The Direction of Intention

219.
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I’ve been thinking about the term “domestication” because I love it for this meditation on power. We come into the world as a wild-child, without any framing, and like a puppy, we are trained. We pick up language and to a certain extent the structure of our language frames our perceptions of the world: does your language emphasize nouns (things) or verbs (actions)?

We learn how to get our needs fulfilled and how to get attention. It is in this process that we are oriented to value sets, we begin to inherit/develop our “communication styles,” we separate and have the distinct impression that we are separate from all others. For a while we are unique and precious in our own eyes.

Our body is our first border. We know ourselves through our body. We form beliefs (Identity) about our bodies– things like “your nature is good,” or “your nature is corrupt” – these beliefs are body beliefs and inform our relationship not only with our selves but also with how we understand our relationship to the world. It is the epicenter of our understanding of “goodness” or “place.” It is our direct link to ancestry, hopes and dreams, pleasures and pains. It is the foundation stone to the-story-you-tell-yourself-about-yourself.

The underlying assumption is that you relate to others based on your relationship to your Self. It is impossible to talk about the relationship to other (which defines your relationship to power) until you surface the point of view from which you are relating.

So, making the unconscious conscious, a treasure hunt of awareness for your values, your stories about how they came to you, your capacity to see and be seen, discovering and uncovering the geography of your domestication, understanding the self as a “body revelation” is necessary to get to the place where you can understand why power with others generates power and why power over negates power in yourself and others.

If your way is learned (as opposed to “true”) then that must be the case for all other people. And it makes other ways of being possible.

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217.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Lately, I’ve been paying attention to how people describe their day to me. What I hear are discrete chunks of time compartmentalized into little outcome boxes. It sounds like this: “I was crazy busy this morning because my alarm didn’t go off. It was nuts getting the kids ready and out the door but once we were out the door I tried to slow down, to use the commute to catch my breath, commute as meditation, right? When I got to work I put my game face on because we had a meeting right away and I needed to at least look present. The rest of the day was a grind, same-old-same-old, no lunch again, but I cut out early because I wanted to hit the gym before I had to be home for the kids. My workout was so-so because….”

It’s become a fascination for me.

I write a lot about focus placement and focus placement is perhaps the most abstract, least translate-able idea in my canon (so I’m told). What does it mean to place your focus? Why does it matter? Simply this: most people I know feel fragmented or somehow separate from the greater experience/meaning/power of their lives. If what you choose to see every day is a series of compartments, little contained outcomes not necessarily connected to each other (work, home, laundry, gym,…), each with it’s own peculiar standard or judgment attached (that comes with seeing outcomes or products), what you will experience in life is fragmentation, reactivity, and most likely you will wonder were you left your wholeness. You see fragments because you focus on the fragments and you measure the fragments.

If you desire wholeness, you have to place your focus on the whole and not the parts. I know that sounds too simple but shifting your focus onto process unifies your focus and allows you to see the meaning in your day – or at least to make meaning that isn’t based in “life as a product” thinking. Meaning is always found in the relationships, the connective tissue, how the textures of your day play with each other. There is a Native American term that I like, “the long body,” which means to see the whole of your life, the entire arc, and not the pieces.

It is true that, if you grew up in the western world, you’ve probably been reinforced in the fragmentation, but you can choose to practice another focus placement. If you do, it might surprise you to know that your mind, body and spirit are already connected, as are your head and your heart, those compartments, like all the other compartments, are constructs and do not exist outside of your seeing. You simply have to shine your light on the river of your life in order to see it.

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216.
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For the first 46 years of my life I got out of bed and reviewed my list of things I needed to do. Life was about checking things off of the list.
“Getting-through-the-list” thinking is rampant in our world, a useful frame of reference if you are a machine but not so much if you are corporeal and have a soul. I realized somewhere on this path that my frame of reference was the limiting factor in my quality of life. I’d mistakenly placed efficiency too high on my list of priorities. I’m good at checking things off of lists, quantity of outcome, doing stuff, is no problem. What about greater experience, deeper meaning, full spectrum of experience, what about quality of life?

For the past 5 years or so, I’ve been trying different strategies of entering the day. Now, I get up and ask myself, “What do I want to bring to this day?” You will not be surprised to know that my answer is never something quantifiable; I never say “more efficiency!” or “faster pace!” or “multi-tasking!” My answer is usually something like, “curiosity,” or “full presence,” “quiet” or “I want to bring the best of me (try quantifying that!).”

It also won’t surprise you to know that what I intend to bring is usually what I actually bring. It also won’t surprise you to know that my answer is never “fear” or “angst” or “self-doubt” or “anger” or “not enough time.” Those aspects occasionally show up but I have the perfect response: I ask myself, “Is this what I want to bring in to this moment?” If the answer is “no,” I bring something else.

It is not a small question when I ask you, “What do you bring?” Ask it of yourself for a while and you might just discover that you stop asking questions like, “Where’s the meaning in my life?”

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213.
Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Sam and I talked often during the months that he prepared for his interactive workshop. He was both nervous and excited; this presentation represented a risk, a step into his desire. It was a conscious choice to step toward vulnerability and the unknown. He was presenting to a conference of life and business coaches. He wanted to introduce to them the notion that coaches need mentors; mastery is an ongoing ever-growing process and that requires wise-eyes. Sam is a master coach and walks his talk. He is always learning, always growing, always seeking wise-eyes and asking, “What do you see?”.

His workshop was very successful and as he described to me his experiences in presenting, I could see that he’d had a significant revelation that day.

“What did you learn?” I asked.

He was quiet for a moment and then said, “It was very humbling. I think I learned to stand in what I know and make an offer without needing an outcome or expecting a response. I didn’t offer any answers or pretend that there are 5 bullet points to achieve artistry or something like that; I asked questions. I asked big questions.” And then he said, “I was powerful in a way that I have never been before, not power over the group but powerful with the group. We all became more powerful. I was present.”

Step toward the unknown. Stand in what you know and make your offer. Seek better questions. Let go of outcome and focus on process. That’s a recipe for power-with and a step toward mastery.

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