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.
People are oceans not objects
Today, just this: 'People are oceans not objects', from Robert Poynton's wonderful blog.
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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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Coaching to Excellence December 1-2
Coming up in just a few weeks, a chance to learn with me. We'll be exploring integral coaching - a powerful way of supporting the development of others, and a topic that's very close to my heart.We'll be in London on December 1-2, and there are a handful of places still available.All the details are here.
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What shows up when you're around
It can be illuminating to notice what others bring you, and what they don't. Or, said another way, to pay attention to what shows up around you.
Do people bring you their anger, or only their gentleness?Do they make requests of you? Do they offer support?Will people tell you what they really think?Do they challenge? Or do they quickly fall into agreement with you?Do they show you what they're feeling?Or is it more often the rational, intellectual side of people that gets shown in your presence?
These repeating patterns may be so difficult to see that you take them to simply be the way the world is. But this obscures that you're actively involved in shaping the responses of everyone you meet. Your subtle cues - in language, expression, body - tell people much about what they can bring. You are always in the middle of allowing or discouraging, managing (or, put more strongly, manipulating) what can be expressed.In this way what shows up is not solely the way the world is, but a manifestation of your engagement with it.This can be illuminating to see, because you may well be actively involved in making it difficult for certain kinds of expression, certain kinds of topic, and certain kinds of mood to be expressed in your presence.And the result of that is a kind of impoverishment, for everyone.
Forgiven
Forgiveness.Among the most healing of all human possibilities.Today, can you start by forgiving yourself?.. for your forgetfulness, your anger, your irritability, your desire to please, your frustration, your resentment, your boredom, your rushing, your waiting, your confusion?Can you forgive yourself, please, for everything you judge so harshly about yourself? And for everything that makes you, simply, human?
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Needing a no
What we most need in order to support our own development is the capacity to say no to ourselves.No to our habits, no to our preferences, no to our compulsions, no to doing the same thing we've done again and again because we like it, or because it's familiar, or because of all of our explanations that the world and I are this way.Our surrounding culture doesn't do much to support this move. Mostly we're socialised into saying yes - we come to believe that the answer to all our difficulties is saying yes to more activity (which leads us into busyness) or yes to more consumption (which numbs us to our more genuine needs).Until we can start to muster a sufficiently strong no to ourselves, we find ourselves imprisoned in a repetitive cycle of our own making.But if we want to be able to step into a bigger world of possibility for own lives and those around us, no to ourselves is the first and most necessary step.
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