The Direction of Intention

48.

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Recently I had a conversation with a man who was experiencing what he called gaps or, to use his term, “dead zones” in which his thoughts or language would disappear in mid-conversation. After our chat I wrote some notes for myself and shared them with him and thought they might be useful here, too:

Gaps: don’t resist them; resisting them, fighting them, demonizing them, or ignoring them only makes them worse. Walk into the dead zone and see what is there.

Instead of framing the gap as a deficit, as something to be ashamed of or hide, call attention to it. Share it. Include me in what’s happening for you. The yearning is for honest relationship so rather than hide yourself or exclude me (because of what you assume I might think), let me in.  It is “what is” and will have the meaning that YOU give it; so give it the meaning that most supports you. Allow me the opportunity to support you.

Here’s why: you can never control what others think/see/feel – nor can you know what they think/see/feel. So instead of hiding it or fighting it (actions that are invested in what others might think/see/feel), own it. Play with it. Explore it. Work on what you think/see/feel because that is the only thing you can address.

This is a product/process focus confusion. Placing your focus on process is, I believe, the key to happiness (seriously. process = relationship so create a quality relationship with what’s there, not what you think should be there). An outcome or product focus will block you every time because a product focus requires a measuring stick; measuring yourself and/or others is a losing proposition.

Put down you clever and pick up your ordinary. This means to let go of any need to be right, to be clever, to be smart, to be… and step into this moment as you are. Force nothing to happen. People generally discount their greatest gifts because they think they are ordinary; what you judge as ordinary is what makes you unique and extraordinary (you can’t see it because you think it is ordinary).

All of the above will transform the Dead Zone into an Anticipation Space – an Alive Zone. Anticipation is what makes a story worth engaging.

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