new beginnings....october 26th, 2014

Ideas. I am sure that we all have come across an awareness that seemingly changes our perspective and how we move through life.  I had such an idea come to me a couple of weeks ago while preparing to do a group facilitation in nearby Boulder, Colorado.  Prior to the meeting, I was thinking about how I could best help these individuals as they searched for what they wanted to accomplish in the next year.   Now each facilitations is different from each other; so while I was thinking about this activity, I was drawn to its purpose.  But the more I thought about the purpose I became more absorbed with the planning on how the event was going to transpire; which led me to feel like I really had nothing to offer them.  On my drive to the location, I had a concept come to me; so, I presented it to them and it would eventually set the tone for the event. I asked them not to think, “What are we going to do to accomplish our mission?” but to think of the more basic question of “Why is our mission important?” 

The concept of “why” over “what” is a simple one if we take the time to consider the difference.  Oh sure, “what” is an action word that means that we are busy doing “something”.  We may have started doing something based on a desire to accomplish a goal.  But how many times do we continually do the same thing over and over again without reflecting on why we are doing it.  As I think about the meeting with the group from Boulder, I remember not sensing that I left them with the best of feelings and now I know why.  I could feel that there was a sense of frustration over their final collective decision and that was because the action plan that they had chosen was the same one that they had chosen the year before.  My mistake was that I did not reflect on the comment that I started the meeting off with. Instead of allowing them to “sit” in their frustration, I should have asked them why this act was so important to them.  I should have asked that they consider not “what” or “how” but to ask themselves “why”.  The “why” will reflect their passion.  The “why” will develop their truest identity.  

There it is.  The concept of “why”.

 

Individually we ask ourselves, why do we want to get a better education… or to be successful in business… or to be faithful in our relationships… or to stand up for social justice? Is it just because we know it is the right thing to do?  Well, we know that telling the truth is the right thing to do.  We know that obeying the laws is the right thing to do. We know a lot of “right thing” to do’s but yet we still don’t always do them.

Now this is where the story becomes a little more personal. I have asked myself the very same thing. Why do I write… why is it so important for me to study how to be a counselor… why do I eat healthy… why do I choose to work out the way that I do… why do I have the faith system that I have?  

So let me offer this as a suggestions, when we are about to start a new phase of life or set a new goal, lets first ask ourselves why we want to do it.  I believe that once we personally know the answer to “why” it will become a lot easier to discover “what” we want to do and “how” we should do it.

streams of thought....september 30th, 2014

It is the last day of September… how do I choose to walk in it? A day… a moment… a casual meeting… a commute from one place to another… each tick of the clock is a gift.  Before I walk into the world of academia I want to put onto paper some thoughts from the creative

Do you remember having an encounter that seems to capture you but yet releases you? It is difficult to describe actually.  When I tried explaining it to myself I thought of the replacement of the wolves in Yellowstone Park.  A beautiful creature is moved from a place of danger from its environment as well as a danger to its environment.  They are captured and then take to a safer place… captured yet release into a place that provides and protects.

What are some of the words that capture you today?  Are they words that release you or are they words that restrict you?

Here are some that have been in my thoughts this morning… happiness, sadness, hope, fear, trust, peace, stillness, contentment, and perception.

Each have separate meaning yet many of them seem to be intertwined with each other. Sometimes they seem so desperate for meaning, as if they are too limiting.  However, here is where I presently reside with each of them. 

Happiness and sadness – emotions that are attached to the present. They are based on how we feel at the moment based on our interpretation of the current environment we find ourselves in…

Hope and fear – emotions that connect with the future. They are dependent upon our perspective view of life and potential events. Our perspective view is going to determine which one of these is going to be the dominant emotion. It is the farthest away from our present situation yet it seems to be one that dictates how we live with the present emotion.

Trust - an emotion that sees the living around us and either causes us to hold on tightly to what we have held on to for so long or causes us to let go to explore the possibility.

Peace – it is the undercurrent that holds up our present emotion.  When our peace becomes thin the more turbulent the “waters of our soul” becomes and allows us to drift to the more unsettling perceptions.

Stillness and contentment – the bonds that create trust.  When we encounter someone that personifies these two traits alone there is something within us that says that we can dwell in trust. These are the two arms that hold us as we let go of our present emotion of self-doubt.

Perception – the hand that holds the key to our freedom of being or locks us in a cage of negativity. This is the emotion that determines which one of the present time and future time emotions that we will choose from.

John O’Donohue writes in his book Eternal Echoes, the following:

“One of our sacred duties is to be open and faithful to the subtle voices of the universe which come alive in our longing.”

No matter our faith or non-faith… our age, race, or gender… our economic status of having or wanting… the words that we choose to reside with this morning will determine the perception that we have throughout the rest of the day.  And what word we choose to reside with is determined by the perception that we have at this moment.

Namaste…… shalom…. Peace and Light…

streams of thought...may 14th, 2014

”In those moments I sometimes catch a glimpse of my true life, a life hidden like the river beneath the ice.” – Parker Palmer from Let Your Life Speak

Have you ever found a writer, a performer, a thinker of all times, or perhaps just another person that makes both your face and soul smile at the same time? 

It may be in the way they live their lives.  It may be in some act of kindness that they have done.  It may be in what they have written.  Or it may be just because they sang something that just reached inside you.

Parker Palmer is one of those individuals for me.  He speaks with such depth and clarity, yet with the simplest of ways.

In moments that I need to re-find my way, I go to some of the writing sources that always seem to inspire me.  Yes, I find refuge in the Jewish Proverbs.  I find meaning in the writings of Thich Nhat Hanh. I revisit my calling in the writings of Parker Palmer and Henri Nouwen.

We just left a winter season of introspection.  That period of time when we can pause to discover how we can live life. 

I think that we take the seasons for granted.  In winter, we move through them mindlessly and always looking for the warmer seasons to come. In the spring, we seem to be thinking about the family “vacations” that need to be planned out.  In the summer, we are outdoors and moving about going from one event to another, all the while making plans for the fall events and holiday seasons. We just do not seem to give the seasons a place where they can guide us in looking at ourselves.   

Hopefully, during this winter season of reflection, we had the opportunity to glimpse through the icy cold exterior of the day to day into a warmed life that flows inside of us.  Just as the trees had shed their leaves… a symbol of their external beauty… its life moved inside of itself to develop a greater strength in the roots, which anchor the tree into the soil of the earth.  We, too, have gone through a season of moving inside of our own souls to take a moment from the busyness of life to develop the roots inside of ourselves to anchor us for the impending seasons. 

Now in the spring season, we move into a period of renewal and rebirth.  Just as we see the flowers and the buds on the trees start to peek their colorful heads from the dark depth of their birthing place of protection, we, too, are moving into a new season of life.

If we have caught a “glimpse of (our) true life” during the season of introspection, we have discovered what path we are designed to travel on. Hopefully, we have looked at our sense of being a little differently than before.  Many times we get caught up into a cultural movement which pushes us into competing more… into earning more… into consuming more… and yet our life, that is uniquely individual, yearns for more than just moving in the same direction as everyone else.  We are reluctant… dare we say… afraid… to step outside of our environment that we live in to be different.  We have learned to live from the outside in and then wonder why we are never satisfied.  Instead, we need to pause long enough not to say how we want to live life but to listen long enough for our life to tell us how we should live it.  We are becoming deaf to the beating of our soul because the noise of the world has been turned up too loudly.

Nature has a way of teaching us so much more on how we should walk in our own present life.  We have become the consumers of the earth more than the caretakers.  A caretaker will do just that…. “take care”.  They will know the dangers and the possibilities in the land and the creatures that reside in the habitat.  It may be possible that we no longer listen to our own inner self because we are just thinking about how we can consume life not care for it.

Parker Palmer writes, “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it, listen for what it intends to do with you. Before you tell your life what truths and values you decided to live up to, let your life tell you what truths you embody, what values you represent.”

We all go through a season of what is seemingly lost.  Is it possible that the loss is not really a loss but a lesson?  Is it possible that the lesson is meant to be a positive teaching of how to live and love?  Perhaps the loss is showing us what we truly value and therefore giving us a chance to live those values out in a richer sense.

We see the streams of water… the current is flowing and carrying with it what needs to be taken away… perhaps the only thing the separates us from that Living Water is the icy barrier of being something that we are truly not meant to be.

Breaking script… Namaste

streams of thought....april 8th, 2014

“To accomplish great things we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.” – Anatole France

As a child, we all seemed to have had dreams. 

We all played games of adventure and fantasy. 

When I was young boy, we would many times grow up wanting to be the noble character of a fireman, or a sports figure, or a doctor.  It was a time when many of us simply may have wanted to be what our father’s had been… a farmer… a salesman… a person that went off to do whatever it was that they did.  During that same era, the young girls wanted to be teachers… or nurses… or to be doctors as well…. or they, too, simply may have wanted to be whatever their mothers might have been. 

Growing up in the Midwest during that time was just simpler actually.  It was simple… somewhat satisfying… yet… there was something within us that wanted more.

I remember dreaming of becoming a park ranger.  I liked the outdoors… the chance to live near the mountains… In fact, I vaguely remember a television show that was about being a national park ranger.  It was exciting… you lived in some amazing places… and did exciting things… and you got to rescue people because it seemed like every week there was somebody that needed rescuing. Then I realized that a park ranger in the mountains had to climb a lot of things; so, I quickly crossed that dream off my list because I had this fear of heights.  

We all have dreams; even now at this very moment. 

We have things that we want to accomplish.  We have weaknesses that we want to overcome.  We may be facing an illness that we are working to not only move on from but to regain a life that we once had or thought that we wanted back.  We may be struggling with a break in a relationship that seems entangled in our hearts and souls. We may dream of retiring to that beach front cottage or to travel the globe experiencing the richness of life that we have worked so hard to develop.

To dream is the life of the inner child within us.  It is the simplicity of that child that is willing to dare the impossible because, as a child, there aren’t any impossibilities.  The child within us wants to be courageous and to do that which is considered risky.  Many times the most colorful of ideas come from the child within us.  Yet, a child needs something to empower them to act out their fantasy.  It needs security. It needs reassurance. It needs to feel that no matter what happens tomorrow will be another opportunity to act the dream all over again.  It needs an adult.

The adult.  We all know this part of us all too well.  The adult is the one that says that there needs to be order and tells the child all the time that its fantasy is silly.  The adult in us counts the cost that says it is too risky to do some of the things that the inner child wants to attempt.  It tells the inner child in the back of our minds to sit down and to buckle up. The adult…. It is the one that disciplines us sometimes because the mischievous child acts out a dream on their own. It is the one that sets the boundaries too tightly because…. Well, it doesn’t want the child to be hurt.  Our adult personae tells us to be rational in an irrational world.  All the while, the adult part of us wants to have freedom to have fun… but we have stifled the child so much that we lost sight of it.

Then there is the adolescent within us that has the energy to act upon the dreams of the inner child but still needs the guidance of the inner parent.  The inner teenager says that they know that it can do what the inner child wants to do… and do it even bigger.  It is the “older sibling” that is not willing to listen to the parent because it is still deeply connected with the younger child but won’t admit it.  It is the part of us that wants to discover who we are by trying to do all that we can.  It is the energy storehouse of all the inner passion… healthy and unhealthy.  It is the reckless one that doesn’t mean to be careless but they are still trying to find their own meaning in life.  The inner adolescent is the one that looks in the mirror every day and says “what can I accomplish today because I am invincible enough to overcome anything”.  The only problem is that sometimes that internal mirror is a distorted reflective object that can create some unhealthy imagination.

We all have dreams….

We all have the ability to release the inner child into the playground of possibilities.

We all have the inner teenager that says that I can do anything… I just don’t know what it is that I want to do.

We all have the adult that has learned over time how to protect itself and to plan out a contingency when things go awry.

Sometimes we forget about that inner child and lose sight of our dreams of desires. 

Many times the inner adolescent shows up as our insecurities of just not knowing what we want to do and questions sometimes if the dream that we dare to “dance” with will say yes.

Life is filled with risks and dares us to dream… when the inner part of who we truly are becomes present that is when we can live this life with the richness of meaning.

 

Breaking Script… Namaste.