Edges | The Direction of Intention

Take A Walk With Me

Posted on November 24, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

625. 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 late and I am in my studio. There is a train blowing its whistle somewhere in the distance. The building is quiet at this hour. Mark, the building caretaker, tells me there is a ghost and that he wouldn’t be caught dead in the building this late at night. I’ve been here deep into the night on several occasions and I have yet to encounter the ghost. I want to meet it – her, so Mark tells me. She usually hangs out in the attic but will wander the halls if she gets restless. I suppose a restless ghost is less appealing to meet than a non-restless ghost. In my mind, however, every ghost is restless; being a ghost implies that you are stuck in an “in-between” state, a limbo, like being perpetually in an airport and even the most even-tempered ghost must get tired of the long flight delay. When I am a ghost I will tap my foot and ask, “Where’s my plane?”

I have been in a limbo the past few years and, consequently, a kind of ghost. I think this evening I was compelled to come late to the studio to seek advice. Do you know you are wandering the halls or is there a world of illusion that we, the living, cannot see? Assuming that you see it, is there an obvious way out or do you simply step into the sun? And, if you step into the sun, do you disappear? Is that what keeps you in the attic, the fear of disappearing? Is limbo really better than commitment to action?

I am not a very good ghost. Restlessness is fun for a while but sooner or later every ghost must ask, “I wonder what is out there?” I’m not good at wandering halls though I seem to have lots of practice at it. I need the sun. The sun needs me.

As I sit here waiting for my ghost to appear I’ve decided that I no longer need her advice. If she came in the door, instead of saying, “I have a few questions for you,” I’d hold out my hand and say, “Take a walk with me. Don’t you think it is time?”

Filed under: Edges, Emergence, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: ghost, limbo, sun | Leave a comment »

Step Toward The Wolf

Posted on November 14, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

615. 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’s an analogy I use often with groups: In the story of Little Red Riding Hood, which character is necessary to move the story forward? The wolf. Without the wolf, there is no story. Without the wolf there is no conflict. In story terms, conflict is the motor that drives a story forward. In personal and organizational growth terms, conflict serves the same function; remove the conflict and you will impede your growth. Conflict, obstacle, hurdle, challenge,…chose your word; it is the wolf, the trial that serves as midwife for the opportunity to emerge. New perspectives become available and necessary when old perspectives snarl and howl.

Processes of change in an organization are exactly the same as processes of change in an individual. The mistake we make in both cases is to attempt to eliminate the wolf from our story. We’ve confused good process with comfort. Discomfort, not comfort, is the hallmark of a vital change process.

Teams that always agree are inert. Teams that know how to disagree are dynamic. The greatest artistic collaborations I have ever experienced were comprised of people with opposing points of view and no investment in being right. They were artists dedicated to bringing their best ideas to a team, knowing that there would emerge from the group a vision greater than any single member could imagine. Collaboration is a cauldron that requires heat. It also requires an understanding that agendas like “needing to be right” or “have things my way” will sully the gold. Great collaborators step into heat unguarded; they do not attempt to eliminate the heat because they are in service to a vision and not a scorecard.

Collaboration is a group of people evoking the best from all involved; they are invested in the success of the whole, they are actively creating power with their team. The fear of conflict is a sure sign of power-over games; it is the sign of individuals pretending to be a group, seeking their worth from their peers instead of bringing their worth to the collaboration. When a group attempts to eliminate conflict it is a sure sign they are afraid and, therefore, necessarily invested in control.

If you or your team feel stuck, it is a good bet that you’ve eliminated the wolf from your story. Like all good growth steps, the thing you need to do often feels counterintuitive; rather than play nice, play honest. Bring your best offer and don’t forget to invite the wolf to your party.

Filed under: Creativity, Edges, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: conflict, growth | 3 Comments »

“When You Are Falling, Dive!”

Posted on October 16, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

586. 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 the dragonfly is once again on my mind. Earlier this summer I wrote about dragonflies and they have been hanging around in my thoughts since a hot day in August when I waded into a lake in New Hampshire and a cobalt and purple dragonfly landed on my shoulder. I was going to take a swim but recognized that I was having a sweet visitation so I thought I’d wait until the dragonfly left me. And the dragonfly stayed. For a long time it rode on my shoulder. I slowly waded parallel to the shore and for almost a mile the dragonfly sat on my shoulder. A few weeks ago I kneeled on the grass of Jill’s front yard and saw fiery orange dragonflies skitter just above the green; those playful amorous dragonflies were invisible from human height. When I kneeled and put my ear on the grass I saw an entire festival of dragonfly play.

I love symbol and metaphor so later I researched (again) the dragonfly as a symbol and what it portends. I learned that dragonflies come to you to help you break the illusions that prevent growth and maturity. They bring visions of power; they are swift fliers so are symbols of whirlwinds of activity. Dragonflies also foretell a time of change. In other words, when a dragonfly lands on your shoulder it is a good idea to put on your seatbelt. When an invisible community of dragonflies becomes visible, put on your hard helmet.

This summer was definitely a time for breaking my illusions, challenging my patterns and looking at my assumptions. The breaking continues: if my life came with a windshield I would have already gone through it. Airbags were not an option when my model came into the world and the seatbelt was less than useful. I read that dragonfly medicine works in a two-year cycle so the games have just begun. Since I am already in flight I will keep my helmet on for a while. I am investing in some large safety goggles. I am learning to keep my arms at my side for less wind resistance. Soon I expect that I will develop a cool set of wings. I wonder what color I will be when I have fully become a dragonfly? I prefer the cobalt and purple but the fiery orange was hot and might better serve my new style.

As an older artist friend once told me, the edges never stop coming; if we are alive we just get better and better at running toward them. We develop an unwavering faith in the leap, the fall, and the landing. I am going to like life as a dragonfly and will not spend much of my time reminiscing about my human shape. And, I am certain that I will spend much of my time seeking shoulders upon which to land. I will delight in being a colorful symbol for imminent change.

Filed under: Edges, The Direction of Intention, Transcendence | 1 Comment »

Put Ego Against The Wall

Posted on September 18, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Ana-the-Wise and I had a conversation this morning about ego. We were talking about a wide range of things: “cleaning house,” ridding ourselves of limiting patterns, when people think they are operating out of love but in reality are reinforcing limits (co-dependence), when she spoke this terrific phrase, she said, “That’s the moment you put the ego against the wall!” I loved the image: my ego with his back against the wall; my ego having to face the truth of the moment instead of the horrible fear story.

I asked her to talk more about that. She said, “Ego likes to make things look bigger than they are. For instance, if your ego can convince you that approaching a gallery to sell your paintings is very scary, you will delay the action. Ego likes to make things look too big so you will avoid taking action.” It’s so simple. How many times have I talked myself out of doing something because I feared the response or assumed I knew the answer; a recent client said it best when she said, “I fear the “no.”

When I coach people I often ask questions like, “What do you get if you don’t act?” The answer is inevitably something like “safety” or “comfort” or “I get to be invisible.” This is what Ana is talking about. Ego will have you create stagnation and call it safety. Ego will have you bar the door against non-existent wolves. Ego will keep your light safely under the bushel; after all, who are you to shine? Don’t you know that your light hurts other people’s eyes; tone it down! Keep your voice to yourself. Sit in your desk and raise your hand; don’t you know how to stand in line? And so on.

Often the mountain we need to climb is never as steep as it seems. I’ve found that when I put down my ego-fear-story (…is my work really not good enough, do I really not deserve it, etc.?) there is no mountain, just me stepping toward what I want.

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Truly Powerful People | 4 Comments »

Wink At Your Bully

Posted on August 10, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

519. 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 mistake to assume that you will someday shed yourself of inner resistance. The voice of resistance is there for the long haul. It will be barking at you all the way to the dirt nap. Trying to eliminate it will only make it stronger; resisting resistance reinforces resistance – say that six times fast.

Resistance is like the bully in elementary school; it says it wants your lunch money but what it really wants is to see you cower. It wants you to stay in your place because that makes it feel powerful and in control. The bully’s game is control. The bully fears who you might become if you show up in a big way.

A step toward your dream is often a step into the unknown; it requires vulnerability and a release of control. This will bring out the bully every time. The inner bully is handled in the same way as the outer bully: Laugh at it or love it, but do not listen to its trash talk. Name it and keep walking. A bully only has power if you cower – it only has power if you believe its threats. It will call you all kinds of vile things and all you need do is hang onto your lunch money and take another step into the unknown. You empower it if you take the threats seriously; it dissipates if you smile and say, “really?”

Resistance is a sign that you are taking a step. It jumps up because you are daring to fulfill a dream. You can cower and run back into the cave or you can step through it and see what is on the other side.

[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, Edges, Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

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.

Filed under: Awakening, Edges, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Truly Powerful People (387)

Posted on March 31, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

387.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

We hold our workshops in Hastings on the top floor of the police department – a building that used to be a school so on the third floor it sports a small multi-use room with a stage – it is perfect for the experiences and messes that we create. This morning, dense with fog, we sent the teachers out of the building looking for edges.

Fifteen minutes later they proclaimed, “There are edges everywhere!” We live in a world that knows itself by the lines that it draws and the rules that it makes. They translated their edge discoveries into art installations and then taught us what they learned about edges.

First, we learned that it’s at the edges where the real learning happens. Edges are uncomfortable. Edges are to be played with, feared, challenged, leapt over and run from. Edges are where differences come together. Edges are necessary and not necessary. Judgments are edges. Edges are useful in making distinction and it is through our edges that we come to know ourselves. Edges can be sharp, broken, smooth, clean, rough, precise, unknown, limits, boundaries and horizons. Playpens are defined by there edges and so are prisons. Stories have edges just as pictures have frames. There are edges to perception. Doubt is an edge just as choice designates an edge. Opportunities are found on edges. Your edge is different than my edge. We seek our edges and redefine them. Yesterday’s edges look small and today’s edges look intimidating.

That’s just a snapshot of what they found. Who knew there was so much to be found on an edge! What do you find on your edges?

Filed under: Edges, Truly Powerful People | Leave a comment »

Truly Powerful People (384)

Posted on March 28, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

384.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Here’s a bit of a story. It’s the tease; the promise:

It was a special day. The King was to dine with their master that night. That’s why the cook let the young wife go without nicking her face with the cleaver. All must be beautiful in the eyes of the king. As she polished the finest china and silver, the young wife knew she had to find a way out of this hell. The cook was going to kill her.

The king was a renowned dandy and was given to fashion and high style. His closets were vast and full. He was known to change his clothes several times each day. He kept his designers and tailors busy and hated to be behind the trends. As far as he was concerned, one of his primary duties as king was to set the fashion standards. Had there been photographers in his day he’d have legislated that only his photograph could grace the cover of the gentleman’s fashion quarterly magazine.

As she placed the silver in it’s box, the young wife had an idea. She knew that the King’s visit was her chance to get out. She also knew that the King could have her executed for doing what she was planning to do….

Johan Lehrer writes that creativity begins with a problem; flashes of insight are born of frustration. Hitting the wall is necessary for us to move beyond our analytical mind and into the intuitive mind. The heroine or hero of a story must come against the wall as a prerequisite for the risk, the incentive to step into the void that will inevitably lead to their transformation. The promise of the story is nothing without the obstruction. The same is true in our lives – that’s why stories are, in the words of Reynolds Price, “…second in necessity after love and before nourishment and shelter.”

Stories are helpful because they beg you to consider where in our lives you we trying to eliminate our obstacle; when do we give up too soon. Where do we withhold our voice and not speak our truth? Meeting the obstacle is where the opportunity is available. Insight lives just on the other side of the wall. Choosing safety at the expense of growth or ceasing to try because we are frustrated short circuits our capacity for vision. It inhibits transformation. It is a decision to sit in the dark. What do you know in your gut that you need to do but are resisting? What cook has backed you against the wall and threatened you with her cleaver? What do you imagine the young wife is about to do? How might you problem be the door into the promise of your story?

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

Truly Powerful People (349)

Posted on February 23, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

349.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Tayna and I were talking about trust. Not just any brand of trust but the kind that becomes necessary when that still small voice inside prompts you to leave the nest, to step to the edge of your comfort zone and jump. It’s the voice that comes at the start of a new chapter in your story. It is the voice that knocks you off balance.

We’ve all been there. We all have that voice. We generally avoid the voice, deny it, question it, shout it down, talk over it, and debate it to a draw even as we sit in the nest knowing that the jump is inevitable. Deep down we know the caterpillar time is over and something unimaginable beckons. We don’t know what it is. We DO know that the nest is comfortable and the voice is asking the impossible. Who in their right mind would jump?

That is precisely the point. If you listened to your right mind all the time you’d stay in the nest forever. The intellect is great at explaining “why” but has no facility for asking “why not.” Growth never makes sense. Ask Frodo. Better yet, ask Bilbo. At the end of life he, like the rest of us, talks about the jumps, the senseless choices that at the time looked like “risk.” At the end of the day we come to realize that the risk was never in the jumping, but in the vital life missed by ignoring the voice’s call.

The voice comes when you are on the right path. The outward actions might seem terrifying, destructive, counter productive, and downright stupid. And, it’s the right path. Learning to trust that intuitive voice – stepping to edge of the nest and looking over BECAUSE it makes no sense – is what makes us human. That’s where the growth happens. We come alive when we entertain the “What if…?”

In a fit of metaphor Tayna chortled, “I mean, think about it: the ugly bulb I planted in the ground doesn’t know what it’s doing, it just does it. It trusts and reaches for something absolutely unknowable and this amazing flower emerges.” It’s not difficult to imagine being the ugly bulb. In this metaphor, reaching for the unknowable is simply what we do and I think that is apt. We must reach for the unknowable just as we must wrap a story of destruction around the impulse to reach. Safety is a big deal for us ugly bulbs. The story of destruction is good for piquing curiosity and curiosity trumps safety almost every time. Also, the flower remembers the story of ugly-bulb-doubt, in fact, the flower is made possible and all the more sweet by the doubt that propelled it forward. That’s how we ugly bulbs learn to trust that nagging still-small-voice: we take the scary step certain that we will not survive, have an adventure, and come out better for it.

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

Truly Powerful People (314)

Posted on January 19, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

314.
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 1993 and I alone in my studio. It is night in Los Angeles. I am exhausted and tired of being afraid. My life is fueled by anger and fear and I can see no alternatives. I have made a mess of it all. I am convinced that my paintings are worthless – which means that I am convinced that I am worthless.

My studio has a 20-foot ceiling and great exposed beams that support a mini-loft area. I find an orange extension cord and throw it over the beam, securing one end and loop a noose in the other. I place my rickety old wooden chair beneath the noose, climb up and put the noose around my neck. And then, I play with the balance of the chair, slowly rocking the chair back onto two legs. Only then do I realize what I am doing. I am blessed with good balance and I hover on that edge, my life teetering on the back two legs of a rickety old wooden chair, uncertain which way I want to go. It is on this edge that I recognize, perhaps for the first moment in my life, that I have choice; that I am always making choices. Always. This revelation blows a hole through the center of my victim story and it collapses. I am disoriented and see that I am depending upon others to tell me that I am worthy. I wonder why I have given the measure of my worth into the opinions of others. I wonder why I am choosing so much pain.

I hear in my head the voice of my friend Roger. A few years before he told me that he’d never really understood why people commit suicide. He asked, “Why wouldn’t you just do something else? Why wouldn’t you just do anything else?”

“Yes.” I say to myself, “Do anything else.”

I make my choice and softly let the chair down onto all four legs. I take off the noose, I take off the victim story, and as I pull the orange cord off the beam I suddenly I see my life as precious, sacred, and wonder how I could have lived so long and not known it. I wonder what I was running away from. The revelation stuns me and I sit on the chair and laugh. I know the answer the moment I ask the question: the victim story dulls us; it is a murky lens that leeches the vitality of life and feeds on itself. It is an addiction. I was running from myself so afraid of making and owning my choices, terrified of being seen, of saying, “look, this is who I am.” For the rest of the night I sit in the chair letting my eyes grow accustom to brilliant colors of life without the lens.

Filed under: Edges, Truly Powerful People | 2 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »