IT’S TIME FOR WHAT: TO DO IT ALL OR TO LIVE AND LOVE?

I have work to do in the yard and also in the basement. Could work all day and then wouldn’t be done, but don’t suppose I will. I just work a while and when I get tired, I stop and rest.

                                                                                                 Karl Kennedy

The work will get done; it will be done better than work that emerges from tiredness of soul and spirit. Nurtured, nourished people, who love themselves and care for themselves, are the delight of the Universe. They are well timed and efficient.

                                                                                               Melody Beattie The Language of Letting Go

How many of you work when tired? Do you ever pause and ask, what is it time for?

Renewal does not emerge from doing. It emerges from being in harmony and in rhythm with inner life. It requires a rendezvous with Spirit. It’s counter-intuitive to a mind revved up, plowing through our work as if an ox who is being driven to the limit. Not good for the ox and not good for us.

In life, many feel a pressure to perform, multi-task, launch into a myriad of projects to just keep up. Because we are pressure driven, many of us have trouble keeping time with our Spirit. We wonder how we lose sight of what’s most true.

When I was an undergraduate, I launched into my Sophomore year like a young woman on fire. A year before, I was in the throes of grief, having just lost my grandfather. I took that grief and drove it, like a speeded-up drunk, into my Sophomore year.

Time became important to me when I arrived two hours late to my grandmother’s home, causing her to worry about me. In one split second, I shifted from rushing in the door, arriving at dinnertime, to seeing myself reflected by one of the most important people in my life. I let her down…during the most important moment in her life. I was out of synch with Kairos time and its expression of love.

Having sped along back roads, I justified my late arrival; after all, I was in college. And there was a war on, the protesting of which rattled and then changed a nation. Lucky me, I got to be a part of that. My grandmother was my place of refuge and nourishment. Surely she would understand.

Yet, my actions said it all: I didn’t have to be on time for her. I could come and go as I pleased. Luckily for me, this selfish behavior got cut short. I was not taking care of myself. Being out of alignment, I was not honoring those dearest to me. In years since, I’ve been slow on the uptake of self-care; but creating more time for those I love became a commitment. It started that day that, by grace, became a most intimate and remarkable time.

In this precious moment of your life, dear reader, what is it time for?

HANG IN THERE, BUDDY. C’MON, NOW

Hang In There, Buddy. C’mon, Now

An atmosphere of "profound equivalency" guides all relationships [in the Andean culture]-- between humans and nature, between human and deities, between deities and nature. Each watches for cues for what will keep the other happy, and give affection and respect the other’s need.

                                                                     Priscilla Stuckey, Kissed By A Fox

In ontological organizational development, we say that there’s a field of relatedness where conversation lives. Here, we’re in connectivity and find our true sense of belonging. We contribute and allow ourselves to be held in this “equivalency.” In harmony with this principle, Priscilla Stuckey shares one Andean writer’s perspective: "With them [deities, animals and nature] we keep company; with them we converse and reciprocate."

“Hang in there, buddy. C’mon, now. Come on, baby.” This is the warm voice that the hypothermic dog heard, barely hanging on by his front paws, crying, having fallen into the icy waters. http://www.sunnyskyz.com/good-news/623/This-Dog-Was-Scared-And-Freezing-To-Death-But-They-Never-Gave-Up-On-Him 

There’s a connection in life, a thread wrapping around each of us in moments of being fully engaged. Charlie was saved and with him, his rescuers, the media, and each of us connecting with the situation.

A near eighty-year old woman gave up her dream of dancing to become a mother. With her children well into adulthood, she moved to Spain. Her husband died shortly after. Instead of retreating, she went into a dance studio. This woman fulfilled her dream, causing amazement and tears. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2LMxf3Df6I  We’re all inspired when one of us goes the distance.

Pharrell Williams hired directors “who were out of the box.” His video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Sxv-sUYtM lightened the world. His production of “Happy” spawned over a thousand videos of others singing his song. We all need to stay in this field of relatedness: earth, animals, humans, old and young. It really is that simple.

Engaging a group of professionals, equine-leadership style, is a happy moment of mine. The group had a practiced intimacy, or so I thought. “What’s one story of you being with a horse?” A simple question; stories poured out, each unique, moving.  “I loved my horse, and then we moved….” One woman was hesitant. She was afraid of horses.

In the twenty years of gathering together, this group never shared these touching horse memories or this depth of connection with nature. Horses have big hearts. They love people authentically. They are masters in the field of relatedness. While we talked “horse” in the group room, they milled around inside the arena.

When we went out to engage the horses, things got hushed; something sparked new awareness. In the first exercise, the horses laid down, a sign of feeling safe. The group felt this honor and a new energy field of gentleness was revealed. Horses, barn, earth, sky, sun and humans were united. The woman who was afraid? She asked to join in the exercise learning about trust. She broke into tears when connecting with her horse. She’s still talking about it.

How about you, reader? What’s your happy moment standing in a field of connectivity?

LOST AND FOUND

If you get stuck, get away from your desk. Take a walk, take a bath go to sleep, make a pie, draw, listen to ­music, meditate, exercise; whatever you do, don't just stick there scowling at the problem.  Open a gap, create a space. Be patient.       
                                                                                        Hilary Mantel                                                                                       
Everywhere, take your time, so you do not give the mind an opportunity to speed up and get out of control. Negative thoughts are fast. Positive thoughts are slow.

                                                                      Eknath Easwaran

    

Have you ever considered that what you thought was missing was not actually missing? That your mind clouded over in anxiety and played tricks on you?

It is faith and peaceful reflection that allow things to be discovered. But the mind likes speed; its’ whirling and spinning out of control. My mind has done this often. I am sitting at my desk. Suddenly I am called out of my office. Or I go take a walk. And when I return, my eyeglasses are not on my desk.

First I feel this mild panic and queasy stomach. “I have no time for this”, my mind shouts. “I’m down to the wire.” My eyes look this way and that. My mind is racing. “I can’t finish this project without them.” My shoulders are rock-like. My limbic brain is on alert. “Code Blue. Code Blue.”

That is exactly what happened to a friend this week when I called her. With very little words from her, “Code Blue” screamed across the telephone wires. I could almost see the veins popping in her neck. “I lost it! I lost it! My report I spent all week on. It’s gone. I don’t know where! I am afraid I left it in that last huge conference room and someone threw it out!” Code Blue. Code Blue.

I guided her in a leadership exercise to reconnect with her document. Her shrill thoughts escalated in and out at a fevered pitch. They forecast doom and condemnation. Her mind ruled out simple solutions. At every turn it thwarted her process.

But she kept at it and her Code Blue simmered down.  Finally, her sputtering mind stopped for a moment. Her intuition said quietly. “It’s not lost. It’s not where you’d expect it.” That intuition saved her a wild trip across four counties to go search in, what likely would be, a closed conference facility. Her intuition said: “Enough, rest, eat. Let go.”

About an hour later, she emailed me, reporting she had found it. She learned something about the tricky mind: it abruptly guaranteed that she would never leave her reports in the place her intuition suggested that she look.

What is lost is not lost. This was certainly so with Buddy, the dog, who was missing for seven years. Mrs. Hartman demonstrates in this positive story what faith in the yet-to-be found can do. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/10/dog-reunited-with-owners-7-years-missing_n_5127079.html?utm_hp_ref=good-news


How about you, reader? What’s your intuition guiding you to discover that you once thought was lost?

WHAT DO I REALLY WANT?

What We Want

What we want appears

in dreams, wearing disguises.

We don't remember the dream,

but the dream remembers us.

                             Linda Pastan

“Five Positions” is an organizational tool that views situations from multiple perspectives. A long while back, a friend invited me to assist and be an active participant in her Advanced Skills Training course.

I was an example of fifth position. Fueled by spiritual values, I viewed my work and recreation sourced in universal truths. “If I am committed, do my actions bring peace?” My friend offered participants an overview; I easily “groked” the four positions. When fifth position came, I asked: “Am I really aligned with the highest truths?” When called upon, I shared my doubts. A participant, a CEO in the #1 position of self-interest, piped up: “If she doesn’t feel she’s living her core values, what hope is there for the rest of us?” There was laughter from others, a red face from me.

I’ve been working all the positions for years. Yet, as Achilles’ heels go, I keep returning to embody position #1: “What do I want?’ Recently, this straight-thinking eighty-year nun asked: “Do you know what your spiritual weakness is?” Head down, I mumbled, “No?” She responded, “You’re not entitled!” Jeez, if a nun, for God’s sake, is asking me to get a little self-interest, what’s one to do? Wait for the Pope?

Do you know, dear reader, what position is your Achilles’ Heel?

Two weeks ago, a mentor and three friends raised the stakes. “You are the most important person in your life. Repeat after me!” So gauntlet down, head up, I rose to the occasion. One of these friends urged me to post my poem. With my soul in my throat, I thought I’d give it a go.

“Because I am the most person in my life”

When I got off the phone

I did not call Jena

To see if she wanted to go

On a walk tomorrow

I went on a walk right then and there

With the sun still out

Pouring into my body

Early enough

I fixed myself the meal

I had been wanting

For a long time

To make

Aloo Gobi

I used all the cauliflower

I was not sparing

I used the best spices

I did not think 

Of whom else to serve this dish

It was for me

And because I did not 

Make extra calls

Or fuss at my desk

Before allowing myself 

A walk and a meal

I watched daylight 

Merge into dusky hues

Looking out my window

I noticed first bloom of

Cherry Blossom flowers

That last only a few weeks

Because it was still light

I walked outside

And told the flowers

Hello

HOW TO TURN YOUR FAVORITE STAINLESS STEEL POTS AND PANS INTO CAST IRON BLACKENED WARE

If you are a fifty-something, or twenty, or graybeards, thirty or forty, this recipe might just hit the spot. And how about you teens?

    Put a generous amount of water in your best stainless steel pot or pan.
    Add 3 PG Tips Black English tea bags.
    Add two to three crushed coriander seeds.
    Add finely chopped fresh ginger to the brew.
    Add three crushed black peppercorns.
    Add two small cinnamon sticks; organic is always best.
    Turn the burner on high.
    It will be at full boil in about 7-10 minutes.

    Leave the room. This step is vital!
    Engage in your favorite project.
    Fall deeply into loving arms...
    And engage, engage, engage.
    Time falls away...
    You are happily writing the next chapter of your book.
    Practicing your putt.
    Or immersed in your bridge blog.

    Ever so slowly, be aware:
    "Funny smell. Is there is someone burning trash nearby?"
    Listen as your lover calls you back. She/he is the jealous sort!
    Give your full attention.
    The flames of passion are calling.

    Along with them, smoking tea bags, cinnamon sticks and seeds, too.
    Without warning, burning smoke saturates you.
    Quickly, spring into action, mid-putt.
    Follow the smoke...
    CONGRATULATIONS, YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN!

    Perfect stainless steel pot/pan morphs into cast iron pot.
    Singed tea bags and scorched cinnamon sticks.
    The smell is out of this world!
    Holy Smoke rising: thick gray globs dance across cobwebs.

    Pop your pot into the sink.
    Pour in cold water and let it sizzle!
    Open doors and windows.
    You notice the blackened pot/pan features.
    The cast iron effect appears as you try to scrub.

Important TIP for when guests come:

    When they inquire into your technique, tell them it comes from
    BEING PRESENT...
    Focusing intently on your golf swing.

If guests insist upon learning more about your craft:

    Hand them an SOS pad.
    Tell them you will be back in a bit.
    Theory U: Leading from the Future as It Emerges is calling you.

BELLISSIMA: READY TO ROCK YOUR SOUL?

We are constantly being asked to turn our faces away from our own internal images of what is right, true and most of all alive for us. The very simplicity of these images may seem to speak against them. We give them away thinking they cannot be reflected by the complex experience of the world in which we have learned to live. But giving them away, we find ourselves strangely empty. Finally, we understand that though the world will never be simple, a life that honors the soul seems to have a kind of radical simplicity at the center of it.
                                                                        David Whyte

No twerking or other vulgarity, no sexy clothes, not even any makeup. Talent and enthusiasm is all this 25-year old nun needs to do to bring a heavily tattooed man to tears, and elicit acclaim from everyone in the studio. Brava!!! Bellissima!    
                                                                       Molly Alexander Darden, Huffpost Blogger

I have a gift and have come to give it to you. Shouldn’t things be that way?
                                                                        Sister Cristina Scuccia

How many of you know that you have something to say and hold it back? Recently THE VOICE has been in my space. First in my own inquiry: How can I give inspired voice to my work and life? More visibility? If living an authentic life, what is my most important decision this moment? What gives it voice? I keep choosing what my heart yearns to hear and needs to express. Amazing.

As I am finding new voice, I receive a happy email from a friend. Did I hear the news of who recently was on the television show, “The Voice”? I had not. Isn’t it fun how the media, instant and accessible, lets us celebrate all the new voices getting out here into our world? Even the relatives of a good friend.

Also recently, another friend and I were knee deep in coaching. When I coached him, I heard my voice come from this deeper place. He realized from this call that his new project was life altering. When he coached me, his integrity flashed across the phone like a laser. “David Whyte’s radical simplicity might be something you want to immerse yourself into. When life throws curve balls, don’t duck.”

For me, radical simplicity is faith in the unseen; the simplicity of “what is right, true and, most of all, alive” in me right now. Turn life’s uh-oh into possibility and promising outcome. Letting go of my firefighter habituation. Radically calling forth riveting surprises to engage a new voice.

Like one of my favorite horses, shaking loose from too much fuss, I was about to step outside for a morning hike. I let the rain nudge me back inside. I asked myself: “Okay, now what? What does my heart most need to hear?” Well I discovered it; The VOICE that rocked my soul. I invite you to listen and be surprised. Lighten your soul and spark your expression!  http://youtu.be/TpaQYSd75Ak Jaw dropping, foot stomping, yes?

THE LADY OR THE TIGER REVISITED

I was inspired in my seventh grade English class by reading The Lady Or The Tiger. That day I decided to become a writer. Not yet the later books, A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell, Miles Connolly’s, Mr. Blue, Kazantzakis’s Report to Greco, Joan of Arc or Peter Matthiessen’s Snow Leopard rousing me. We are talking myth by Frank R. Stockton.

 

Not only did my emerging writer self present itself then but also the creative path to be an organizational and leadership consultant. My work: empower clients in envisioning desired futures. It is about clients finding themselves smack dab in destiny and then crafting a new story. (By crafting, I mean an authentic, creative engagement with the world such that unprecedented outcomes prevail.) In short, it’s an innovative conversation, thinking outside the proverbial box, discovering possibilities. It's best fired by passion, yet too often it shows up when the house is on fire, as in the case of our myth.

The Lady or the Tiger is a fascinating old school power story spiked with horrific paradigms still stalking our collective future. It is a story of tragic consequence for those moving outside inflexible class boundaries. It is an excellent myth for innovative leaders setting sail for uncharted worlds. Ending paradigms that destroy life are the riveting new narratives of pioneers and remarkable organizations. These are the leaders born of true leadership development. They are the risk-takers, manifesting outrageous futures.

Our old story involves a King doing as he pleases. It is a storyline ready to erupt into bloodshed. (When will the media lose its fascination with this story?) Our world is locked up in these predictable chronicles. What made The Lady or the Tiger so powerful is its conclusion.

I was dumbfounded when our teacher told us to write an end to the story as our assignment. Craft a new story? Remarkable. Astounding. Outrageous. Awesome. Okay, so who comes out from behind the door? The lady or the tiger? Wow. That newly created story is in now in my hands!

Working with companies as well as animal and philanthropic stewards, I still get hooked by old story lines. Who comes out, the lady or the tiger? My clients present ongoing dramas: lack of shared resources, ladies and tigers, kings and princesses still abound. These lineages are rife with violence. Precisely because the lady or the tiger myth still plagues our worldview, imagine my delight when I recently discovered a new twist in the storyline, likely born of daring leadership.

I am not going to tell you the outcome, but you might want to read “The Lady, the Tiger and the German Shepherd,” showcased in Unlikely Loves by Jennifer S. Holland. It is a story with promise for more arresting sequels. We are on the verge of a tipping point where dog eat dog and power games just might take a back seat to love, possibility and team playing.

Your turn: Who comes out, the lady, the tiger or…?