Part 2: Moving from one year into the next
“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” Howard ThurmanThis Part 2 of "Moving from one year into the next..." is an invocation or a "call". You are invited to glimpse your unknown future, to look into your heart and the year ahead and petition God/the gods to release you to your destiny, to your bold angels. To the part of you that is courageous, even while fearful, and that is joyful and grateful even in the face of loss. To the part of you that is ready to "come alive".In this part of this reflection exercise, you are invited to notice what may want to emerge in your life and in you at this time. When I celebrate the beginning of a new year, I ask myself: "What is the quality or energy that I want to bring into my life in this brand new year?" Consider taking the wisdom of Howard Thurman’s words to his black congregation in the middle of the civil rights movement. His congregation, some would argue, needed everything, but listen to what he said to them:“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”So at the dawn of 2013, why not consider answering the questions below and see if you can glimpse what your bold angels might want for you this year:
- What makes you come alive now?
- What would fill your life/your world with "lovely"?
- If you knew you could not fail, what might you do or pursue?
- Where in your life do you want to live or need to live fearlessly?
- What could you get truly excited about bringing forward in yourself? That feeling of “really, really I get to do this or be this?”
Now set this aside for a day or so and come back and reread your answers. What is the new future you declare for yourself in 2013 and why does it matter to you? See if you can write that in a short sentence, maybe in the form of a declaration:I am a commitment to ________________________________for the sake of _________________________.The secret in making a declaration an incarnated reality is to keep it top of mind every day. Make a daily habit of creating 3 small steps you can take toward your declaration. Do this every day.Happy New Year. Happy New You.
Part 1: Moving from one year into the next ...
Let my history then, be a gate unfastened to a new life and not a barrier to my becoming. David Whyte We humans are such funny creatures. We have stories about everything and everyone ~ even ourselves! Maybe especially ourselves. And unfortunately, we ~ I ~ stick like crazy glue to that story. Think about it. When was the last time you surprised yourself by allowing some otherness, some unknown frontier to rise up and … arrest you? Alter your path? Carl Jung called that God. We often think it is the devil! How dare life deliver anything but our expected results, right?What is also true of us, is that most of us have a story that often differs in small or large ways from others’ stories about us. Today, on the eve of a new year, we invite you to step outside your story about your history and who you are and who you can be. Who exists beyond that story? Discover your unknown, your unclaimed otherness, your becoming.…not known because not looked for…(T.S. Elliot) So, why not consider seriously aligning with the call of 21st century life? To trust and welcome the unknown, rather than resist it. “To learn to love the unknown for itself, to take it gladly like a lantern to help you see where ordinary light will not go.” For me this line suggests we align ourselves with a positive expectancy, similar to what we felt on Christmas morning as children. What would be under the tree for us? Our most cherished desires or something else, yet still wonderful? Maybe more wonderful? You are leaders, whether you are leading just yourself, into authenticity or an organization of hundreds. You are leaders. And you are 21st century leaders, living in challenging, uncertain, and unpredictable and terribly complex times. Now, how do you find your way to say YES to that fierce embrace?
EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE.
AND
EVERYTHING IS AT STAKE.
What an amazing time to be alive and part of history. If anyone needs to become comfortable in the unfamiliar, the unknown, it is us: we rational planners and doers. I invite you to place, who you think you are, what you think you love, and what you think is possible for and through you, on your right side. Set them down. And allow your left side, your own dear unknown, to offer, to reveal, to announce itself to you. As you move from this year passing away, it matters to name what is done and complete for yourself so that you can create the space to invite new growth and imagination into your life in 2013. Consider using these questions to help you become clear about what needs to recede or die back in your life:
- What is finished, complete in your life now?
- Where have you achieved substantial mastery and need to allow that particular gift to recede in order to create space for your next level of growth?
- Where in your life might you be taking a strength of yours and over using it, or applying it to something that doesn’t need it? For example, let's say you are a good idea generator. You have most of them at meetings. But what if NOW it is time to develop discernment. The ability to pick between ideas, the one that will really hit it out of the park. That means listening and observing and reflecting. Opposite of the idea generator mode. But if you keep going to the “creative” idea generator, it will actually become a liability. This is an example of over-doing a strength so it becomes a liability.
Nothing stops her...
"Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasures." RilkeToday is Katharine Lillie Dearing's 27th birthday. My daughter's courage amazes me. How many things she has done for the sake of her career in acting. She continually has faced down each of her fears for the sake of this career. Fears like, rejection and whether or not she could make a living in a big city AND still create time and space to fill her life with things and people that bring her wonder and joy. And as we speak she is now challenging some of her deepest fears. So, I write this to remind her that her deepest treasure is barely a breath away. AND to remind us all that it is worth the grand quest. It is worth taking on that which we are most frightened by because (as is true in the realm of myth and magic) it is in those moments the great transformation occurs. The frog becomes a prince. In Phantom of the Opera, she kisses his ugly face and he frees her. We must prove ourselves worthy or our deepest treasures, before they will reveal themselves to us and drop their costume of our deepest fears. We must prove to our sweet souls that we won't let their deepest treasure be co-opted by the strategic mind, the ego.Yes, it is true, that which you resist most or fear most, you will one day discover this to be the source of the greatest healing and comfort. You will say things like: "O, if only I had known, that what I most wanted and longed for all my life, was actually in the thing I most despised." Let's say your greatest fear is being unaccessible, not there for others, unavailable and/or self-consumed. Yet one day for strange reasons you risk being that one who is unaccessible and unavailable to others and find the greatest peace you have ever known, the peace that surpasses understanding.So, Kate as I sit on the sidelines of your life watching you take on, challenge after challenge, always rising to the occasion, and always overcoming your fears...I realize that you are my teacher. Your dream is much harder to be faithful to, than many others. The path less clear and so many examples of those who tried and failed. Yet, nothing stops you, angel girl. Who would have guessed that angelic little easy going, baby girl who entered the world 27 years ago would turn out to be an amazon warrior for her right to have a life that takes her breath away. It will be so angel. It will be so.
Obama & Christie: Out of tragedy, new possibility emerges ... Part 2
Now let's look at the same phenomena on the other side, President Obama. Jungians might say that Obama's leadership shadow is exemplified in Governor Christie (and vice versa.) Obama makes space for others to speak and be seen. He tries deliberately not to take up space or call the spotlight to himself. He possibly sees the Christie directive, passionate, emotionally expressive style of leadership as "old school" and not 21st century. He prefers the servant leadership or the participative leadership model that has been catching on in the last two decades.There have been signs that some other kind of leadership was needed from Obama in addition to his preferred style. Even his supporters have called him out for being too cerebral, for not wanting to truly fight for what matters. For not saying directly what he wants, for not taking charge. Take health care: Obama gave it to the Congress and Senate to work out without clearly saying what he wanted. Christie would have told them what he wanted. There are other examples of Obama refusing to find his inner Christie, but my point here is that most of us refuse the call to change ourselves in a new direction,when it is against our "winning formula" or the identity that has got us where we are today, or when we have held our way as better than or superior to other ways. It is scary to give up what always worked.However, when we are called to change and refuse the call, something (Fate/Life/God) steps into to help us. Sometimes through adversity or pressure and sometimes through offering us an example of our refused capacities in all their glory! For Obama, enter Governor Christie dealing with Sandy and for Christi, enter President Obama supporting him and the people of his state.AND so we get to glimpse another way to lead and to work together through their interaction. We saw that Obama had to ensure through his direct actions and calls to Christie that the government he believes in delivered for Christie. He couldn't sit on the sidelines. He had to get in the game and direct it when necessary. He made sure the red tape that everyone hates in bureaucracies didn't get in the way of FEMA delivering the way he knew it could. We witnessed what a working across the political divide could look like. Now it is our turn to do the hard work of insisting we get it.To my eye, both men glimpsed their "golden shadow" in the other man in the aftermath of Sandy --the next level of greatness for each of them as a leader if they will take the journey of embracing their opposite style. An Obama who takes charge and takes up space when necessary. A Christie who recedes and makes space for others views and leadership or who leads via supporting others leadership. Neither may know this happened consciously. But their unconscious is probably a little less frightened of being their opposite kind of leader.And so too, you and I. Ask yourself: "What it is I am most afraid of becoming?". Now ask yourself "And where in my life could that way of being actually be useful to me?" You will discover that "Our deepest fears are like dragons guarding our deepest treasure." Ranier Maria Rilke
Stepping beyond Fate and into your Destiny.
“In refusing fate, we also deny destiny.” Michael MeadeWhat does this mean? To answer that question I think you begin my looking to see where in your life you are refusing (resisting) your fate. What part of yourself or your life, are you struggling to fully embrace? Remember the post Accept—then act? Where Eckhart Tolle tells us to “Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it… This will miraculously transform your whole life.” I believe these are related. Where we resist, what our life is bringing us: a downturn in donations, a decrease in sales, a health issue, a marriage gone sour, that is where we wrestle with reality rather than accepting it, AND that is where we may inadvertently be turning away from our destiny (that which our soul most longs for). (Please note, that in a struggle between our own will and reality...she (reality) wins, "but only 100% of the time." Byron Katie.)I propose that when we do this, "resist what is" we deny that deep call at the core of our being, which is our destiny. The health issue, the business issue, the bad marriage might be the very key that unlocks my next move toward my destiny, if I can but first accept it as here. AND then act as if I trust it, as if I had a strange faith in this thing, that I didn’t ask for or think I wanted. Personally, I do this by saying to myself and that reality I do not like, something on the order of :
“'Sh... I don’t understand why you are here and I sure don’t want you.... BUT I am going to trust you and meet you as ally and not enemy.' I am truly curious about this unasked for reality that now presents itself to me. I am going to wonder what hidden treasures it might contain. (By the way, this is easier as I get older because I can look back on so many things I wanted but in actuality I was mistaken.)”
And in doing this, I shift my internal attitude and my energy, so that a more creative and innovative way to be with (this consciously unasked for reality) can open for me.
Look, I know this isn't easy. I am as stubborn and willful as anyone I know. BUT I also know this: life rarely brings me the great beauties I have heretofore enjoyed based on anything I have planned or willed into being. The treasures of my life have come in strange packages indeed. And you might look back on your own life and see if that isn't true for you as well.
Are you wondering "How are fate and destiny intertwined? " This is one of my favorite conversations and they both have seemed related but difficult to pin down. My own views on these two keep evolving. Currently, I think fate is sort of like the status quo or automatic pilot. It is how we live when we are not truly conscious or reflective about our choices and actions. When we never question, if we are in fact doing what we came "factory loaded" for. So, when I say things to myself like, "I have to go to XYZ because her feelings will be hurt or because they expect me to", this is a place where I am not actually consulting my own wise self to find out what is truly called for at this moment. It is a bit like when I react or blindly follow my DNA or my wiring. It is my reactive state. Fate is sort of like "automatic pilot". I think it is akin to the unexamined life.I do believe that certain events (but by no means all) of each life are fated. In my life, I think my marriage was and my divorce. But what exactly is the difference between fate and destiny?I think destiny is more like calling. I remember hearing Jungian author James Hollis talk about how in the middle of his life, he changed course and direction and went to Switzerland to study at the Jung Institute and become a Jungian analyst. He is one of the most popular Jungian authors and all of his books came later in his life. Had he stayed in his former profession and here in the states, his "destiny" might not have appeared and instead he would have simply lived out his fate.I would love to hear your ideas on this too. And I will keep blogging on it as it is one of my deep interests.PS: By the way, I think it is no small thing to step beyond fate and into your destiny! But that is another post.