The Secret Life of ... You

This past weekend I watched the movie “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” To give a quick summary, without giving away any details, Walter Mitty is responsible for the negatives from film cameras at Life Magazine. For the last print edition of Life Magazine, he needs to find the negative which will be the cover photo. In pursuit of negative #25, Mitty embarks on a series of adventures that are far of his normal character and life.

 

Or at least there’s enough in the movie to make it seem that these adventures are out of character – or are they really?

 

We all have secret lives. It’s not so much that we keep what we do a secret, but most people don’t know about what we really do. After all, how can we ever describe all our adventures and what they really mean, or what it was really like. For some, even, these adventures just become part of life; they don’t seem like adventures to us, they are just what we do.

 

As part of the movie, Mitty is on the eHarmony dating site and the representatives from the site are trying to fill out his adventures and life. Mitty is a quiet character so entire trip becomes a single sentence. His big adventure into Pakistan and the Himalayas comes down to ‘hiking in the Himalayas’ in text format, but the vivid experience he had was far more than that, and had a far greater impact on his life.

 

In my life, I’ve had dozens of adventures both at home and when traveling. On a riverboat on the Amazon River, running in Tanzania, a five-day trip to Australia to meet a woman, cycling under a full moon in France – and so many more. Each one is a full tale itself – the preparation, the people, the environment, the mystery, the adventure, what it meant. Yet each one became a few words in a sentence.

 

A few people know some details about Mitty’s adventures, and a few people know some details about some of my adventures. I’m sure the same is true of you.

The details aren’t the point though. As you watch Mitty, you do see a change in who he is, how he walks, how he carries himself. The adventure is part of the journey into fullness. That’s the same for me. What kind of adventures have you had? What are the details you remember and would want to share? Most importantly – how are you different because of that? What is your secret life and what does it reveal?              

The Bunk of Positive Affirmations

Imagine that you own a home, and after being gone for a few weeks on vacation, you come home to find that several walls have mold growing on them. It doesn’t matter how much, but there’s mold. Would you just grab some paint and paint over that mold?

That’s the analogy to start with for thinking about positive affirmations. Positive affirmations can be just like putting a cover coat over all those negative thoughts or ideas that you continue to have.

If you leave the paint long enough, the paint will wear off and the mold will continue to grow again. You can take it another direction and every year lay over a new coat of paint. But you know what – that mold is STILL there. It’s still growing and affecting the environment and sooner or later it’s going to have a real effect.

You can do the same with positive affirmations. Use them for a while and then forget and the old patterns come back. Or keep practicing and adding new ones. But you know what – those old thoughts are STILL there.  They are still under the surface, and just like instincts, sooner or later they will come back out in a moment of stress or tiredness or pressure.

Let me back up a little – I’ve NOT saying positive affirmations, or any similar behavioral change is not effective or useful. They can be incredibly useful and empowering. What I want to you to understand is that unless you clean up and address the underlying state of affairs – the mold in the paint analogy – the old stuff is still there, and will come back.

What do I mean by underlying state of affairs? I’m talking about beliefs, patterns, values, ideals, promises, rules that you have committed to throughout your life. In all likelihood you have consciously forgotten most of these. They are still part of your memory and your body awareness. Here’s an example – think of that time in third grade when you were embarrassed in front of your classmates and you swore you’d never do anything to look stupid again. Maybe you didn’t say it out loud, but somewhere in your being you said it. And it stuck, it became part of your bodily and cellular makeup.

Now I hate computer analogies, but think of those beliefs or rules, etc., like a virus on your computer. It can be fairly innocuous, but it’s still there. You’d never knowingly leave a virus on your computer. I’m also sure you’d never knowingly keep around a rule for yourself that is like that mold. The clue here is knowingly – you don’t consciously know you are following those rules.

Still, if you are using positive affirmations, you have a desire for your life to be different in some way, even better. The question is, how much does it matter to you? Finding and addressing those rules, promises, values, etc takes courage. Sometimes it’s easy, sometimes it’s hard. And it takes time.

So how do you address those beliefs, ideas, patterns, and more? There are many ways and any deeper discussion is way beyond this article, but here are some techniques, clues and ideas to research and look into. Natural Linguistic Processing (NLP), cellular memory and cellular healing (books: Biology or Belief, and Molecules of Emotion), Somatic Therapies including Hakomi, Cranial Sacral Therapy, The Journey, NeuroSculpting. An especially important idea is Forgiveness (book: Forgive for Good). There are many, many more, but these are the ones I’ve worked with and found to be especially effective.

Working with positive affirmations is good, but he question stands – how much does it really matter to you? The idea of courage, which has roots in the word for heart, is that courage is not the absence of fear, rather the knowing that something is more important (Ambrose Redmoon). What is it that’s important that you are willing to move towards?

Compliments and Humility

In some of the yoga classes I go to, we are offered the opportunity to try new and challenging poses. To stretch a little and see where an edge might be. Quite often after this, we are brought into a very restful posture, often child’s pose for a chance to reset after. While resting, there is an additional offer from the teacher to feel what the new or challenging pose brought up. Perhaps it was frustration at lack of ability, maybe pride at doing something strong, or excitement at getting into the new posture, even self-talk or grandiosity or weakness. And then to let it go, to come back to our bodies and the present moment. That moment hold and build our strength and self-confidence, and then we move on.

Those moments of pride are like compliments to ourselves. We’ve doing something well and we congratulate ourselves! As we should, to acknowledge what we’ve done. There’s another side of those compliments I want to explore…

Several weeks ago I received an unexpected – and to me – quite meaningful compliment. I was quite surprised and even delighted as it settled in to me. Following that as it washed through was an even fuller wave of humility. This wasn’t the first time that humility has come, but it was the first time I had really noticed it. Reflecting back, it has happened almost each time I receive a compliment for a while. In that same time period, I remember also sharing some impressions and compliments to another friend and realizing there was some similarity in her response.

There’s a way that a sincere compliment is like being met at a more profound level, at being seen in a way we usually aren’t – especially if we are able to receive it. That in itself evokes gratitude and openness for me. The humility fills out the trio of wonder. It feels like such a profound practice to welcome and meet each accolade with the humbleness of being human and what’s there’s and what’s available.

And if that doesn’t work for you, you can always try on the lyrics from Mac Davis – “it’s hard to be humble when you’re perfect in every way”!

 

The lightning bolt

in a moment
it struck unexpected
as it always does

the polarities

built and coalesced
over time

waiting

blowing in from all directions

seemingly counter to reason
but meeting on congruency
synchronicity following its own rule

lingering

there was no storm

no sense
of the impending crush
no discernible forewarning
not in the center anyway

and then it struck

as paradox and duality
soul and self
idea and myth
clashed
and obliterated themselves
in the sheer energy of contrast

the flash instantaneous

the burn in slow motion
as if the poles wanted to remain
but there was nothing
nothing
to grasp from
or to
only a yielding now

cherished forms of reference

buried in the brilliance
astonishment presided
nothing to say
circuits fried
senses unleashed in comprehension

one could only watch

as the limitless
number of pieces
blew out big bang style
there was no going back
expression had sat this course

there was wonder

in the surf of synchronicity
the sheer fierceness
that met its own maker
and tender

the thunder and roar

followed
as it does
sounding out the joyful fury
of life meeting itself in a
magnificent collapse
into the distillized empty
wave upon wave of
deep resonance

then the fresh sight

as all the seasons of the
egoic atmosphere that had
accumulated was gone

after attuning the eyes

and senses

a truer reality

this one too

may succumb
to the whims
of Thor

30 Days of Yoga - Begins Now

At a Thanksgiving celebration I had a brief conversation with a woman there about yoga, which was our common connection with the host. In the conversation she said that at one point she had done 30 consecutive days of yoga and it had been quite profound. It was one thought that somehow didn’t seem to fit the conversation, but it was that one idea that has stuck with me ever since. It’s been ringing around in my head and perhaps moreso it’s been settling deeply into my body. I hadn’t committed to the idea, yet I seemed to be heading right down those tracks.

Yesterday I sat with Kirsten Warner for an hour as we talked about 30 consecutive days of yoga, what my intentions were, what I could focus on, what could help me. One question she asked was why. Why do 30 days of yoga, what did I want to get out of it? I related the conversation above, and part of my answer was curiosity. It some ways the question of why seems like asking why I’ve done all the extreme sports I’ve done. It’s because of a deeper resonance and a deeper calling. To touch and reach edges.

As the conversation progressed she said, ‘this will change your life.’ She offered this quote from John O’Donahue:

"Once you start to awaken, however, nothing or no one can ever claim you again, pull you back into old patterns. Once you start to awaken, you know how precious your time here—on earth, in this body—is. You are no longer willing to squander your essence on undertakings that do not nourish your true self; your patience grows thin with tired talk and dead language. You see through the rosters of expectation that promise you safety and the confirmations of your outer identity. Now you are impatient for growth, willing to put yourself in the way of change. You want your work to become an expression of your innate gifts. You want your relationships to voyage beyond the pallid frontiers to where the danger of transformation dwells. You want your God to be wild and to call you to where your destiny awaits."

So it is I’ve begun 30 days of yoga with a class this morning – with a sense of edginess, even a sense of fear, and a deep realizing that this is what’s right. I’m diving in on this auspicious Winter Solstice 2012 and galactic alignment.

One last thought before closing out this blog. As we finished the yoga class today, the song One by U2 played. The lyrics seemed right on for the moment and the day:

Is it getting better

Or do you feel the same

Will it make it easier on you now

You got someone to blame

You say...

One love

One life

When it's one need

In the night

One love

We get to share it

Leaves you baby if you

Don't care for it

Did I disappoint you

Or leave a bad taste in your mouth

You act like you never had love

And you want me to go without

Well it's...

Too late

Tonight

To drag the past out into the light

We're one, but we're not the same

We get to

Carry each other

Carry each other

One...

Have you come here for forgiveness

Have you come to raise the dead

Have you come here to play Jesus

To the lepers in your head

Did I ask too much

More than a lot

You gave me nothing

Now it's all I got

We're one

But we're not the same

Well we

Hurt each other

Then we do it again

You say

Love is a temple

Love a higher law

Love is a temple

Love the higher law

You ask me to enter

But then you make me crawl

And I can't be holding on

To what you got

When all you got is hurt

One love

One blood

One life

You got to do what you should

One life

With each other

Sisters

Brothers

One life

But we're not the same

We get to

Carry each other

Carry each other

One...life

One

Indiana Jones and Faith

“When you come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on, or you will be taught how to fly.” - Barbara J. Winter

The quote reminds me a scene from the third of the Indiana Jones movies, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, in which Indy is searching for the Cup of Christ. Towards the end of the movie, he comes to a ravine he must cross. The crossing is not far - perhaps 15 feet - but the ravine is no ordinary ravine. Hundreds and hundreds of feet of vertical cliff on both sides up and down, left and right. Indy checks his references and notes, from these he knows he must express the ultimate faith.

He stands there, crosses himself, takes a deep breath, closes his eyes - and steps out. His foot lands on a bridge that wasn't there a moment earlier.

In this case Indy had 'something solid to stand on'. Sometimes that's what we get, support in the most unexpected, unseen way. The other side is newborn birds who still not knowing how to fly reach the edge of the nest and off they go.

Winter is right - it takes deep faith to know we are always given the right tools at the right time and the scene is a great illustration of that.

Belief

We do not believe
in ourselves until
someone reveals that
deep inside us
something is valuable
worth listening to
worthy of our touch
once we believe in
ourselves
we can risk
curiosity
wonder
spontaneous delight
or any experience
that reveals the human spirit.
-- e. e. cummings

What's your fun?

Here's a clip from 60 minutes with a story and interview about a 13 year old who was diagnosed with Autism at age 2, but through continued efforts of his parents and fostering his interest in science, he has more or less moved pass the autistic symptons. It's quite a remarkable story, not only because of the turnaround but becaue he's now, at 13, a sophomore in college.

My favorite part of the interview by Mike Wallace is about four and half minutes into the clip:

• Wallace: What do you do you for fun?
• Jake: When it doesn’t involve academics?
• Wallace: Beyond the academics?
• Jake (smirk): Does looking up space articles online count?
• Wallace: <laughter>

Jake is both completely aware of what he enjoys and that it's likely different from what might be considered a normal 'fun' activity. He is also completing accepting of it, he doesn't hide it. It's part of who he is.

So what's your fun? That is putting aside any judgment, any ideas of what normal might be.  Maybe collecting quirky salt and pepper shakers, or reading Vogue cover to cover every month (and you're a guy :-), or perhaps number and letter games with license plates (me).

What's your true fun?

Integrity

“One’s suffering disappears when one lets oneself go, when one yields — even to sadness” -Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
  

For the past couple weeks I've been sitting in one of my stories. It's an old story that comes up every so often. This time it seemed I needed more time to hear it, let it roll around in my head and body, let it pull at different threads to have a different space with it. For now, it doesn't matter what the story is, just that the flow that transpired has been very different.

While I sat and listened to the drone that seemed to go on and on, I tried listening from different places, to different voices. Trying to understand the links and patterns. It was frustrating at times and several nights of sleep were cut short with all the looping.

One of the common themes I heard was 'that's it, I'm not taking it anymore.' Another was about control, or really lack of control, especially in regards to other people. With those themes I listened for what that meant to me. What I heard in that was that I needed to hold onto my personal integrity. Once that became clear I knew what was needed for me to be in a place that felt like I was holding my integrity to myself.

For a short bit, that felt good. And then it didn't. I was confused - what could be wrong with maintaining personal integrity. What was I missing? So more looping, listening, feeling.

What came up was about the greater good and a bigger picture? Despite what I thought would be reasonable for me, that same thing did not feel reasonable in a bigger picture. How could I have integrity with the world?
For awhile this felt really good as well. The ego just suddenly disappeared out of the entire picture and my story fell to pieces. Instead there was a feeling of freedom, opportunity, possibility, openness, discovery, acceptance. I just simply felt better, a burden was gone.

One more round though - this was was about uncovering that both are important, me and the world. That there has to be a balance of needs between both. With that it is possible to be in integrity with myself and with the world (including those around us).

I will take a quick moment to disgress with this - what if we all could learn how to be in integrity with ourselves, and the world, and those around us. Imagine the kind of world it would be ...

In the end I still don't have control over other people. It is a reminder that I have some, albeit somewhat illusionary, control over my own response. Even moreso is being with what is - finding the gifts in that and discovering my own strength and purpose in that. As I started, I talked about my story - and that's just it. It's MY STORY - and it's just a story. It's a story from the ego wanting to be #1, top dog. Maybe that's the biggest teaching of all, is the reminder that it's a story from the ego. When 'my story' comes up, to remember what the source is and where it's coming from.

Then it's time to step back and step out, let the story fall to pieces, and let what's true be revealed.

David Deida is a ...

No secrets given away with the title, you have to read it all because it all fits together. I didn’t write this, but it did come from a Deida David community website that existed for a while. All I know if the writer’s name was Tom.

How does this fit for me – there’s some truth here for me as I've been to a few Deida workshops and I can relate even down to the very end. While this tongue-in-check, yet real, message is aimed at David Deida, it’s probably true that any major name could be substituted with the message they offer. Don't get me wrong I have the greated respect for David Deida, Ram Dass, Pema Chodron, Adyashanti and all those who bring us great wisdom.

In the end it’s all about what we know and we’re willing to do with our lives, listening to the inner wisdom coming through.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'm paraphrasing this exchange between David Deida and a man at an intensive, because I don't have the exact words, but it is pretty close to the actual conversation:

Man: So I attended a workshop with you several years ago and described how my life was a mess and I wasn't in the relationship I wanted and you said that I needed to do a kind of vision quest and remove all the distractions from my life until the pain of not having a mission would compel me to act from my deepest purpose.
DD: And did you do that?
Man: Yeah.
DD: For how long?
Man: About 24 hours, (much laughter) but nothing came to me.
DD: And then what happened?
Man: Well, I got involved with this woman and her children and that has taken a lot of time, but I don't feel like I'm any closer to knowing what I'm supposed to be doing.
DD: So let me see if I have this straight. You spent 24 hours trying to find your purpose, then gave up because it was too hard. Then you went out and added a huge level of distraction to your life and now you are still lost and still don't have a purpose or the relationship you want. Is that accurate?
Man: Yeah.
DD: And do you have a question?
Man: Well, do you have any other suggestions?

It was a funny moment at the intensive, but I'm sharing it not because it was funny but because it was so honest. That guy was me. Not literally me. I was way too chicken shit to raise my hand at one of those events, but it was me just the same. I'm something of a zealot when I embrace a new thing. I attended the workshops. I read the books. I listened to all the recorded pieces. I started a men's group. I integrated it into my teaching. I knew the shit forward and backward. But I was still that guy asking that question: Do you have any other suggestions?

Then, at some point, I got it.

I stopped going to the workshops, because there weren't going to be any other suggestions. I already knew what I needed to do. The fucking truth was that I wasn't doing what I needed to do. I wasn't living what I knew.

People encounter David Deida's work at all levels. For some people he is "the how to find the perfect partner guy." For others he is "the how to have really great sex guy." For still others he is "the guy who punches their sexual or emotional validation card ("I'm a third stage______. Where are all the third stage _______s who are ready for me?).

If you need practices or techniques, he will give you those. If you need a glimpse of the third stage inside a safe container, he will take you there. But in the end, what he has is a beautiful theory about how men and women can live love, light, and consciousness in a larger way. I use the word beautiful here, the way physicists use the word beautiful or elegant: it describes the world we experience in the most truthful and accurate way. That doesn't mean we will like that theory. Especially if it conflicts with other deeply held beliefs, but it is still beautiful.

To paraphrase a famous essay that David Deida wrote about Ken Wilbur: David Deida is a Fraud.
He is God's shill in the audience. He the Goddess's circus barker. He uses sex and the idea of the perfect relationship to get us to pony up our dime and enter the tent of higher purpose to learn the secret.

At first, being inside the tent is exhilarating. David does indeed share secrets. But when one secret doesn't get us there, we want another secret. He keeps repackaging the one secret and giving it to us again and again. He gives us feminine and masculine flavors of the secret. He gives us dark and light versions of the secret. But in the end it is still just one secret. And it isn't that the secret isn't true or that the secret won't take us to God in a heartbeat, what drives us to the edge of insanity is that the secret is too hard to live.

So here we are, in the tent of higher purpose that we were tricked into paying to enter and some of us are pissed off.

Our first stage selves want to know "Hey, what's in this for me? I paid my money so will somebody just give me the answer so I can get what I'm looking for."

Our second stage selves are bargaining. "I understand that I have to give something in order to get something, so I will give as long as I'm getting."

But what I want to know is what's in it for God? God's secret, that David shares so craftily, is that when we stop looking to get or be filled and when we stop giving to get or giving in order to be filled, the only thing left is giving because we are full and there is nothing else left to do. We won't stop hurting, but we will stop suffering.

What it takes to make a community work is what it takes to make a relationship work. A first stage community needs the firm control of someone in charge. A second stage community needs a committee and a consensus around rules that make our exchanges safe. A third stage community needs a fearless commitment to be honest and open and to give the best of what we have to bring with no attachment and no expectation. Remember that this is the tent of higher purpose and the secret is nothing more simple and more radical than a shift in perspective from "doing to get" toward "doing to give."

The beauty of a community, even a virtual one, is the beauty of a relationship, it gives one a chance to practice.

So what have I been practicing? I've been away at a business meeting and on the final morning I had to make a short presentation. It was no big deal, but I did take a chance and say things that were a little provocative. After the meeting, I had 5 or 6 people come up to me to give me variations on the same compliment. One woman ( a fellow executive director for an affiliate of our national organization) said, "When you get up to speak, I just kind of relax, because I know that you are going to tell me the truth. You aren't trying to pick a fight, but you won't back down from one either."

That's what I've been practicing here. Doing that with integrity and consistency is something I haven't always been able to do, so it is my practice. But in practicing, I come to realize that I am filled with that capacity or more accurately I am that capacity. I don't expect to get anything from doing it, but I kind of figure I wouldn't have the capacity if I wasn't meant to be giving it. Sometimes I hope God gets something from my increasing my capacity to do it, but there are cable TV programs that are more interesting than my life, so I'm not expecting any big karmic rewards.

I am grateful for this community and the opportunity to practice in the same way that I am grateful for my relationship and the opportunity Kelly gives to me to practice.

So yeah, David Deida is a fraud. I bought the banter. I paid my dime. I was suckered into the tent with the promise of better sex and better relationships. He nearly drove me crazy as I watched my relationship deconstruct before my eyes. He told me everything I needed to do and told me I probably wouldn't manage it. Bastard! His curious little koan of polarity messed with my head and my heart. He tricked me into changing how I lived my life.

So, David Deida, you fucking fraud, at least for tonight, thanks!

Pursue Those

"There are many things in life that will catch your
eye, but only a few will catch your heart . . .
pursue those."

-- Unknown

More on Vulnerability

"We have the strange idea, unsupported by any evidence, that we are loved and admired only for our superb strength, our far-reaching powers, and our all-knowing competency. Yet in the real world, no matter how many relationships may have been initiated by strength and power, no marriage or friendship has ever been deepened by these qualities. After a short, erotic honeymoon, power and omnipotence expose their shadow underbellies and threaten real intimacy, which is based on mutual vulnerability. After the bows have been made to the brass god of power, we find in the privacy of relationship that same god suddenly immobile and inimitable to conversation. As brass gods ourselves, we wonder why we are no longer loved in the same way we were at our first appearance. Our partners have begun to find our infallibility boring and, after long months or years, to find us false, frightening, and imprisoning.

We have the same strange idea in work as we do in love: that we will engender love, loyalty and admiration in others by exhibiting a great sense of power and competency. We are surprised to find that we garner fear and respect but forgo the other, more intimate magic. Real, undying loyalty in work can never be legislated or coerced; it is based on a courageous vulnerability that invites others by our example to a frontier conversation whose outcome is yet in doubt.

We have an even stranger idea: that we will finally fall in love with ourselves only when we have become the totally efficient organized organism we have always wanted to be and left all of bumbling ineptness behind. Yet in exactly the way we come to find love and intimacy with others through vulnerability, we come to those same qualities in ourselves through living out the awkwardness of not knowing, of not being in charge.

We try to construct a life in which we will be perfect, in which we will eliminate awkwardness, pass by vulnerability, ignore ineptness, only to pass through the gate of our lives and find, strangely, that the gateway is vulnerability itself. The very place we are open to the world whether we like it or not.”

-- David Whyte

Asking

My dogs are not shy about asking for what they want and doing it at any time. It doesn’t matter what I’m doing they’ll ‘ask’, it could be yoga, reading, watching a movie, sleeping, at the computer. They might use a paw to want to be petted, or bring a ball or rope to play, or grab a leash to go for a walk. They are as creative as can be. I’m sure most dogs are like this.

Kids aren’t much different. They are in the moment and just ask for what they want or need whether it’s good or a toy or a hug. They just go for it.

Of course kids and dogs don’t always get what they ask for, but at least they aren’t shy about asking.

For an adult, we might call the behavior of dogs or kids rude, but we don’t. We understand their nature.

As we grow we are taught what’s appropriate and what’s not – what’s rude. So we stop asking because of what we’ve been taught. There’s some external protocol we’re supposed to follow and we have an internal association of guilt or weakness that goes along with asking.

What if we all just asked for what we wanted? Certainly we won’t get it all the times. Wouldn’t it be freeing just to ask with no judgment associated with it, internal or external?

Vulnerability

Today I found a link by Owen Marcus to a TED talk by Brene Brown. I've watched a bunch of talks from TED and this has to be one of the best I've ever seen. Brown has powerful ideas about shame, guilty, vulnerability, worthiness, and courage. Amazing that she packs so much into just 20 minutes.

After watching both that TED talk and this one, also by Brown, I'm at a loss for words. Mostly I want to share so others this these talks as well. They really drive to the heart of being human.

Just watch