“Every day when I awake I am torn between saving the world and savoring it…”
As we stand at the gateway, a summer stretching out in front of us, this quote is particularly meaningful to me. Full quote: "Everyday when I awake, I am torn between saving the world and savoring it. It makes it hard to plan the day."And that reminds me of another poem by David Whyte What to Remember When Waking where the poet states
"...What you can plan
is too small
for you to live.
What you can live
wholeheartedly
will make plans
enough
for the vitality
hidden in your sleep. ..."
Is there a kind of planning that is more like a conversation with a person? Where no one leads, you aren't leading and life isn't leading but you are co-creating the dance together? I believe there is. Conversational planning may be the secret to 21st century well-being, whether planning your family's summer or your organization's vision and mission for the next 3 to 5 years.Recently, I lost a most dear soul friend. It reminded me of the futility of a plan that does not include the following:
- Interruptions
- The random...things taking a surprise turn (positive and negative).
- Trust in oneself and life.
The last one is particularly important I think, because I cause myself unnecessary suffering when I get out ahead of "now" and tell myself a story about a possible future that is not here. But when I am able trust the unknown (unplanned interruptions and the random), what C.G.Jung called God, only then can I stay present and fully available to this moment instead of my story about this moment. How do I trust the unknown and random? By trusting that I can meet whatever life is bringing. I Part of what makes this a bit easier is staying in this moment where I can't truly see if what is happening is actually good or bad, in the long run. What I can know in this moment is only that I like it or I don't. I want it or do not. But I can't actually know how I will feel about it 20 years from now. You see until our last breath, we are all always in the middle of a long play. So this "detour" or "setback" might actually be a kind of divine intervention giving me the chance to pause and relook at what I am doing or where I am heading. If you don't believe in Divine intervention, no worries, you can still take a pause and ask yourself the question, "How is this potentially a gift to me?" In other words, use it as Divine intervention giving you the chance to pause and regroup. Even if it is not!In that pause, you can ask yourself questions, like:
- "Am I all in?"
- "Do we have anything nagging us that we keep turning away from?"
- "How is this actually a good thing? Even though I still don't like it.
By the way trusting the unknown or trusting Life, doesn't mean I don't get to feel, sad, mad and/or scared. But if along side those feelings, I can squeeze in a little curiosity and wonder via exploratory questions (like those above), the whole thing opens up again and I can move forward with more confidence and commitment. Not in outcome. No one gets to have that. Confidence and commitment in myself and my direction, come what may.So back to 21st century conversational planning. What exactly does that mean? It means planning expecting a partner (Life/the Unknown Future) that will ultimately help you create more than you could have without her. Planning for interruptions, detours and reversals. Keeping the end in sight, but holding the "how" and the "when" loosely. And trust yourself, especially that vitality hidden in your sleep and your dreams.
"All you undisturbed cities, have you not longed for the enemy?" Rilke
This line of (from a Rilke poem from his Book of Hours) arrests me. I heard it read by the poet David Whyte at the opening of our second Invitas learning experience near his home on Whidbey Island off the coast of Washington State, almost a month ago. It was evening, there had been wonderful food, wine and conversation. This was not his first or only poem to share. But when he delivered it, I felt as though it reached out and grabbed me by the shoulders and said…”YOU, Nancy, undisturbed Nancy, haven’t you longed for the enemy?” It was personal and it implicated me. It still does. Why? And what does that line mean? Who longs for the enemy? Hmmmm…what if I do? I mean literally the enemy is disturbance. Because the city of Nancy Clarie Wonders is undisturbed. And that is true. Other than my clients bringing me their disturbances, my city is pretty quiet, tucked in. How did this happen? Why did this happen? First question: how it happened was I arranged this life as it is. I made all the choices so I created a life with little disturbance. Why? Well, honestly because I had had so much disturbance for almost a decade, I think I just wanted to rest, to live in my little walled city (which is actually what the poet was seeing when he wrote the poem.). And I am so glad I did, not just because I was exhausted from constant change and seriously needed the rest but also because I had never lived my life in this contented and calm place. It was and is lovely. Helps me understand why we wall ourselves off. YET, I can feel something stirring deep within me, like the bulbs under the ground putting down roots and sending up shoots. I am ready for the enemy. I am ready for an intimate relationship again or some kind of challenge or learning that disturbs my self sufficiency and clarity.As the song Being Alive by Steven Sondheim states so beautifully…. Make me alive, make me confusedMock me with praise, let me be usedVary my days…One can be alone within a marriage or a family. Those folks in the walled in city had others with them but…still the poet asks them…do they long for the enemy?Yes, when disturbed...I fuss. But do I truly want to be disturbed? If I am honest, I am a house divided here. I do and I don’t. And yet, I know I only grow through these disturbances and I know that we humans are built for change and growth, even while we/I resist. Likes a ship, I am safe in harbor but that’s not what ships were built for. Nor was I! Oh goodness, here goes!
Trusting the good ...
It's a new year! How about a Bold and Courageous Aspiration for 2015?Your vow to Trust the Good! AND magic it happens, right? Probably not! Unless you are a magician. Because it turns out that trusting the good" is NOT easy. AND it is because your brain is hardwired to pay more attention to negative experiences than positive ones. So, what to do?Rick Hanson, and Kristin Neff have done pioneering work on self compassion and self care, tell us that negativity is like velcro and sticks to our brains. Positive experiences, "the good" are like teflon, they don't stick. Research offers ratios like 3 to 1 and 5 to 1. It takes 3/5 good thoughts to have an equal weight to one bad thought for each of us. Hanson's response to this is to "install" the good thoughts. My favorite exercise of his is called "taking in the good". I was stunned the first time I did it, at how quickly my brain wanted to dash off and not take in the good. I was recalling a particularly peaceful, halcyon day at Amrita Island on Cape Cod ... but part of my brain was not at all interested in "installing" or deepening this experience. That part of me thinks the idea of "trusting the good" might be the dumbest or most dangerous thing it has ever heard of, so thus my struggle through the exercise and why I am writing this post. I believe this is the most important work we can do right now and that we must teach our children this too. AND it will take practice. But thank goodness it is a 15 second exercise... once you get your mind to settle down and stay focused on exploring and absorbing the good. I will be writing more about this during the year. So why should you add this to your already full schedules?
- It makes you hopeful and happy, therefore the learning and creativity centers in your brain turn on. It is fun.
- Nothing new or alive will find you if you are worried or busy "being prepared for a future you don't know will ever happen!" Worry and negativity block out happiness, creativity and learning. Lots of brain research on this too.
- It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Notice the good and you will feel the good. Notice the bad and you feel bad. Remember you can't come up with good strategy or new idea from a place that is fear based.
I could go on and on. It is good for your health etc. but really the most persuasive argument is your own experience. So, at the start of 2015, will you join me in committing to take in the good? I am doing this exercise once a day, five days a week. For specific instructions on how to do this. Check out Rick Hanson's website. Watch Take in the good, to learn from a master.
Rejection is protection!
What?Rejection is protection! How can that be? This is a saying in 12-step programs. When someone rejects you, or your proposal, it is actually a sort of "whew...dodged that bullet!" because even though you wanted "it" or wanted a relationship with this person, your IDEA of what you would actually receive in the bargain was just that: YOUR IDEA. Not the reality of what would occur.This is one of the hardest passages of adulthood. Recognizing that the voice inside our head, the strategic mind that tells us what it thinks is good and bad, is actually not what is wisest in us. There is another voice, "that small still voice within" that knows more but often scares that strategic mind and so it shuts that voice down. I have a long time friend, going on 3 decades. She is a recovering alcoholic. She told me once that first time she tried a 12 step program it didn't work. The step (maybe first?) that asks you to surrender to your higher power? Well, she really believed that "She was her higher power". And I don't blame her. First of all she might be the most competent person I know, and I know so many, that this is actually a huge complement. Second, she grew up where there was no reason to trust any adult around her and every reason to assume she was the only person that was for her. The only person she could trust and the only person who would protect her, was herself.But when she said it ("I always thought I was my higher power.") my first thought was "She is just like me." I too find it easier to trust my idea of what should happen instead of trusting "life" or "God" or even that small still voice deep within me that whispers, maybe it is better this way. My strategic mind hates that voice. It doubles down on its list of why things should be the way it thinks they should.For most of us our idea about a job, a marriage, really any endeavor we wish for ourselves never materializes that way. It is always something different. Sometimes better, sometimes worse, but always different. So silly me, why do I really think I know what is best? So, picture me raising my right hand and swearing: "When the "no" comes, on any front, I resolve to recall all the times a "yes" made me unhappy and say "I probably just dodged a bullet, and I don't know why yet." Care to join me?
"When you are very sad, the only thing to do is to go learn something."
"When you're very sad, the only thing to do is to go learn something." Merlin to Arthur in The Once and Future King. (Full passage below).For those of you reading this who are intimately familiar with loss and sadness right now, this is particularly for you. But it is for the rest of us too. For those of us who are sad about the world, or about health issues, or a lost love, or maybe just "what might have been" we need to learn something too. Why does learning help? I will answer that with a story. When my 89 year old father died about 10 years ago he didn't give us much warning. On Thursday we were told his lab results and he was gone by Saturday night. My mother had a very difficult time processing that her husband of 50+ years was gone and to compound matters, 30 days later she was told she was in the early stages of dementia. When it rains it pours. AND it surely did on our sweet mom.My parents history was complicated as all marriages are, in one particular way. My mother had a long list of "honey do's" that my ordinarily kind and sweet father adamantly refused to do. Go figure! So my wise and loving brother who was equally stunned by the loss of his father and best friend came over every week for two years and took something off the list of "honey do's". And then when it was complete, he started coming up with things to create, to add to her home that he suspected she would really enjoy. My mom never truly fell apart in the ways we all thought she would and certainly had every right too. I believe the love and attention she received from my sisters and I was a part of that but I truly know in my heart that having something new to look forward to every week told her hurting soul, that while life held loss and endings, it was not just that, it also held discovery and beginnings. My brother was as wise as Merlin, in the face of the biggest ending in my mother's life, those constant new beginnings helped her through that very rocky passage. So too with learning something new. It fills you with beginnings and with discovery. Learning is not just good for us as we age because it keeps our minds agile it also keeps our hearts and spirits young.From the Master himself, in his own words: “The best thing for being sad," replied Merlin, beginning to puff and blow, "is to learn something. That's the only thing that never fails. You may grow old and trembling in your anatomies, you may lie awake at night listening to the disorder of your veins, you may miss your only love, you may see the world about you devastated by evil lunatics, or know your honour trampled in the sewers of baser minds. There is only one thing for it then — to learn. Learn why the world wags and what wags it. That is the only thing which the mind can never exhaust, never alienate, never be tortured by, never fear or distrust, and never dream of regretting. Learning is the only thing for you. Look what a lot of things there are to learn.” ― T.H. White, The Once and Future King