Catch Your Breath
David Whyte: “If you treat the discipline of reading poetry as an act of contemplation, then you will have a moment in the day, as William Blake said, ‘that Satan cannot find.’ When William Blake spoke of Satan he actually meant the strategic mind, the part of you that feels it doesn’t deserve anything unless it is ’doing’ something.”It is my hope that you treat reading this blog as an act of contemplation. A chance to catch your breath and reconnect with your personal “for the sake of”. For the sake of what do you do the work you do? For the sake of what are you here at this moment in history?We wonder why our workplaces are so stressful and yet, and assume it is the pace of things or something unique to our time. But, is it? Back in the 1800s poet and artist, William Blake noted this was happening. There is really not much new in the human psyche. The strategic mind that must always be “doing” or “controlling,” what neuroscientists are now calling the default network, is deeply uncomfortable with another much larger part of us. This part, the soul or psyche (which means soul in Greek) -- the energy that makes you you -- or maybe you call it your true or essential self, terrifies the strategic mind. It is a jealous lover who must have complete control.Another poet, William Carlos William wrote:My heart rouses thinking to bring you newsof something that concerns you and concerns many men. Look at what passes for the news.You will not find it there but in despised poems.It is difficult to get the news from poemsyet men die miserably every day for lackof what is found there.So, in this pause, see if your answers to the questions that follow, reconnect you and invigorate you for the work yet ahead of you. For the sake of what did you enter the profession you chose? For the sake of what did you join this firm or start this company? What about this work’s mission touches your heart and soul?And if the answer is nothing, it just might be time to find out what does!
Accept - Then Act
“Accept—then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it… This will miraculously transform your whole life.” Eckhart TolleTolle is right. If I choose something, then I trust that it is somehow a benefit for me, even if only in the long term. If I choose something, I don’t waste time and energy wishing for a different reality.I am in a two-year IRS audit. So let’s test-drive this idea: I chose this audit. Hmmm, how might that be true? Well, through this audit (now going on three months), I can say the following:I am learning to accept, embrace and actually be grateful for my imperfections and inadequacies. Through this audit both my accountant and the IRS agent have criticized me. I have been accused and shamed. I have been talked to with an exasperated voice. Until this audit, I did not know I still held somewhere inside of me a sense of inferiority and even shame for being so right-brained and not linear or sequential, for how I am made.I have struggled with my strange and random way of being in the world my entire life. I am not linear. I have no sense of Chronos time, sequential time, or quantitative time. I am very present. I live in qualitative time. I am deeply aware and connected to energy. I have enjoyed the gifts of being primarily right-brained. The right brain makes things whole. It has a great capacity for wonder, awe and depth. It is a holy way to experience the world. But all my life, I have felt somehow defective because I have been so different from people I admire. My favorite story has been The Ugly Duckling, the story of a swan chick raised by ducks and ostracized for his lack of swan-ness. Until one day he sees who he truly is, and he is at home in the world. Stories of exile, like this one, are my story. These stories might be yours too, but for an entirely different reason. Most of us, feel somehow “other” or different than most.This audit took me on the journey of exile, and today I am at home in the world as it is and as I am. I accept both and believe I have chosen to be here and to be here as I am. I am at peace with my unusual self.Where do you need to accept yourself? But not in spite of how you are made, because of how you are made?