Archive for 'reflection'
seeing the patterns & doing the same
August 22nd, 2008. Published under reflection. Comments.
If I can see the patterns of my life emerge in front and around me, why isn’t there the action to do differently? I had so much momentum in my creative and personal work a couple of months ago, though now it’s been stifled and I’m doing the same old things the same old way. The only difference now is that I can see the patterns clearly.
I can see the dread at night take my energy over and I somehow choose to rest myself down into it. Before, I had found a way to change my step or to walk a little differently and shake off the down energy… change the way I saw something, or just choose to do one more thing for myself at the end of the day. Instead, I open that door and walk right into tiredness, boredom, weariness.
“I’m just so tired” is a refrain I’ve had many years in my life. One thing after another comes upon me and I let it all build up until I feel justified in repeating to myself that “I’m just so tired”. For a few months there, it was like a joke to me. It was so easily to laugh off or to state the opposite and it just went away and the real energy behind it came out and I had life.
Is it the little things, the little choices that steer the energy the other way?
“It isn’t worth it” is another big one. What difference will it make? Why in the world would I do this? Etc. Those are easy ones to slip back into as well. And they feed on themselves. One small choice in that direction makes it just that easier ot make another choice. The little things add up.
Not having written here was a big piece of evidence that said those things above to me. Perhaps the voicing of the little things that head me away from my true desire will scare them away or scare me up enough to make some difference in my life and build the momentum back towards the energy and the passion that I know is there.
Yes, let’s see it!
individual integrity in a group
August 6th, 2008. Published under reflection. Comments.
It’s an interesting question about how to maintain my individual integrity within the context of a larger group. How do I keep my own sense of self while keeping commitments to a group of people I’m working with?
Whether it’s at work or on an athletic team or a group that has come together for a common purpose, I think it’s critical that each individual remains in touch with who and what they are and not let the group’s desires overtake the preciousness of each person within the group. I thought I had seen and been able to tell the difference between a group and a team. I’ve generally avoided groups because of the tendency to become an echo chamber and devolve into groupthink. When people are working together for a common purpose, though, the sense of team can arise and great things can be accomplished.
There’s no I in team, right? There’s a U group, though I think the silly semantic saying has it got it backwards. A team has a whole host of I’s in it. The individual excellence of each person while simultaneously working together has tremendous and life-changing power. When the power of an individual, though, is subsumed into the machinations of group desires you run into dirty waters indeed.
A collection of centers
Christopher Alexander has written some amazing books around the art and practice of building structures, neighborhoods, townships, cities. Once key idea in his Nature of Order is that spaces are considered alive when they’re designed as a collection of centers. And, that people working together function best when everyone is their own center within the network.
It’s a paradox. At once the individual is exalted in oneself and at the same it secondary to the actions of the group. And, where is that balance so that neither the individual nor the group is harmed and both find energy in each other? It ebbs and flows for sure. It’s not a constant equality to be balanced… instead intuition must be at the heart of each person’s decisions.
who are you doing it for?
July 22nd, 2008. Published under reflection. Comments.
Every once in a while, I get hit with a big and sudden loss-of-confidence in myself. Most of the times, this originates in questioning what I’m doing, why I’m doing and most importantly who I’m doing it for. I’ve come across this enough times to see a pattern in myself:
- go all out and get excited about stuff
- falter a bit, or have a setback
- question, question, question
- resent the people I’m doing it for
- sabotage myself so I can be right about, “see - I gotta do it for myself!”
- do things because it’s for me
- feel alone
- start over
See, it’s about that “start over” step. I keep repeating it over and over, big & small. Isn’t there some famous quote about what we do in small shows up in the big (and vice versa)?
I seem to think this might have something to do with who I see as me and who I see as them. I must have created some false dichotomy long ago that I keep clinging to in times of stress and doubt. It’s me, me, me for whom that I tell myself I need to do the things I want. Though, who is that me? I get it about who the “them” is… it’s the me that’s got me confused.
I was reminded of an email I wrote to a friend of mine a few weeks ago when he was going through some similar questioning. Did I write this for him, or for me? I’ve changed some of the details (to protect the innocent, as they say).
All those things or ways of being you thought you wanted might mean nothing. And everything you do is in some way ultimately meaningless. It’s true that at the end of this time everything you’ve done is essentially meaningless. No one cares. The earth will keep spinning round the sun whether you move to SF or not, whether you gel out in front of the TV or not. Fried chicken or pork chops? Donuts or salad? It just doesn’t matter.What does have meaning, and is the ultimate Thing That Matters is how you are… the beingness you bring to everything. I know for myself that I make up story after story about what has meaning in my life and I create such an elaborate scaffolding of will if I did X, then Y will happen and Z will be happy and I’ll be able to do to Q and then I can get to do R and all those S’s will be satisfied. It’s all shit. All of those mental constructs I create for myself so that I can convince myself that I’m happy with what I’m doing and what I have in life…
Every once in a while though I realize that happiness and sadness are superficial emotions that I use as justifications for the actions I’m taking. Getting rid of and busting through the need to *feel* those things is an incredible step towards a deeper, more core-shaking way of being.
Remember, it’s Be-Have-Do. Focusing on what you want to have or what you want to do is going to be meaningless until you know how you want to Be. So… when you hear the question, “What do you want?”, nothing is a fantastic answer. Keep asking yourself that question and keep demanding complete honesty from yourself with the answer. If you say, “Well, I want to move to this city”, say back to yourself, “Bullshit!” and then ask yourself again… “What do you really want?” — “I want deeper connections with my friends.”, say again “That’s bullshit, you asshole!” — You’re waking up to yourself, man — and it’s fucking beautiful! If you aren’t able to demand complete and utter honesty with yourself, then nothing is going to have any meaning at all.
How do you want to BE? That’s the question. And amazingly there is no answer to it. It’s a dialogue you have with yourself and the universe. Moment by moment. Every second of the day, you ask yourself how do I want to be? As soon as you have the answer, then your monkey mind will start to create the justifications so you have to throw it away again and again. Be Be Be. And Be some more.
I, personally, don’t care what you do. I don’t care what anyone does during this time. Though, I have seen glimpses of incredible earth-shattering beauty when you have taken yourself on and have shown a way of being that is precise, strong, vulnerable, beautiful, divine… it truly is incredible. And none of those words do it justice. I see true divinity in you. Forget about everything else you want to do and bring your self, your Big Self to everything.. . even to the questions your little self pitifully keeps squeaking out. Go, man, go!
from Rumi:
There is a
kind of worm that liveshappily inside the apple, totally ignorant of the tree,
the orchard, and the orchardkeeper. Another splits the apple open with its movements.
Prophetic fire reaches outtimidly at first, from the flint to fragments of cotton, but
eventually it becomes a sulfurousdragon flying into starlight. This is how human beings move
from their attachments tofood and sleep to some unsayable state beyond the angels.
In the spirit you are a princefor whom Baghdad and Samarcand are half a step away. Animal
energy lights your eyesand quickens your step. Your hair grows and shines with
that energy, but move intothe deeper energy that derives from. There Muhammad
will welcome you, andGabriel will back away saying, “If I came closer, your
glory would consume me.”Peace and Glory and All-Consuming Truth to you My Friend.
I’ll keep returning to my own words above. It seems that when a friend is in need and I’m inspired to write something like that, it’s more for me than for him or her.
getting outside yourself
July 16th, 2008. Published under reflection, risk. Comments.
When it comes down to it, who has more of a hold on your life… you or the world?
Taking risks are a great way to push yourself beyond what you think you can do and a way to achieve more than you thought was possible. Chances are, though, that the risks you take are actually pretty safe. If you’re like me, there’s a lot at stake on whether or not you succeed. It baffles me, though there are people who don’t put their entire self-worth into “winning”.
I was confronted this weekend with myself in taking on a challenge that had absolutely no way of being won. I found out how much I put into winning and how I change the world around me so that I can win at what I do. I do a lot and I make it look easy. And a lot of people would say I was a risk-taker because of what I’ve achieved, yet it’s never been that risky for me since I knew I could do the things I’m doing.
Well, what a peculiar thing it was to come head-to-head with myself on something that just couldn’t be done, at least not completely. My first impulse was to flat out quit. Take my toys and go home as they say. It took a good long conversation with my wife to get my back on task. (By the way, surrounding yourself with people who are willing to support you is so invaluable!)
I was still skeptical of the process of making the attempt to try. I forged ahead anyway. And, in the process of going non-stop up against something that was impossible was the greatest thing I could have done. That part of me that made everything look easy (though, inside it was safe) was furious! What do you mean do something that can’t be done? He scratched and fought the whole way until I realized that as corny and cliché as the saying was, “it doesn’t matter whether you win or lose, it’s how you play the game.”
Just showing up was key. And, to give it all even more so. Sometimes you really have to take on more than you know you can handle to get to the you that waits on the other side. The part of you that has been waiting for you to step up and take up more space in the world, the one that knows you are so much more capable than the tiny, safe world you’re living in.
It turns out that I did more in one day than I had in the previous three months. All because I attempted something impossible. I didn’t succeed at what I had set out to do in that day, though the amount of successes I had was more than I thought was capable.
I surprised myself. And, you can too. Make what you do more than you know. Step beyond the known. Get outside yourself.
And have fun doing it!
momentum in speech
July 12th, 2008. Published under reflection. Comments.
There’s no better way to create momentum in your life than to do what you say your going to do. Even for the little things, when you tell someone that you’re going to do it and come through and actually do it, you get energized, you build trust, you create a sense of accomplishment and self-confidence.
Try it. Start small and tell someone today what you’re going to do today. Then, tomorrow tell them that you did it. Tell them again what you’re going to do and come through again.
Leadership starts with yourself and if you can’t be honest with what you know you can do, then no one else is going to trust you, let alone follow you or be inspired by you. Pretty soon, if you knock out the small things, you’ll be able to start stepping out there and taking a chance with what you say you’re going to do. And, if you have the momentum from the small things, you might surprise yourself and come through on the big things.
This all goes back to being in alignment with what you’re saying, feeling and doing. If any of those is out of synch, you’re going to be fighting an uphill battle with yourself. I’ve found that the feeling part is usually the straggler of the three. It’s amazing how focusing on being clear with the other two can bring that one back in alignment. If I’m not feeling excited or motivated for a particular project, doing something physically that mimics excitement can easily bring about the feeling. Or, simple statements and affirmations spoken with excitement can bring about the feeling as well.
Make it easy on yourself and start small with the things you want to do. Your energy around your passions can easily snowball when you start to see the results from doing what you say.
Say what’s on your heart. Feel the support of the universe. Do great things today!
getting from point a to point b
July 10th, 2008. Published under reflection. Comments.
Going places. And getting from you are to where you want to be. Or looking back at where you came from to where you are now. Funny how one bit of information in life leads to another, and how paying attention to its essence opens up other possibilities.
Parkour
I have been thinking about some father-kid things that would be fun to do together. Something cool. Something where their friends might say, “Wow, you’re dad is cool!” And, I came across parkour. My youngest two kids practice martial arts and are already quite athletic. This could be something fun to practice and play together. Though that’s not as important as some of the principles I uncovered when I was investigating it.
Parkour seems to be about getting from point a to point b in the most efficient way possible. There’s a lot of room for creativity. It’s not a competitive sport, nor one to “put on display”. It’s probably not even right to call it a sport. It’s a way of being where the entire world around you becomes a playground. Everything changes when you’re walking around town and you ask yourself, “how could I get from here to that fire escape 3 stories up?” There might be a hedge, a car, a spiral staircase, a 6′ gap and a throng of middle school kids in your way; though you say to yourself, “with the proper training, I could get there in 20 seconds or less.”
That seems silly, yet the state of mind you can get into where your physicality and creativity thrive on one another for the pure enjoyment of play and improvisation can be quite amazing. From Chau Belle Dinh:
It is when you trust yourself, earn an energy. A better knowledge of your body, be able to move, to overcome obstacles in real world, or in virtual world, thing of life. Everything that touch you in the head, everything that touch in your heart. Everything touching you physically.
Gas Prices
And then I happened upon a post by a engineer who has a great blog about design and programming. His post about getting from point A to point B focuses on how we have certainly have reached the tipping point in fuel prices where the market is correcting itself of its excesses over the past 30 years. We are seriously going to have to think about how better to get from here to there. And why we are so far from all the there’s we want to get to. And that not going there and instead hanging out here can be better and maybe, just maybe communities can be built again where people live. Even people in rural areas are starting to carpool!
As painful as it is to know it costs me $25 a round-trip right now to commute to my office, I have already started to shift how I move about from here to there. I don’t go there as often. I stay here to work. I combine trips outside the house… pet store, library, grocery store, etc.; a little planning starts to save more than just a few pennies.
An Emotional Scale
Wanting to be excited, jazzed, proud, in love, loved or delighted doesn’t do much if all you do is want it. Knowing where you are in your emotion is key to then knowing how to get where you want to be. Since emotions are such an incredible gauge on their own, you can tell a lot about yourself where your thinking and feeling are (or are not) in alignment. It’s easy enough to let yourself get knocked down a notch or two when people around you are taking shots at you. Yet if you’re the one choosing your reactions around you, why would you want to do this?
Everything Together
If you don’t know how to even start to get to point B, it’s not such a big deal. Better to put a foot forward than to stand dormant in your own doubt.
I’m listening to my own words here, “Take time to feel where you are… and look for confirmation in your environment.” It goes back to relaxing your heart and letting yourself feel. Feel your own emotions. Feel the movement in thought and word around you. To get where you want to go takes creativity. And we all have it. Trust in your own ability to make the creative choices that will get you there.
Do you have any stories about how you got from point A to point B with or without the help of the universe?
heart constriction
July 9th, 2008. Published under peace, reflection. Comments.
I think I’m figuring out this “letting go” process. There’s not a magical trick to it. And it’s not complicated at all. I’m finding that letting go has everything to do with my heart. I can feel it physically as, what I’m calling, a heart constriction. My chest becomes tight and it emanates to all other parts of my body. Usually, it’s brought on by doubt or fear or my own inability to step forward into something I know is right.
It shows up in many ways… as physical discomfort, mental anguish, stress, everyone else’s sh*t all around me. And, it seems to feed on itself and continue to build. Digging around for where it’s coming from, I usually find my own little self in there pushing buttons and pulling levers and ropes all in a desparate attempt to stop the craziness.
So that’s when I found something so easy to do that I don’t believe it. There’s got to be something else to do, something else going on that will fix all of this. Yet, it’s not in need of fixing. There isn’t anything wrong at all.
I’ve got an idea running around in me about starting a worldwide movement called Drink Water, Breathe Air, Walk Around. Those are the ingredients to getting yourself past the apparent chaos around you. Most of the times, we’ve lost our connection to our own physical bodies and have entered the oh so magical place of our own illusions about the world and how it works. Drinking water, taking good long breaths and walking around in your world is all it takes to get back into the real world outside your head.
Though, that’s not all there is to do. There’s the simple matter of trust and openness. Trust in the supportive universe. Openness to possibility.
You can tell when things inside of you are at a balance because the world around you is out of whack. The world is a reflection of you and what you’re Being gets sent back to you in many ways. Relax. In whatever way you can.
This heart constriction is like our attempt to control the actions and outcomes of everything around us. Not much is going to go your way when you’re so stressed about it coming out right.
Shed the need to control and the world can relax with you.
It will let out a long, deep sigh and it will say, “Finally! Now we can get down to business making you and the world and everyone you touch just a bit more in tune, at peace and in love with life.”
And, on a small side note, I’ve discovered a beautiful band out of Iceland. Thanks to last.fm, as I was listening to Sigur Ros’ new album, it mentioned Amiina. Gorgeous textures of voice and strings… enjoy!
no sacrifice needed
July 8th, 2008. Published under reflection. Comments.
A short reflection… and a question.
In making life a win-win for everyone, I think that we must get creative and find the unexpected solutions to where everyone benefits from what you do. And it’s not just about win-win. To give of yourself without exception to everyone out there can leave you empty-handed. To give it all to yourself without consideration to others cheats them out of your gifts.
Where is the spot in your life where giving goes to ways: to others and yourself?
Are you sacrificing your own passions and talents in order to give to your kids? What kind of example is that setting for them. Should they be creative and happy and passionate about what they’re doing only up to a certain age and then give it all up so their kids can be creative and on and on until they grow up? Who is really benefiting in that scenario?
In every relationship you have, take a hard look at where you’re taking from the other person, or taking from yourself in order to make what you think is the right relationship. I challenge you to find the place(s) where you can give in both ways.
the future is supportive
July 7th, 2008. Published under reflection. Comments.
Set your goal and setpoint out in the future even though you may not know how to get there… describe what it looks like… and then watch things shift around. The events and people of your life will start to alter themselves in support of you. Things will start happening. And you might be surprised as you watch yourself shift to get there.
Make the future your friend. It’s there and unknown and wants to know you. And it’s ready to work for you. You don’t have to do everything to get there.
The things I read in Creating, by Robert Fritz ages ago are finally making sense to me. I set a vision for myself out 90 days in the future and in just a month I already see a shift in myself and the world around me as I approach the reality of my vision. Fritz talks about the natural tension between your vision and current reality and the universe likes the path of least resistance and will do what it takes to get to your vision the simplest way possible… as long as you remain true to your vision and keep it steady.
The self I am finding and the self you could find on the other side of the unknown and the resistence you might face is so much bigger than where you see yourself now. Surrender to your own choices you’re making and you will suprise yourself with your capabilities.
notes on self-expression
July 2nd, 2008. Published under music, reflection. Comments.
I played another open mic last night and didn’t do as well as I had before… I began to be really hard on myself about it and was replaying every little mistake in my head. A friend mentioned something about how Coltrane could never really listen to his own music because of his quest for perfection and all he heard were all the little mistakes.
Though I’ve always kept close the quote from Miles Davis about mistakes, “Don’t fear mistakes. There are none.” I’ve taken that to mean that mistakes are crucial to the creative process and can be a incredible source of new ideas or ways to approach a song.
On that note… (um, no pun intended) I was able to stop myself from beating myself up about the performance and instead took a step back and asked myself, “What could I have done different? What are some strategies for making the next performance even better?”
NOTE: I’m figuring out that taking a step back and asking yourself something is a pretty f-in good thing to do.
Here’s a short list of what I came up with (and read further below for the big kicker about this process for myself):
Connect With Them
It’s always a good thing to establish a relationship with someone new. And this is a great thing for starting of a set of music. For me, this could look a lot of different ways: say hello, my name is… or taking a moment to breathe and looking out at them and making eye contact with a few… or even starting off with a story instead of music.
Clarity Counts
Across the arc of the night, from beginning to middles to end, being clear about what’s going on is key. Without it, I found the audience wandering and loud conversations taking over the place. I imagine that recognizing that one song has ended and another one is about to being is big. It’s like saying, “Here everyone is where the song has ended. We’re in this quiet time in between and I have this story or an introduction to the next piece… and here we go it’s about to start this new song and Bam!”
I’m not up there to just spew out some noise (unless I’m in a punk mood). It’s an experience we’re having together… not just me on the stage.
Passion
Passion should be apparent in every song… and not just to “them”, I gotta know the passion, too. If not, then why the hell am I out there? That doesn’t mean loud and boisterous all the time. If I’m deep into a song and it’s moving me, then it’s a pretty sure bet that it’s moving them, too. It’s infectious!
When passion is working, I lose my self and find a bigger Self to connect with. It’s a place where we all come together during that space the music is creating. To hit that FLOW when everything and everyone is grooving, that’s magic. In there, I can be the container and the base and the foundation through which everyone else has the space to find and have their own experience that can take them outside themselves to something greater. And when it’s places they don’t expect, it’s beautiful. Be excited, be proud, be fun.
Be Prepared
Down to the technicals of the execution of the song, it’s gotta be solid. I have to know the song in and out so that when it comes to making it live, there’s opportunity to improvise and adjust to the context of the place. When the song is easy, then I get to experience the magic of making it different. My mood, my intention, the crowd, the place… they all feed into creating a new and unique experience every time the songs are “made”. And they are made over and over each time they are voiced. This is having dominion over the music.
Everything In Working Order
And down then to the physicality of the instruments… my guitar, my body, my fingers, the strings, the stool, the capo, the clip. All of this should be in top shape. I can improvise when it’s not, though a lot of times that will take me out of the flow of creation when the song is being played. I forgot to move the capo down two frets for a particular song and it threw me off when I started to hit the higher notes. It’s a “mistake” that could have some potential, though. It changed the song fairly drastically… Hmm… maybe I should take a look at that.
Either way, fresh strings and a clean guitar. Clipped nails and a tight capo. All the little details make it important to be able to shine when the time comes that a song emerges triumphant in the shared space of experience.
–
So, after writing all of this… I realized, wait, this is not about music. Or, rather the music is about life and the things I’m telling myself about the music is directly related and applicable to everything else in my life. Facets, facets, facets! It’s all the same and so electrifyingly unique at every turn. All of my attitudes and approaches are reflected everywhere I turn. Passion in my work, being prepared with my kids, keeping my body in great physical shape, clarity in communication, connection with every relationship… that’s where it’s at.
If I’m grooving in one are, I’m going to open it up and let the other areas take it on.
Take your own particular experience that was not what you thought you could do. Ask yourself, “how can I make it better next time?” Be specific and answer yourself in detail. Then take a step back and ask, “where else can this advice work in my life?” Go for it!
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