Be The Game

Posted on April 4, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Bodhi the dog and I have a special game. It’s ours and we can only play when no one else is around. It’s a hybrid chase-wrestle-pet game and is unique in its pivot capacity. One moment we are chasing and with less than a heartbeat he is on his back and I am scratching his belly. Then, with no notice, we are in full wrestle mania, and on and on we play until the wrestle and the chase disappear into final awesome belly scratch.

This game with Bodhi is teaching me many things. First, it is very improvisational. Advanced thinking has no place in our game. Planning is impossible. The less we plan the more we play. 2) It is hyper relational. We must play with the impulse, play in the moment, and take pleasure in each other. We must tune into the impulse of the other. That’s the game. In other words, we are the game. We are the play. 3) Our game never ends. It is infinite. Our game has no winner or loser. It has play. It has us. Our goal is to become better players together. 4) Our game, just like any relationship, is unique to us. Yet, our game is also universal. All living things have the capacity to to play together and can create games unique to the players; all that is required is a suspension of the control impulse, a release of the need to predict the next second or the coming year.

When our game is suspended Bodhi gets a cookie and I get a coffee and we sit. I do the petting and he does the receiving. Of course, one that takes so much pleasure (no resistance to receiving) in receiving love, gifts it back a hundred fold so Bodhi actually does the giving and I enjoy the receiving. This back and forth of giving and receiving becomes exponential and this resonance defines the special game we play. The wrestling, chasing, and petting are just the visible parts of the game.

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Be A Hypocrite

Posted on March 21, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Apparently, I am a hypocrite. I do not always practice what I preach. Most days I believe that I am my brother’s keeper. Yet some days I walk passed someone in need; I turn my head and pretend not to see them, saying to myself, “This is not mine to do.”

I believe in anchoring my life in love and yet sometimes I enshroud myself in a wet blanket of fear. I say things I do not mean. I judge and run back to my safe place.

I believe in the power of possibility and yet there are days that I fill my cup to overflowing with “I can’t.” I invest with gusto in my disbelief and hide my gifts beneath a mound of doubt.

I preach the virtues of going slow. I believe in being present and yet at times I find myself racing to get somewhere. I tailgate other drivers wanting to “get there.”

I believe in the power of language and yet I have said hurtful things and am often unaware of what I am actually saying.

I believe intuition trumps intellect every time and yet I regularly justify and reason myself out of following my gut instinct. I spend an inordinate amount of time in my head (I call it my office) and talk on and on about being more in my body or in nature. Empty words.

I believe in loyalty and trust and yet at crucial moments in my life have chosen self-preservation; I did not throw myself under the bus to save the other.

I believe in self-love yet have given the farm away more times than I can count. I hurt my self regularly with my unwarranted self-judgments and unrealistic expectations. I hold myself to standards that I would never expect from others.

There are gaps everywhere. I am flawed, flawed, flawed. Accuse me of almost any hypocrisy and I will look you in the eye and admit my imperfection. I am human and by definition that means I am messy and riddled with contradictions. Hold me to a standard of perfection and I will utterly disappoint you. Ask me why I say one thing and do another and I will get angry and defend my belief even as I know that I have betrayed it with service to yet another belief.

What I do not believe is that the world is black and white. I do not believe in absolutes. For me, truth is found in the paradox. Life is lived in the contradictions. I grant my life the same principles that make color vibrant: there’s nothing like a touch of red to make the greens pop. If you really want to see the orange, surround it with something blue. As Quinn once told me, all religious traditions have one thing in common: they instruct us to find the middle way, seek the path between the pair of opposites. It is impossible to find the middle way by eliminating the contradictions; one must test the boundaries to know where they are. As Dan Pink writes, “Clarity depends on contrast.” Given my massive contradictions, I expect someday to be utterly clear for at least one brief moment. In case you expect my clarity to last be forewarned that I will most certainly follow my moment of clarity with wholehearted dedication to some new spectacular confusion.

Filed under: Perspective, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Receive

Posted on February 11, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Rumi

In the past several weeks I have traveled many places. I’ve spent some time in the house where I grew up. I walked the streets of my boyhood and revisited the sacred sites of my childhood. The houses in the neighborhood seem so small. I’ve had the opportunity to revisit memories, to stand in spots where life seemed to bring overwhelming experiences; these, like the houses, now seem so small. I’ve chuckled more than once at monsters that I used to tote and how, from this vantage point, they seem like stuffed animals, cuddly toys. That is the power of memory, our great capacity to re-member our lives with every visit to the past.

In my walk-about I am consciously pulling down the barriers. I am surrounded by people who love me and whom I love. I am astounded by a generosity of spirit that greets me everywhere I go. I am learning to receive and the curious thing about receiving is that you need do nothing but open or perhaps surrender. The only requirement to receive love is that you show up. Who knew!

During this period of wandering I’ve been working again with the Parcival story and thinking about the moment in the story when Parcival removes his armor. Armor protects but it also restricts. Armor is a great way to not be seen. In order to want to take off your armor you must first put down your sword; you must change your idea of the world and your place in it. Carrying a sword is a great way to keep love away. After dropping your sword, you must be lost for a while and break your rules. Parcival’s sword shatters and he weeps. He removes his armor and follows a hermit into the woods. He stops seeking, stops trying to prove, suspends the fight and starts living moment to moment. And, when he’s forgotten about roles and knights and proving, the Grail castle reappears. He steps inside unprotected and claims his inheritance. He becomes the Grail. Love finds him when he stops looking for love.

Sometimes we wear our past like armor. We hang onto injustice, we identify ourselves by the trauma, and we claim our limitations as if we were born to bear them. I’m learning that these are the barriers we erect against love. To drop the armor all that is required is to let go of the past and re-member. The love, like the Grail castle, is waiting for us. As the hermit says to Parcival when he turns and discovers the castle, “Boy, it’s been there all along.”

Filed under: Love, Metaphor, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , | 2 Comments »

Feel The Possibility

Posted on December 19, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

650. 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 am in the backseat of Lisa’s car. It is night and we are driving one of those amazing highways that knows no large city. This road is a ribbon connecting the occasional community, none with more than 10 stoplights. It’s been several miles since we passed through the last town and it will be many more miles until we see another light. My face is resting on the window because I cannot believe how many stars are visible when not obscured by the glow of a city. And I am counting my great good fortune because on this night there is a meteor shower. It looks as if stars get so excited that they have to flame and run. “There’s one!” Megan calls. “Where?” Lisa says, peering over the steering wheel. “You missed it.” I rest my face on the glass so in love with this moment and my two companions that I can barely breathe.

We pull off the road so we can gaze at the stars without worrying about driving. We stand on the edge of a fallow field, shivering in the cold winter air, necks craned to the sky. It is not lost on me that we are returning from Kansas where we attended a Launch for presenters; a workshop that, when we are old and rocking on the porch, we will look back and say, “That two days with Kevin Honeycutt changed the trajectory of my life.” And on the way home from a life changing experience called a Launch, the universe decided with great humor to coordinate with Kevin and gift us with a meteor shower. “This is what love is supposed to feel like,” I think to myself, linking arms with Megan who gasps, exclaims, “Oh My God!” and points to the latest sky streaker.

Shivering, I remember Holly from my coaching class having an epiphany, saying, “I feel possibilities. I make lists of them, all of the endless possibilities! They are visceral, like stars! It’s like, constantly discovering a new star, feeling the possibility – the gratitude extends to the possibility and the possibility extends to helping someone and the helping circles back to me! It’s a cycle. It’s an adventure and I feel it!”

“OH!” Lisa, Megan and I gasp and point at the same moment. “Did you see that one?” we chime in unison.

Filed under: Gratitude, Love, Possibility, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Touch With Your Eyes

Posted on December 10, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

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

Last night was first Thursday in Seattle, the night that all the artists open their studios, the galleries and museums stay open late and people come to see what’s new. It was a cold rainy night so the crowds were small but steady. One incredible mother brought her five-year-old daughter to see the art and meet the artists. I heard them coming before I saw them. The little girl was ecstatic! “Mommy!!!! I SEE PEOPLE IN THAT PAINTING!!!” She squealed. Her very calm mother replied, “I see them too. Make sure you touch with your eyes and not with your hands.”

If the first exchange wasn’t enough to slay me with delight, the little girl’s reply killed me outright. She said, “Mommy! My eyes love touching paintings!” They stepped into my door and the little girl brought her hands to her cheeks in disbelief. My studio was suddenly better than the North Pole; I was more intimidating than Santa Claus. She squealed and twirled in circles and announced to me that she was only going to touch the paintings with her eyes. I asked, “What does it make your eyes feel when you touch the paintings?” She squealed and shook, sat down, and put her hands over her eyes.

Her mother looked at me and said, “That means it feels really good.” The little girl nodded her head, looked at her mom and flung open her arms, “LET’S GO TOUCH ALL THE PAINTINGS!” And in a blur she disappeared out into the hall. Her mother smiled and said, “Which one should we touch first?”

Filed under: Art, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

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