Smile at fear

Without official rank or title

 

Perhaps we’ve forgotten that Martin Luther King Jr. was never elected to run the civil rights movement or appointed to the job. He didn’t have “take on the entire nation’s long history of racial injustice” in his position description as a Baptist minister. And I’m fairly certain he didn’t suddenly decide to go change the world because he was ordered to do so by his boss, a Board of Directors or some steering committee. In fact, while he was encouraged by many, he was also vilified and challenged by many more.

We can only wonder what might have happened had King decided to wait around to be officially anointed or had hesitated to act boldly in the hope that others might step up first to take the heat and scorn.

Decades after King’s work the “is-ness of today” still stands in stark contrast to “the ought-ness of tomorrow.”

And every day we remain confronted by opportunities to challenge a status quo that isn’t working across many aspects of our lives and those of our brothers and sisters.

Sometimes that challenge shows up as a minor slight, other times it’s a devastating hurt. Sometimes it’s a system that simply doesn’t serve clients all that well, other times it’s one that perpetuates systemic injustice.

Every day we get to choose whether we will assume it’s always someone else’s job to act or whether we will be an uncrowned leader. Every day we decide whether it matters whether it’s in our official job description to step up or whether it is our personal responsibility as a part of our shared humanity.

If we plan on waiting to make a difference in the world until we get promoted or it’s in our job title we are likely to be waiting a long, long time.

As President Barack Obama reminds us “the arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own.”

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Being vulnerable, Letting go of ego, Radical acceptance

Our own Kellyanne Conway moments

Trump spokesperson Kellyanne Conway is off-the-charts good at what she does. If you care to witness a master class in denial, spin and gaslighting, just watch just some of her interview from the other night with CNN’s Anderson Cooper. And if after viewing it you feel like clawing your eyes out, perhaps this will cheer you up.

I don’t believe in Hell, but if it turns out to exist there will definitely be an extremely special section for her. But I digress.

Anyway, it seems clear that Ms. Conway is a very intelligent, well educated and highly skilled political operative. So for most of us it’s easy to conclude that she knows the truth, but is very intentionally setting out to mislead. That should be rather easy for any and all of us to judge quite harshly.

What is perhaps harder to see–and accept–is that many of us engage in our own Kellyanne moments; sometimes with great frequency. It’s just that the target of the denial, spin and gaslighting is often ourselves, and we do so unintentionally and subconsciously.

We can have an interesting argument as to how damaging the incoming Trump administration’s propensity for manipulation will turn out to be. We can debate the degree to which we might affect a different outcome and what tactics should be taken to stand up to this often dangerous and malicious nonsense. We can prop up our own egos by blogging, tweeting and posting on Facebook our various forms of righteous indignation. In fact, most days I wonder if that is precisely what social media was invented for.

But we shouldn’t discount how pernicious our own capacity to ignore reality is and how we can often do everything in our power to avoid confronting our own stuff.

Deflection and intellectual tap dancing my amuse or horrify when we spot in others, but we are only harming ourselves when we can’t wake up to the little bit of Kellyanne in all of us.

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Do the work, Embrace the present moment, Smile at fear

At the risk of stating the obvious… 

All we have is this present moment. Time spent trying to re-litigate the past or predict the future is time wasted.

It’s better to choose forgiveness over revenge, love over hate.

You are enough. We all are.

This too shall pass.

Gratitude is a super power.

We all get afraid. Keep going.

The wolf we feed is the wolf that wins.

If we are serious about change we need to do the work. Otherwise, we need to shut up and stop complaining.

Talk less, smile more.

Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.

When given a choice between adopting a learning mindset or a judging mindset, choose the former. Spoiler alert: we always have a choice.

Let it go.

Seriously, just let it go.

We want to be finished. We’re never going to be finished.

If you are anything like me, you probably know all these things to not only be true, but rather obvious upon any level of basic reflection.

But knowing something to be true is not the same as doing it.

We can fully appreciate that knowledge is valuable, but that nothing actually changes until we put our knowledge into action. Until we practice what we preach. Until we make mistakes, recalibrate and get back out in the arena powered by a deep awareness that we all have an expiration date and that what we do makes a difference.

We can read books about heaven or we can practice actually creating heaven on earth. And more often than not we have to start before we are ready.

Obviously.

 

h/t to the Reverend Aaron White for helping inspire this post.

Being vulnerable, Do the work, Letting go of ego

First, get naked

Never let them see you sweat. Have all the answers at the ready. Don’t let those pesky emotions fog up your logic. Be impervious to the Sturm und Drang of every day existence. Know where you are going at all times.

Nonsense.

We can’t ignore the need to pick a lane at some point.

We shouldn’t get stuck and spin endlessly as we mull over a sea of options.

We ought not to totally collapse in the face of challenges or throw up our hands in despair.

And yet…

And yet we should fight the urge to pray at the altar of a culture that values perfectionism over our flawed humanity, materialism over essentialism, quick and convenient decisions over considered choices that emanate from a deep understanding of ourselves and how we derive our passion and purpose.

When we are doing the work that matters the place to start is not borne out of snap judgment, reactivity or trying to sort out and conform to what other people think. And it’s rarely continuing what we’ve always done or what feels the most comfortable.

The place to start is to get naked; to strip ourselves of our worn out and tired stories, to give up the need to be right or in control, to eschew the habits that no longer serve us.

On our path to a life of greater love, kindness, passion and purpose we need to get raw, to experience our feelings directly rather than stuff them or try to navigate around them. We need to expose ourselves to the light. To be vulnerable. Laid bare.

Whether we are trying to figure out our next career move, how we wish to show up in important relationships or simply trying to decide how to best prioritize our time, I’ve found it’s worth digging deeply into three core questions:

  • Who am I?
  • What do I really want from my life?
  • How can I serve?

The answers that will keep us on our path aren’t likely to come easily or quickly. And they won’t come at all if we aren’t willing to get naked first.

 

h/t to Deepak and Sheepak for inspiring this post.

 

Chase remarkable, Embrace the present moment, Mindfulness, Radical acceptance

So much of any year is flammable

At a time when many of us are reflecting upon (dissecting?) the year that just ended and now find ourselves perhaps already struggling to live up to a new set of resolutions, I’m reminded of the words of the poet Naomi Shihab Nye:

Letters swallow themselves in seconds.
Notes friends tied to the doorknob,
transparent scarlet paper,
sizzle like moth wings,
marry the air.
 
So much of any year is flammable,
lists of vegetables, partial poems.
Orange swirling flame of days,
so little is a stone.
 
Where there was something and suddenly isn’t,
an absence shouts, celebrates, leaves a space.
I begin again with the smallest numbers.
 
Quick dance, shuffle of losses and leaves,
only the things I didn’t do
crackle after the blazing dies.

So much of life is impermanent.  So much is out of our control despite the illusion that often holds us, twists us around, sends our monkey minds into overdrive and compels us to grip the wheel even harder.

Very little of what consumes our thoughts, fills most of our days and fuels our resentments matters one little bit over the long run. Much of it doesn’t even serve any useful purpose right this very second.

We don’t need another resolution. We need better perspective, mindful awareness, radical acceptance, an open heart, the courage to act.

So rather than sweat the small stuff or lament the things that only access to a time machine would allow me to fix, I’m looking ahead, without a long list of impossible to meet resolutions, mindful of the important things I have yet accomplish, where the crackle still calls.
Embrace the present moment, Radical acceptance, Wake the F*** Up

Our fight with reality

I hate that Donald Trump is set to become the next President of the United States, but indeed he won the election.

I regret the many times my actions have hurt other people, in ways big and small, but that is what happened.

Our simple and beautiful humanity dictates that we will make mistakes despite our quest for perfection.

Lots of bad things are going to happen to us–and around us–regardless of our desire that things would (or should) be otherwise.

Like it or not, one day death will knock upon our door.

We can’t go back and change the past. And we are, in fact, rarely able to dictate nearly as much of the future as we believe.

Yet many of us wake up everyday ready to take on an unchangeable set of circumstances, girded to re-litigate the past, hell bent on controlling the uncontrollable.

The one thing we know for sure about fighting reality is that it is exhausting. And when we endeavor to control or manipulate other people to conform to our desired reality we are almost certain to make things worse.

My college academic advisor had a plaque on his office wall that read: “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes your time and it only annoys the pig.”

Yup.

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Fail better, Start, Unleashing potential

Until we’ve started

Before we’ve started, it’s all just theory, concepts, wishful thinking, big talk, hopes and maybe a dream or two.

Before we’ve started, we are time-tripping, living solely in a fantasized future, instead of a realized present.

Before we’ve started, nothing is truly on the line.

Before we’ve started we can’t fail. Of course, it’s worth noting that we can’t succeed either.

But the goal is not to avoid failure–it’s to fail better.

I’ve had all sorts of brilliant ideas that never moved past a rhetorical flourish or even emerged from the confines of my mind. I’ve written a lot of great blog posts in my head. I’ve imagined quite a few heroic deeds, game-changing new ventures, noble journeys and wrongs I’ve made right.

The Resistance is real. Naming it is the first step. Confronting it is the second. Slaying that you-know-what is the third.

Thinking is great. Planning is quite helpful. Starting, however imperfectly, is better.

And there’s no better time than now.

Until we’ve started, I’m sorry, but it just doesn’t count.

Embrace the present moment, Radical acceptance, The power of now

Objects in the rear view mirror are smaller than they appear

If you are anything like me, events from the past can sometimes loom quite large. And my attention and emotional energy can spin in regret; my monkey mind can get stuck in a world of “should have’s” and “if only’s.”

Maybe it’s a big mistake we made or a significant opportunity we let slip from our grasp.

Perhaps it’s the trauma from our childhood getting triggered, losing a job or important relationship, or any number of times we didn’t show up as our best selves for the people we care about.

It could be resentments we still hold on to that prevent us from extending love unconditionally, or simply being at peace with what is, rather than being trapped by what was.

Other times we cling to and can’t let go of a memory of good times that somehow drifted away or were quashed by forces beyond our control.

The past is here to teach us in the present moment. But we should not give it any more power than it deserves. It is only as big as we allow it to be.

Our journey is not made easier by carrying around the heavy rocks of resentment in our backpacks or engaging in endless battles with things we cannot change.

As Haruki Murakami famously observed, “pain is inevitable, suffering is optional.”

rearviewmirror_oct2011.

 

 

 

Embrace the present moment, Radical acceptance

I have no idea what’s going to happen

And, newsflash: neither do you.

Whether we believe that there is a divine, omniscient and omnipotent force directing every thing that happens in the universe, or that fate is pre-determined by a bazillion atoms randomly colliding every nanosecond–or some other theory entirely–the one thing we can be sure of is that we exaggerate our power over the future constantly.

And, despite our faith in our Nate Silver-esque skills, it turns out our ability to accurately predict what might happen isn’t all that reliable either.

Our illusion of control drives four unfortunate outcomes:

First, it causes us to waste an enormous amount of time and emotional energy.

Second, we make ourselves (and often other people) crazy in the process.

Third, the more attached we are to a certain result the tighter we tend to grip the wheel, further exacerbating the first two factors.

Lastly, when we get wrapped up in trying to change things that we cannot, or let ourselves spin in believing in our non-existent gift of prophecy, we miss the opportunities and beauty that are the gifts of the present moment.

Just relax. Nothing’s under control.

i_have_no_idea_whas_going_to_happen_and_i_love_it_9buz

 

Embrace the present moment, Letting go of ego, Open heartedness, Radical acceptance, The power of now

Prison break

In spiritual circles it’s common to talk about being “on the path.” The path to God (or however we may describe a Higher Power), the path to redemption, the path to awakening, the path to enlightenment.

And we are hardly lacking for guidebooks and maps. Addicts may employ the Twelve Steps to work through their spiritual recovery. Buddhists have the Noble Eight-Fold path to inform their journey. Other wisdom traditions have various rituals, methods and practices to light the way. An entire self-help industry exists to inspire spiritual exploration through books, seminars, retreats, podcasts, YouTube videos and more.

The journey along a path IS real. For most of us, it’s long, filled with twists and turns, peaks and valleys, glimpses of light, flashes of despair. We stumble often on our wanderings through the Dark Night of the Soul. We wish there were an express lane–an easier, softer way–but there is not.

Yet we can spend a long time hiding in our shadow, staring longingly through a window out toward the light. We can convince ourselves that spiritual growth is inherently complicated. We can obsessively analyze competing “truths” and run through countless gurus and teachers. We can get overly focused on arriving at some imagined perfect destination and entirely miss out on what is possible along the way–right here, right now.

The invitation is simply to begin, to emerge from the places and situations that keep us stuck, entrapped. But it’s hard to escape from a prison if we can’t see that we are a prisoner.

Yet, right now, we can in fact acknowledge that we are prisoners of our habituated, reactive thinking, trapped in a room of ego protection, a pathological desire to control and a failure to accept reality.

Right now, we can see the forks in the road, the profound choices we get to make moment to moment. Do we choose forgiveness over revenge? Compassion or judgement? Being open-hearted or walled-off from connection? Do we fundamentally embrace love or fear?

Right now, we can accept that so many of the answers are within us–and available to us–in the present moment.

Often, we witness other people peering into our prison cell, and we think (hope?) that they have the answers, that they will drag us out, that they hold the key to our freedom.

But more often that not, we have the key, we just don’t see it.

We need to see it. And we need to use it.

We need to open those windows and unlock the door. And then we need to walk over the threshold and out into the light. There the path becomes so much more clear.

And we can begin the journey with a lot less baggage.