The Direction of Intention

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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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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257.
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 sat with Stephen and his mother in my office. They came in once a week so I could review Stephen’s schoolwork and together we’d set goals and identify assignments for the next week. Stephen had Asperger’s, a form of autism. I’d worked with him for many years. He’d been in several of my plays and recently I’d taken a job in an independent learning center so I was his teacher overseeing his studies. He was a senior and the last time we met he wanted to talk about what he might pursue after high school. He told his mom and me that he wanted to be a disc jockey! He loved music and his enthusiasm was palpable so we set him up with an internship at the local radio station.

Now, as we sat in my office, Stephen was upset. He’d been surprised that the duties of his internship were something other than hosting his own radio show. He thought he was going to go to the station and launch The Stephen Show and was surprised when he was only able to assist the people in the station to produce a radio show. His mother tried to explain that no one hosted a show on day one. I listened as she explained again to him the need to learn the equipment, the roles and responsibilities of all the people involved, of how to record and edit.

Stephen listened patiently and then said, ‘I know all that. I just want to jump to the end.” We laughed heartily.

I think of that conversation often when I work with people – that would be most of us – who just want to jump to the end without moving through the beginning and middle; we want to be “there” at the expense of missing “here.” To be in such a hurry to achieve the goal and never fully comprehend that this goal is not an end but the beginning of the new goal. The riches are here, no matter where you are in the arc toward your idea of fulfillment. “There” will someday come and I’ll wager you, like all the wise old souls I am privileged to know, will reminisce about the times that you missed speeding to get somewhere that didn’t exist.

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251.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Each week in class we do a review of peer calls – coaches coaching each other – and we talk about what they learned from each other. One of the coaches was unable to connect with her peer but came to class very excited to tell us of her experiences in life during the past week. She said, “I think I’m more conscious!” Her excitement was palpable.

What do you mean by that,” I asked.

“I’m connecting with people in a different way.”

“How do you know? What feels different?”

She paused for a moment and offered, “I am less guarded – no, I am not guarded at all. I don’t feel the need to protect myself all of the time. I am much more available. And, here’s the thing, I am listening to people at a much deeper level. What people say is not always what they are saying.” And then she added, “It feels like life is an invitation.”

Extend an invitation to the world, and the world will extend an invitation to you. It is how things work. It’s the same notion as empowered people empower others simply because they step into the world as truly powerful.

I’ve suspected all along that life is really as simple as a Beatles lyric: The love you take is equal to the love you make.

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236.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

236 days ago I started this meditation on power (for myself). I was certain that I would run out of things to say in less than 30 days so I set my expectation to write for at least that long which, at the time, felt like standing at the base of Mt Everest. I couldn’t imagine it. What I have learned in this meditation is that I have too much to say about power. And, it can be reduced into a few simple ideas, mainly that power isn’t power unless it is connective tissue, unless the focus in on the creation of power and not on the negation of power. That has always been for me the hallmark of things to which I need to pay attention; simplicities within complexities always signal deeper waters. In fact, in writing these posts I’ve come to realize that this meditation on power is central to everything I do. As Alan would say, “This is my soul mission.”

Last night I launched a new website, http://www.trulypowerful.com, and sent out a newsletter announcing the site. If you want to join me in this community and didn’t get the notice, go to the site and join the mailing list (and am pretending I don’t have a Facebook page yet because I hate what the designers have done…stay tuned). In January I will launch the blog Truly Powerful People, a more formal meditation on power – fuller explorations of what I’m writing here. This blog will remain my back room, the place where I will rant, where we can play cards, throw peanut shells on the floor and say things that could get us expelled from school.

And, as serendipity would have it, the jewel that dropped in my lap today is about being seen and the connection between vulnerability and power. It comes from a discussion in class today, master coaches talking shop. Most of us steel ourselves against the world; we protect ourselves from the perceptions of others in case they don’t like what they see. And then, we get frustrated because we feel we’re not being seen as we are. To be seen as you are you must drop the steel. To be seen as you are, to be powerful, you must introduce yourself to vulnerability. It is your choice. Steel usually leads to negation of yourself and others. Dropping the steel affords the possibility of collaboration and creation; therein lives the power.

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