"Things Happen FOR us, not TO us."

As an event is unfolding we actually have no idea at all WHY it is happening.  Of course that won’t stop our minds from making up a story of one sort or another.  But as you may have already surmised, thinking “things are  happening for me” leads to a very different story and feelings, than than “things are happening to me.”  “For me” can lead to Christmas morning feelings,  like positive expectancy, curiosity and openness.  Things are happening “to me” can lead to self-protection and contraction,  feelings and thoughts like suspicion, concern and worry.  The emotional intelligence research tells us that what we say only counts for 7% of what people hear when we talk.  But how we are feeling and thinking, accounts for the other 93% and shows up in our tone of voice (38%) and our non-verbal behaviors (55%).  It follows then that “to me” stories create an energy of contraction and worry that diminishes us and our messages/communication to others.  And of course, “for me” stories create a sort of “brainstorm” atmosphere that is fun, joyful and creative allows for the flow of meaning as well as ideas.  This is exactly the kind of atmosphere that today’s individuals AND organizations most need to stay competitive and thrive.When we are caught in “to me”, a good exercise to move into “for me” is  The Wonders Consultancy “13 things” exercise.  Sit down and make a list of 13 reasons that this thing that is happening, is actually a benefit to you in some way.  For example, let’s say that you tend to be someone who gets anxious when people you care about distance from you.  Maybe you take that personally.  Or feel rejected. Or tend to blame or criticize yourself, and create a story you caused their behavior.  AND let’s say you have recently decided that you want to change this pattern.  Now, two of your friends are incommunicado.  One way that is a benefit to you is you get to practice new neurological patterns or calming yourself and not chasing after these two friends.  Of trusting that it is not at all about you and at some point you will understand and discover that they had other things pressing on them.  Therefore,  one reason that friends being incommunicado is a benefit to you,  is that you are learning not pursue others!  Another reason is you are learning to stay in the moment and not create stories about other people’s intentions.  A third reason this is “for you” is that you are getting to learn not to take others behaviors personally.  So, I gave you 3, now find another 10!   It may well take that much effort to get your strategic mind to let go and trust!

Maintaining order rather than correcting disorder is the ultimate principle of wisdom. Nei Jing

So, how does one do this?  What does this look like in action? Here is an exercise to test drive this wisdom.  (I believe Nei Jing is a Chinese text written in  2nd century BC)1. Bring to mind a situation that is disturbing you for any reason.  Then, pause, take 3 deep breaths and ask yourself, what most deeply matters to me here, or how can I use this situation as leverage to create what I most love in my life and work?Immediately you are in a different place.  You are not in "problem focus" or "disorder focus" but you are in possibility focus or emergent order focus,  or as The Power of TED would say "Creator mode".  This shift in your thinking and feeling creates the space for you to go onto the 2nd step.2. Next, ask yourself, "what can you be deeply grateful for right now, in this situation that is troubling you?"  I know!  Crazy!  But do it.  And then ask yourself "What is working?  Where is there harmony already present?  How might this thing you don't want...actually be carrying within it the seeds for the order, harmony and well-being you do want?"  This of course is a challenging step, but stay with it, you will surprise yourself.3. Now from this place, from this deep well of gratitude and wisdom, choose your actions.  Your choices are much more likely to be proactive instead of reactive.   You are more likely to experience a sense of peace and well-being as compared with the feeling you get when you get to take something off the list!  Problem solving/correcting disorder mode is taking stuff off the list.  It may feel good in the moment, but often it comes from a place that is surface or reactive it will be back on the list in no time at all.  When that happens it is easy to end up feeling defeated and even victimized by the situation and that tempts you to correct disorder (problem focus) which leads to the same failed results.  But only over and over again! Einstein once said:  "You can't solve a problem at the same level of thinking that created it."  The choice to maintain order, or said another way, to focus on emergent order or what you are trying to create, is the new level of thinking Einstein was talking aboutTry it and see what happens!     

"Suffering is pain that hasn't found it's meaning yet..."

This quote from  neuroanatomist Jill Bolte Taylor's book My Stroke of Insight.  Her 2008 TED talk, My Stroke of Insight   by the same name, and currently holds the number 2 spot for most popular TED talks.   Jill's left-side brain stroke sent her on a journey that included an 8 year recovery.  Along the way, she decided that even though having her left brain largely unavailable to her put her in a  very peaceful, harmonious place, it also restricted her ability to communicate and contribute to our world.  She challenged herself to bring her damaged left hemisphere back on line WITHOUT reengage its negative emotional baggage.  She refers to this part of her brain as her story teller.She did the miraculous thing of figuring out how to stop her story teller (left brain identity centers) from attaching to pain.  She discovered that our emotions only last about 90 seconds in our blood stream.  If she was feeling a negative feeling longer than that it meant her story teller was somehow keeping it alive or that she was somehow attaching to it emotionally.  Toward the end of the audiobook, she says "suffering is pain that hasn't found it's meaning yet".  I flashed back on Victor Frankel's Man's Search for Meaning and how his drive to understand why in conditions of extreme pain and deprivation (Nazi Concentration Camps), some people psychologically connected to the best and most resilient in themselves and others did not.  Meaning and purpose played a significant role he concluded.  It allowed people to endure pain while somehow also seemingly transcending it.When the pain we are experiencing has a context, when we create a larger meaning and purpose for our trials and struggles, they can enlarge us.  We may well  experience pain, yet we do not have to experience suffering.  One of my teachers Richard Heckler Strozzi spoke of your "for the sake of".    Using this concept, when there is a challenge in our lives, especially one that is painful to us, what this challenge "for the sake of"?  Or what  "for the sake of " could you give your pain?  My sister, as she supported her husband through his long journey and eventual death from colon cancer appeared to create one of the most powerful contexts for his cancer and the pain they all endured.  Looking from the outside and observing her compassion for herself, for him and their daughters her "For the sake of" appeared to be living fully each moment that they had together.  They were both surprisingly present to the day to day joys available to them during so much of this journey.  Not necessarily "laugh out loud" joy, though she did plenty of that too, more like a deep abiding gratefulness for whatever particular moment she was experiencing.  And he seemed to be present without agenda and available to the moment and what was happening in a remarkable way.  The story teller (suffering generator) gets banished when that happens.  You know where this is going.  If you are "suffering", if you are experiencing negative thinking or emotional energy, look around for a large enough meaning for your pain and the suffering may well dissipate.   

Strength AND vulnerability...

I feel like the oak tree on the north side of the caddy shack at the city golf course I walk each morning.Fragile...beautiful...broken and bare branched in places, yet graceful and lovely on the whole.My mind like the leaves rustled by any breeze, yet my core, my trunk and roots are sturdy and strong.Strength and vulnerability, my existance.Strength and vulnerability our world.Strength and vulnerability, my home.At last.

The Connection between Art and Vitality

Art isn’t pretty.Art isn’t painting.Art isn’t something you hang on a wall.Art is what we do when we’re truly alive.…But art is who we are and what we do and what we need.  Seth GodinOkay, so I have been in a funk.  By that I mean not really inspired to blog anything.  Yet, somehow still inspired by life.  This may sound trite but Michelle Obama's bangs and her and the girls attire on inauguration day are now my wallpaper on facebook, they inspire me.  I don't know why but I smile every time I see them.  Maybe because the colors are so beautiful and the lines of the clothes, elegant. But I may be making this up.  My strategic mind HATES the idea that it can't explain everything. ;-)  What I know for sure is the image of them makes me smile.   Something else that inspires me:  the comings and goings of the chickadees at my bird feeder.  AND right now, I am really jazzed by my I  brand new elegant red metal dining room table to launch valentine's day week.  All of these makes me happy, grateful and young in spirit.  Yet, not inspired to blog.When I started this blog I understood that the muse comes and goes.  And accepted that, but I didn't expect the fickle girl to disappear for almost 6 weeks!  AND I committed to not write because some voice in me said, I had better write something or...  In other words I wasn't going to let my strategic mind take the my love of writing and connecting things and turn it into just another thing on my "to do" list.   This blog that bears my name would be filled from a place of possibility and abundance.  I would write  because I get to, not because I have to.Trusting this path was part of my emergence as an artist.  Yes, I did say artist.  Not because I think my writing is actually worthy of the word art.  But because I think how I am in the world is.  My definition of art and making art is similar to Seth Godin's.  It puts me on an edge.  It asks me to begin and not know where I am going.  Hmmm, that sounds like motherhood, marriage, most jobs, most projects doesn't it?  I think so.  Godin says we are all artists.  We must make a world we want to inhabit.  So ask yourself:What can I make in my world today, given all the things already scheduled and required of me, that would make me come alive in the making?  That would give me energy?And of course ... go do that!