Story | The Direction of Intention

Step Beyond The Woe

Posted on July 12, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Somehow, somewhere, I lost my debit card. I used it last night in the grocery store when I sprinted across the street to get some food before the store closed. I didn’t discover the missing card(s) until this morning. In retrospect I wish I’d had a camera trained on my panicked search-and-rescue response. Although the missing card could only have fallen from the wallet resting on the shelf, I opened drawers, dug through pockets, lifted papers (evidently those pesky cards can crawl), opened drawers again, looked inside coffee cups, crawled on the floor, dug through the garbage, opened and closed the door three times (I can’t explain it so don’t ask), and am certain I performed a perfect triple flip and stuck the landing (unassisted).

During my panic I told myself a horror story and had myself convinced that my survival depended on those cards. It was the zealousness of the story that brought me back into my body and my senses. When I heard the narrative I was whipping up in my mind I came to a full stop and started to laugh. Our thoughts are indeed the mother lode of comedy.

I crawled out of my drama hole and took care of it. The cards were gone. No one had attempted to buy a yacht with my vast holdings. I went across the street to the store, inquired with the lost and found, and then went into the branch of my bank that was conveniently attached to the store. It was simple. The people at the bank were pleasant, funny, and very helpful. They laughed at my panic reenactment (I didn’t attempt the triple flip but reenacted it with full body gesture), and in a few moments the old cards were cancelled and the new cards were on the way.

My survival was never at risk. There was no tragedy. Even if someone had taken every dime from my accounts, my survival was never at risk and there would have been no tragedy. The necessary actions are never hard; it is the story that we attach to our experiences that make life a struggle. There are legitimate struggles in this world and I’ve very rarely actually encountered them though you’d never know it by my inner monologue. How hard is your life really? Really? What would the day look like if you dropped the story of woe and simply took the necessary actions? And, what might your story become if you looked at your tale of woe from the lens of the ridiculous? I was a Keystone Cop this morning. I had the people at the bank looking under their coffee cups in mock search for my debit card. We had a great time.

This week I have been prone to telling myself a story of difficulty. After leaving the bank I crossed the street and was, for a moment, grateful that I lost my card(s). It was just the dope slap I needed to see beyond the story of woe and step again into a quiet center.

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Weave A Conscious Story

Posted on July 6, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Sitting on the plane returning to Seattle I was surrounded by an extended family. They occupied the seats next to me, across the aisle, and the entire row behind me. I was the only non-family member in the immediate 12 seats on the flight and it afforded me the opportunity to revisit an old theme: in telling your self the story of yourself, you are literally creating your world. And what a world this clan created!

I was privy to some inner circle family negotiations and although I tried to be invisible, some of the conversations took place with me in the middle. I was the net to the family volley. Excited exchanges between the parents and children whistled over the net. And then the children huddled and debated their perceptions while the parents wrestled with the details of their version of the story. The story creation on my left bore little resemblance to the story brewing on my right. There were grandparents, too (sitting behind and to my right) and their commentary added another spin to the narrative. A single event in their lives inspired a wide range of interpretations and they were haggling over which story they would tell as the official version. There was little or no agreement and so the heat of the story spin was intense. It was like watching competitive weavers shuttle their thread while pulling apart the pattern of their competition. Their wrangling was rapidly becoming the central pattern of their family tapestry. They were the Fox News and MSNBC of family dynamics; whose narrative would be central and therefore designated as truth (answer: neither)?

Story is relationship. Relationship is story.

Try this game: as you move through the day or the week, see the relationships of your life as story creations. Story creation is a collaborative art; no one does it alone. Together with the clerk at the grocery story you are creating a relationship. You are creating relationship with your coworkers in each and every moment. The relevant question: is this the relationship that you want to create? Just for a day, entertain the idea that you are the relationships that you create. Entertain the notion that you are a relationship creator and what you create is a shared story. Red state/Blue state is a shared narrative. Most antagonistic relationships are built upon an agreement of enmity. What story are you agreeing to tell?

What is the common story that you create? What is the common story that we create? The old theme: it’s not happening to us. We create it.

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

Create Together

Posted on June 30, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

833. 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 came across this morsel of blog-posts-past. This theme of truth continues to show up in my wandering-time:

The difficulty is not in multiple truths, multiple stories; the challenge arises when there is the expectation of one truth. When I believe that your truth must match my truth, that my truth is the right way and yours is inferior, that I must convert you to my truth, then we walk an untenable path.

We step into the dark woods and get lost with idea that there is one truth and it exists outside of us and we must find it out there somewhere. This notion separates us from our capacity for presence; it requires us to doubt our inner truth while spending our days searching for something that is with us all along.

There are many ways. There are many truths. If there is a single story it is something we create together.

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See The Poetry

Posted on June 29, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

832. 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 rained all afternoon so when the breeze jostled the branches, water cascaded down on us. Josh said, “When the wind blows, the tree rains.” I loved the image. It made us see a tree that rains. Poetry!

It reminded me that we are not merely the passive receivers of visual information. We are the interpreters of what we see. We are the givers of meaning to everything we perceive. Everything. We are the givers of meaning to everything that we experience. The meaning is not outside of us waiting to be found, we give it, enjoy it, reject it, run from it, embrace it, dance with the meaning or deny it.

Recently I was reminded (again) that the meaning of every symbol I see and sign that I seek is already within me. I assign the meaning. I am the magic. I can believe that “things were meant to be,” or that the shooting star is a sign that I need to follow my bliss. I want to believe that the universe converses with me, leaves me a trail of breadcrumbs that I can follow to fulfillment or some greater meaning. And all the while I know that the meaning is not outside of me. I create it. In this way I am the universe or at least and expression of it.

I mirror the world and the world mirrors me. Joe once told me that we can only know ourselves by what comes back at us from others. We offer. We share. We project. And a response comes back to us. We interpret the response and adjust our offer, refine what we believe about ourselves and the world.

“The wind jostles the branches and the tree rains.” Josh sees the poetry in this world. I see the first star of the night and make a wish. A snake slithers across my path and then another and I know it is time to act on what I already know. I have a hunch and I follow it. I collect data and interpret it. I form a hypothesis and test it until I think I know. I sit still in awe and am certain that I do not know anything.

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Step Into Nonsense

Posted on June 25, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

828. 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 took a break from work today and turned on the radio. The first words I heard were, “Is the government doing enough to stop intelligence leaks?” It’s an old joke but it got me anyway and I laughed heartily. Governing is hard. However when the same people who got embroiled in the debate about whether or not pizza is a vegetable are the crew with their finger on the scary red button, it is an important question for the public to ask: Is our government doing enough to stop the intelligence leaking from the ears? And, more to the point, is it a slow leak or do we need to pull off the road and change the intellectual tires?

In all fairness, I am drawing cartoons today. On these days everything becomes fair game. I look for the ridiculous in everything, especially myself. I have been on a literal and metaphoric walkabout for months. The more I try to make sense of things the less sense I make. Truly. It is like a mathematical equation. Try to make sense = no sense. Perhaps there is no sense to be made. There are only choices. And when the available choices make no sense it is time to put on the cartoon artists eyes. Or, it is time to stop trying to do anything and sit still. The intelligence has long since leaked from my tire-brain and I am miles from the nearest air pump. I am like a cartoon character that tries to clean the house and ends up making a mess of everything. Dr. Suess would love me. Lately I have Cat In The Hat tendencies.

There is a moment in the Sisyphus story when Death knocks on Sisyphus door and in a grand moment of tricksterism, Sisyphus chains Death to a post. With Death held captive all motion stops and the world begins to suffer because of it. Sisyphus has no idea what to do so he sits. He does nothing and considers his options. He comes to see that his choice is really between two types of death. The first is death by all things known. This is the death that most people choose. It is death by boredom, slow and predicable. It is to hang on for ten years until retirement. It is an imagination killer. The other kind of death is to step into the unknown. It is unpredictable, fiery, and fast. This type of death fuels his imagination. It runs wild. He chooses the unknown, the death that brings life. He releases Death from the chains, unleashes Death on himself.

The metaphor is clear. When transition comes knocking and we choose to hang on to what we know, intellectual and spiritual death will come slowly through boredom and control. Let go, step off the edge, embrace the unknown and the death will come quickly but so too will the transformation. It’s a cycle. Life feeds life. Winter only looks like death when, in fact, it is a necessary part of the cycle of life.

On the surface it makes no sense to unlock Death. It makes even less sense to keep Death chained up and continue the suffering and boredom. None of the choices makes sense because growth is never in the direction of the known. Growth has nothing to do with sense. Growth is always on the path through the unknown.

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

Count To Three

Posted on June 11, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

[continued from 811, 12, 13]

Bali Journal Excerpt #4
There is an important number in Bali. Three. I come from a culture built upon the number two. Everything in my culture is a duality. Until coming to Bali I was not aware of the degree to which I saw the world in terms of opposites: black/white, success/failure, good/bad, /left/right, religious/secular. Between two points there can only be a line, a distinction. Judgments are the result of two – guilty/innocent. Lady Justice stands blindfolded holding her scale aloft. Which way will the scale tip? Democrats or Republicans? Make a choice! Are you for us or against us? Pro-choice or pro-life? In school I was taught that a good play, a good story, is driven by conflict, the place where two opposing forces collide. Will the major character win or lose? Will I be a winner or a loser?

These many years later re-reading this entry I marvel at how little I see the world now in terms of two. If there is a two there is also a space between and that space is dynamic. It is vibrant and alive. I see shades of gray. I see the middle way. I’ve worked hard to break my pattern of two-seeing. Budhi told me this space between was god. It is energy. One-ness. Why would I live in a universe built upon the number two if it precludes the space between?

I am sitting in an airport right now and it is just after midnight. I’m going on a trip of transformation. I am journeying to touch a heart that is precious to me. I am not popular for making this journey. Today, the people in my story are seeing pairs of opposites. They want me to see in terms of two and I am consciously reaching into the space between. They are invested in my choice. One or the other? They want me to “do what is right” yet right looks like left to half of the people who are invested with the choice they think that I am making. They cannot see the choice that I am making because their number stops at two.

Heart lives in the number 3. Heart is found, not in the noun, but in the verbs, in the action, in the space between.

Filed under: Identity, Metaphor, Perspective, Seeing, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: Bali | 1 Comment »

Take A Big Step

Posted on May 11, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

A dear one from my past recently wrote to me to tell me that something big clicked for her involving language, metaphor and how we tell our story. I read her email and clapped my flippers!

Her insight was so clear and simple. It is something that I’ve taken for granted in writing about story and I could not articulate it as well as she already has. So I’m sharing her thoughts with you.

She wrote that she assumed “telling my story” meant to tell it to someone else. And the assumption that there must be an other gave too much power to the other. It gave too much power to others to interpret her story and misconstrue her words. She wrote, “others were required for there to even BE a ‘my story.’” It made her mad. It made her not want to have a story because it would always be defined by others.

And then she began challenging her assumption. Instead of needing an other to have a story she realized that her story is for her. “My story for me….” And here’s the real beauty in her revelation:”…part of my story,” she wrote, “can be a ‘no story.’” No story is necessary. And when she runs a story through her head, the language she uses, the words she chooses, creates her world. And she has great choice to consciously create her world. She can choose not to assign meaning. She can choose to give meaning where it makes sense to her.

This part took my breath away. She wrote, “…the language I use creates my world, whether it’s words or even the languages of music, film, art, pictures in my head. Silently or aloud, they are the tools I play with to create my world for myself. I guess that’s what it has always been, but this realization and active decision to consciously live this way is a big step for me.”

It’s a big step for all of us. Yes. Here’s to living this way every day.

Filed under: Awakening, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: story | 3 Comments »

No Story Necessary

Posted on May 8, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

790. 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 Alan and I led the final Transformational Presence Coaching class of the year. I always feel a deep sense of gratitude for the group and for Alan in particular when we complete a cycle. I’ve become a steward of his work and have slowly over time embodied the principles. I am especially grateful for this group of graduates because over the past seven months they provided the only real consistency in my life. We’ve met every Tuesday (on the phone) to talk about the learning and experiences of the past week. The class was the single pattern, the touchstone that gave shape to my wandering.

In Bali Jakorda Rai told me I needed to learn about energy and auras. And then I met Alan – and I’ve only just today realized that bit of providence. He taught me about energy – to first pay attention to the energy, the feeling in my body, and not the story that I tell. The story comes second. It is the flip of how most of us engage with life. It is the opposite of the American cultural norm. All life is energy in motion.

Something powerful shifts when thought takes second place to energy. Something powerful changes when we recognize that thought is energy. I know that might sound esoteric but consider for a moment how your life might open if you paid less attention to what you think and more attention to the experience of the moment (Quinn once said, “There are 6 billion people on the planet and you are the only one who really cares what you think.”). What is right in front of you? What is your relationship to this moment?

It is a useful practice to pay attention and work with how you feel before you attach to what you think. Attaching to what you think almost always leads to some form of internal debate – and inner debate is a sure sign that you’ve split yourself and have kinked the energy hose. What could be less interesting than spending your time attending an inner debate?

On the other hand, if you pay attention to the energy – which is neither good nor bad – you can change the direction or work with something more expansive and easy. You can ground it, you can slow it down, stir it up or add color; you can even it out. Energy is about motion and flow. You can trace it back to the trigger and more clearly see the story you tell. If an old story is worn out, you can release it and make room for a new story. You can nurture the flow of energy.

Energy first, story second. It is how our brains work: we have experiences (we feel) and then we story the experiences. As the class discussed today, sometimes there is no need for a story.

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Listen Beyond The Wall

Posted on May 6, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Megan told me that there are cultures that never talk about disease. They believe that the spoken word has power so rather than talk about the disease they speak about the road to health. Or, they assume health and speak about it in the present tense, thus creating health.

We walk a path defined by our assumptions. We see what we expect to see. We see what we believe. When we talk about not being creative or not being good enough, that is what we reinforce. That is what we assume so that is what we create. Or that is what we create so that is the role we assume.

I learned again today (apparently a lesson with no stickiness) assumptions are tricky because they are hard to see. Assumptions are the rules for the game we play, they are the guidelines for the roles we believe we must fulfill. At the base of every miscommunication is a dueling set of assumptions.

People withhold their voices because they assume they know how others will perceive what they say. “I don’t want you to take this the wrong way,” is a statement steeped in assumption. Can you ever know how others will hear what you say? People diminish their truth because they believe they know how others will react. Can we ever know?

Assumptions are scary to challenge because they orient us. We locate ourselves in the world through the assumptions we make. It takes some fortitude to suspend our assumptions. It takes a desire to reach beyond what we think we know. The skill of listening is really about hearing beyond the noise-wall of our assumptions.

I can say, “I love you” and you will hear that I am cold. You can say, “I want to be near you” and I will hear that you are pushing me away. This is the power of assumption. We crush what is dear when wrangling with our assumptions and not what was actually intended. And so the story goes.

The spoken word has power. The internal monologue has power. When Richard Bach wrote, “Argue for your limitations and sure enough they are yours,” he was writing about assumptions. He was writing about the power of the word. Implied in his caution is the flipside of the coin: argue for your liberation and sure enough it is yours. The message is the same: flow happens when we can see and step beyond our assumptions.

Filed under: Edges, Language, Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: assumptions, limitation, listening, sadness | Leave a comment »

What Happened?

Posted on May 5, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

787. 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 was too beautiful to stay inside. My pals kidnapped me and took me to the beach. We ate chicken salad, looked at the waves roll in and talked of things past. We talked of changes in our lives, particularly the changes in the narrative we tell ourselves. The story of my life in 2013 is drastically different than the story I told in 2003 or in 1993. I have changed and the story I tell about myself has changed with me.

Personal change happens when we change our story, when we change our relationship to the story we claim as our past. Growth is not possible when we hold onto the story as we’ve always named it. Growth happens when we can open our hand and let go of the story that says, “can’t…” or “will never be….” Growth happens when we suspend the judgment and see the choices and opportunities.

Once I metaphorically lit a backfire so I might survive the forest fire that was roaring toward me. At the time I thought my actions were cowardice. Now I see them as wise. I survived.

Once I stood alone and without friends in a new city called Seattle. I had no job and no reason to move there. It was a pretty day in September so I decided to stay. “This is where I am so why not here?” I thought. At the time it seemed so arbitrary and without consideration. Now I see it as destined. It was the right choice at the time. Now I tell myself, “I was supposed to live in this city.”

Memory is a construct. It is a story that changes in the re-membering. It is not fixed in time. It is not truth. It can be contradictory. What once seemed so difficult, so painful, is now a story of potent learning. What once seemed so important is now insignificant. The smallest gesture can leave the greatest mark. The sequence of events is malleable. Memory is untrustworthy. It is unreliable. Memory is fickle. We create our past again and again and again.

We create ourselves again and again and again.

What if the story you tell yourself is neither true nor false? What if it is simply a story with multiple interpretations and you get to choose which version you claim? What would it take for you to open your hand and let go of the old story? What would it take to tell the story of thriving and fulfillment? As Megan recently reminded me, “What would your story be if you assumed the entire universe was conspiring for your good?

Filed under: Story, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: create, memory, remembering, story | 1 Comment »

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