A Virtual Micro-class
The Power of a Positive No
This time for women in particular!
Tuesdays, October 3 & 10 at 11 am pacific
Like to listen? Click here
What speed are you?
One meaning of “anthropos”, or human being, is “to look up”.
Simply looking up is something I suggest to the driven achievers I coach. Too often activators, strategists, analytics and dot-connectors, people who have a personal standard for how they like getting stuff done, forget or override themselves -and not in the good way.
Rather than being in the productive flow of self-forgetting, they’re a bit too at home with the punishing kind.
I like telling such achiever types to recall, through their day, whether blue sky or gray, evening darkness or moonlight, to look up now and then from what they have tunnel vision about. Paradoxically, this same RX applies to times when you find yourself ensnared by confusion.
Not as a needless interruption, but to sustain yourself.
Any creative process worth its salt has interludes where we gain and lose perspective. Taking a breathe streamlines a gentle return to an energetic vantage point.
When it’s time to befriend the intensity of your inner life, to integrate yourself into your daily encounters with a bit more intention or have a taste of self-kindness, unplugging via simply looking up at one end of the spectrum, or meditating at the other, is an option. (As a longtime meditator, I am a fan).
Secreted in every confusion, self-doubt or unmanaged strength is the opportunity to train the mind. A nice place to begin is by considering your mindset as the inner friend, though at times it feels more like an inner elf/diva or dictator/dominatrix.
A client from six years ago, recently returned for a refresher. Greg had jumped ship from successfully managing a UX team to entrepreneurship; he now ran his own agency. Calling his business building adventure intense, is putting it mildly.
Greg hoped our session would help “Make sense of the spaghetti my mind currently is!”
Indeed, I knew him to be a busy being with a beautifully overactive mindset he was learning to befriend. Years ago, I suggested he carry a book of haiku to glance at for a dollop of replenishing interference through his day. I had mentioned Matsuo Basho (1644 – 1694).
Asking him about this, it was sweet surprise to learn he had done exactly this. Without missing a beat, Greg recited a favorite of his:
tsunu mo oshi
tsumano mo oshiki
sumire kana.
I regret picking
and not picking
violets.
Anonymous from 1600's
And yet.
Clients on a steady diet of accomplishment who often love what they do -otherwise savvy people -come to my coaching with a desire for more well-being and North Star alignment. Their knee-jerk is to consider any pause midstream, not only to replenish but to ask "Am I even working on the right strategy?" as extra.
One client shared how no matter how maxed out we are, people measure each other by boasting about how busy they are.
Another said “My goal is to take one deep breath a week”. I respected her for this.
A third client, at the close of our session, was beaming. When I asked why, she said “I haven’t looked at my phone once in 40 minutes."
We are all doing so much, taking care of so much, overextended and in overdrive so often. Given days immersed in a ton of input/output, you deserve to restore. It’s like the message on an airplane to put your air mask on first, to be able to help others.
Leading workshops in the accelerated pressure-cabin of work life, I open each sesh with a short meditation I call “Just Arrive”. We begin class this way too.
Good reverie helps the soul
take advantage of its rest and of an easy unity.
- Gaston Bachelard, The Poetics of Reverie (1884 - 1962)
Practicing this as an ensemble moves us from a clenched, message delivery stance to unclenching and to generative unknowing. Just accepting the facticity of the moment. For a few minutes, we let the benevolent light of quiet in.
I coach clients with active minds, narratives and momentums. One shared a reluctance to meditate saying “I love my thoughts; I don’t want to get rid of them”. Oh my gosh, they were preaching to the choir!
Meditation is not about denying thoughts, as much as befriending their endless rainbow & muddy variations!
A beneficent beauty is activated with courage to still for a moment to simply listen -and sort through -what is going on in your upstairs.
You allow the invaluable future scenario-building to unfold more organically. Will you do it perfectly the first time out? Nope, cut yourself slack! The main point is to get started! ...Just Arrive to beginning 🙂
I knew Greg had a dog. Rain or shine, he walks Tank every day.
As with dogs, so it is with restless minds -constantly chewing on the gristle of inventing, catalyzing, implementing, strategizing, designing! The raw churning of powerhouse minds requires a daily walk too. Literally and figuratively.
The fear & beauty of quieting is you
are the only other guest at the party.
One night I had a simple dream of how the most important thing is to think fresh thoughts every day.
The beauty is how willing your mindset is to meet you where you are, given half a chance.
Then, with consistent attention, it opens doors to new scenarios. In addition to the reprieve and relaxation, you are birthing fresh, only imagined aspects of yourself.
All of humanity’s problems stem
from the inability of one human to sit
quietly in a room alone.
- Blaise Pascal, Mathematician & Physicist (1623 – 1662)
Seated next to an insightful CFO at a friend’s birthday bash, they mentioned exploring meditation.
I hear this often in coaching and have nothing but respect for the desire to embed a recurrent respite within your life.
Whether savoring a haiku, developing a five minute meditation practice or attending a 10 day silent retreat, learning to rebalance by peel away from the pressures of our VUCAP (velocity, urgency, complexity, ambiguity, polarity) times to catch your breath is invaluable.
Well-being matters.
No matter how grubby, fragile, scattered, crappy, confusing or flustered:
Just Arrive to where you find yourself in this moment.
Just Arrive to the unaltered present.
Just a radical acceptance of how things are.
To all there is to be done, to all you haven’t quite done and to all that won’t get done. Doing so fresh vistas open, that's a promise!
Nothing to do but inhale/exhale. In one breath we let everything be as it is. Closing our eyes, we may listen to ambient sound – a dog, a car, a bell -as we allow the possibility of ourselves, the scruffy work-in-progress we are, to bob to the surface.
How to begin? Be imperfect!
Get comfortable.
Just sitting. Closing our devices and our eyes. Unplugging.
Allowing for any nervousness, impatience or annoyance.
Allow the lush disengagement from speech to wash over you.
Melt for a minute. There is nothing to accomplish. Just Arrive.
Your very own impromptu “Come As You Are” party!
(And now, am going to take my own advice:)
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Speaking of Just Arrive,
my MBA students baked me this pie!
What would you love to arrive to?