The Direction of Intention

132.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

[continued from 131]

Horatio,
Van Gogh lived his entire life painting paintings that no one wanted to buy. William Blake was nearly a pauper at his death. Mahler’s work was rarely played until 50 years after his death. Imagine the doubts that filled their hearts! If you can imagine their doubts you can also imagine the opposite: what if their hearts were filled with curiosity? A writer writes, a painter paints; the artist’s job is to make the offer, not to determine how it is received. What if the idea of success or failure, acceptance or rejection never factored into their equations? What if, like you, they were following deeper imperative, a yearning that couldn’t be denied? What if, like you, they had a burning desire to explore the depth and breadth of their being?

Beneath the phrase, “I can’t do it,” is an opportunity. Replace the word “can’t” with the words “choose not to” and the opportunity will show itself. Also, when I fill myself with fear, when I convince myself that I can’t do “it,” I am always amused when I recognize that I don’t know what “it” is that I’ve decided I cannot do. What is “it?” Make a call? Ask a question? Try again? Pick up a pencil? Learn something? Live? Love? Share? “It” is an elusive bugger and that is its purpose exactly: to make you chase a phantom (can’t) rather than act on your dream. Or, to be more precise, to deflect you from seeing that you are, in fact, already pursuing your dream.

It is terrifying to fledge, to take that first step into space and rely on wings that have yet to know flight. A step from the nest is necessarily a step into uncertainty and I suspect that, if that step were into something you already knew, you would not be interested in taking it in the first place. It is the terror that you seek. It is the unknown that you crave. There is a fine line between exhilaration and terror. They feel the same but are wrapped in different stories.

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130.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

I’ve learned that where life lessons are concerned, learning comes in circles. I’ve had revelations and 10 years later I’m having re-revelations; same lesson, new level. Here’s the new/old learning I’m having today: I’ve been angry and frustrated these past several months and in all the things and people that I invest my discontent, in all the things that I think needs to change, the movement that isn’t (from my perspective) happening, I am the only one who is suffering. The anger and frustration do not exist outside of me. The expectation does not exist anywhere outside of me.

Lately I have been creating anger and frustration. I have been determined to suffer in a cloud of discontent. I am choosing it. Why?

I’m looking around me, all around me, and I see people walking on the beach. I see joy. There is sun. What is it that I do not have that I think I need? What am I trying to control that I cannot control. Or, perhaps a better question is this: what am I afraid to do that I am not doing?

What false expectation have I set that allows me stay angry and frustrated? I know enough to recognize that any investment in a victim role is an abdication of responsibility in disguise. What do I want others to do for me that I need to do for myself? The anger and frustration serve as blinders; what I can’t see I can’t address.

The old-new learning: I am the only person in this equation that is suffering. Perhaps answering the question, “why?” is not an important question to answer (or ask); any answer is equal – it is an explanation of victimhood – and so it doesn’t matter.

All that is required is to make a different choice. I am the only person making the choice. I can choose something other than suffering.

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129.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Inside the Volunteer Park Conservatory in the room just beyond the orchids there is magical piece of art called the Over Lyre. It is the work of Portland, Oregon artist Dan Senn. Suspended just above your head, small wooden dowels and metal disks are suspended from lines of piano wire. A gentle vibration sent through the wires tips the dowels tapping the disks; it is a chime that soothes and inspires inner quiet.

Lora, Megan and I watched as a young boy, maybe 5 years old came into the conservatory chamber. He was following the sound to discover its source. He was enrapt the moment he stepped into the chamber and saw for the first time the Over Lyre. His stillness (presence) was so…full, that we were enrapt by him. His quiet became our quiet. His parents entering a moment behind their son were literally stopped in their tracks by the power of his presence. His presence swept us into the present.

We were, all of us adults, moved to tears.

This capacity for awe, this is what makes us human. This desire to follow the sound to the source, to give yourself over to it, to marvel and be-come the delight, this is the purest form of creating; it unifies. How long has it been since you followed the sound and gave yourself over to delight?

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126.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Every year for the past three years I have been privileged to co-teach a class with Alan Seale. It is for coaches who desire mastery. There is a potent exercise from the class that I periodically do for myself because I never fail to gain an important insight or uncover something that I need to reconsider or let go.

The exercise goes like this: look around your life and imagine that you created all of it. What if you and only you create your love relationships, your friendships, and your casual relationships? What if you create your work situation? What if you create your physical health? What if you create your spiritual wellness? What if you create your financial situation? Your angst, your dissatisfaction, your fear,…what if you create it all? What do you see as a creator? You might even go so far as to imagine that you create the political situation in the country; that you participate in happenings in the world.

As creator, what are you happy about creating? What are you unhappy about creating? What would you like to change – assume that you have the capacity to create and the capacity make changes to your creation; what prevents you from changing what you dislike? What insights are available when you entertain the notion that you are creating your world?

Of course, the kicker is that you are creating your world through the story you tell yourself. What possibilities blossom when you accept that the story is in you, you are not in the story?

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125.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Truly powerful people empower others. They empower others because doing so empowers them. It is an infinite game: a game that is played to be better and better at playing. There is no win/lose in an infinite game; there is mastery. It is a game of power with others. Play to empower others and you will empower your self.

The shadow of that statement is also true: play to limit others and you will limit your self. Win/lose games are finite games; they are played to win so the game ends. All play stops and someone must lose. It is a game of power over others. It is possible to become better at winning when playing finite games but mastery will be out of your reach.

(for more read James Carse’s excellent book, Finite and Infinite Games)

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124.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

This question, “What do I want to create?” is hard for most people to answer. It is hard because it is assumed that the answer is an outcome, a thing (a noun).

If the assumption beneath the question is a verb, if what you want to create is a better life (a better relationship with yourself), a quality process of living, then it is easily answered.

If what you want to create is a better life it is useful to recognize that life is not something you will get to tomorrow. Life is not something you create later. Life is the process that is happening now while you are fretting over the thing you want to create.

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