Practice, not events

Between June 2011 and the following July I had three close encounters with death. Three life punctuating events brought about by sudden and unexpected changes within my body, each shocking and frightening, each a reminder of how fragile and unpredictable life can be.As I recovered from each episode I expected - hoped - that I would in some way be profoundly different. I wanted so much to find myself more grateful, more accepting, more joyful of life's many small blessings, less judgmental, less afraid, less irritated by small things, more kind, and more dedicated to being present and welcoming and loving with the people who matter to me.But it didn't work out so simply. I emerged from each experience blinking and shaken and grateful, and soon settled back into many of my familiar patterns.Over time I've found myself thinking about this differently. What happens if I allow these experiences to inform the way I live rather than expecting them to change me? How can I, having encountered the possibility of death so closely, use my experience to commit fully and wisely and generously to life?In taking on this question I'm finding out that the change I seek is a question of practice rather than of events. And that I am an ongoing process much more than I am a thing with enduring properties, an object that is a particular way. I live myself into being, day after day. I am always living myself into being by the very ways in which I live.How I move, how much I take care of myself, how I express curiosity and interest in the world, how I speak and listen, how I sleep, how I sing and laugh, how I play and create, how I bind myself up in community, how I practice compassion and stillness, how I love, how I work - all these shape the life I am living and who I become, far more than the punctuating events themselves.And this tells me so much about the mistaken ways in which I look for change in myself and in my relationships with others. When I mistake life for a thing I imagine an event of sufficient power will do it. An affecting conversation, a kiss, a show of force, a book with a revelatory idea in it, an illness, a windfall, a conference, an argument, the right gift, or a brush with death will fix things, in the same way that I might fix a dented metal bowl by attempting to knock it into shape. But when I know myself as a living, unfolding process, events take up their proper place as teachers rather than fixers, educating me about the ongoing practices by which I can take care of this one precious life.The more I imagine events alone will do it, the more I set myself up for the despair and frustration that comes from relying on something that cannot help.And the more I commit to the ongoing, long-term, diligent and patient practice of living in a way that brings life, the more genuine reason I have to hope.

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Cracks

As we come to know quite how brief and how fragile our lives are, the less sense it makes to hold anything back.Will we miss this precious chance to bring ourselves; our lives; the fullness of our pounding hearts? Will we withhold from life what is ours to bring? Will we mute our aliveness by repetition, by staying safe, by what's expected, by going to sleep?We can be sure of this: each of us is a unique intersection, a horizon between what is and what can be that will never be repeated.But if only it were as easy as saying 'don't hold back'. If only there was not so much we must undo so that life can shine through. The habits of our bodies: halting; rigid; curling in; puffing up; tensing; defending us from whatever we've decided we must not feel. The emotions that catch us in their grip: anger; shame; fear. And our habits of mind: all the ways we pity ourselves, and all the ways we're sure that life's unfairness is only happening 'to me'.But undo we must, and undo we can, if we'll dedicate ourselves, if we'll find support, if we'll put in the effort, if we'll let ourselves feel our heartbreak, if we'll welcome what we've pushed away, if we'll be patient, if we'll allow ourselves to let go.And as we undo, as what we held so tightly slowly breaks apart and as life starts to flow through us, we find that it's true what they say: it really is the cracks that let the light in.

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Decades

I started my 49th year of life this week. Around 160 years ago (less than four of my current life spans laid end-to-end) a full third of my contemporaries would already have reached the end of their lives, and less than half of us could have expected to live beyond our late 50s (see source [1] below).Today, at least in the UK, two-thirds of us will live into our late seventies and many into our eighties. What a blessing, if we'll choose to appreciate it while we can. And what possibilities, if we'll find a way to use our chances of vastly extended life in service of those around us and those yet to come.Readers of my work here will know of my interest in ongoing adult development, which takes place through marked increases in our capacity to make sense of the world, to inhabit longer time horizons (knowing ourselves as inheritors of a deep past and contributors towards a long future), to be less 'had' by impulsivity and narcissism, to understand the world of others, to exercise more autonomy, and to take action in systems and contexts which are bigger than our own immediate concerns [2].Such development is very natural, if the opportunities come our way and if we're courageous enough and have enough support to take them. But it is quite different from the rote-learning, keeping up appearances, and getting ahead that so many of us are taught at school and in our workplaces. It typically requires facing into difficulty rather than turning away, welcoming back the parts of ourselves that we've disowned, failing and falling and getting back up again. It's not served by looking good, or knowing the facts, or keeping it all together, or learning just what's comfortable and familiar, or comparing ourselves with others.And it's probably the most important work we can do with the gift of these extra decades, if we're lucky enough to have them. Because the world faces challenges of a complexity our ordinary way of speaking, thinking, acting and relating to one another are often ill-equipped to face. And perhaps we have been given these decades - through the long slow evolution of human beings as a species - precisely so that we can work on the problems our shorter-lived ancestors never got the chance to tackle.References:[1] Modal Age at Death: Mortality Trends in England and Wales 1841-2010, monograph available for download here[2] In Over Our Heads, Robert Kegan and Changing on the Job, Jennifer Garvey Berger

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Concentric Circles

Whereas development in children is easy to see, because of the obvious physiological changes that accompany it, our development as adults - if it happens - is more subtle, but no less profound.

One way of describing successive developmental stages is as a series of concentric circles. With each developmental shift the world we inhabit (the world of possibility, action ideas, responses) grows bigger, including rather than replacing the world in which we lived before. Another way of saying this is that we find ourselves inhabiting a world with bigger horizons than we had known. And along with that, usually, comes new language to describe our experience, new skills, and new ways of relating to others and everything.

In Robert Kegan’s language (and he is one of the most comprehensive, thoughtful, and grounded writers I know of on this topic) our development is always in some way a shift in subject-object relationships. Or, put more plainly, we come to a different understanding of what is me (subject) and what is in relationship to me (object). Often, we find that what we’d taken to be obviously ‘me’ is only a small part of what being ‘me’ really is - a shift in which we discover that ‘me’ actually includes more than we could have imagined before.

An example. In an earlier stage of our development we relate to our emotions as if they are a feature of the world, enveloping us like the air we breathe (and similarly invisible). We’re frustrated, and so it's the world that is frustrating. We’re angry with another person, and conclude that they must be making us angry. We’re in love, joyful, and so the world is joyful. We feel despair and take it that the world is a despairing place.

In this way of being an adult the world, and we, are indistinguishable from the mood we are feeling. In this stage we’re subject to our emotions. It is almost as if, instead of having emotions we are being had by them. We can’t see that they might have something to do with us.

When the subject-object shift in our development comes we start to see that emotions are something we have. We’re able to say that we’re feeling anger about this or that, and feeling joy about something else or at some other moment. We see that although our despair or love seems all consuming it’s not the world that is despairing or lovely but a feature of our relating to it that has it be that way for us. We can understand too, maybe for the first time, that others really do often feel quite different from us - that we can feel anger about something while somebody else, quite legitimately and truthfully, feels joy. It’s not until our relationship to our emotions move from having us (being subject) to being something that we have (an object) that all this becomes apparent to us.

Concentric circles, widening, as we inhabit the world in a new way.

When emotions are object rather than subject many other possibilities open to us. We can question our feelings for their accuracy and appropriateness, rather than be swept up in them. We can open to the different experience of others, instead of insisting that they feel the same. We can start to wonder about our own relationship to our emotions in a way that simply was not possible when they were part of the invisible background that had us:

What is this emotion about?What draws me more towards some emotions than others?How is it that I’m participating in keeping sadness going, or joy, or longing, or despair, or frustration, or resentment?What can I learn about others’ worlds in all of this?

Indeed, it’s only when such a developmental shift happens that we really start to understand that other people inhabit worlds that are related to, but not quite the same as, our own. The world, which we were previously subject to - the world that had us - seems much more like something we have or are at least participating in. And it’s from here that a deeper understanding of, and compassion for, others can grow.

Cultivating such shifts matters because, as perhaps you can see, a world in which we fully experience emotions as something we have rather than something we are had by is a world in which we have much more freedom to act. And a world in which we are less imprisoned by what seems - so obviously - beyond us.

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Soul Food

[embed]https://youtu.be/76jzC21bySw[/embed]In this episode Lizzie and I read and talk about 'Soul Food', a chapter of the 'The Way and the Power of the Way' by Ursula Le Guin.Together we explore the ways in which certainty can make us rigid and closed to the world and to one another, how we try (unsuccessfully) to make the world and others into our own image (a huge part of the societal struggles we're in at this time in history), and how the simple act of learning to load the dishwasher together can be a path towards the kind of humility and openness that's life giving and makes for profound and responsive relationship. Along the way we come to a new understanding of what the name of our coaching company 'thirdspace' might mean, and how coaching can be a way of helping ourselves and others open ever more fully to life.Here's the source for our conversation:

Soul Food

Everybody on earth knowingthat beauty is beautifulmakes ugliness.

Everybody knowingthat goodness is goodmakes wickedness.

For being and non beingarise together;hard and easycomplete each other;long and short shape each other;high and lowdepend on each other;note and voicemake the music together;before and afterfollow each other.

That’s why the wise souldoes without doing,teaches without talking.

The things of this worldexist, they are;you can’t refuse them.

To bear and not to own;to act and not lay claim;to do the work and let it go;for just letting it gois what makes it stay.

Ursula LeGuin - from ‘Tao Te Ching: The Way and The Power of The Way’

We’re live every Sunday morning at 9am UK time. You can join our facebook group to watch live, view archives, and join in the growing community and conversation that’s happening around this project.

Part of ourselves

How easily, how readily, we see in others - we project onto others - what we don't want to see about our own lives. And how easily our projections turn others into an enemy to be corrected, scorned, hated or feared.How easily we end up enslaving ourselves with all this. We lock ourselves into battles in the outer world, when what we want to correct, what we hold in contempt, what we need most to be reconciled with is actually part of ourselves.

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Declaring Meaning

When we find out how much of the world is made up - by us - it's tempting to pull everything apart. We pull apart institutions - because we see how groundless their authority is. We pull apart politics - because as we see more into the ordinary lives of our politicians we discover that they are ordinary and flawed like us, and we no longer have reason to simplistically trust either their intentions or their abilities. We pull apart relationships - because we don't feel any reason to commit, beyond our moment-to-moment likes and dislikes. And we pull apart beliefs and practices that can bind us together.This step - using reason to see through what we'd taken to be unquestionably true is in so many ways a necessary developmental step for each of us and for our society. Indeed, it's the step that allowed us to discover science and its methods of rigorous, grounded inquiry. And it made it possible to undo the divine right of kings to rule over us, and to bring about democracy.But it's also so easily the route to nihilism: the move to render everything meaningless, everything pointless, everything disposable as we discover that the structures and stories and roles we used to trust were made up by other people. And, as the philosophers Kierkegaard and Nietzsche warned us, this ends up with us tearing meaning apart too, as we find out that what meaning we encountered in the world was only there because other people declared it anyway.And so the next step important after undoing it all is to find out that it's also within our power to put things back together, to declare meaning for ourselves. To find out that there are many kinds of truth, including those that take into account goodness and beauty as well as just reason. That out of the fragments of what we have taken apart, we can still choose practices, people, relationships, stories, commitments and vows to live by that invest life with purposefulness, care, and dignity.  And that this is possible, and necessary, in every sphere of life - in work, home, community and politics - specifically because we've found out that without it there is so little for us to stand on.

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Better off knowing this

Behind all our attempts to manipulate and control the world so it's just as we'd like it (and behind the pain, frustration, sorrow and disappointment that our inevitable failure brings), we're just trying to find a way to feel safe and to feel at home.I think we'd be better off knowing this.Then we'd set aside our mission to control what can't be controlled. And we'd work on how to feel safe and at home in the world as it is - in this ever-changing, surprising, vast and mysterious life in which we find ourselves.

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The Paradox of Change

[embed]https://youtu.be/DgPXNhYOM5I[/embed]On Sunday 15th March 2018 Lizzie and I talked about The Paradox of Change, inspired by a passage from Lawrence Kushner's book 'God Was in this Place and I,i Did Not Know'. It's a tricky and important subject we're taking on here - how it is that our very efforts to change so easily end up being what imprisons us; how it's the very effort to be a particular way that constricts and narrows the wider flow of creative life that we all, in the end, are; and how a kind of surrender is often called for if we're to step into life fully, a letting life through rather than a trying to get life into a particular shape.Here's the source for our conversation:The paradox of change

Not until we recognise our bondage can we begin to move toward freedom.

It is a paradox. Change begins not by trying to change. And what you imagine you must do in order to change yourself is often the very force that keeps you precisely the way you are. How else can you explain the years and decades of your own foiled plans for growth and broken resolutions. Consumed by an apparent passion to be "other" than who you are, you try to be who you are not, but in so doing succeed only in being a person who is trying to be other than who you are. Thus the goal [...] is self-discovery—the discovery not of another self but of one's true self. Beneath all the layers of wanting to be different, self-dissatisfaction, pretence, charade, and denial is a self. This self is a living dynamic force within everyone. And if you could remain still long enough here, now, in this very place, you would discover who you are. And by discovering who you are, you would at last be free to discover who you yet also might be.

You can be who you are, or you can pretend to be who you are not. If you choose the latter (as most of us have done since adolescence), an infinite variety of self-deceptions lie before you. You can pretend to be wise when you are ignorant, weak when you are strong, courageous when you are timid, confident when you are unsure. There is no end to the list. But remember this: none of these pretensions, no matter how noble, appropriate, or convincing, will fashion genuine change. They will instead require increasingly greater amounts of energy and enmesh you in increasingly complicated nets of deception. Or you can cease pretending to be someone you are not and discover at this moment who you are. Who am I writing these words? Who are you reading them?

Lawrence Kushner, from God Was in this Place and I,i Did Not Know

We’re live every Sunday morning at 9am UK time. You can join our facebook group to watch live, view archives, and join in the growing community and conversation that’s happening around this project.

Taking responsibility for our stories

Given that we are the only creatures (that we know of) that can tell stories about ourselves;and given that we live totally, inescapably in the stories we tell;and given that stories of any kind can be more or less truthful, more or less kind, more or less generous, more or less creative, more or less freeing of our enormous potential...... given all of this, don't we have a profound responsibility to question the stories we were handed? To not just take things 'as they are'?And to actively find - and consciously live by - the most truthful, kind, generous, creative, possibility-freeing stories about ourselves, about others, and about life that we can?

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