Awakening | The Direction of Intention

Where Are You Looking?

Posted on August 6, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Lessons come to me in loops; I get the learning, incorporate it into my life, and then it loops away until one day I find myself learning the lesson again. Today, the lesson that looped back is about focus placement. For the past several weeks I’ve been focusing on the struggle. I’ve been seeing a thick muddy swamp that I need to cross.

I’ve wondered why I am so tired lately and incapable of sustaining my intentions. And then this morning a client told me about her greatest learning. She said, “ I’ve learned that I need to put my energy and focus into the light and not into combating the darkness.”

I laughed. I know better and have learned this lesson many times. I will no doubt learn it again several times before my focus no longer slips into the swampy darkness. Today I’m re-learning that I need to put my energy and focus into the light. I have the capacity to see what I want to create instead of focusing on my obstacles. No amount of mud can daunt me when my focus, my energy, my will, my intention are on what I intend to create. In fact, the swamp often disappears when I stop insisting that it is there.

[I’m be on the road and taking a break so I’m dipping into the archives and reworking and reposting some of your favorites. I’ll be back at it in the middle of August]

Filed under: Awakening, Seeing, Truly Powerful People | 1 Comment »

Follow The Sound

Posted on August 2, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

511. 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 tilts 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 entered a moment later and 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 ourselves over to it, to marvel and be-come the delight, this is the purest form of creating; it unifies us.

How long has it been since you followed the sound and gave yourself over to delight?

[I’m be on the road and taking a break so I’m dipping into the archives and reworking and reposting some of your favorites. I’ll be back at it in the middle of August]

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Where’s The Value?

Posted on July 29, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

507. 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’m be on the road and taking a break so I’m dipping into the archives and reworking and reposting some of your favorites. I’ll be back at it in the middle of August]

Here are some thoughts about self-love from Ana-the-wise (with my comments in parenthesis):

Pure intention comes when you allow that you are the most important person, when you stop relying on others to find your value (your intentions split when beneath every action runs a river of need for others to give you your value; your intention splits and becomes, “to seek my value in others”).

Valuing what you do begins with valuing who you are. Valuing yourself is really a question of being, not a question of doing. Your value has nothing to do with your achievements – your achievements do not give you value (you assign your actions their worth so why not drop the illusion and begin with recognizing that you are unique in the universe before you ever do a thing).

You have within you all the elements you need to create for yourself what you desire. No one is going to recognize your value for you – value can’t come to you if you don’t first value yourself. Begin with this: value your opinion of yourself above all other opinions of you. Know one else knows you better than yourself so be the measure of yourself and let go any one elses idea of what and who you should be.

So, if you are seeking your “authentic” self a good first move might be to stop seeking it in others eyes.

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Wave The Card

Posted on July 28, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

506. 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 my crow protection charm box, a potent set of crow talisman cards carefully nested in a Wintergreen Altoids tin, created and juiced-up with the magic of Lisa and Avery, is a card that reads, “Wave this card in case of surrender.” It has become my summer action mantra; its power extends beyond crow protection and serves as the north star of my sailing ship. I wave that card regularly, at least once a day. Recently I’ve waved it so often that like a soccer referee I only need to pull it from my pocket and hold it aloft for the universe to see. Red card; I surrender. What is the next best business step: I surrender. What shall I do with my life now: I surrender. What shall we do for dinner: I surrender.

As Alan reminds me (and I often report), there are two different understandings of the word “surrender.” In the west it means to give up. In the east it means to give over. My card definitely refers to the eastern variety. As I stand on my balcony waving my card I am not signaling defeat, rather I am letting go of resistance. I certainly know how to swim upstream. I am well versed in pushing back. I am a master of struggle. The currents are strong and pulling me in an unknown direction; I surrender. I have been paddling against the current for quite a while and although I might have acquired Popeye arms and a clear determination, my canoe remains stationary. What might happen if I allowed the current to carry me? Where might I go if I used my paddle to steer instead of to resist? I surrender; let’s find out.

Since I began waving my surrender card the crows have stopped their assault. I have stopped my assault, too. At lunch Andrew and I talked of walking into discomfort, stepping into the unknown. This is to allow follow the current. We talked of surrendering the need to know. Act and see what happens. The message is clear: there is a vast difference between working with potential and trying to force something into being: the operative phrase, the statement of nature is “to work with.”

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

Ache If You Dare

Posted on July 22, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Have you ever loved so much that you ached? Once, I stood atop a mountain over 12,000 feet and the expansive world before me was so beautiful that it hurt. Last week I stood before a painting, an aboriginal dreamtime and I was suddenly weeping. It took my breath away. And in the absence of breath it gave me life and dreaming. It made me ache.

Once I was in an airplane that lost most of its power. We limped into the airport. Like my fellow passengers when I was again safely on the ground I had a complete and utter love and appreciation of my life. I ached with the magnificence of it all. I wanted to dance with the joy of being alive.

Each of us will have a moment when we have only a few breaths remaining, a few moments before we shut our eyes and bodies to this life. I imagine those moments will be filled with aching, with the understanding (if it has not come before) of how immense and precious this life is. I will remember holding a hand, blue eyes, mountaintops, umbrella’s in Bali, seawalls, late night pizza and beer, an aria sung just for me.

Long ago I decided not to wait until those last few moments to realize the enormity of it all. I intend to ache everyday with the utter intensity of being alive.

Filed under: Awakening, Body, Truly Powerful People | 3 Comments »

Take Off Your Container

Posted on July 16, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

For weeks I have been meditating on containment. Specifically, how I contain, limit, confine, stifle or otherwise inhibit my spirit. I want to be free. It is funny to me since this is the very thing I teach. It is the center of almost every coaching relationship (personal and organizational), it defines the work that I have done with artists and leaders and entrepreneurs. And here I am, taking a good long look at my self, laughing at what I’ve discovered. I am glued into a tight container.

The good news is that I am surrounded by angels and people who see through wise-eyes; many do not know they are helping me step outside of my tight container; some know and are giggling with me: teacher teach thyself.

The route out of the container is actually a path into my body. In another life my acting teachers would have called this rooting myself. Yoga instructors would call it grounding. Saul-the-Tai-Chi-Lantern would call it, “receiving the benefit.” In any case, I am compelled to let go, to run in meadows, to play hard and fall down laughing. Ian, my twin, re-introduced me to the necessity of free play. Catherine said my emergence from the river after my game of chase with my twin was a kind of resurrection. It certainly felt that way; coming back to life. As a rocket thrusts into the earth to reach into the sky, so must I.

Alan listened to me talk about what I was experiencing and said, “Oh, man. You made people uncomfortable before, I can’t wait to see what you start doing with groups when you work with them.” We laughed because it had not occurred to me that by stepping into and fully embodying my life, that I might have a wee bit more fervor when calling people into a circle of transformation.

I’ve never been comfortable wearing a tie (containment); don’t ask me to wear dress shoes (suffocation), it’s hard for me to button the sleeves on dress shirts (constraint), I was a miserable wretch sitting in a desk (or behind a desk), I do my best thinking when walking or running or biking, if you work with me you will move, explore, experiment, bump into others, and communicate without language (so your will use your body). I suppose it is relative. I am more in my body and aware of my need to live beyond the boxes than many people, and apparently not as aware as I thought I was.

When Alan and I were done laughing, he asked a world-class question: “We need containers to get stuff done (limits orient us) yet how can we know what the optimal container is until we know what it is to live without a container?”

I guess I am about to find out.

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Lose Your Balance

Posted on July 15, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

In the language of story, the story begins when the main character is knocked off balance. Stories are about transformation and transformation cannot happen in stasis. Losing balance creates motion so the story can begin.

You are the main character of your story and the rule applies to you, too: loss of balance is necessary for change. Although when knocked off balance our first impulse is to hold on to the known, which is a necessary impulse, an important action, yet ultimately you have to surrender to the new reality. You have to surrender to the unknown. Paradox warning: The new reality comes with the clarity that you do not know what to do. Admitting that you don’t know is a necessary and vital part of learning; it is a key to transformation.

We resist the new circumstance (being off balance) by treating it as if it was the old circumstance. We pretend that nothing is happening. This, of course, is an attempt to reassert balance and to make sense of what we don’t understand. Trying to regain balance is a good strategy for increasing discomfort and creating further imbalance: more heat, higher stakes, more motion. It is a form of creative tension.

This dance of holding on to the known in the face of the unknown splits us; it comes laden with contradictions. You love and hate your spouse. You fear and anticipate the move. It is a complexity: there is no black and white, no simple and easy answers. The point is to dissolve, to lose your orientation, to have nothing solid to grasp. The absence of stability facilitates the surrender: with nothing to hold on to, a step into the unknown is the only possible step; letting go becomes necessary; the only way out is into the void.

And it is in that moment, the moment of stepping into the unknown that the task or the journey seems insurmountable. That is necessary, too. If you knew you could survive, the journey would not be worth taking. When the only way to regain balance leads through the insurmountable, the story, your life, suddenly becomes worth telling.

Filed under: Awakening, Story, Transcendence, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: balance | 1 Comment »

Truly Powerful People (467)

Posted on June 19, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

467.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Saul-the-Chi-Lantern turned his back to us. He settled, ready to start the form. We readied ourselves to follow. Just as he was about to take the first step he stopped, turned and said, “A lot of marriages would be saved if only the man knew what color of toilet paper to buy.” It was either a Zen koan or a fragment of his internal monologue and either way we fell on the floor laughing.

“No really,” he continued, as if we weren’t howling. “There’s a right kind of tissue, a right color of Kleenex box and men seem completely oblivious to this fact. It causes a lot of strife!” And then he turned back to the beginning position as if he’d said nothing. We wiped the tears of laughter from our eyes. Wondering what just happened, we followed him into the form. Our hearts were light, our concentration was easy and I suspect we learned to stop being so serious in our approach to our Tai Chi. We certainly found a flow and rode a current when we started from laughter instead of knitting our brows and thinking our way through.

One of my great lessons from Bali was that the sacred is filled with laughter. The holy is ripe with giggling and joy. In addition to reverence, prayer, sermon, hymn, (such heavy words) humor, play, fun, and frolic are forms of worship. The gods might have a better sense of humor if we did. There’d be less road rage. Men would not wear ties and take themselves so seriously. We might not need a 24-hour entertainment-cycle-disguised-as-news to keep us occupied. Of this I am certain: we’d have a better flow of chi.

Filed under: Awakening, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: holy, joy, Sacred | 1 Comment »

Truly Powerful People (464)

Posted on June 16, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

464.
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 preparing to tell the story of Parcival. It is a story that I haven’t shared with a group in 5 years. I wanted to tell a new story to this group – to offer a metaphor for transformation and Parcival kept tapping me on the shoulder. “Tell me,” he said. “They need to hear my story.” I was determined to tell a new story but Parcival was persistent and I have learned to pay attention when a story comes calling. I acquiesced.

Sometimes a story stalks you. If I were from another culture my elders would have given me this story long before I understood it. I would not have been expected to understand it and would have known that it was following me, waiting for me to become ready to receive it. Not having elders or an understanding of story at the time, I was a surprised years ago to find this story following me around. I tried to trick it and throw it off my trail but it always seemed to see through my deception. Sometimes it was standing too close to me – like the person behind you in line at the grocery store. I’d take a step forward to get some space but Parcival would take a step, too.

When the day came that the source of my power was shattered and I, in disillusionment, finally took off my armor, Parcival was waiting. He knew that armor removal was his cue to step into me. His warm awakening rushed through my bruised and battered soul and I knew I would survive. I knew after a while I would come back to life and perhaps even prosper. I knew my grail was close at hand and I knew because Parcival was there; he told me so.

Parcival is again tapping my shoulder and there must be a second awareness for me – or someone in this group is about to have their magic sword shattered and they will need Parcival waiting for them when they, too, at last remove their armor and forget their quest. He will quietly step into them and they will know as I did that just beyond the wreckage they will find their grail castle and come home for the very first time.

Filed under: Awakening, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: Grail, Parcival | 2 Comments »

Truly Powerful People (463)

Posted on June 15, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

463.
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 my habit to cycle back to old posts to see what I’ve learned and review where I traveled in these 463 days. Today I crawled all the way back to the source. Here is the first post in this series:

Truly powerful people are dedicated to inspiring true power in others.

It goes like this: empowered people empower others.

Think about it.

How powerful must you be to free yourself of the need to diminish others? No more reducing others to elevate your self. No more reducing yourself to fulfill the mistaken belief that, “you are not worthy.”

What if your worth was no longer in question? What if your value was no longer an issue? What would you do with all of that new found time and energy that previously was dedicated to bullying your self or reducing others?

One of my favorite books is David Ball’s Backwards & Forwards; A Technical Manual For Reading Plays. I love it because I believe that one night David Ball saw one too many bad productions of Hamlet, stomped back to his office and banged out this very clear and concise book on what makes a play work. It’s a great book for leaders, managers and teachers after they learn that life is storytelling even if it looks like business or education or vacation. If you want to tell a better life story, read the book.

These truly powerful people posts came from a mini David Ball moment. I’d just had a significant conversation about power and leadership with a diversity team in Chicago. I came home to a week of coaching calls with brilliant people singly dedicated to reducing themselves, diminishing their gifts, and confusing the word “power” with the word “control.” And, I saw clearly my personal struggles in their confusion. After one particularly heart rending call I signed into my previously inert-hanging-in-cyberspace-I-don’t-know-what-to-write-about-blog and dumped in the first words that came to mind. In re-reading the first post like the questions I asked. Were I to write the same post today I would add this question: What if you understood that you are incapable of loving another human being until you truly love yourself?

Filed under: Awakening, Power, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

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