Be A Hypocrite

Posted on March 21, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Apparently, I am a hypocrite. I do not always practice what I preach. Most days I believe that I am my brother’s keeper. Yet some days I walk passed someone in need; I turn my head and pretend not to see them, saying to myself, “This is not mine to do.”

I believe in anchoring my life in love and yet sometimes I enshroud myself in a wet blanket of fear. I say things I do not mean. I judge and run back to my safe place.

I believe in the power of possibility and yet there are days that I fill my cup to overflowing with “I can’t.” I invest with gusto in my disbelief and hide my gifts beneath a mound of doubt.

I preach the virtues of going slow. I believe in being present and yet at times I find myself racing to get somewhere. I tailgate other drivers wanting to “get there.”

I believe in the power of language and yet I have said hurtful things and am often unaware of what I am actually saying.

I believe intuition trumps intellect every time and yet I regularly justify and reason myself out of following my gut instinct. I spend an inordinate amount of time in my head (I call it my office) and talk on and on about being more in my body or in nature. Empty words.

I believe in loyalty and trust and yet at crucial moments in my life have chosen self-preservation; I did not throw myself under the bus to save the other.

I believe in self-love yet have given the farm away more times than I can count. I hurt my self regularly with my unwarranted self-judgments and unrealistic expectations. I hold myself to standards that I would never expect from others.

There are gaps everywhere. I am flawed, flawed, flawed. Accuse me of almost any hypocrisy and I will look you in the eye and admit my imperfection. I am human and by definition that means I am messy and riddled with contradictions. Hold me to a standard of perfection and I will utterly disappoint you. Ask me why I say one thing and do another and I will get angry and defend my belief even as I know that I have betrayed it with service to yet another belief.

What I do not believe is that the world is black and white. I do not believe in absolutes. For me, truth is found in the paradox. Life is lived in the contradictions. I grant my life the same principles that make color vibrant: there’s nothing like a touch of red to make the greens pop. If you really want to see the orange, surround it with something blue. As Quinn once told me, all religious traditions have one thing in common: they instruct us to find the middle way, seek the path between the pair of opposites. It is impossible to find the middle way by eliminating the contradictions; one must test the boundaries to know where they are. As Dan Pink writes, “Clarity depends on contrast.” Given my massive contradictions, I expect someday to be utterly clear for at least one brief moment. In case you expect my clarity to last be forewarned that I will most certainly follow my moment of clarity with wholehearted dedication to some new spectacular confusion.

Filed under: Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Catch A Glimpse

Posted on March 20, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Deep in the alcove of the side entry to an old building lurked a man wearing a faux bear hat and a too big worn out raincoat. He was doing a slow dance, in invocation and I stopped to watch him. Our eyes met for a moment, just long enough for me to know that he did not mind my witness. His slow pushing and pulling of the air seemed out of joint with the pace of commuters racing to get somewhere. This man seemed to come from another era. He was not of the city; his dance was a nature dance. After a while I left him dancing in his alcove.

I passed a family hunkered down in a doorway. They were tourists. They were dressed for Florida and seemed surprised that it was cold in Seattle. They were confused by the rain; their map of the city was dissolving into mush. “What do you want to do now?” the father asked his kids, trying to buoy their wet spirits. There was no reply. They wanted to be warm. “How about finding that glass blowing place?” he asked.

As I crossed Pioneer Square I saw, laying near the memorial to firefighters, an empty jacket, pants, socks and shoes. It was as if someone had lain on the ground and disappeared, leaving their clothes behind. I wondered if this was the work of faux bear hat man. No one else seemed to notice so I walked on.

A man stepped in front of me and asked if I was up to doing a good deed today. Then, he asked me for a quarter. I imagined he must be a genius marketing executive gone destitute. As it turned out I was up for a good deed this day and thought his ask was too low so I gave him all of the change in my pocket. I had a lot of change in my pocket. He looked at me like I was a slot machine when I handed him a fist full of coins. He smiled when I said, “Great pitch!”

Worlds collide. I once saw Stephen Hawking talk about multiple universes, like bubbles that sometimes brush against each other. In those moments of bubbles touching, we catch a glimpse into the reality of the other universe. Today it seems that we are, each of us, a bubble universe. How else can I explain these strange and wondrous glimpses?

Filed under: Perspective, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , | 6 Comments »

Tell The Other Story

Posted on March 19, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Etched in the mirror behind the counter of the Cherry Street coffeehouse is this thought: Love and Kindness work everyday. On the wall opposite the mirror, so that it reflects in the mirror, is a large bright red heart. Heart reflects heart. Kindness begets kindness.

Last week, during a difficult moment, Megan-the-brilliant told me that she silently repeated the Buddhist loving kindness meditation, “May I dwell in my heart,….” After the moment passed she told me the meditation helped. Instead of defensiveness, she chose to breathe in and reflect loving kindness. Love and kindness are intentional acts, especially in difficult circumstances.

It seems so simple. What we put out reflects back onto us. Today as I rode on the light rail to my studio I imagined the riders as mirrors of each other. I saw small acts of kindness: a woman gave up her seat for an elder, a young man helped an older woman with her luggage, a security officer made sure a tourist knew how to get a ticket and pointed her in the right direction; it went on and on.

I wonder how much of the kindness we see? It happens all around us but do we see it? I hear about the other stuff, the complaints, the obstacles, the abuse; I see it, too but it is less frequent than the generosities. I hear less often about the small acts of kindness but I see them everywhere I look. They are literally everywhere. I wonder what world we might create if we told the story of our acts of kindness as often and with as much gusto as we tell the other tales?

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Show Me The Gold!

Posted on March 18, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Walking down Queen Anne hill I came upon a man dressed in a green tutu, a sleeveless green low cut blouse, shamrock slathered green knee-high socks, and red high top Chuck Taylors. I said, “Girlfriend, you look lovely.” He said in a surprisingly deep base voice, “Why thank you. Do you really like it?” I replied, “You are my favorite.” He seemed pleased with my compliment.

That was my first clue that it was St. Patrick’s Day. As I continued down the hill I wondered what St. Patrick would think of his celebration. What would a 5th century bishop of Ireland do in the midst of a fun run and pub crawl? I hope he would toss off his miter hat and join the fun. That’s what I would do if I were transported through time; I’d work hard to pick up the local customs. Things need not make sense.

As I crossed the grounds of the Seattle Center, passing by the international fountain I saw more wondrous combinations of green on gender. And green on green! I felt as if I was on the back lot of a film studio (and, come to think of it, life often seems like that to me). I heard a little girl shout with glee, “Momma! I saw a little green man!” Her clearly exhausted mother said with weary expression, “Yes, dear. I saw him, too.” Her brother whispered to no one, “I saw him first.” On any other day, a bona fide Leprechaun would stir enthusiasm even in the most hardened adult; on St. Patrick’s Day, they are common. The little girl’s mom no longer believes in pots of gold found at the end of the rainbow. If she did, that little green man would be in momma’s net and she’d be shaking him shouting, “Show me the gold!”

I’d only been awake for an hour and look what the day provided! The pot at the end of the rainbow is filled with metaphoric gold and I found it! So many rainbows, so many pots of gold!

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Start A Fire

Posted on March 17, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Dale was my seatmate on the flight from Minneapolis to Seattle. He’s a firefighter and had donated some time to the nature conservancy to do a controlled burn in northern Nebraska. We started talking before he’d stowed his backpack in the overhead bin and didn’t stop talking until we landed in Seattle almost 4 hours later. It was as if we were picking up a conversation that we started yesterday and continued today on our plane ride.

Dale is like an artist who has mastered the technical skills and now wants to transcend his technique to fulfill his artistry. He knows fire. He knows how fire behaves in a variety of circumstance and in the face of shifting forces – in a windy canyon or in a warehouse filled with chemicals. Fire has been his life’s pursuit. To hear him talk about his work is like listening to a painter whose canvas is combustion and whose brush extinguishes. Fire meets water. He has the utmost respect for his medium.

What baffles him is people. He can talk to fire easier than he can communicate with his fellow firefighters. They don’t get him and he is at a loss to understand them. People behave unpredictably in the face of shifting forces. Of course, the person that baffles him the most is himself. He asked, “Why do we put so many limits on ourselves?” He knew the answer even before he asked the question, so I sat still and kept quiet. After a moment he said, “I don’t hesitate to run into burning buildings but it terrifies me to show up as I am. All of those limits keep me safe in my comfort zone.”

I asked him if he granted himself as much respect as he granted to fire. He knit his brow. “What if you are your medium? Could you study yourself with the same passion and respect as you study fire?” I asked, followed by, “What would you need to let go to show up?” He eyed me for a long moment and then said, “I’d need to let go of my belief in all of these limits.” After another moment he added, “I’d need to give up my dedication to staying in my comfort zone.” When I smiled he said, “Sometimes it is so simple. Easy to say, hard to do.”

Filed under: Edges, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Follow The Energy

Posted on March 16, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

It is a basic tenet: form follows energy. Another way of stating this basic tenet is: what you think is what you create. Thought is energy. Recently, Mark shared another way of saying the same thing: what you focus on expands. Focus placement is more powerful than you might imagine. It is a creative act. You see it because you believe it, and not the other way around.

Yesterday Vesna and I had a call. We talked about the difficulty of building a website with a clear offer when you are an artist, coach, teacher, facilitator, entrepreneur,…. What single label covers all forms of expression? How can people possible know how to hire you if you are a circus of gifts waiting to be given? Vesna told me the experience was like trying to squeeze herself into too small of a box. She doesn’t fit in any of the labels. Neither do I. So, we talked about not fitting. We talked about releasing completely the intention “to fit.” What if, rather than fitting, we came to the party as we are? The form will follow if we allow the energy to express. We talked about identifying the single, central purpose that unifies all of the forms of what we do. Here’s mine:

Sam used to call me his Virgil. In the Divine Comedy, Virgil is the Roman poet who guides Dante through hell and purgatory before passing him off the Beatrice who leads him the heaven; it is an allegory of the soul’s journey toward heaven. That makes me, in Sam’s definition, a guide for souls on their journey to heaven. Heaven is a metaphor for wholeness and that makes me a guide for souls on their journey to wholeness. That’s what I do. Guidance can take many forms and in my life, it does. My website will state in bold letters at the top: If you’re looking for Beatrice you’re in the wrong place! She’s not here but I know how to find her.

And, the secret of my trade: form follows energy. Place your focus on your innate wholeness: it will expand. Stop trying to fit in too small of a box; if you need a box make one that fits you. No one gets to Beatrice without taking the full tour: you can only know and appreciate your heaven if you know its opposite so take the full tour and stop trying to protect yourself from experience. I recognize this is not great marketing language for a website – especially in a culture dedicated to comfort – and now that I’ve told you all of my secrets and put myself out of business I probably no longer need a website! I have no business being in business anyway; I’m an artist…I mean I’m a teacher…uh, a coach. Well, what I mean to say is…I facilitate…make speeches…. Ah, hell…if you need me, you probably already know where to find me.

Filed under: Energy, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Amplify The Possibilities

Posted on March 15, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Vanessa’s business is called Visual Minutes. She draws conversations. She maps discussions. She and a colleague, Amber, mapped the recent Transformational Presence Summit in Vught, Holland that Alan and I facilitated. Her work was gorgeous, informative and inspiring. The dynamic of a group changes when there is an artist working in the room. When a group’s words and thoughts serve as the source of a communal image, something shifts. A loop forms: people visit the image during breaks. They take ownership of what emerges. The images inspire conversations and the conversations show up as images. The resonance amplifies the possibilities.

Over the four days of our summit the mural began to stretch around the room. Soon, we were surrounded by our conversation; the four walls of the conference center were changed by Vanessa’s work; we no longer sat in a generic space but occupied a room specific to us, designed for and by us, a chronicle of our unique wisdom. The art transformed us. We were 35 people from 11 countries made one through our intention and the circle that the art invoked.

Vanessa shared with me a letter written to her from Canadian artist Robert Genn. She thought it might tickle my imagination. He writes about artists as a tribe (a universal tribe). Here are three snippets from the letter worthy of tickling the imagination and also descriptive of Vanessa’s gift to the world:

“The idea that art has the ability to rise above religion, nationality and race is well understood.”

“…I get the idea that art might even be a vehicle for peace. We artists certainly bring a worldview based on respect, observation, play, learning, celebration and mutuality. In the machinations of humanity, these traits must surely hold some value.”

“We dine at a table of many nations. As artists we celebrate our creative joy and toast our mutual humanity. While we all speak with some sort of accent, we do so in the universal language of art. At your table, when you get a chance, please consider raising a glass to our tribe. It is a tribe beyond tribes, and in my heart of hearts I believe our tribe has an illustrious future.”

Filed under: Art, Possibility, Truly Powerful People | 3 Comments »

Make A Nap

Posted on March 14, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Today is one of those post travel days. I’m exhausted. I avoid the mirror because my face feels like the face of a Basset Hound: droopy, blood shot eyes. My synapses are lethargic. Like half-hearted trapeze artists they leap but do not reach for the catcher. My thoughts fall to the safety net where they bob and refuse to get up. “This feels nice,” they say as they relax into the net, smacking their thought-lips while slipping into a nap. “I’ll be there in a minute,” they call to me from a sleep state, words slurred and intention clear (you are on your own without synapses so find something useful to do).

I used to call these “no-power-tools” days – as I appreciate my digits and I know better than to get near blades when my thoughts are asleep on the job. When I wear the mask of the Basset Hound I usually spend the day filing papers. I am an out-of-sight-out-of-mind kind of guy so I have no expectation of finding anything once it is filed. Since I am on the road and away from my files and my paper stacks I had no truly safe activity to keep me busy.

I managed to take Bodhi the dog for a walk. I couldn’t find his leash so I used my belt, which sounded like a good idea until I realized that using my belt for a leash created a whole new set of problems. While Bodhi proudly wore my belt I struggled to keep my pants up. We looked like a clown and his dog. I have the same problem going through security at airports, especially now that they make you raise your hands in the full body scanner. Three seconds is an eternity when your pants are edging down. With this knowledge in my memory bank you’d think that I would have solved my leash problem another way.

With my belt safely restored to my pants I watched Bodhi settle in for a snooze on the floor. Although his face is Australian Shepherd and not Basset Hound, Bodhi has a legitimate dogface; he was in no way resisting his impulse to nap. He wasn’t resisting his need to sleep. As I watched the natural wisdom of this special dog I wondered why I needed an excuse to nap. Humans are funny animals; rather than follow the simple impulse, rather than do the thing our bodies are telling us to do we need to create a reason. Bodhi snored and I remembered a quote from Jarod Kintz. He wrote, “I made a nap this afternoon. I made it out of two pillows, a bed, a sheet, a blanket, and exhaustion.” Perfect.

You’ll never guess what I made this afternoon.

Filed under: Body, Random, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 4 Comments »

Leap Or Show Up

Posted on March 13, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

My inner sociologist shared his notes with me. He tugged on his sweater and pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose before positing that personal edges only come in two varieties. Both varieties, he asserts, fall under the single category of “where the known meets the unknown.” Just as the sea meets the shore, the known meets the unknown in a convergence of elements. He told me that it makes no difference whether you are a sea or shore dweller, the other place, the unknown place, marks the line between comfort and discomfort. It also marks the line between stasis and growth. Stay in the known and stagnation is a certainty. Put your toes in the water or your fins on the shore and you will learn something new. I nodded my head. I agree with his assertion.

He tapped his pen on his yellow pad (my inner sociologist eschews technology) as he knit his brow and told me that stepping across the line into the unknown defines the first variety of edge. He labeled this first variety of edge, “The Leaping Point.” Apparently we visit the leaping point many times before actually leaping. We know what we need to do long before doing it – yet we pretend that we don’t know what we need to do. He explained that the most common mistake we make is to think that the discomfort comes from stepping across the edge; it doesn’t. The discomfort comes before the step. The discomfort is what drives us to finally do the thing we know we need to do. The discomfort comes from delaying the step. The step is liberating. The step transforms the discomfort.

He cleared his throat before telling me the second variety of edge comes from facing the thing we fear the most: being seen (note: fulfilling your potential is a subset of being seen). Being seen is a mirror-action to the first variety of edge. In this variety, the step is not from the known into the unknown; it is a step from the unknown into the known. He explained that the unknown in this case is the accumulated clutter of who we think we “should be;” we reject who we are. And then, one day, when we can no longer sustain the mask, we have to pull the mask off and reveal who we really are. We have to step into who we know ourselves to be. The transformation is from unknown to known.

He smiled, pulling his glasses from his face, and said, “It is really quite elegant if you think about it. Leap or Show Up. Those are our only two edges.”

Filed under: Edges, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 1 Comment »

Revel. Betray. Rediscover

Posted on March 12, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

733. 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 am in Holland for the next 7 days and since I didn’t get my act together and get 7 posts ahead, this will be archive week at The Direction of Intention. This was originally post 469.

As I dust off and relearn the story of Parcival I have decided that it will be the spine of the work I do next week with teachers; we will follow the metaphors; we will open the story so the stories of our lives might open. As I work I am discovering that everything you need to know to be a great teacher is in this story! Parcival is a knight of the Round Table and, depending upon the version you read, he is the knight that finds the grail. Metaphor alert: the grail is not a thing to be possessed. It is what Maslow called self-actualization. It is a metaphor for finding your truth and fulfilling your purpose. What is the purpose of learning if not to seek and find your truth (do not be fooled, passing a test is far from the point of learning and will ultimately leave you empty and the test full)?

I love many aspects of this story and the section I reworked today made me smile. I giggled in the coffee house where I was rehearsing. The other patrons, afraid of the man in the corner talking and cackling to himself, gave me plenty of room to work (have I mentioned that I can’t talk without flailing my hands all over the place. If you ever want me to be quiet, simply bind my hands. I’ll make noises but words will be impossible). The story describes Parcival’s first entry into court. He grew up isolated, deep in the forest (not unlike Arthur, though Parcival did not have Merlin to school him) so he knew nothing of people or manners or custom. He thought dressing like a knight meant he was a knight. He approximated some armor, weaving a breastplate from reeds, a helmet from fronds, and he wielded a stick as a sword. He “borrowed” a mule and rode into Camelot. Arthur and his knights, thinking Parcival was a clown, laughed at him.

Growing up without instruction meant that he had the ideal upbringing for a trickster. He followed his nature without inhibition. Parcival had no inner-editor so the civilized world viewed him as a fool. He acted purely so he threatened custom. He spoke what others could not; he carried no conventions so he had no limits. He had no rules of conduct. Parcival would be the boy in the crowd to say, “This emperor has no clothes!” It would not occur to him to lie. When you are not doubting or protecting your purity you have no reason to deflect or manipulate or withhold. Lies are a byproduct of rules. He was powerful yet his power was raw, unrecognizable, so the world he wanted to enter could only laugh. And their laughter was his fuel. Their laughter propelled him into the world to learn. Arthur was capable of seeing his purity. And Arthur gave him hope. Arthur sent him into the world to prove himself, to learn the rules of society, and invited him to return to court once he’d learned the code and conduct of a knight.

The story is a story of desire; it is a story of following an inner imperative. It is a quest for fulfillment. It has laughter and despair, triumph and shame, obstacles that seem insurmountable; it is a story of perseverance and letting go. It is a story of 2 teachers: one provides the rules for conduct; the other helps Parcival shed the rules of conduct. Both are necessary if you want a shot at entering the grail castle.

If it were a poem it would read like this: Revel in your nature. Betray your nature. Rediscover you nature: Grail.

Filed under: Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

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