Tomorrow is grading day at my kickboxing dojo. I'm putting myself forward for orange belt. And so today is practice day. We go through the motions, each step and each combination practiced again and again and again until it's deeply memorised, in the body. With enough practice the moves just flow out, gracefully, without the interruption of conscious thought. How much practice is enough? Days and weeks for sure. Years, to really master something.And this is, in the end, how we learn any way of acting, whether boxing, dancing, relating, speaking or listening. Practice upon practice upon practice. Paying close attention to ourselves as we go. Each day discovering the further subtleties and discernment required. Each time finding out in our rigidity, or by falling over, what we haven't yet embodied. Failing, and picking ourselves up again. And not knowing quite how, or when, it's all going to come together.There are no short cuts.Except in our wider culture, particularly in the world of organisations, we've forgotten all of this. Or become wilfully blind to it.We confuse becoming skilful with learning facts (a relatively simple act compared to learning how to do something well). We demand learning that does not disrupt our schedule (mostly what we're not willing to disrupt is our busyness). We think we can leave out our bodies and just use our minds (hence endless courses with PowerPoint slides and rows of tables). We get frustrated when we find it takes longer than we think, and we blame the teacher (not good enough) or the subject (a waste of time) or ourselves, but keep on doing the same thing over and over and expecting it to work. We use our certainty that we know how to learn as a defence against our confusion, and against the discomfort of having to take it slow.But none of that works, because although it's a good way to cram facts, it's not how human beings learn how to do anything.And deep down, despite all our protestations, we know that too.
Ending
If you really understood that it would all end... you, your life, and all your relationships... and the life of everyone around you... every company you ever worked for, every project you put your hand to... everything you leave behindIf you really understood this, would you lead or manage others the way you do? Work the way you do? Live the way you do?And if not, how would you lead, work and live - in the full knowledge of endings - instead?
Photo Credit: Kate Atkinson
Hyper-vigilance
Until you start to look for it, you may be unaware of your efforts to watch out, perhaps obsessively, in order to protect yourself from a certain something.Some people are hyper-vigilant for lapses in fairness, rising in reaction any time someone says or does anything that seems unjust.Others are hyper-vigilant for disorder, cleaning and clearing, sorting and organising the moment anything appears to be in disarray.Some are hyper-vigilant for any threat to their sense of control, reacting before they know it to assert themselves if they ever feel even slightly out of the centre of things.Others are hyper-vigilant for anger, shutting down and hiding away the moment it seems to be in the air.And other people are hyper-vigilant for criticism, lashing out at once in defence when anybody seems to have a judgement or unwelcome opinion.Your own hyper-vigilance might well be invisible to you, so habitual has it become. It may even seem that your particular version of it is not particular to you at all but a truth about the world. But if you observe for a while you might see how it arises in the form of a barely noticeable shift in feeling in your body. A tightening, a constriction, a sinking feeling taken as a signal to become alert, and then as signal to react, even when reacting might be the least helpful thing to do.It's a big deal for anyone who leads, or who has the reach to affect many people around them. Because your hyper-vigilance is most probably visible to everyone else even if it's not visible to you. It will have people tip-toeing around you, withholding themselves, determined to avoid provoking your defensive reaction. Or it may throw you again and again into a predictable kind of difficulty.The antidote to hyper-vigilance? Learning to become still enough, attentive enough, to catch the feeling before it turns into action. Slowing down instead of throwing yourself faster and harder into busy activity. Mindfulness practices can help a lot here.And gradually cultivating a different story about the world, in which your primary project is not defending yourself but opening to everything that comes your way.
Be like me
How much of the time, do you think, are you leading or managing others in a way that really just says 'be like me'?And how much of the way you act in your closest, most intimate relationships, is a form of 'be like me' too?What about your relationships with your friends? Your children?How easily do you fall into living in a way that understands in theory that other people are different from you, but repeatedly asserts that your way of being and doing is, really, the best?And is this really the best way to be a leader, partner, parent or friend?
Photo Credit: Dean Ayres via Compfight cc
Small things
So many things to worry about, or at least to pursue, in the future...Projects, plans, budgets, launches, promotions, purchases, sales, changes, losses...Each, whether you long for it or dread it, could well never come to pass. And each will surely one day come to an end.Alongside all your effort why not, then, cultivate the practice and discipline of paying minute attention to what is? The sparkle in someone's eye, the sound of pen moving across paper, the click of a keyboard, the weight of warm dishes in soapy water, the light streaming between half-open blinds, the feel of being with companions, colleagues.You may find that there is pleasure, solace, and exquisite beauty in cultivating awareness of the everyday small things that, together, make up a life.
Photo Credit: dharma communications via Compfight cc
Attuned to the world
I am particularly attuned to the disorder and messiness of the human world today. Driving along a busy high-street, my eye is drawn towards litter, towards unevenly parked cars, towards the jumble of shop fronts - wildly different designs crowding in upon one another. I feel a little despairing. It's hard for me to see the coherence here, and all the effort and care that went into constructing this place.For a colleague, it's difficulty that's coming forward most strongly. She's pressed in upon by her trouble having projects turn out, by all the people who seem determined to confound her intentions, by her confusion about what to do next, by her worries about what might happen. She's afraid. It's hard for her to see the huge opportunities she's right on the edge of.Someone else I know has just become a father for the first time. He's suddenly attuned in a new way to the brightness and crispness of the world, the sheer beautiful aliveness of everything, the sense of possibility inherent in each moment and in each person. He's experiencing both love and life streaming towards him, and from him towards others. The despair of the world is, for a while, far away. The possibility of the world is in, very close.Each of these different aspects of the world is always present, of course, even when we're not attuned to them. The world is always in a state of disorder and flux, just as it is always filled with difficulty. It's also, in so many ways, always bright and crisp, filled with love and possibility if we'll dare to see it. Chaos and order, love and difficulty, confusion and clear seeing, light and dark, hope and despair, fear and opportunity. Which stand out most prominently for us most is less often a matter of how things are in some fixed sense than of our capacity for attunement, which itself is both a skill and a habit.And that begs some questions.Which aspects of the world is it your habit to pay attention to, and which do you ignore, dismiss, or simply not see? How invested are you in keeping this habit going? And what consequences do your habits of attunement or non-attunement to the world bring about: for you, for your work, and for everyone else who gets to be with you?And can you find out that the world isn't mostly a particular way, and consequently how many different ways there are of experiencing the self-same situation in which you find yourself?
Photo Credit: Magdalena Roeseler via Compfight cc
Companions
Human beings are radically social.Which is another way of saying that we’re deeply affected by the people we’re around. Usually much more than we're willing to admit.Have ever stopped to observe this? Have you looked closely to find out how much your orientation to the world, your values, your openness, your sense of possibility, your moods even, are being shaped by the people you work with, socialise with, are in community with?And in the light of what you find, are you willing to take the responsibility for yourself, and towards all of us, to choose your companions wisely?
Photo Credit: Elsie esq. via Compfight cc
On being weird
Are you prepared to allow yourself to be weird?Weird - different from everyone else aroundWeird - saying what's not immediately understoodWeird - having a quite different point of viewWeird - being prepared to confuse, be confused, in pursuit of some deeper understandingWeird - turning what's assumed on its headWeird - showing people what's in the background, unseenWeird - pointing out what people think is 'normal' but is actually crazyBeing actually weird (as opposed to just being different or in opposition) is most difficult when we're young, when we're still trying to figure out how to fit in.But as we grow, I think we can afford to start to let our weirdness come out. Because, behind all our protestations, we're all much more weird than we'll ever let on. And our determination to appear normal (which just means the same as everyone else) is a way of holding back much of what we have to bring, much of what we have to see, and much of what we could change for the better.The roots of the word weird are associated with turning, and with becoming: with bringing out what's already becoming the case.So being weird is, in the end, being one who is prepared to bring what you actually see, and actually think, and actually feel, instead of the socially acceptable version that will keep everyone happy, or everyone numb.And our organisations, institutions and society could certainly do with a lot more of that.
Photo Credit: Alexis Gravel via Compfight cc
Commotion
How is it that we developed such a tolerance for mediocrity?
We'll sit in endless meetings that, we suspect quietly, nobody wanted to join in the first place.
We'll dedicate ourselves to hours of distraction, or chase after alluring but trivial goals (such as having an empty email inbox) instead of turning to someone else in truthful conversation, or inventing something new, or committing ourselves to changing a situation that matters.
We'll satisfy ourselves with a flip-chart page filled with empty tasks that nobody intends to take on, and applaud how action-oriented we've been (all the while avoiding what really needs addressing).
We'll say "it's just the way things are", when it's clearly not.
We'll avoid contact with ourselves and others by perpetuating the myth that 'feelings have no place at work', when feelings are exactly what connects us to what we most care about.
We'll blame what 'they' do - they made me do it, they don't understand, they will never change, they don't listen.
In the end, we develop tolerance for this simply because we're human.It's human to go to sleep to ourselves and our situation. It's human for what we're doing to fade into the background and be replaced by unquestioned habit. It's human to be afraid of what others will think, and to be afraid of our fear. It's human to fall back into the crowd. And it's human to distract ourselves from what would most trouble us.But it's also human to make a commotion; to commit to something of worth; to risk ourselves in pursuit of what has meaning and integrity; to undo all of the stories we have about how things are and how things should be, and to write new ones.It's human to take a stand.And consequently it's human to be prepared to stand out on behalf of what really matters.
Photo Credit: Pulpolux !!! via Compfight cc
What the world is calling for...
My secret project (see yesterday's post) - being seen as good.Yours? The way you secretly try to have people see you?
as having integrity?as being lovable?as successful?as special?as serious and super-intelligent?as loyal and committed?as playful, fun, lively?as strong and in control?
And what happens when you don't get seen the way you demand?
Do you collapse? Sulk? Rage? Get ashamed? Tune-out? Get distracted? Make judgements? Blame yourself? Blame them?
How does all of this effect the people around you? Your colleagues? Your family?
There's enormous freedom in finding out that your project is well past its due-date. And that what the world is calling for is not your act but your humanity.