. When asked about their departure, there are no hard feelings, and nothing is amiss. It's just over. They feel like they've changed. The whole conundrum does leave me puzzled though. And it reminds me of a story.  

On the first night my taiji group was in Fiji, the locals welcomed us to the island with sweet-smelling Plumeria leis and a welcoming ceremony. The younger women danced a stylized, formal dance while the men played drums, and some of the older women prepared this milky white beverage that was served to us in coconut shells, family style.  All the tourists who wished to drink this beverage were encouraged to do so.  It tasted like I imagine dirty socks would.  Fortunately, it didn't smell like them.

Several days later, I was sitting on top of a picnic table at dusk, after a long day of strenuous taiji practice, enjoying the night sounds of the insects, the sights of the fruit bats flying low, and sounds and scents of the waves crashing on the rocky beach. A couple local men who served as security guards for the small resort stopped by the table to make small talk. We talked about the weather and the beauty of their island, both of which were glorious. I asked them about the welcoming ceremony. The older man replied that it wasn't made up for the tourists, that it was used by the locals to include the tourists in their extended family for the duration of their visit for their safety and protection, and then, after the tourists had gone home, the locals did a second ceremony to remove the tourists from their protection.  

I wonder what sort of disconnection ceremony I might do for this one who has walked out of my life, and I wonder what impact that might have?  I'll have to give that some thought. 

The Orange and The Green

A bunch of years ago, when I was on an extended job in the UK, I was asked to accompany a young woman that I worked with to a girls' prep school to talk about atypical careers for women, or some such. It happened to be St Patrick's Day, which is not a 'major holiday' in the States, unless you happen to be Irish or live in Boston or Chicago or something like that.  Mostly, it's an opportunity for many of the States to drunk too much (green beer or Irish Whiskey), sing bawdy songs, and eat corned beef and cabbage and belch.  (Apologies to any  for whom this is a major/serious/meaningful holiday.)

In any case, I was pretty clueless about the importance of the day and the importance of wearing the green, etc.  I had only the wardrobe I brought with me for this month-long stay, so I rummaged through my suitcase, and found my least-wrinkled, most-reputable outfit, and put it on.  It happened to be a silk-linen pantsuit that was orange-sherbet-colored. 

I felt like my reception at the girls' school was a little stiff and stilted, but just assumed it was because I was a 'yank' and obviously not of their social standing or class, and thought nothing much of it.  It wasn't until we were headed back to the office that the young woman who asked me to accompany her asked me if I had worn orange on purpose on St Patrick's Day.  My naive reply was, "no, why?" She then informed me of a little bit of the history (as she had understood it) of the holiday, and the long-standing dissention between the Northern Irish Catholics and the Northern Irish Protestants. 

In reading a little of the history of Ireland, it seems that Patrick went to Ireland well before there were Catholics or Protestants.  He went to Ireland to convert the pagan Irish to Christianity.  And that's another story all together. 

There's so much that we don't know, even when we think we do, and so many ways we are unconsciously unaware.  It's not a bad thing.  It just is.  

The Dog and The Trash Can

Yesterday a dog tipped over the trash can at the office.  When I went outside to see what the noise was, he was totally nonplussed.  He didn't even move away when I walked up to him, nor did he respond at all to any of my 'chasing away' sounds, or movements.  He had a collar and a tag, and he was healthy enough looking, I imagine he belonged to someone at the city park that is just down the street.  Since I heard no one yelling for him, I assume it is normal for them to let their dog run the neighborhood.

Of course, he wasn't satisfied to tip over the cans.  He wasn't a hooligan with the objective of destruction.  He pulled most of the bags out of the can and ripped them open looking for something edible.  The humor of it for me was the primary thing in the trash was leftover Valentine's Day candy.  There was no chocolate, I don't waste chocolate, and only buy the kind I like, but there was probably five pounds of hard, and not too hard, red bits of compressed sugar, some flavored and some not.  I just imagine when he returned to his humans, with his mouth, teeth and tongue brilliant red, they wondered what on earth he had gotten in to.  Then, if they smelled his breath, it was likely to reek of cinnamon, red licorice or fireballs. It wouldn't surprise me if he had some physical reactions to eating that much sugar.  I certainly would have, which is why I dumped it all in the trash. Hyper dog, anyone? 

While I was finding my gardening gloves this morning, I was fantasizing that the owners would go looking for the source of the red coloring and would come upon his mess and clean it up.  But no, it was still strewn across the side yard in all its glory this morning.  I left most of the sugar on the ground and picked up the remainder.  It didn't take long, and it wasn't too distasteful, since it wasn't gooey trash.  

So what's the moral of this story? Heck if I know.  Maybe it's that cause and effect is seldom a simple linear thing.  It's more like Russian nesting dolls, or interlocking Venn diagrams.  If the owners had kept their dog on a leash.... If the owners had trained their dog that it wasn't OK to forage for scraps in trash cans... If I had disposed of poison, antifreeze or paint in the trashcan, which I know is illegal, and I imagine that people sometimes do.  If the dog had been aggressive to me, I suspect I would have called Animal Control.  If the javelinas, coyotes or bobcats had decided the spread-out trash was a potentially interesting food source for them, the mess would have been greater.  (Apparently they know better.)  If, if, if, if...

So, I guess I'm back to the Stoic view, which dovetails nicely with the one espoused by Don Miguel Ruiz in The Four Agreements.  Take nothing personally.  (The Stoic version of that: Manage your own self and don't worry about what other people/beings do.  That's none of your business.)  It is enough.

Just Be There - 22Jan19

I had the luxury of traveling away from my present hometown for a quick 36-hour trip to take care of a little business and visit with two friends that I hadn't seen in 15+ years (other than on FaceBook). Fifteen+ years ago, we spent a fair bit of time together several times a month, and then life happened, people moved away, interests changed, people just did 'people stuff', and life moved on.  We stayed tangentially connected because of social media, which sometimes feels more intimate than it actually is.  Sometimes it does serve a degree of intimacy.

With one friend, it was a treat to be able to sit face-to-face sharing a meal of good Tex-Mex and just catch up.  We'd talked for well over an hour, suddenly noticing how easily we fell back into that camaraderie that we used to share, and took completely for granted. So many stories we re-told, and so many were left unspoken.

With the other friend, we sat in her living room, in adjacent comfy chairs with her cats exploring as they chose, and the same magic happened.  Real people, real life, real stuff.  Clearly time had passed, but it was an illusion that the passing of time made any difference at all.  What a joy.

Then later in the day, I was in the airport terminal having a lovely meal before heading out and I watched the people walking by.  Since I used to live in this town, part of me wondered if I'd see anyone I recognized.  No, and that was OK.  

There was one young couple that caught my attention for several minutes, he was leaving and she was not.  She did the obligatory recording of him waving goodbye, interrupted by a farewell kiss and hug, she watched him as he made his way through the security checkpoint.  Who sang the song, about it being easier to be the one leaving than the one left behind? I'm sure I could find out, if it mattered enough.

Maybe that's what we are here to do.  Just be there. Be present and support each other in any way we can. That's quite a good gig.

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?