The Direction of Intention

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

Ideas cycle in and cycle out. I might chew on something for months, an idea might be central to my mind-noodling and then, one day, with little or no notice, it rotates out and a new concept occupies the inner locus. Thus, I feel as if I move deeper and deeper into not-knowing. I imagine myself surrounded by a rabble of idea butterflies; some lite on my head and others flutter about me so that I am looking everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Lovely chaos.

The concept of “locating” has again settled on my head. How we locate ourselves physically in space, how we locate in our lives through the roles we play, the actions we choose, the story we tell: all of these are processes of locating. It is powerful when we recognize how we tell a story as a means of locating ourselves and we simultaneously locate ourselves within the story. When I ask, “What is the story you tell yourself about yourself,” I’m really asking two questions.

Recently in a class I led an imagination experience. I asked the group to remember a challenge from their past, a challenge that is already resolved. They re-membered what they felt when they were in the middle of the challenge; they re-located themselves in the past and gathered all the information available to them. Then, they relocated in the present. What once seemed a big deal or insurmountable challenge was now easy: no big deal. So, I asked them to identify a current challenge, to locate themselves within it, gather thoughts, beliefs, and feelings. And then, they imagined a time in the future after the challenged was resolved. After they gathered thoughts, feelings, and beliefs they relocated to the present. Here’s what they realized: the current challenge was only a big deal because they made it so. Separate from the story, the necessary actions are not difficult. The challenge is in wanting to be beyond the challenge. The difficulty is in resisting the present. It’s the story of pushing and forcing and resisting and grasping that makes the tribulation.

How do you locate yourself in your life?

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355.
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Peter Block wrote a book I often revisit called, The Answer To How Is Yes. It is written for a business audience but like all wisdom it applies to life beyond the glass tower. One of the premises of the book is that we get stuck in asking, “How?” We leap beyond asking “why” and too soon begin searching for how to achieve “it.” Both actions are essentially an abdication of personal responsibility. Point #1: If you do not know why you should not be asking how. Point #2: Look to yourself for your answers; clarify your “why,” and “how” will become apparent and personal.

In my latest revisit of the book I realized that in many ways it is a meditation on paths. To me, stories are pathways scribed during a process of transformation. It’s a paradox because the story serves both as a guide that points the way along a well-worn route, and it affirms that your path is unique, never before trod. You create your distinctive path in the choices you make as you go. Your path is your story creation and the age-old stories provide instruction in path creation.

I went back to Peter Block’s book because I recently did a peer coaching with a woman from one of my classes. She guided me through an imagination exercise and I found myself on a path. I took great comfort in how well traveled it was – you might say the legion of ancestors that came before me wore a fine trail for me to follow. On the path I thought the relevant question was, “How do I intend to walk it?” I could race through and not see it, fight my way, fear the tigers that might be lurking behind the trees…, or I could walk slowly and enjoy it. And then the real question came to me: “Why this path?” There were other choices available to me. I could have taken a safer path. I could have chosen a path of security or one that was less steep. This path was not a default though I often try to convince myself that this path is happening to me, but it is not. I chose it.

Why this path?

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348.
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For the past few months I’ve been having a blast creating and offering two classes. In truth, they are related cycles, aspects of story, processes that I initially understood as paths to creative freedom. Lately I’ve come to understand the cycles as a path to presence – I think all creative processes are attempts at presence. To me, artistry is primarily a way of being. It is how we make ourselves available to the world. Artistry is not something we do; it is how we are when we are doing it.

In a fit of anti-inspiration, I’ve named the cycles Bring Power To Life & Bring Power To Life (2). New names will be coming down the pike and I am open to suggestion.

The first cycle I understand as preparing the soil. It is a process designed to clear the debris from your story, see clearly and enrich your ground truth. It is impossible to close the gap between your espoused and lived values until you see the gap. In metaphor, the wasteland is the vast space between what we espouse and what we live. The first cycle, the ground truth, is an exploration of 6 relationships: Control, Choice, Intention, Motivation, Seeing, and Ownership. Working with these relationships closes the gap and clears the crap (or better, uses the crap to enrich the ground truth). The garden thrives, the grail castle reappears when the armor comes off, when the abstracts fall away and the gap closes between what you say and how you act; you have new relationships with control, choice, intention, motivation, seeing, and ownership.

Once the soil is prepared, once the gap begins to close, creative freedom and presence are available. They are the harvest of a well-prepared garden. They are the harvest of an intentional story. This is the how the second cycle dances with the first:
Changing your relationship with Control opens the channel to Creativity
Changing your relationship with Choice opens the channel to Opportunity
Changing your relationship with Intention opens the channel to Flow
Changing your relationship with Motivation opens the channel to Ease
Changing your relationship with Seeing opens the channel to Relationship
Changing your relationship with Ownership opens the channel to Presence

Spiritual practices would call this “alignment.” The cycles are universal as our life stories are universal. The details may be different, the cultural lens might be unique, but the arc is the same.

(for more information on the cycles, visit my site: www.trulypowerful.com)

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There is a story that starts like this: The salmon of knowledge was a magic fish. The first person to taste the salmon would be the wisest person in Ireland. Its skin was the color of gold. Its eyes were magic. A lot of people tried to catch it but they failed.

What happens next?

There is another story that starts like this: For months the young woman had been abused, pushed around and cursed and through it all she’d managed to maintain her calm. But now, as the cook had her backed into a corner, a cleaver inches from her face, she resolved that she must defend herself. She must fight back.

What happens next?

And yet another story that begins like this: A long time ago there lived a king who was famed for his wisdom through all the land. Nothing was hidden from him, and it seemed as if news of the most secret things was brought to him through the air. But he had a strange custom; every day after dinner, when the table was cleared, and no one else was present, a trusty servant had to bring him one more dish. It was covered, however, and even the servant did not know what was in it, neither did anyone know, for the king never took off the cover to eat of it until he was quite alone.

What happens next?

How does your story start? How does it start today? What’s the challenge obvious from the very beginning? Are you trying to be the wisest? Are you backed into a corner and out of options? Do you carry a secret that you need to protect? What happens next? It’s a great question! It is the question that defines us as human, it is the question at the base of Mount Curiosity. Where do you want your story to go from here? What happens next?

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333.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Horatio asked me why I use the word story as a verb. He told me it is jarring when he reads it in my posts. I often write, “We story ourselves.” I loved his question. I believe we actively story ourselves. For me, story is a verb. And, I love that my use of story as a verb is jarring!

We are hardwired for story. We can’t help it; it is what we do. We interpret, we judge, we speculate, we remember, we ponder, we investigate, we justify we imagine,…we story. Meaning-making and interpretation are processes of story. We narrate each moment of our lives. I call this the-story-you-tell-yourself-about-yourself.

The-story-you-tell-yourself-about-yourself is often hard to see because you don’t see it as a story. It’s your life and you are so used to the inner-narrative that you stop recognizing your self as the narrator/interpreter of your life. Your thoughts, judgments, comparisons, expectations, investments, aspirations and fears are your story and you are the teller of the story. As much as you want your point of view to be fact, it’s not. It is truth relative to you but not to anyone else. These stories you tell do not exist outside of you; they are your creation. Don’t let anyone tell you that you aren’t creative! We are, each of us, masterful storytellers.

Neil Postman writes, “Our genius lies in our capacity to make meaning through the creation of narratives that give point to our labors, exalt our history, elucidate the present and give direction to the future. To do their work, such narratives do not have to be “true” in a scientific sense…. The purpose of a narrative is to give meaning to the world, not to describe it scientifically.”

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324.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

One of my favorite images from a story comes from The Crescent Moon Bear. A young wife is on a quest to pluck a single hair from the throat of the ferocious bear. After weeks and weeks of slowly moving closer and closer to the bear, after weeks of trials and hardship and loss, she finally arrives at the moment when she must stand unprotected before the bear. She does not know whether she will be eaten or whether the bear has grown accustomed to her and will allow her to pluck a hair. There is no going back. There is only one way forward and it is to meet her monster. Here’s the image: The bear towers over her and she slowly reaches up to its throat and plucks the hair. Immediately the bear roars! It roars and roars and all of nature grows silent to listen. The young wife stands very still. She knows that the bear is telling her things that she has waited her whole life to hear. She understands without understanding. In the face of her fear she is present and receives the boon. The gift cannot be understood with the intellect and must be received intuitively; deep knowing, transformation, can only be understood through feelings.

That is the path of profound change. It is non-sense in the rational mind. The sense is made in the heart. She is changed. She receives something that makes no head-sense but makes perfect intuitive sense. And, she understands.

What do we do with great change? We can (and do) build stories around our experiences to make sense of them even though they are, in truth, beyond the grasp of our thinking. We must make sense of it. The word choice is specific: we make sense of it. Something is different. Something changed. We feel it. We behave differently but can’t really point to what shifted. We are the same person but different somehow, perhaps more confident, more present, less harried, less invested in being right, more capable of giving voice to our thoughts. It is inexplicable.

And, the difference within us makes us different in our relationships, which, in turn, makes a difference in the lives of those around us. The transformation in one person transforms all the relationships in the community. That’s the point. The transformation happens within one and ripples through all. It is as inexplicable.

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322.
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 a story cycle as in our life story, to grow we must leave the place that is our safety and refuge and walk toward the most dangerous thing we know. In metaphoric terms, this means to stop running away from our fears and to turn around and walk toward them. The capacity to turn and stride toward fear comes when we bumble into a purpose that is more potent than fear; purpose is that thing that we will give our lives for. This is something that every parent knows.

Serving a greater purpose changes our relationship with our trials and obstacles. I used to work with a man who said, “People don’t change until the pain is great. People will move when it is more painful to sit still than it is to get up and step into the unknown.” The trials live in the unknown places and when we walk into our trails we have a choice. We can resist our obstacles or we can embrace them; we can love them.

Loving your obstacle means to stop pushing against it. It means to look for the lesson, to study the movement of the giants, to move slowly and take your time looking for the signs, the mosses and direction of the sun that can orient you. Rushing through will defeat you every time.

Loving your obstacle does not mean to be passive or weak; it means to be clear about your purpose. It means to keep sight of your purpose even as you meet obstacles. It means to be present in your life in the midst of the conflict. Too often we engage the obstacle as an enemy and soon defeating the obstacle takes precedence over the purpose; the purpose gets lost in the battle.

Ask anyone on their deathbed if their lives where made rich from their achievements or from their relationships. The riches are in the process and rarely in the outcomes. It is a cliché but it is the journey that matters. There will always be another arrival. And another. And another. That is why story is such a potent teacher and effective road map. The obstacle serves the motion, it is the motor that moves the story forward. Without the obstacle, the story has no capacity to progress and the same is true in our lives. The journey stops when the obstacles disappear. As Robert Olen Butler wrote, “Story is a yearning meeting an obstacle.” A newly transformed butterfly needs to struggle out of the cocoon – the struggle provides a necessary stage of development; removing the struggle will kill the butterfly. Remove the obstacle and the purpose disappears like so much dust.

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