Honoring St. Patrick's Day includes at a minimum wearing green. It's also a day to honor luck. While the Irish certainly don't have a corner on the market, they do have leprechauns.
The Chinese have the I Ching or Book of Wisdom to point to taking directions that result in good fortune. Though we may not be lucky in the strictest sense of the term where luck is bestowed on us regardless of whether or not we deserve it, the wisdom of the I Ching suggests that good fortune or luck draws from flowing with the Tao and bad fortune is the result of going against the grain of our constitution or the circumstances we find ourselves enmeshed inside.
Making authentic choices doesn't guarantee good fortune, it is hinted at in the text that it increases the chances of experiencing good fortune. To experience the luck of the Irish, therefore, we are encouraged to flow in sync with our deeper knowing inside the situations and relationships we find ourselves. While certainly easier said than done, intending to go with the Flow may bring us more luck than merely wearing green today.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Monday, March 2, 2009
Cultivating Authentic Presence
You can’t get there from not-here. Richard Moon
Authentic choices cannot be made if we’re not present and centered in ourselves. If we’re panicked or anxious, enraged or crazed, we are fundamentally incapable of choosing well. A part or parts of our inner “multitudes” have taken charge of our consciousness. Like an angry mob, these parts move without a center or purpose other than to react against an image of their perception of prevailing circumstances. In aikido, a martial art sometimes referred to as the art of peace, when we’re not centered, we cannot be open to the Flow of the Universe. We may be able to get our attacker to the floor using techniques we were taught. But if we’re not centered inside ourselves and inside the flow of universal energy, the action we took and the result we achieved are not ultimately satisfying. It’s not an authentic action emanating from an authentic choice.
So how do we cultivate an authentic presence before making our choices?
The first step requires us to become aware of our current state. Our lack of presence must be identified and owned. If I don’t know I’m feeling frenetic, I won’t know even see that my choices are unconsciously based more on a need to either get things done as quickly as possible or calm down my frenzy.
The second step is to open to changing our state of being to one that’s authentic. Sometimes that’s easier said than done because our habitual patterns have “grooved” a series of actions that reinforce themselves by their familiarity and comfort.
Third, we must choose to change our pattern to one that’s authentic. Simultaneously an act of will and a letting go of what we now have, we open to what may feel strange and unusual because authentic presence draws from a source larger than our familiar patterns.
Fourth, we employ any one of a number of practices to shift our state to one that’s more authentic. In future blogs, I’ll offer practices and examples to further clarify these steps.
Authentic choices cannot be made if we’re not present and centered in ourselves. If we’re panicked or anxious, enraged or crazed, we are fundamentally incapable of choosing well. A part or parts of our inner “multitudes” have taken charge of our consciousness. Like an angry mob, these parts move without a center or purpose other than to react against an image of their perception of prevailing circumstances. In aikido, a martial art sometimes referred to as the art of peace, when we’re not centered, we cannot be open to the Flow of the Universe. We may be able to get our attacker to the floor using techniques we were taught. But if we’re not centered inside ourselves and inside the flow of universal energy, the action we took and the result we achieved are not ultimately satisfying. It’s not an authentic action emanating from an authentic choice.
So how do we cultivate an authentic presence before making our choices?
The first step requires us to become aware of our current state. Our lack of presence must be identified and owned. If I don’t know I’m feeling frenetic, I won’t know even see that my choices are unconsciously based more on a need to either get things done as quickly as possible or calm down my frenzy.
The second step is to open to changing our state of being to one that’s authentic. Sometimes that’s easier said than done because our habitual patterns have “grooved” a series of actions that reinforce themselves by their familiarity and comfort.
Third, we must choose to change our pattern to one that’s authentic. Simultaneously an act of will and a letting go of what we now have, we open to what may feel strange and unusual because authentic presence draws from a source larger than our familiar patterns.
Fourth, we employ any one of a number of practices to shift our state to one that’s more authentic. In future blogs, I’ll offer practices and examples to further clarify these steps.
Monday, February 23, 2009
Contradicting Voices
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) Walt Whitman
Before making choices we often consider all kinds of perspectives, not only the opinions of others, but inside our own minds. While Whitman’s celebrated inclusiveness is expansive and open-armed, when we’re called to make a significant choice, how do we work with our multitude of inner voices? Which voice rings true from our deepest and highest knowing?
Is it the loudest most persistent voice because it’s power is obvious? Or is the “still, small voice,” pointed to by spiritual traditions, the one advocating the most authentic choice? Do we listen to the voice that sounds mature and authoritative? Or do we honor the enthusiastic voice of youthful innocence that incites our sense of adventure to try new things? As we age, does one voice begin to trump the other?
While the psychological sophistication that many of us have honed over years of personal growth work has offered us many boons, making choices simply is not usually one of them. Discovering what’s authentic at any given moment amidst the cacophony of our multitudes may be more complex and muddled.
Conventional wisdom in business leans on sophisticated analytical models to work through the complexity. These models step directly into the jungle to untangle it. Those of us with facile minds might find this more rational and linear approach helpful.
The spiritually inclined would quickly shy away from those methods. Instead, this group might favor an enlightened system of thinking or form of devotion to overlay on the particular circumstances they’re facing.
While each of these approaches and the various options in between offer benefits, our souls might have none of either, which returns us to Walt Whitman’s bold claim, “Very well then I contradict myself.”
But is that all we’re left with? Or are there other approaches that might carry us above, beneath and beyond our contradictions. In future blogs, I will address the three possibilities of stepping above, digging beneath and moving beyond our multitudes.
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.) Walt Whitman
Before making choices we often consider all kinds of perspectives, not only the opinions of others, but inside our own minds. While Whitman’s celebrated inclusiveness is expansive and open-armed, when we’re called to make a significant choice, how do we work with our multitude of inner voices? Which voice rings true from our deepest and highest knowing?
Is it the loudest most persistent voice because it’s power is obvious? Or is the “still, small voice,” pointed to by spiritual traditions, the one advocating the most authentic choice? Do we listen to the voice that sounds mature and authoritative? Or do we honor the enthusiastic voice of youthful innocence that incites our sense of adventure to try new things? As we age, does one voice begin to trump the other?
While the psychological sophistication that many of us have honed over years of personal growth work has offered us many boons, making choices simply is not usually one of them. Discovering what’s authentic at any given moment amidst the cacophony of our multitudes may be more complex and muddled.
Conventional wisdom in business leans on sophisticated analytical models to work through the complexity. These models step directly into the jungle to untangle it. Those of us with facile minds might find this more rational and linear approach helpful.
The spiritually inclined would quickly shy away from those methods. Instead, this group might favor an enlightened system of thinking or form of devotion to overlay on the particular circumstances they’re facing.
While each of these approaches and the various options in between offer benefits, our souls might have none of either, which returns us to Walt Whitman’s bold claim, “Very well then I contradict myself.”
But is that all we’re left with? Or are there other approaches that might carry us above, beneath and beyond our contradictions. In future blogs, I will address the three possibilities of stepping above, digging beneath and moving beyond our multitudes.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Sources of Info to Help Choose
There are many sources of information to help us make choices. The most obvious include the abundance of information available over the Internet. Its ready availability allows us to access the expert and the historical, the contrary and the consoling, the sacred and the profane. While many of these sources offer us their perspectives, suggestions and recommendations, we can quickly become overwhelmed if we have few criteria from which to make our choices. Knowing what we value can help us choose meaningfully. The more we consciously know what we value, the more quickly we can discern our choice among alternatives. The more often we use these value criteria, the more quickly we can decide.
To make authentic choices—ones that resonate in our bones and souls—we must also have access to internal sources of information. In addition, the more unique and unfamiliar the circumstances within which we must make our choices, the more that inner access becomes necessary. What I mean by inner resources includes what is below thoughts influenced by mainstream culture, our upbringing and social milieu, what speaks through our intuition, what lies quietly inside our unsentimental hearts, and what resonates in our gut.
When we’re buying a new car, for instance, we want to research the relevant resources to help us consider options based on what we value, such as economy, style, status and comfort. Well-researched options can take us a long way towards making an effective, efficient and meaningful choice. I contend, however that making an authentic choice requires tapping inner resources to confirm that the information that help us choose one model over others resonates with our innermost being.
Many approaches can help us make authentic choices. One of the more frequent of these is talking candidly with those who know us well. Inside these friendships and relationships, we can express opinions, try on different options, listen to suggestions and mull aloud. We also risk reinforcing habitual choices and behaviors that may unknowingly limit our freedom to consider a larger spectrum of possibilities. When buying a car, that kind of limitation may not be significant. When making choices that may dramatically affect our life direction, however, this limitation can prove significant. Under unfamiliar circumstances, we might consider exploring other ways of gathering information, especially information that is inside our own minds, hearts and bellies.
These approaches include using divining devices to tap into not only our intuitive knowing, but collective wisdom around our particular circumstances. The I Ching, for instance, offers a well-defined map of the archetypal terrain within which we can learn where inside that terrain we stand. The 64 hexagrams and 384 changing lines can describe many different scenarios that can give us a more objective overview of our circumstances.
They also include tapping inner resources through hypnotherapy, dream work, Jung’s active imagination process and dialogue journal writing. In these approaches, we discover that we're more complex than what we, at first, appear to be. In our multiplicity, we have voices that sometimes conflict with one another, parts that annoy and sabotage other parts and aspects of ourselves that, though we don't know much about them, influence our daily lives to get what they want at the expense of the rest of ourselves.
To make authentic choices—ones that resonate in our bones and souls—we must also have access to internal sources of information. In addition, the more unique and unfamiliar the circumstances within which we must make our choices, the more that inner access becomes necessary. What I mean by inner resources includes what is below thoughts influenced by mainstream culture, our upbringing and social milieu, what speaks through our intuition, what lies quietly inside our unsentimental hearts, and what resonates in our gut.
When we’re buying a new car, for instance, we want to research the relevant resources to help us consider options based on what we value, such as economy, style, status and comfort. Well-researched options can take us a long way towards making an effective, efficient and meaningful choice. I contend, however that making an authentic choice requires tapping inner resources to confirm that the information that help us choose one model over others resonates with our innermost being.
Many approaches can help us make authentic choices. One of the more frequent of these is talking candidly with those who know us well. Inside these friendships and relationships, we can express opinions, try on different options, listen to suggestions and mull aloud. We also risk reinforcing habitual choices and behaviors that may unknowingly limit our freedom to consider a larger spectrum of possibilities. When buying a car, that kind of limitation may not be significant. When making choices that may dramatically affect our life direction, however, this limitation can prove significant. Under unfamiliar circumstances, we might consider exploring other ways of gathering information, especially information that is inside our own minds, hearts and bellies.
These approaches include using divining devices to tap into not only our intuitive knowing, but collective wisdom around our particular circumstances. The I Ching, for instance, offers a well-defined map of the archetypal terrain within which we can learn where inside that terrain we stand. The 64 hexagrams and 384 changing lines can describe many different scenarios that can give us a more objective overview of our circumstances.
They also include tapping inner resources through hypnotherapy, dream work, Jung’s active imagination process and dialogue journal writing. In these approaches, we discover that we're more complex than what we, at first, appear to be. In our multiplicity, we have voices that sometimes conflict with one another, parts that annoy and sabotage other parts and aspects of ourselves that, though we don't know much about them, influence our daily lives to get what they want at the expense of the rest of ourselves.
Friday, January 16, 2009
What's an Authentic Choice?
I’ve asked groups to look back on their lives at the kinds of choices they’ve made that are authentic vs. those that have been inauthentic. I then asked them to compare their sets of answers to clarify what makes for an authentic choice. Their answers have been many and varied, including:
• They put me in the flow and take me into joy vs. pushing the river.
• They come from stopping and letting something come through.
• They’re natural and original like breathing.
• They’re based on values and morals.
• They’re congruent with my highest nature.
• They bring love and beauty to others.
• They use my skills.
• They’re live-giving.
• They align my mind, heart and belly.
• They honor the values of others, including non-human others.
• They’re more heart than head.
• They’re passionate.
• They’re in alignment with what’s internally true, based on my mind, heart and belly. In contrast, they are not based on cultural norms. Making these choices may result in feeling awkward in unsupportive environments. (Being authentic requires knowing how we’re different from cultural norms.)
• They don’t require knowing why we want or don’t want to do something.
While these answers ring reasonable and true, I believe that authentic choices not only align with what’s true in my mind, heart and belly, but they also take into account the surrounding environment. Without necessarily adhering to cultural norms, they include an awareness of and accounting for what’s happening culturally. They include awareness of and accounting for what’s happening beyond what can be sensed through our eyes, ears, skin, nose and taste buds. They include not only what happened in the past, but what the future holds. In other words, authentic choices are made inside a larger context.
This does not mean that when we make an authentic choice, we know all the factors, visible and invisible, that go into our choices. I agree with the last bullet above where authentic choices don’t require knowing why we want or don’t want to do something. Yet, the most authentic choices are felt to be unarguably true deep within our bones.
I believe that authentic choices can only come from authentic presence, In future blogs, I want to explore how do we cultivate that kind of presence.
• They put me in the flow and take me into joy vs. pushing the river.
• They come from stopping and letting something come through.
• They’re natural and original like breathing.
• They’re based on values and morals.
• They’re congruent with my highest nature.
• They bring love and beauty to others.
• They use my skills.
• They’re live-giving.
• They align my mind, heart and belly.
• They honor the values of others, including non-human others.
• They’re more heart than head.
• They’re passionate.
• They’re in alignment with what’s internally true, based on my mind, heart and belly. In contrast, they are not based on cultural norms. Making these choices may result in feeling awkward in unsupportive environments. (Being authentic requires knowing how we’re different from cultural norms.)
• They don’t require knowing why we want or don’t want to do something.
While these answers ring reasonable and true, I believe that authentic choices not only align with what’s true in my mind, heart and belly, but they also take into account the surrounding environment. Without necessarily adhering to cultural norms, they include an awareness of and accounting for what’s happening culturally. They include awareness of and accounting for what’s happening beyond what can be sensed through our eyes, ears, skin, nose and taste buds. They include not only what happened in the past, but what the future holds. In other words, authentic choices are made inside a larger context.
This does not mean that when we make an authentic choice, we know all the factors, visible and invisible, that go into our choices. I agree with the last bullet above where authentic choices don’t require knowing why we want or don’t want to do something. Yet, the most authentic choices are felt to be unarguably true deep within our bones.
I believe that authentic choices can only come from authentic presence, In future blogs, I want to explore how do we cultivate that kind of presence.
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
What choices are not necessarily authentic?
If I choose to do something purely to get it done, I may be productive. If I choose to do something to keep busy, my actions may successfully respond to the proverb “idle hands are the devil’s playground.” If I choose to do something because I know I can do it fast, I may prove that I’m efficient. If I choose to do something because I know I can do it well, I may prove my competence. In no case, however, am I necessarily choosing authentically.
If I choose to do something because it’s the way we always do it in this family, I may be following tradition loyally. If I choose to avoid the “wrong kind of people,” I may be a good boy or girl. If I choose to work hard and rise up through professional ranks to a more and more responsible position, I may garner a reputation that brings me respect and admiration. If I choose to increase my knowledge of a particular field of study, I may become an expert. In no case, however, am I necessarily choosing authentically.
If I choose to follow the wisdom of sages or practices of spiritual traditions, I may become adept and feel spiritual. Yet, I still might not be choosing authentically.
So if choosing authentically is not necessarily any of these choices, what is it? That’s what we’ll go into in our next blog.
If I choose to do something because it’s the way we always do it in this family, I may be following tradition loyally. If I choose to avoid the “wrong kind of people,” I may be a good boy or girl. If I choose to work hard and rise up through professional ranks to a more and more responsible position, I may garner a reputation that brings me respect and admiration. If I choose to increase my knowledge of a particular field of study, I may become an expert. In no case, however, am I necessarily choosing authentically.
If I choose to follow the wisdom of sages or practices of spiritual traditions, I may become adept and feel spiritual. Yet, I still might not be choosing authentically.
So if choosing authentically is not necessarily any of these choices, what is it? That’s what we’ll go into in our next blog.
Friday, November 21, 2008
What makes authentic choices important?
Why can't we choose to do things because they're quick, they're well-done, or they're meaningful?
What are the advantages of making authentic choices in contrast to the quickest, the best and the most meaningful? . . .
What are the advantages of making authentic choices in contrast to the quickest, the best and the most meaningful? . . .
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
