The Direction of Intention

A few years ago I was facilitating a workshop with my beloved teachers in Hastings, NE. We were exploring rituals of entering the classroom. A ritual is a repetition of action. Each morning teachers enter the classroom and perform a ritual of preparation for the day. The lights go on. Papers are arranged. Desks are organized. Many seemingly simple tasks of are executed just as they were executed the day before and the day before that. I asked the teachers in the workshop to create a simulation of their classroom and one at a time to enter the space and perform their ritual of preparation for the day. It was not long before the group recognized that their rituals were rituals of control; they were preparing to control their students. It is one of the major confusions in the American public school system: we’ve confused control with teaching.

Next, I asked them to perform their students’ ritual of entry into the classroom. After much laughter and caricature, one at a time, they demonstrated how their students entered the learning space. They knew intimately their students’ ritual: who would enter first and how. In each case there were disrupters and the disappeared. The teachers’ revelation was breathtaking: the students’ ritual was a challenge to control. The entire game, the frame of the experience each and every day, was a game of control and challenge. Keep in mind that this was a group of superior teachers, some of the best I have ever known. Their game of control was systemic. They were, until that day, unconscious of the game. They work within a system designed to reinforce the control/challenge game. They must play the game to get paid.

This morning as I was taking a walk with my greatest teacher – Tripper the Australian Shepherd, Circus Dog, six months on the planet with no need to figure stuff out, just happy to be alive and barking – I remembered that day with the teachers and the amazing discussion that followed. Tripper is teaching me a lesson about the line between control and teaching. I am trying to teach Circus Dog lots of things, like “sit” and “stay,” “heel” and “fetch.” There are days when I attempt to control him and things do not go well, especially for me. I get frustrated and behave miserably. There are days when I know that I am teaching him. We have fun. We have patience with each other. And, he teaches me something that I already know: instead of controlling him, the best learning happens when I help him learn how to control himself.

Like all children, he wants to please. He wants to belong with the pack. He wants to understand how and where he fits. When I make it my mission to control him, he makes it his mission to challenge my need to control. I would do the same thing. I have done the same thing. My very natural response to controllers is to pull and push and disrupt. When I make it my mission to help him learn, he does his best to respond to what I am asking of him. Sometimes that takes time. In fact, it always takes time and patience, and repetition. It is a different kind of ritual.

Another phrase that I used to say but have recently retired due to wrinkled brows, is that the best learning happens when we help students (children, little people who want to understand how and where they fit in this big world) to be self-directed and self-regulated. Personal power is the fruit of self-direction and self-regulation. As Saul taught me, to orient to the self is to see the vast field of possibilities bubbling right in front of you. Trying to control “the other” makes one short sighted.

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We named our Christmas tree Satan. Not right away, of course. There was a progression of more appropriate names before we arrived at Satan. He was a scotch pine and we were disconcerted to discover that he that was more porcupine than pine tree. I’m only slightly exaggerating when I say that he was capable of planting hard needles in soft tissue at the most inopportune moments. For instance, with arms full of delicate wine glasses, Satan somehow lodged a sharp surprise in my sock. Howling in pain with glass flying all around, I swear I heard Satan-the-tree snicker. As I recovered and stared in utter disbelief, he twinkled in reply as if to say, “What?” Evil in pine.

Satan was beautiful. His white lights were hypnotic. His seeming tree-esque innocence was his appeal. On more than a few cold snowy nights, a fire snapping and waning in the fireplace, we gazed at him until the wee hours, forgetting his true nature. Inevitably, we were lured into touching his branches. Suddenly, like a swarm of bees, our sweater arms where loaded with spiny green stingers. Satan silently watched our pain-dance-sweater-removal antics. His branches bobbed ever so slightly with delight. Oh, sadistic wood!

Soon we avoided the corner of the room where Satan stood. We abandoned holiday efficiency and comfortable travel patterns opting instead for the paths of least pain. There is a group movement exercise called Angel/Devil in which you assign yourself an angel and a devil (from other members of the group). The goal, as you move about the room, is to keep your angel between you and your devil. The exercise reveals that a devil focus always makes the world smaller. Movement bunches up. Soon, all actions become reactions to the movements of your devil. Creativity stops with a devil focus; all energy is channeled into avoidance techniques.

A focus on obstacles is a devil focus. A focus on “can’t” or “shouldn’t” is often a devil focus. Blame is certainly a devil focus.

People go to great lengths to avoid pain. We created some great stories to keep a comfortable distance between Satan and us. We unwittingly began playing an angel/devil game with our Christmas tree! Once we caught sight of the game we laughed. That’s the moment we started calling the tree Satan; we named it.  A little sacrilegious humor changed the game. Rather than fear the barbs we loved the utterly ridiculous relationship we had with the tree. It was a good reminder as we enter a new year to deal with the barbs instead of trying to negotiate them. Of the very few things we can actually control in this life, the primary one is where we place our focus. We choose what we see. We interpret what we see. So, it is important to focus on something other than the devil or the problems or the obstacles. Another lesson from Satan: call a barb a barb and don’t pretend it didn’t happen. Deal with the stuff, don’t ignore it.

It was with great relish that I roped Satan’s stump and pulled him without ceremony outside into the cold. We drug him down the street (he made an awesome brush pattern in the snow) to the tree collection spot where he will soon be transformed into mulch. Pulp justice.

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, Seeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

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

What is yours to do in this life? I ask this question a lot in my work. It is the cousin question to, “What do you bring to life?” Most people answer with a version of, “I want to help people.” Somehow, they want their work in this world to be in service to others. They want it to matter. They want to matter. What they bring is found in the specifics; they open hearts with music, they serve to bring comfort as a nurse, they inspire curiosity as a teacher. They want to lead, to make better, easier, fuller; they want their work to mean something to someone. Alan has an exercise that helps identify what is yours to do; he calls it the future self.

Many people at first roll their eyes when I suggest this exercise but then are surprised at how much they learn: take a moment, close your eyes and stand in your future. Stand in the place where you are most fulfilled. What’s there? What does it feel like and look like? What are you doing in the future that is absent here? It is important to note that, not once, has anyone ever entered their future self and reported on their stuff; no one notices what they own or what is in their garage in the future; their report is always about what they are doing. Their report is often about how they see things differently; how they see, how they forgive, how they own their lives. They report on how they have actively and specifically created the life that they desire. And, often the life they desire is closer than they think.

When you go looking for your future self, take a moment to look into their eyes. Take note of the difference that you see there. Take a moment to ask this future version of yourself how they got there, what was the path to their fulfillment; that’s your path. And then, switch places with them; become your future self and stop pretending that your fulfillment is somewhere out there in the distant future. Step into it now. Own it now. Look at yourself through the eyes of your future self; what do you see? Is every action, big and small, in service to “what is yours to do in this life?” Why not?

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150.
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 at breakfast Lora was in mid bite when her gaze went far away; she was suddenly lost in thought (I love that phrase because I think it describes the human condition). After several moments she came back into her body and announced, “I just had an epiphany!” She said, “You know the psychology behind projection, projecting onto others what you like or dislike in yourself? Or, how what you dislike in other people is usually something that you need to work on within yourself?”

“Yes…?” I proffered. Caution is a good thing when Lora has epiphanies because she is essentially a trickster and I am an easy mark. Dig a tiger pit and I will step into it. Ask me to pull your finger and I will. Easy, easy, easy.

“Well, projecting is the same thing as that age-old phrase: It takes one to know one!” She was delighted with her discovery. “It takes one to know one is a simple way of saying, ‘I’m projecting my crap onto you! Or, I see in you the thing that I don’t like to see in myself; see? It takes one to know one!” Satisfied, she finished her bite of breakfast.

I thought that the opposite must also be true. If I see in you something I admire then it must also be available within me. If I can project my shadow on to others and see it in them then I must also be capable of projecting my light and seeing it in you, too. I suppose the greater question becomes, “what am I projecting?” According to Lora’s epiphany, you’ll know it because you’ll see it.

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120.
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 story you tell yourself about yourself is a creative act; it is something that you do. The story that you tell yourself about yourself occupies most of your waking hours; it is one of the fundamental actions of your life and whether you recognize it our not, it is an act of creation. You are fundamentally creative, creating yourself with every story you tell, every experience you interpret, every yearning you imagine, and every memory you re-play. At the inception of every action you take is the story you tell yourself about yourself.

You cast yourself in this story that you tell and you play many roles in the story. Some of the roles you like to play, some you do not. Whether you like them or not you agree to play all of the roles. You don’t have to play any role that you do not agree to play.

In the theatre, a character (a role) is defined by how you do what you. The actions you take (the verbs) identify you, not the name (the noun): teacher, mother, friend…, are meaningless labels until the actions are considered. A role is not fixed, it is not a singular thing; it is fluid, variable, and dynamic. You are fluid, variable, and dynamic. Your actions give substance to the roles that you play.

If you want to know the story you tell, the roles that you play, take a look at the actions you take. You are the storyteller of this story. What actions and agreements do you like to play? What agreements and actions do you want to change?

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117.

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

Did you know that in only six minutes a day you could get rock hard abs? Or, in less than 30 minutes a week you could get the thighs you had as a teenager? Or, if you drink this potion you will have the body you always dreamed of having? A shot of botox, a bit of surgery and you will be more desirable. It must be true. It’s on TV.

The first and most obvious question that comes to mind is, “What’s wrong with your body?” Seriously. Take a step outside of the story, the image of what you think you are supposed to look like, the image you are told you should attain, and ask the question: what is wrong with your body?

The best term I know for this level of thinking comes from another decade but is just as appropriate today as it was when I first heard it: McThought. Do we really expect to place our order with the clown and pull forward to window and have a new body? Yes. We do.

Not only do we expect it, we actually find the notion desirable.

There is nothing wrong with our bodies. There is a considerable problem with our fast food thinking. The desire to fit an image like you’d fit a pair of shoes is problematic but to expect to be a different person with no effort is a sign of dis-ease.

Our bodies are not meant to be outcomes. Our lives are meaningless when our expectations are so vapid.

There is another term that I appreciate that comes from some Native American traditions: the long body. Through the course of your life you process through many shapes and sizes (many forms of body), each appropriate to the age you are living. You could see your life and body as sacred in its evolution if you so chose. You are a process; your body is moving, fluid, and ever changing (that is to say, you are moving, fluid, ever changing). To treat it as a static object, a suit that needs alterations, new buttons, is to believe that you are a static object that only requires new buttons for fulfillment.

If you desire better health, why not practice healthy living? If you search for deeper meaning, why not start within yourself? Why not embody the shape your body takes when healthy instead of trying to fit an image that was concocted to sell you stuff?

If you are at war with your body you are at war with your self; you will experience this war in your thinking. If you are invested in fast food thinking you are probably wondering why your life has no meaning, looking for sustenance in things that have little or soul-nutritional value.

You are not broken and nothing needs to be fixed. You are not a car to be assembled, an image to fit, life is not something that you will achieve someday. You are alive now. You are perfect now. Life is what is happening now. What matters has little to do with the image you think you can buy.

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106.
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 have a special relationship with crows. If Beowulf had bees, I have crows.
In the epic story, Beowulf as a young man is attacked by a swarm of bees and stung so viciously that his eyesight is compromised. He has to develop senses other than sight. It is his heightened senses that enable him to defeat Grendel and Grendel’s mother. The wound becomes the gift. In his old age he becomes a bee-keeper and in his final battle the bees serve him and help him rid his kingdom of a fierce dragon. The bees become his allies.

I am told that crows have facial recognition. For years I have searched for my double, the man that wears my face and did something bad to the crows. At first, their attacks, though vicious and confusing to me, were not personal (I thought). When they began picking me out of crowds, bombing me and not my companions, I grew suspicious. Now, I know it is personal and I listen. The crows teach me where I can go and where I cannot go. They have very clear boundaries!

Once, in my studio, several crows circled the building, smacking the windows when I moved from one end of the studio to another. Their chicks were on the ground outside of my studio door. I was being put on notice. There is a crow that patrols near the beach and I’m convinced it wants to kill me. It chases me and I run. There is nothing so chilling as the sound of a crow swooping in to hit your head! The eagles don’t seem to care but I am not as sturdy as those majestic birds.

I used to loathe the crows. I feared them. Now, I love them. I respect them. I listen to them. I know what is happening in the neighborhood by the sounds that they make. They are magic.

Though I am still on the black list I hold great hope that someday when I face my Grendel the crow’s lessons will come in handy. And, how amazing will it be when I am an old man to hang out with crows. When my dragon rises to take me, it will be the crows that I call.

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