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.
Earth's crammed with heaven
"Earth’s crammed with heaven, And every common bush afire with God;" This could have been written by Elizabeth Barrett Browning about my son Zachary Robert Dearing who is celebrating his 23rd birthday today. Since his arrival he has grabbed for this earth as if it were indeed crammed with all things divine. At age 2 in the grocery store checkout, he would stretch away from me to watch the cashier, mesmerized. (He received a toy cash register for his next Christmas). At age 5, he pursued T-ball, basketball and any other sport with such focus and determination that he was typically the coach's example to the other five year olds. At early as 3 years old when he was giving his new birthday roller blades a trial, he fell. Then promptly picked himself up with "Good fall, Zac" and went back after it again.Zachary has treated this world as if it truly is sacred, as if it were indeed created by God, (whether in 7 days or via the big bang and evolution), matters not so much to him as loving planet earth well. Loving it though, not with a mother's or father's love, but as lover. He devours this world and is the most present person to each of his experiences I have ever known. He expects to fall in love with all aspects of earthly life and so he does and has; now for 23 years. You know with all the focus on saving this planet I wonder if we are really present to it? Do we truly experience it? Do we love it and more importantly our own precious lives as if they will never come again? Because each moment will never come again. Somehow Zachary, from the moment he arrived (he slept only 10 hours a day as an infant... until he was 14 years old) has intuitively known how to love this world and his life here as if he had only this one shot at it.I know something about loving one's life. I was raised by a man who truly loved his life. Zachary's grandfather, Robert Wonders loved all the days of his life. But more quietly than Zachary. Zachary's enthusiasm for the world can take one aback, especially in his younger days. He takes up space. He has big ideas and pursues them and most importantly he does not focus on outcome. He focuses on the hunt. He celebrates each achievement, mourns his losses but never for more than 24 hours, then on to the next pursuit. It is clear that victory is not the point. The point is life. The point is being "all in" his life. The point is being truly alive.What does this have to do with you and with me?Ask yourself,"Where am I concerned with outcome?" or"Whether something makes sense enough to give it a shot?" or"How will I look doing it?" or"What so and so might think of me?"or some other form of doubt that is distracting you from channeling your inner Zachary Robert Dearing and simply loving this "earth crammed with Heaven?" Happy Birthday, Tiger boy!