My teacher, Peter Fenner, talks a fair amount about what he calls "spiritual bypassing."
There are a lot of people who engage in some kind of spiritual search as a kind of mental salve. Perhaps there is pain (emotional or physical) that can be numbed through meditation, or through hiding is some kind of empty state. After working at meditation for awhile, it can be relatively easy to float in a state where we can't really feel anymore. And one can substitute that practice for living. But that really isn't practice.
The hard part is to use practice to more fully open. There are so many things that we are afraid to feel. We may feel frustration about something going on at work, or we may feel like we really need to make some changes in our lives. It can be difficult to summon the courage to confront those feelings.
I have found that one of the most difficult things to do is to give myself permission to feel the way that I feel. To really dig in. If I am in pain, for example, the tendency is to push it away, or to find something to distract myself. But instead, if I can just say "it is okay to feel exactly how I am feeling right now," something different happens entirely.
When I have truly opened myself to what I am experiencing, I find that it is not nearly as bad as I thought it might be. In fact, I find that most of the bad stuff (sometimes all of it) was residing in my resistance, rather than in the experience or memory or thoughts themselves.
When I truly open to pain, I often can't find it anymore.
This isn't just another kind of salve. Sometimes I find a lot to explore, and that is okay, too. But the important thing to note is that opening oneself to an experience changes the experience. And there is power, and transformation in that.
Jeff
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Monday, August 16, 2010
Family Time
I spent the weekend visiting my mom.
When I visit home, there are lots of thoughts that come up that I haven't considered in a long time. The roles that we play with each other become more apparent. The things that can bug us about a close relationship can become all the more apparent when we are in person, for three days, then when we are in a casual phone call from a safe distance.
I used to evaluate how things are going in my life by whether or not my mom can press my buttons, and whether or not I have the desire to press hers. This weekend, I saw the futility of that.
We are where we are. Sometimes, we are clear, and life is easy. Sometimes, we are triggered. This mix can change over time, but I am pretty sure it is always going to be here in some sense. I would like to think there will be a state of "full relief," whether that is from the suffering that we can feel from relations with family members, or memories of childhood, or things that are going on at work. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen, though, at least not in this lifetime.
But I realized this weekend that it is okay. It's okay to be mad sometimes. It's okay to express our feelings. It's okay to get caught. The only thing that might not be okay is to expect things to be different than they are.
Jeff
When I visit home, there are lots of thoughts that come up that I haven't considered in a long time. The roles that we play with each other become more apparent. The things that can bug us about a close relationship can become all the more apparent when we are in person, for three days, then when we are in a casual phone call from a safe distance.
I used to evaluate how things are going in my life by whether or not my mom can press my buttons, and whether or not I have the desire to press hers. This weekend, I saw the futility of that.
We are where we are. Sometimes, we are clear, and life is easy. Sometimes, we are triggered. This mix can change over time, but I am pretty sure it is always going to be here in some sense. I would like to think there will be a state of "full relief," whether that is from the suffering that we can feel from relations with family members, or memories of childhood, or things that are going on at work. I'm pretty sure that's not going to happen, though, at least not in this lifetime.
But I realized this weekend that it is okay. It's okay to be mad sometimes. It's okay to express our feelings. It's okay to get caught. The only thing that might not be okay is to expect things to be different than they are.
Jeff
Friday, August 13, 2010
Boundaries and Business
I work with a few clients as a coach. While I would like to say that I offer profound insight and help people make dramatic changes in their lives, that just isn't the case.
But what can happen is that the client can have his or her own insight. I can't say where it comes from or why. I can simply say that I was there, and that I am grateful to have witnessed it.
One of my clients and I were having a conversation the other night when he started taking about boundaries and relationships. He had been reading about the idea of boundarylessness, looking at relationships from the perspective of not being able to find the boundary between two people. This is a radical idea--that while we can see physical bodies, we really can't find a line where you stop and I start. We may be separated by miles but have the urge to call each other at the same instant. We may come up with the same idea at the same time. Or we may simply sense an energetic connection or intermingling when we are together.
My client, though, had been drawing a line between boundarylessness in personal relationships--friends and spouse--and business relationships. He had simply not allowed himself to open up in his business relationships. But as we were talking that line suddenly just dropped. He saw the humanity of those he worked with, or negotiated against. He saw that they wanted connection just as much as the other people in his life. And he saw that, in his feelings of vulnerabilty, he had been putting up walls that actually pushed the others away. He could see in the times that he had opened up, for whatever reason, that the relationship and results were profoundly different.
It can feel dangerous to open up in the business world. To share. To trust. It feels like in business, we defend first, and trust is earned later. But what is it, exactly, that we are protecting?
What if we trusted first? What would happen then?
Jeff
But what can happen is that the client can have his or her own insight. I can't say where it comes from or why. I can simply say that I was there, and that I am grateful to have witnessed it.
One of my clients and I were having a conversation the other night when he started taking about boundaries and relationships. He had been reading about the idea of boundarylessness, looking at relationships from the perspective of not being able to find the boundary between two people. This is a radical idea--that while we can see physical bodies, we really can't find a line where you stop and I start. We may be separated by miles but have the urge to call each other at the same instant. We may come up with the same idea at the same time. Or we may simply sense an energetic connection or intermingling when we are together.
My client, though, had been drawing a line between boundarylessness in personal relationships--friends and spouse--and business relationships. He had simply not allowed himself to open up in his business relationships. But as we were talking that line suddenly just dropped. He saw the humanity of those he worked with, or negotiated against. He saw that they wanted connection just as much as the other people in his life. And he saw that, in his feelings of vulnerabilty, he had been putting up walls that actually pushed the others away. He could see in the times that he had opened up, for whatever reason, that the relationship and results were profoundly different.
It can feel dangerous to open up in the business world. To share. To trust. It feels like in business, we defend first, and trust is earned later. But what is it, exactly, that we are protecting?
What if we trusted first? What would happen then?
Jeff
Thursday, August 12, 2010
The Power
There have been a lot of thunderstorms lately. And with the storms there are often power outages. Unfortunately, these can last several days.
The power is a reflection of our utter vulnerability. In an instant, we can be plunged into darkness. With a gust of wind or a fallen tree, we can go from air conditioning and refrigeration to hot nights, cold showers, warm milk, and spoiling meat. Finding ice is a priority. Keeping the essentials chilled becomes a science.
Our focus completely shifts in a moment.
This is the life we lead. We are at the whim of forces so much greater than ourselves, and yet we live, most of the time, as if we are in control.
At work, the power can be a new competitor, or a merger, or a new boss. The power can take a wild success and turn it into a failure, or the opposite. Some win, and some lose, and while the winners are sometimes more talented, they are sometimes just lucky.
Accepting this can be difficult. It can be helpful, though, to see the essential part of us that cannot be damaged or hurt. It is beyond winning or losing, success or failure. It simply is.
Even to notice that for a few moments each day can be the beginning of big changes in the way we view the world.
Jeff
The power is a reflection of our utter vulnerability. In an instant, we can be plunged into darkness. With a gust of wind or a fallen tree, we can go from air conditioning and refrigeration to hot nights, cold showers, warm milk, and spoiling meat. Finding ice is a priority. Keeping the essentials chilled becomes a science.
Our focus completely shifts in a moment.
This is the life we lead. We are at the whim of forces so much greater than ourselves, and yet we live, most of the time, as if we are in control.
At work, the power can be a new competitor, or a merger, or a new boss. The power can take a wild success and turn it into a failure, or the opposite. Some win, and some lose, and while the winners are sometimes more talented, they are sometimes just lucky.
Accepting this can be difficult. It can be helpful, though, to see the essential part of us that cannot be damaged or hurt. It is beyond winning or losing, success or failure. It simply is.
Even to notice that for a few moments each day can be the beginning of big changes in the way we view the world.
Jeff
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
Two Ways to Find Your Purpose
Thanks to a reader for sending me a couple of different items on finding the purpose of your life.
One was from a professor that I have mentioned before, Clayton Christensen, whose work I really admire. According to him, you should look at your life as an exercise in strategy. Look at the environment, and your strengths. Define your priorities. Make time for your family. Schedule. Plan. Prioritize. With enough rigor, it seems, you can make sure that at the end of your life you spent time on the things that truly matter to you, and accomplish what you want to. He warns that corporate America is hopelessly shortsighted, because it spends resources on things with a concrete (often financial) return, rather than those that are longer term but more nebulous, like relationships. But he says that this does not mean that planning is flawed. Just that we use the wrong inputs sometimes.
This is a valuable insight, and worth taking into account when you are considering spending another hour at work or spending an hour with your kids. It may be 20 years before you know if you made the right choice.
The other view is from David Brooks of the New York Times. He calls Christensen's view "The Well-Planned Life." He says it is the view of the individual asking how he can best contribute based on his own talents and desires. Another way, according to Brooks, is to look at what circumstances call you to do. He calls this "The Summoned Life," which places the individual in a much larger societal context.
I don't think there is a right or a wrong here. There is clearly a role for goals and planning in any venture, whether business or otherwise. Perhaps the best part of planning is simply the thinking about what matters to you. We can identify values that are often hidden from view. And, as Brooks notes, this focus on the individual is very American, so there is a perhaps innate comfort that many of us in the business world will feel with this approach. Even if it turns out that strategies change, as they often do.
To me, The Summoned Life feels more like how life actually happens. As John Lennon wrote, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." No matter what we want to happen, our circumstances often require something else of us, sometimes something much more than we could have imagined. In those times, our plans, and often our thoughts of achievement, wealth, or other material satisfaction, go right out the window.
And there can be surprising blessings when that happens.
Jeff
One was from a professor that I have mentioned before, Clayton Christensen, whose work I really admire. According to him, you should look at your life as an exercise in strategy. Look at the environment, and your strengths. Define your priorities. Make time for your family. Schedule. Plan. Prioritize. With enough rigor, it seems, you can make sure that at the end of your life you spent time on the things that truly matter to you, and accomplish what you want to. He warns that corporate America is hopelessly shortsighted, because it spends resources on things with a concrete (often financial) return, rather than those that are longer term but more nebulous, like relationships. But he says that this does not mean that planning is flawed. Just that we use the wrong inputs sometimes.
This is a valuable insight, and worth taking into account when you are considering spending another hour at work or spending an hour with your kids. It may be 20 years before you know if you made the right choice.
The other view is from David Brooks of the New York Times. He calls Christensen's view "The Well-Planned Life." He says it is the view of the individual asking how he can best contribute based on his own talents and desires. Another way, according to Brooks, is to look at what circumstances call you to do. He calls this "The Summoned Life," which places the individual in a much larger societal context.
I don't think there is a right or a wrong here. There is clearly a role for goals and planning in any venture, whether business or otherwise. Perhaps the best part of planning is simply the thinking about what matters to you. We can identify values that are often hidden from view. And, as Brooks notes, this focus on the individual is very American, so there is a perhaps innate comfort that many of us in the business world will feel with this approach. Even if it turns out that strategies change, as they often do.
To me, The Summoned Life feels more like how life actually happens. As John Lennon wrote, "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." No matter what we want to happen, our circumstances often require something else of us, sometimes something much more than we could have imagined. In those times, our plans, and often our thoughts of achievement, wealth, or other material satisfaction, go right out the window.
And there can be surprising blessings when that happens.
Jeff
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Construction Zone
Our brains are meaning making machines.
We can see this when we look closely at what happens in our daily experience. Life is going on constantly. Many of ten thousand things that are happening in a given moment we do not even notice. But then something might catch our eye, like a sunset, or our ear, like someone calling our name.
That experience is exactly what it is. Words cannot describe it exactly (or even come close, really). But our brains almost immediately use words to classify the experience--
"What a beautiful sunset!"
"Jane is so nice--she is a really great person."
"That screaming baby is so annoying!"
Our brains then construct a story around the happening, comparing it with an idealized version of what it thinks should be happening. In this way, we are constantly comparining what is going on around us with what we expect to be going on, or, sometimes, with a completely fictional ideal day.
Not surprisingly, what is actually happening is almost always different from what we expect or what we want. And this comparison, of a constructed ideal with what is, creates almost constant suffering. We often interpret this suffering as a personal failing. Perhaps we could have done something different to avoid this. Or maybe someone else should have done something different. We assess whether our lives are worthwhile based on this standard. And when someone suggests that we should "lower our standards" it feels like such a cop out.
But maybe this is not about higher or lower. Maybe for a few moments each day we can simply see life as it is, without comment, without internal dialogue, without an assessment of what it all means. Perhaps, just for a moment, we can let the inexpressible value of life itself shine through.
Jeff
We can see this when we look closely at what happens in our daily experience. Life is going on constantly. Many of ten thousand things that are happening in a given moment we do not even notice. But then something might catch our eye, like a sunset, or our ear, like someone calling our name.
That experience is exactly what it is. Words cannot describe it exactly (or even come close, really). But our brains almost immediately use words to classify the experience--
"What a beautiful sunset!"
"Jane is so nice--she is a really great person."
"That screaming baby is so annoying!"
Our brains then construct a story around the happening, comparing it with an idealized version of what it thinks should be happening. In this way, we are constantly comparining what is going on around us with what we expect to be going on, or, sometimes, with a completely fictional ideal day.
Not surprisingly, what is actually happening is almost always different from what we expect or what we want. And this comparison, of a constructed ideal with what is, creates almost constant suffering. We often interpret this suffering as a personal failing. Perhaps we could have done something different to avoid this. Or maybe someone else should have done something different. We assess whether our lives are worthwhile based on this standard. And when someone suggests that we should "lower our standards" it feels like such a cop out.
But maybe this is not about higher or lower. Maybe for a few moments each day we can simply see life as it is, without comment, without internal dialogue, without an assessment of what it all means. Perhaps, just for a moment, we can let the inexpressible value of life itself shine through.
Jeff
Monday, August 9, 2010
Reentry
Coming back to work from a vacation can be jarring.
But the rhythms are essential. When we really get away, we actually can stop thinking about work for awhile. We can draw that line, between working and monitoring, or between working and not working. Occasionally, we can drop the thoughts about work completely.
And that really is my practice right now. To see where I am. To be with what is happening right now. If that is vacationing, then the practice is to be with the beach, or the eating of lunch, or the visiting of the farmers' market. And if it is coming back to work, then I am here. Not anticipating what is going to happen, but addressing the emails and phone calls, one at a time, until the work is done.
There can be a lot of judgment that is layered into that. In addition to doing whatever it is that I am doing, there is a judgment about what I should be doing that might be different. And that is okay. But over time, that judgment can lessen, leaving just what is right here.
Jeff
But the rhythms are essential. When we really get away, we actually can stop thinking about work for awhile. We can draw that line, between working and monitoring, or between working and not working. Occasionally, we can drop the thoughts about work completely.
And that really is my practice right now. To see where I am. To be with what is happening right now. If that is vacationing, then the practice is to be with the beach, or the eating of lunch, or the visiting of the farmers' market. And if it is coming back to work, then I am here. Not anticipating what is going to happen, but addressing the emails and phone calls, one at a time, until the work is done.
There can be a lot of judgment that is layered into that. In addition to doing whatever it is that I am doing, there is a judgment about what I should be doing that might be different. And that is okay. But over time, that judgment can lessen, leaving just what is right here.
Jeff
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