writing

Gratitude

We are systematically schooled away from gratitude.It begins as soon as we start comparing ourselves with each other. We learn to do this at school (there's always a better grade we should be getting). And, later, our workplaces often draw on our comparisons with others as a way of having us push harder (forced-distribution performance ratings set this up in particular, see here for more on this).Add to this the deeply ingrained understanding, in the West at least, that human beings are intrinsically broken and not to be trusted, expressed most fully in the work of Augustine (see this post for more). In an increasingly secular society we hardly see how much we've internalised this orientation, even as we feel and fear and hide our sense of incompleteness from others.And we're subject to an endless wheel of media and marketing that gnaws and needles at our capacity to trust what we have. There's always something newer, cheaper, more fashionable to own, and a whole set of comparisons which go along with this. How back-to-front is it that the American festival of thanksgiving has - at least in the UK where I'm writing - been expressed entirely as Black Friday, a chance to buy more and fuel our sense of lack? It's a manipulative reversal of the opening to life that giving thanks is intended to inspire.Gratitude can be hard to find in all of this. We get caught up in our self-pity and comparison and fear, drawn to everything that is missing, all that somehow was denied to us. We find ourselves in the grip of an enormous misunderstanding that we keep under wraps because we're afraid of admitting just how afraid it has us become.But... we have more resources and more freedom than just about anyone before us in human history.... we live in a period of unprecedented geological stability that greatly increases the otherwise infinitesimally small chances of any of us being here (see Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything for more on this).... and we are given the gift of a life that we had to do nothing to get, and a body with which to move and express and feel and love and contribute.Are we really going to keep on fueling our cynicism and despair? Or are we prepared to wake up to just how great are the treasures we are always in the midst of receiving?

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The very last time you'll hear her

What kind of attention would you pay to the person speaking with you right now, if you really understood that this could be the very last time you'll ever get to hear her? If you understood how temporary, how fleeting, and how unpredictable human life is, despite all our attempts to control and secure and have ourselves feel safe?If you really understood this, would you allow yourself to tune out, to defend, to hold back from others as much as you do? Or would you do whatever you could to open yourself, to be here, and allow yourself to be affected by what other people are bringing you?

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Parents

We're often, without knowing it, subtly projecting our experience in one domain of life onto our experiences elsewhere. Perhaps nowhere is this more evident than the ways in which we project our experiences of growing up onto situations we're in the midst of now.This should not surprise us. Our very relationship with life itself, and with the world, was mediated through the family situation in which we first discovered our sense of ourselves as distinct human beings.If you turn your attention to it, you may start to see in particular how you're projecting your childhood memories onto people you work with now, especially those who have some kind of hierarchical authority over you.

How are you treating managers, bosses, leaders as images of your parents?Are you relating to them as if father, or mother?And are you relating to your colleagues as if brothers, or sisters?

Does looking this way explain anything to you about:

Who you'll talk to? And who you won't?What you get defensive about? What's wounding for you?Who you ask for help?What you fear people are saying to you (directly or behind your back)?

It's always a powerful move to get onto all of this, and to see how much of the time what you're responding to is a memory. And then to find out how to let this go so you can respond to the person, alive and real, who's in front of you right now.

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Mandala

This weekend I sat with my eight year old daughter and we coloured mandalas together.Engrossed in the simplicity and beauty of the task, with no standards with which to compare ourselves, and with nowhere to get to, I found myself connected with her, present with her, in ways that are fleeting at best in the melée of day-to-day family life.We talked about many things as we drew - topics touched rarely by our more familiar pattern of everyday conversation. And there were long periods of silence in which we just were together. It was exquisite and deep and loving, and so very very simple.We easily forget the straightforward human satisfactions of being together with others and of making with our hands. Perhaps it's because we've become so sure that there is always somewhere to get to (which isn't here), that something else needs doing (that props up the familiar feel of our busyness), and that more complex and more sophisticated (more 'entertaining') is of greater value.It can support our lives enormously to remember that what's deeply rewarding can be simple and uncluttered. And that it's right there, in front of us, all of the time.

A life of image or a life of commitment?

Which of these do you think constitutes a life lived fully?(1) You lived a life in which you kept hold of your self-image - in which you and others always got to see you just the way you intended?(2) You lived a life in which you committed yourself in each moment to something that really seemed to matter.Or, said another way, if one of these were to be your epitaph, which would you choose?To where does a life lived supporting an image lead? And to where does a life of commitment to something you care about lead?Mostly we've been taught to pursue the former. At school and in work, doing what looks good or feels good - what gets us prizes or attention or grades or bonuses or position or fame or a warm-glow of self-satisfaction - is often much more highly prized than doing what matters.We dismiss this question at our peril (the peril of our very lives).But dismiss it we do, because it's scary to face, and because we've become so thoroughly convinced that sustaining our image is all that available to us.

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A telescope, the wrong way around

How much of your energy do you devote to managing other people's impressions of you?It's probably so much more than you think. It may even, invisibly, be the single biggest focus of your attention.Kind. Devoted. Generous. Creative. Helpful. Courageous. Strong. Powerful. Important. Intelligent. Successful. As well as managing other people's impressions you're also likely to be managing your impressions of yourself, which means that in one way or another there's always a part of you watching while other parts make sure what is watched-for is always being produced.All those eyes on you. All those expectations you're upholding. All that work and attention devoted to making sure you never get seen in ways that don't fit your own self-image.Perhaps you hardly even know you're doing this at all, so convinced have you become that an image you may have been holding for many years is you.The irony here is that the more effort and vigilance you put into maintaining an image the less space you have to let your most genuine qualities come forward. Life-as-image-management is life lived looking down the wrong end of a telescope - only a tiny part of what there is to be seen ever gets to show up.If you're going to lead, or create, or enter into deep relationships with others and with life, it pays to find a way to work with this. To, over time, gradually learn to let go.This is, in many ways, a project big enough and difficult enough to occupy most of us for a lifetime.And it's vital. Because a life of keeping up appearances is also a life in which so much of what you have to bring is held back before it has any chance of being seen.

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Vast

How quickly we label people."He's so kind", we say."She's so frustrating.""He's only out for himself.""She's so brilliant."There are at least two problems with this.The first is that in the midst of these labels we all too readily discount any evidence to the contrary - we see the label and miss the person. The second is that such certainty about others quickly invites into comparisons - ways we get to feel better or worse about ourselves.Both of these obscure for us the full range of qualities present in the people we know.And then we have similar stories about ourselves."I'm so terrible, so lazy, so selfish""I'm wonderful, all together, so perfect"What would it be to treat our labels as just the start of knowing someone, rather than the end? That way we can step out of the very narrow band through which we experience people. And perhaps we can start to discover the wondrous complexity, and the unknowable vastness and mystery, of every single person we meet.

When we wound others

We all have those moments when, perhaps even before we’ve thought about it, we’ve wounded others – with a well-chosen barb, a dose of sarcastic humour, by locking them out or turning away, by yelling or insulting, by shaming.Perhaps it happens for you often.Maybe it’s worth checking what the source of this is.So often we’re wounding other people because we just got wounded ourselves, sometimes by a thought or a memory rising quietly inside that nobody else can even see. We deal with our own pain by swinging it out onto somebody else.And sometimes we wound others because, to put it simply, it’s what happened to us repeatedly along the way and now it’s their turn for a share of it.Whatever the cause, if you’re regularly wounding your colleagues, your team, or the people close to you as a way of handling your own suffering, it might be time to consider an alternative.You can’t avoid having been wounded. It’s an inescapable part of reaching adulthood. And just as this is true for you, it’s true for everyone around you.Knowing this, perhaps you can catch on to what you’re really up to each time you lash out. And then, by cultivating ongoing tenderness and kindness – first to yourself – you can work more and more on having your wounds become a gift of understanding to others and not an excuse to act out.

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