I am an emotional creature

In our conversation on Sunday 12th November, Lizzie and Justin began with Eve Ensler's poem 'I am an Emotional Creature'. We talk about being male and female, how society pushes us towards gendered roles and orientations to the world, and what gets left out when we gravitate to either one of the poles of emotion or intellect without the other.You can find the poem, which we recommend you read before watching, here:http://bit.ly/2zxcglq[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dctCWMVK4fE[/embed]

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Wild Geese

Lizzie and I were live again this morning, The source for this week's conversation was Mary Oliver's powerful poem 'Wild Geese'.We talk about the constraining effects of inner criticism and the limits of our over-effort to be good or strong or loving or clever. And along the way we stumble into some realisations about what's possible when we learn to trust something other than our own self-judgement, and reach out to others for help.And if you’d like to join in with the growing community that’s forming around this project, and the lively conversation that’s taking part in the comments, you can do so here.[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zru6Ze_rfRw[/embed]

Is anyone listening?

It’s amazing how often we assume our requests can be heard while ignoring the capacity of others to listen to what we’re asking.Some examples:You made a request by email

If your recipient didn’t read it, didn’t see it, or is overwhelmed by emails and messages, as so many people are, you probably don’t have a listener, no matter how many times you insist that you’ve asked, or how sure you are that they should have read what you said.

You asked at a time when the other person couldn't pay attention

If they’re busy, anxious, fearful, or distracted then just because you’ve spoken, again, doesn't mean you have a listener. Even asking someone face to face who is distracted this way does not guarantee they have any capacity to hear you.

You assumed the other person should be interested in what you have to say simply because of who you are

Your seniority, fame, position of authority, sense of yourself as interesting or important are no guarantee anyone is listening. Neither is being a parent or a partner or the boss. Assuming you do is a route to many difficulties.

Can you think of times you might have asked when there’s no listener available, even if the request seems obvious to you? And if so, what might you do to make it possible for people to genuinely hear you?You might need to think about timing, place, tone and the medium through which you make your request, as well as the mood of your request (sincerity, cynicism, frustration). All of these will have an impact on others’ capacity to listen.If you find yourself thinking “I’ve asked them time and time again, but nothing ever seems to happen” you might well still be assuming you have a listener when you don’t.And now you have a place where you can look to resolve your difficulty.

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A billion miles

It's a small shift, but a potentially profound one.What if you choose to see what you're in the middle of right now from the point of view of a year ahead? Or ten years? Or a hundred?Or if you were to watch this moment in life from the viewpoint of the moon? Or from the far edge of the galaxy?From here, what changes?Do your worries and fears have the same hold?Do the same things seem important?From what are you freed?What's called for, now?Sometimes, we need the perspective of a billion miles and an aeon in time to see what we've got caught up in that's trivial. And that what really matters is quite different from what we've taken it to be.

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What will it take to give up our busyness?

Even when we see that our endless busyness is stifling us, holding back our creativity and contribution, narrowing us - even when we see that in many ways it's killing us - it's so hard for us to give it up.Why is this?It may be in part that we're unwilling to stand out from those around us - to risk the feelings of shame and awkwardness that come from taking a stand that we call our own.And it may well be that we're unwilling to cease our busyness as long we're unwilling to face loss. Because to give up rushing will indeed be to lose a particular identity, a way of keeping our self-esteem going, and of course the end of all those activities with which we stuff our time. And we human beings can have a hard time with loss.It's only through turning towards inevitable loss that we open the chance for life to reach us.I think we ought to do that sooner rather than later. Because loss will be forced on us in the end in any case. And by the time it comes there's a real possibility that we've missed our lives because we weren't willing to choose to face it earlier, of our own accord.

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On account of nothing we did

Ordinary life can seem so - ordinary - that it's natural to slip into taking it for granted, as if it were obvious and straightforward that we're here, and as if it will go on this way for ever.Many traditions have practices to remind us that it's anything but ordinary to be able to move, breathe, think, make breakfast, travel, work, love, argue, sleep, produce, write, speak. And that it's anything but ordinary to have a body that can do all this again and again, which can heal itself so often without us having to do anything. And that none of it lasts nearly as long as we might hope.Here's a morning blessing from Judaism, said by some as they use the bathroom for the first time in the day, that I think is particularly brilliant for its combination of straightforwardness about life and death, piercing insight, and gentle humour.

Blessed are you, Eternal One, Creator of everything, who formed human beings in wisdom, creating within us openings and vessels. It is revealed and known before you that if any one of them is opened or closed it would be impossible to remain alive and stand before You. Blessed are you, Eternal One, who heals all flesh and performs such wonders.

Finding daily practices to remind us of our bodies' unlikeliness and wonder - even in the most ordinary of circumstances - does not require religious belief of any kind of course (and in Judaism, by the way, belief is secondary to practice, the actions that shape the world of possibility and relationship again and again).All it requires is opening to life. And reminding ourselves that we are each here on account of nothing that we did.And that by one of the most unlikely miracles imaginable we each find ourselves for a brief time, embodied, in a world ready and waiting for our participation.

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The hidden cost of hiding

It's easy for us to hide in plain sight.We hide in our busyness and in our distraction.We hide by saying only part of what's true, and withholding the rest.We hide by leaving parts of us out - our courage, our vulnerability, our truthfulness.We hide by throwing ourselves into our work,and thereby saving ourselves from showing up outside it.And we hide by throwing ourselves away from our work,and saving ourselves from showing up within it.We hide in our addictions, in numbing ourselves, in scrolling the facebook feed.We hide in pretending to be happy, when inside we're crying.We hide in our self-importance, and in overdoing our smallness.We hide behind rules and regulation, policy and procedure.And we hide in meetings through our silence and compliance.We hide by shutting down our hearts in the face of the suffering of others.We hide by stifling our ideas and holding back what only we can say.We hide in our pursuit of money and status.We hide ourselves in looking good and avoiding shame.And we hide by refusing to ask for help when we need it.And every moment of our hiding robs us, and the world,of wonders that only we can bring,from seeing that only we can see,and from words,perhaps the most necessary words,that only we can say.

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Always incomplete

Friday night. The start of shabbat, the Jewish sabbath.A time to put down everything - work, concerns about work, busyness - for a day of renewal, relationship, paying attention to the world through new eyes.And yet here, sitting in the synagogue with my family, my body and mind are filled with the long list of tasks left open, opportunities not taken, calls not returned, emails not answered. There's tension in my chest and stomach at all that is unfinished, all that is mine to do. My mind, barely attentive to what's going on around me, reaches out in a wide, scattered, urgent arc - as if thinking it through over and again will resolve my difficulty. As if this is a way to complete what is uncompleted.And then I remember that the day will come, and none of us knows how soon, when I will no longer be able to complete anything. And on that day too, the day that life is done, there will still be a long list of incomplete projects. Messages waiting. Conversations unfinished. Responsibilities unfulfilled.I come to see that project I've taken up with my racing mind and thumping heart, the project of having it all neatly done, can never and will never be concluded. I am reminded that to be human is to live, in one way or another, as yet unwritten.That it is time to let go.Yes, there's a time for urgently finishing whatever is at hand. And a time, a time we need, to set all that aside and to see the incompleteness of the world, and everyone, not as something that always needs fixing but as part of its strange, necessary and wonderful beauty.

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Ghosts

We search for patterns, often without knowing that we are doing so, filling in what we can't be sure of with what we can already grasp. And so we often relate to other people from our memories of them, or we project onto them aspects of ourselves to fill in the unknown we encounter in them.But that's not the end of it. We also easily and unconsciously relate to other people as if they were key figures from other systems and constellations of which we have been a part, in a phenomenon known as transference.So you join a new organisation, and find that there's some way in your new boss reminds you of your father. And even before you know it, you're filling in the blanks as if that's just who he is. When he doesn't reply to your email, it feels like all the times you were ignored in your own family. When he's short tempered or curt with you it reminds you of the times you were judged, and you imagine his reasons for judging you are the same as those you remember from home. You find yourself seeking his praise, repeating the ways you learned to get noticed as a child. And you feel warm and supported perhaps exactly when you get the kind of recognition you longed for when growing up, but feel unseen when he's recognising you in other ways. And all the while, you have no idea this is going on.And he, simultaneously, is responding to all the subtle cues that come from the transference you are experiencing. Perhaps you now remind him of his own child, and he finds himself treating you in this way. He looks to praise you the way he praised her. He is frustrated with you for what frustrated him about her. He is reassured when you respond in ways that feel familiar, and confused and exasperated when you don't fit the pattern that years of habit have taught him.Before you know it, you have planted the ghosts of brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers, teachers and enemies and lovers among your colleagues. And each one of them, in turn, has recruited you into a role you may know nothing about.And all of you are in a dance that everyone is dancing, even though nobody can see the steps the others are following. On and on, through and through, transferred memories of families and systems that are not of this place, the weave from which your conversations and relationships, your delights and your many troubles, are spun.

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Words

To be a human being is to live in a house of words.Words that can move others into action, or sow seeds of doubt and confusion.Words that can coordinate our efforts, or scatter us apart.Words that can reveal hidden depths in the world, or cover them up.Words that can build relationships, or undo them.Words that can heal, or hurt.Words that can bring our intentions into being, or our hide them away.Words that are congruent with what matters, or words that twist or distort it.Words that bring out the best in people, or words that stifle it.Words that illuminate, or words that cast into shadow.Words that bring life, or words that deaden.In all of this, it helps us to remember that the human world is founded on words.That words matter.And that this brings huge responsibility and huge opportunity, in every moment, to address our human difficulties and possibilities through how we listen and how we talk.

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