The Direction of Intention

330.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot that closet where the monsters live. That place where we stuff the things we don’t want to feel.

It’s amazing to me how we can forget about the closet by pretending that it’s not there. It limits our view by half. A full 360° would bring the closet into full view so we restrict our range to 180°. Then, we restrict our emotional range; the whole point of the closet, after all, is to never again feel something like fear or shame. And then, we regulate what others can see – or we think we regulate it. Believing that we can actually control other people’s sight is a grand illusion necessary to make sense of how and why we restrict our availability to life. A mask works conceals AND reveals.

The strategies that we employ to keep the closet out of view are clever! Like Cerberus, the 3-headed hound that guards the underworld, we develop a barking inner critic to keep us from opening the closet door. “You are an idiot!” it shouts as we consider stepping beyond our comfort zone. “Loser!” it cries if we consider reaching for the closet door. “You don’t want to feel that!” it warns if we entertain the desire to be present, to say what we actually think, to show up as we are and not how we think we should be.

Everyone who has ever dared open the closet learns a secret: the monsters only seem big when you can’t see them. Fear makes things look bigger. They only wield power-over from inside the closet. Open the door and shed a little light on them and like the Wizard of Oz they lose their ferocity. The small person behind the curtain steps out and says, “What took you so long to open the door.”

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300.
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I used to be particularly gifted at catching other people’s anger. I’d say to myself, ‘I caught the bullet on that one.” I was not (well, not often) the genesis of the anger but I certainly knew how to stand up at the perfect moment to catch the bullet. Had I lived as a saloonkeeper in Dodge City, I would not have lived long.

I caught bullets because I thought it was mine to do. I was the middle child, the peacekeeper in the family. Stepping in front of warring parties came with the job description. It was the job description. And then, one day deep into adulthood, I asked a really good question: “What am I doing?” The bullets were not aimed at me, they were not meant for me, why was I taking them? Here’s a secret: bullets fill you with a false sense of worth. When I asked myself, “What am I doing?” I was also saying to myself, “You are worth more than this.” People stopped shooting when I stopped accepting bullets. Like all forms of enabling, bullet-taking is a bargain (I’ll take your bullet if you give me a sense of worth); the bargain diminishes the shooter and the bullet-taker.

Questions of worth are really questions of Ownership in disguise. No one can give you your worth. You can push it away, you can look for it in the eyes of others but at the end of the day, you are the one who knows if your work is good, if you are following your bliss, if you are doing your best, if you are bringing you game to the world. You are the one who knows. It is your standard that needs meeting. Own it. Meet it. Worth will become a non-issue.

I understand ownership (and worth) as a dynamic energy flow: practice owning your energy, practice not owning anyone elses energy. Own what is yours; refuse to own what is not yours. Ownership begins with boundaries and grows strong when you stop making assumptions about what would be best for others. I’ve learned that people will still shoot bullets but we choose whether to catch them, duck them, or let them pass through.

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298.
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There is an amazing image of connectivity from The Go-Giver, a powerful business parable by Bob Burg and John David Mann (this book is not just for business folk). They structure their parable around 5 Laws of Stratospheric Success and the image I adore comes from the final law of Receptivity:

“At this instant, all over the globe, all of humanity is breathing in oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide. So is the rest of the animal kingdom. And, right now, at this instant, all over the globe, the billions and billions of organisms of the plant kingdom are doing the exact opposite – they’re breathing in carbon dioxide and breathing out oxygen. Their giving is our receiving and our giving is their receiving. In fact, every giving happens only because it is also a receiving.”

You cannot take a breath without entering the dance of giving and receiving. In fact, you are never out of the dance of giving and receiving. How might you live if you recognized that everything you do and think is a form of giving and it matters; somewhere someone or something is receiving your offer just as you are feeling the impact of their offer. Bob Burg and John David Mann write, “the key to effective giving is to stay open to receiving” because “every giving happens only because it is also a receiving.” Entering the dance often requires us to learn how to receive.

Your dance can be a dance of amplification, renewal and empowerment or it can be a dance of diminishment, resistance and exhaustion (in other words: are you in it for what you bring to life or for what you get out of it?). Drop the wall of protection, let go the mask and the editor and bring the greatest gift you have to offer. And then open you arms and receive without false modesty the best that the world has to give.

Breathe. Dance.

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295.
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There were colors in the sunset sky tonight that I have never seen before.

I went for a walk late in the afternoon to clear my mind and to ponder this question: How can I best give what I have to offer? I’m wrestling with the “how” questions. I know the “why” but wonder if there is a better form for my work – or perhaps I am standing in my own way and can’t see what path to walk. I was struggling. My pockets were loaded with 3×5 cards and pens so I could capture the answers that were bound to magically appear as I walked (they often do). The moment that I stepped out of my apartment my oh-so-important-question evaporated into the winter sky.

I am a painter so my usual first thought when I see color like I saw tonight is, “How would I mix that color?” Instead, the my first thought (post-wow-moment) was a statement of surrender, “I don’t have a clue how to mix that color.” And then the idea that I needed to mix it or capture it or get a photograph of it evaporated, too. It was THAT beautiful. So I walked into it, thinking it would fade in a few moments as sunset skies do. Instead, it grew more intense.

I lost myself in it. What I’d intended to be a short walk to clear my mind became a long walk that blew my mind. I lost track of time. I lost track of the need to track. I walked with it. And then, in a moment, as if released from a spell, the sky darkened, the colors faded and I found myself several miles from home asking myself another question, “How did I get here?”

As I retraced my steps home I realized that my original question no longer seemed relevant. In fact, it was the wrong question to ask. Instead of trying to see the path before I walk it perhaps I should do what I already know to do: walk it. The idea that there is a prescribed path that I will take if only I can see it is a desire to control, to know what is coming; it is an attempt to be safe and comfortable instead of uncertain. My prescribed idea of an afternoon walk did not include a sky that took my breath away. My idea did not come close to the actual experience of living it. Isn’t that always true? So, this is what I wrote on my 3×5 card: Get lost in the beauty of it all. I’ll recognize the path at the end of my life when I look back at it.

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290.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Ten years ago I met Jack Yantis at the Seattle Children’s Theatre. I’d just moved to Seattle and knew almost no one in the city. I wheedled an invitation to attend a workshop for actor-teachers led by Jack. He guided us through a series of simple movement experiences that were brilliant, illuminating and fun. With minimal structure he had us moving through space with grace and abandon. Above all else, I remember how the group moved from a single impulse, many people moving as one being.

The first thing we did that night was to find stillness. “Allow your movement to come from stillness,” Jack said. “Let your movement return to stillness.” Just like life! We come from stillness and return to it. “The stillness is available to you,” he said, “you just need to find it, remember where you left it.” He laughed. Jack was filled with mischief and laughter.

“Finding stillness” is a great phrase and is harder to do than you might imagine. Busy lives and busy minds afford little stillness. Unless you have a meditation practice, stillness is probably something you avoid. In stillness you discover things about yourself; in stillness you uncover things about yourself and then you have to act on them or choose to deny them.

Stillness means more than to simply stand still. Jack guided us; we found it first in our bodies, in our limbs, in our faces, and finally in our minds. And in that lovely stillness, there was an impulse that was basic and undeniable, it was the impulse to move toward each other, to move with each other. It was not a personal impulse, not individual, it was shared, it was bigger than any single person in the room. And, when we followed the impulse, our dance amplified the space between us, as if the space were moving us instead of the other way around.

This is the impulse that the artist understands. This is the impulse behind true power. It is basic and undeniable that if you are capable of getting out of your own way, of allowing your life to come from the stillness, that life will move you toward others, toward fulfillment and the empowerment of all. As Jack taught us, “The stillness is available to you. You just need to remember where you left it.”

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282.
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 is my favorite revelation of the week. It comes from a friend who has for the past several years been doing big work on herself. Like all big shifts of perception it sounds so simple but is hard to embody. I’m beginning to understand that most revelations do not come with fireworks and a brass band; they are subtle. They are simple because they’ve been there all along and we just did not see them. They slip in with little fanfare, like removing your sunglasses.

This is how she said it: I’ve learned to be in the chaos without buying into the chaos. See, no fanfare. And, if you are truly underwhelmed, ask yourself when was the last time you resisted, defended, justified, needed to be right, fought for others to see what you see, needed approval, bought into the notion of perfection, or any of a thousand other ways you buy into the chaos. Are you anxious, afraid, motivated by what you fear or do not want, in survival mode, or certain that the universe is throwing obstacles in your way? Chaos, chaos, chaos.

Can you imagine what it might mean in your life to be able to stand solidly in the chaos without needing to control it, contain it, or deny it? Can you be present without needing to manipulate or force anything or anyone yet say without inhibition exactly what you need (it’s not the need that matters, it is how you fill it that defines you).

Reread the first part of her statement: I’ve learned to be. Her focus shifted. The earth did not shake, the clouds did not part, no ascension or angels or twenty-one gun salute. Her focus shifted, she realized choices are creative acts and instead of being caught in the whirlpool, it swirls around her.

What could you buy if you stopped investing in chaos?

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280.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

The mantra goes like this: control your controllables and let the rest go.

It is deceptive. There is something in the phrase that often leads to a mistake: believing that “letting the rest go” is the same as “control the controllable.” It is a trap with the pull of gravity; all who pass this way find themselves muttering under their breath, “Yeah, but look at all the stuff I let go! How did I get here again?”

When you begin living in choice you begin the work of controlling the controllable and letting the rest go. Drawing a line between what you can control (what you see, what you think, what you feel, what you perceive) and what you can’t control (What other people see, think, feel, and perceive) is the first step. Letting go of what you can’t control is first part; it is the easy part and often that’s where people stop. They release what they can’t control but stop short of owning what they can control. The transformation happens when you create new thought patterns, when you offer your great gift because it is your offer, not because you might get something from the giving, not because it might or might not bring acceptance from others. The old habits and patterns will remain intact regardless of the illusion of control that you let go. If new patterns of thinking and seeing aren’t created, then the old enabling behaviors will reassert themselves.

Doing the work of controlling the controllable is when transformation occurs. It is when you really learn that you are creating yourself through your thoughts in this moment, and in this moment, and in this moment,….

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275.
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 Saturday morning for the past month I get up early, drive to Capitol Hill, park outside of the studio where my class is held and walk to one of the six coffee houses on the block (this is Seattle). I have coffee and watch the sun rise – or to be more accurate, I watch the dark grey become several shades lighter. And then I go to class and study Tai Chi.

This morning the master talked to us about different kinds of movement, specifically movement that comes from relaxation instead of movement initiated from stress. You’d think that would be an easy thing to do: move from a state of availability and relaxation. It’s not. I challenge you to sit in a chair and relax. Not just pretend relaxation but in-your-body-available-to-the-moment relaxation. Relax your thinking, relax your emotions, and relax your body. Just be present. Watching my classmates attempt to move from a state of relaxation made me wonder if we are capable of complete relaxation even when we sleep. There’s so much to do. I think we carry our grasping and resistance in our bodies. And all of this doing, doing, doing requires force, pushing, manipulation, competition, achieving, racing, struggle, strain, no-pain-no-gain,…right? We have to attempt to relax. We have to go on vacation to relax. Relaxation has become something to do.

And then, a beautiful thing happened that reinforced my belief in power-with-others as true power. Slowly (it is Tai Chi, after all) for a few precious moments the group gave over and our movement became singular, people moving as one body, and I felt it, the surrender to presence and for a breath or two we moved from relaxation. We were stillness in motion. We were powerful together, more powerful than all the pushing and pulling and struggle would ever achieve. We weren’t trying to do anything; we were being. Available and present and singular together. It is a paradox.

The more I meditate on this thing called power, the more convinced I become that the only real power and truth lives in the paradoxes. When I stop trying to make it all make sense, when I stop trying to make it do what I want it to do, when I relax, suspend the story I tell myself and breathe deep, I join Life.

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261.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Dear Horatio,

I want to respond to your question and it will take a few posts. First, to let everyone into the conversation: you asked me to give examples or anecdotes of the relationship between control and power and how to break the cycle. You told me that you recognized how this dynamic works in your life but that it is also an abstraction. I responded, telling you that my fascination with this topic (power) comes from the ubiquitous paradox within your question: how can you know how this works in your life but also experience it as an abstraction? That experience is true for almost everyone; when you are in it, you know it in your bones and it is almost impossible to wrap your fingers around it. So, to begin:

I know that it sounds too simplistic but the picture changes when people recognize that 1) They have choice in where they place their focus and 2) They have choice in how they interpret their experiences. These are among the most powerful and transformational recognitions that people can have. It’s easy to say and hard to do when you are convinced that what you see is truth.

Seeing is never passive, no one is ever an objective observer – despite what the past 300 years of science has asked us to believe – it’s now telling us something different. Recently I read Brain Rules by John Medina and in the chapter on seeing he describes what happens in your brain – literally – when you see something. It is akin to an image dispersal and reassembly process. The glue of the reassembly is past experiences: we make meaning of our seeing based on where we’ve been and what we believe about our past. If your life story is one of fear you will most likely see fearful things everywhere. If your life story is filled with adventure you will see opportunities for adventure.

Because seeing is not passive – because you are telling yourself the story of yourself at every moment of your life – you have the capacity to change your story. To see is to interpret and we interpret according to patterns of our lives and how we group things: “this is like that.” You first have to become aware and then detaching from patterns is possible.

For many years fear was my focus so fear was my creation. Living in fear is the equivalent of living full time in resistance and so my story was a story of resistance of the future. I am a dedicated edge leaper so leaping was my first idea about how to get out of fear. If I just kept leaping, if I just kept seeking I was certain I’d find “it.” And then I lost all that I held dear and this is what I saw (finally): It is not in the leaping (the action); it is in the seeing (the story I tell). The shift was immediate. I was a dedicated vampire and suddenly I was practicing something I’d been preaching for years: I was creating power-with. And I know you know what I mean.

[to be continued]

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