When you consciously take up an ongoing practice - running, saying no (or yes), meditating, delegating, gratitude, kindness, speaking up for yourself, writing - and you fall out of your rhythm, out of your commitment for a while... when you find that it's just not happening, what else is there to do but stand up, smile, and jump back in again?Excuses, justification, apologetics - none of these do much, in my experience, other than produce a momentary boost of self-esteem.Even harsh self-criticism and shame are rather wonderfully twisted ways of producing self-esteem by showing you that you care and are not indifferent.After a rather interrupted August, here I am, standing up, dusting myself off, writing again.I'm pleased to be back.
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It's tempting to think the change you're longing for will come about through a single revolutionary step.... somebody (usually not you) realising the error of their ways... a new vision or mission statement for your company... a new to-do list that will solve all problems, ease all illsThis is the kind of magical thinking that leads to the often-practiced and rarely effective tradition of team 'away days'. Yes, a day of talking can take you a long way. And yes, a list of freshly-minted things-to-do can give you all a feeling of relief, perhaps even hope, for a few minutes at least.But it should be no surprise that on return to the everyday world of your office or workplace, nothing seems to change as quickly or as radically as you had hoped.From the ashes of magical thinking cynicism is easily born.You might more helpfully think of most change - particularly change in relationships, trust or understanding - as a kind of titration. Drip followed by drip followed by drip.Radical overnight revolutionary change of the kind that you're hoping for, or promising, is the work of messiahs and magicians (and, sometimes, charlatans).For the rest of us, the dedicated, consistent, purposeful, patient work of repeated speaking and listening, promising and requesting, messing up and correcting, talking and learning, practicing and practicing.Baby steps, baby.Baby steps.
There's a liberation in discovering that what other people think of you is not the same as who you are. When you can stop identifying yourself with the stories and assessments of others, you can also free yourself from the constant inner pressure to appear as you think people want you to.But once you know this, you have to understand that other people are not the same as your stories or assessments either. That means that whatever you think you know about them can only ever be partial, one angle on a situation way more complex than you’ve allowed for.It means you’re going to have to learn to be way more imaginative and listen much more deeply, if you’re ever going to understand what’s going on when others are involved.
"There's nothing that can be done. It's just the way it is"The moment you say this about the situation you're in, particularly if you're in a position to lead or influence people, you close the door to many possibilities. Mostly, you're inviting a mood of 
Moods aren't phenomena that just happen to you. They always involve you. You're an active participant in them, even those moods that seem to arise and fall away unexpectedly, mysteriously.One way of starting to see this is noticing that there's an assessment at the heart of every mood.In fear - something or someone is threatening meIn anxiety - there's nothing solid for me to stand onIn love - there's something or someone shining, alluring, life-giving hereIn resentment - I've been wronged and can't directly address itA consequence of this is that it's possible to consider cultivating moods.You have some measure of choice about the assessments you make; about where you look for evidence for the assessments you do make; about what you read and watch and who you speak to; and about the practices you take up that shift your body in such a way that moods are prolonged or released. In this way you can gradually lay the ground in which new kinds of mood, perhaps those less familiar to you or less habitual, have the possibility of arising.And because each mood brings about a world of possibility or constriction, attending purposefully to the cultivation of mood is a vital act of responsibility for our lives.
What if, instead of rushing headlong into everything at such speed, you committed yourself to slowing down, just a little?Yes, even you, with so many important and urgent projects and responsibilities to take care of that you don't have a moment even to think.How would a 5% reduction in pace be for you?Walk just a little slower from meeting to meeting. Pause, just a little longer, before you speak. Breathe just a couple more breaths before you answer or make that call. Sit, for just a second to two, before you switch from one task to another. Listen, just a little more attentively, and let what the other person is saying sink in, for a moment longer, before you respond.Open up a tiny space where there was none before.You might imagine that nothing that's important will get done if you commit to this, such is your certainty that there's never enough time in any case.But you could find that your relationships with others deepen, bit by bit, as they begin to feel your quality of contact with them deepen also; that you can be more genuinely responsive; and that you react in fewer of the predictable, automatic, indiscriminate ways that have become your habit over the years.And you might discover that slowing down so you can be present to yourself and others actually makes
When we are children it seems obvious to us that the adults have it all figured out.But when we reach adulthood we start to see how little any of us understand. We find out how tenuous our hold on life is. People get ill, die, and disappear at unpredictable intervals from our lives and from life as a whole. Our inability to predict the outcomes of our actions becomes clear to us. And that we are constantly subject to forces - social, natural, historical - that are much bigger than we are.And what do we mostly do? Pretend that we have it all together. That we understand. All the while desperately and quietly hoping that someone who knows will come along and tell us what to do.It doesn't take long for the cover story - whatever it is that we get up to that makes us feel secure or distracted from the uncertainty of everything - to become our life, our story about who we are. We identify ourselves with our job, money, title, house, social group, spiritual path, possessions.We forget the true condition of our lives.And then, sometimes, if we are lucky, we catch a glimpse of all of this - in a sprawling night sky, in the darkness of a cave, in the silence of a grove of trees, in the eyes of a child.We remember that we've been taking ourselves much too seriously. And we experience for a moment the wonder and awe of living in the midst of a vast and extraordinary mystery that we can never figure out.