Awaken Engage

“Do your best and let go of the outcome.” This was the advice of my fellow teacher and good friend, Jeff Goldman, as we were navigating what seemed like the impossible demands of our school in Washington, D.C. Jeff was older and wiser and lived a much more balanced life than I did at that time. I was wfinding myself burning out because I couldn’t do everything I was being asked at 100%. No one could.

At the time, I think there was at least a part of me that heard Jeff’s advice and felt like he didn’t care as much as I did. Oh boy. That’s embarrassing to admit, but it is pretty accurate.

My unwritten rule was “Do your best and control the outcome. If the outcome isn’t what you wanted it to be, you didn’t try your best.”

Yeah. That’s pretty close to the way I lived.

The folly of that way of thinking is clearly visible at this stage of my life.

I’m twice as old now and I have had to come to terms with the limits of what I do control. In fact, I control almost nothing.

I love how Michael Singer describes the job we assume when we try to make life go our way:

“Just stop for a moment and see what you have given your mind to do. You said to your mind, ‘I want everyone to like me. I don’t anyone to speak badly of me. I want everything I say and do to be acceptable and pleasing to everyone. I don’t want anyone to hurt me. I don’t want anything to happen that I don’t like. And I want everything to happen that I do like.’ Then you said, ‘Now, mind, figure out how to make every one of these things a reality, even if you have to think about it day and night.’ And of course your mind said, ‘I’m on the job. I will work on it constantly’…

That is why your mind is so active; you gave it an impossible task to do.

You could actually live your life instead of fearing or fighting it.

You have given your mind an impossible task by asking it to manipulate the world in order to fix your personal inner problems.

If you want to achieve a healthy state of being, stop asking your mind to do this.

Just relieve your mind of the job of making sure that everyone and everything will be the way you need them to be so that you can feel better inside. Your mind is not qualified for that job. Fire it, and let go of your inner problems instead.

The keys to be quiet. It’s not that your mind has to be quiet.

You be quiet.

You, the one inside watching the neurotic mind, just relax.

You will then naturally fall behind the mind because you have always been there.

You are not the thinking mind; you are aware of the thinking mind. You are the consciousness that is behind the mind and is aware of the thoughts. The minute you stop putting your whole heart and soul into the mind as if it were your savior and protector, you will find yourself behind the mind watching it. That’s how you know about your thoughts: you are in there watching them. Eventually, you will be able to just sit in there quietly, and consciously watch the mind.

Withdraw your attention, and the thinking mind falls away.

Fall behind the noise.

Keep relaxing and releasing.

Just be there, noticing that you notice.

Just let go.” (The Untethered Soul, pp. 91-96)

Or, in the simple and lavishly wise words of Jeff Goldman,

“Do your best, and let go of the outcome.”

Today has been a day of giving, giving, and giving. In the reciprocal nature of things, there has also been much receiving as well, but I’m running on fumes as I finish writing.

I’m doing my best.

And, I’m letting go of the outcome.

Falling behind the noise of the mind.

Relaxing and releasing.

That’ll do.

This will do.

Peace.

“Ultimately, what stands against the storms of extremism, the spread of untruths, and the threat of nihilism, is the awakened individual. Unless we find the inner truths of our own lives, and the underlying sense of unity that is secretly present in each soul, we inadvertently add to the growing darkness, divisions, and confusion that already threaten the world.

The uniqueness of each individual life is the treasure hard to find. It’s the secret of the elixir in the individual. It’s the eternal thread that secretly weaves through all living things.

The awakening, the healing, and the blossoming of our own souls becomes the way we can best contribute to the healing and the renewal that is secretly trying to happen even, and especially, when the world around us and the ocean of existence is churning again.” (Michael Meade. Living Myth Podcast. Episode 373: Lies that Poison, Truths that Heal).

Michael Meade is a mythologist, author, and speaker whose work is as important as anyone’s to help us steer through the storms of our lives, both individually and collectively.

My friend, Dan Price, sent me an episode of Living Myth last year and, since then, Michael has been a part of my awakening.

Obviously, from the title of my website to the name of this podcast, the idea of awakening is one that is important to me. In fact, it is central to my life and everything that I do.

To become fully present and fully alive.

To know who I am and to step out of identification with the changing phenomena of this world that can satisfy momentarily but do not satisfy the deep yearning of the Soul.

To let each moment, each desire, each sensation be a guide to awakening and living well while in this body here and now.

I wholeheartedly resonate with Meade when he says, “The awakening, the healing, and the blossoming of our own souls becomes the way we can best contribute to the healing and the renewal [of our world]” (emphasis mine).

Nothing comes close to touching my soul more than the awakening of a soul that seemed to be lost without hope of finding its way.

And I’m not the only one, as evidenced by the thousands of stories with such awakening as their central theme.

Last year, the Idaho Shakespeare Festival did a magnificent run of “Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812.”

No experience in live theater has moved me to such a depth more than the scene when the lost soul Pierre steps out alone into the night, feeling as if he has wasted his life, and gifts us with his inner journey in the song “Dust and Ashes.”

Is this how I die?

Ridiculed and laughed at

Wearing clown shoes

Is this how I die?

Furious and reckless

Sick with booze

How did I live?

I taste every wasted minute

Every time I turned away

From the things that might have healed me

How long have I been sleeping?

Is this how I die?

Frightened like a child

Lazy and numb

Is this how I die?

Pretending and preposterous

And dumb

How did I live?

Was I kind enough and good enough?

Did I love enough?

Did I ever look up and see the moon and the stars and the sky?

Oh, why have I been sleeping?

They say we are asleep until we fall in love

We are children of dust and ashes

But when we fall in love we wake up

And we are a god and angels weep

But if I die here tonight

I die in my sleep

All of my life I spent searching the words of poets and saints and prophets and kings

Now at the end all I know that I've learned is that all that I know is I don't know a thing

So easy to close off

Place the blame outside

Hiding in my room at night

So terrified

All the things I could've been

But I never had the nerve

Life and love, I don't deserve

So alright!

Alright!

I've had my time

Close my eyes

Let the death bells chime!

Bury me in burgundy

I just don't care!

Nothing's left

I looked everywhere!

Is this how I die?

Was there ever any other way my life could be?

Is this how I die?

Such a slough of feelings inside of me

(Note: It is here, at the time when it feels like Pierre is giving up, that he hears his soul and there is a change in the pulse of his heart and attitude of his mind from one of despair to one of questioning and wondering.)

But then why am I screaming?

Why am I shaking?

Oh God, was there something that I missed?

Did I squander my divinity?

Was happiness within me the whole time?

They say we are asleep until we fall in love

We are children of dust and ashes

But when we fall in love we wake up

And we are a god and angels weep

But if I die here tonight

I die in my sleep

(Note: And now something rises up in Pierre, a resurrected longing to wake up and live, to use what is left of his life to awaken).

They say we are asleep until we fall in love

And I'm so ready

To wake up now

I wanna wake up

Don't let me die while I'm like this

I wanna wake up

God, don't let me die while I'm like this

Please let me wake up now

God, don't let me die while I'm like this

I'm ready

I'm ready

To wake up

As I mentioned earlier, the first time I heard this song and saw it performed, I was shaken to the core. An almost full moon shone over the outdoor theater along the Boise River that summer night and Pierre stood alone on stage, crying out, pleading, and, ultimately, surrendering.

I could hear my soul joining in chorus with Pierre’s. Finding a treasure hard to find. The eternal thread that weaves through all living things. The underlying unity that awakens, heals, and blossoms.

I want to wake up.

More and more and more.

I hear the refrain from a childhood song:

This little light of mine. I wanna let it shine.

All my life, this has been the driving passion of my life and the song that my soul longs to sing.

More and more, I am awakening, letting the light shine, and singing the song of my heart and soul.

I am going to let it shine.

I am letting it shine.

To conclude, one of my students recently shared the following words by Marianne Williamson: “There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do…And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Shine on.

Awaken.

Engage with life.

We need you.

Peace.

As many of you know, I recently decided to give the following universal virtue my full attention and adopt it as a life code: I never speak or act out of anger.

I have already unpacked the idea of “universal virtue” in a previous post, so I’ll spare the reader and listener any more description of the phrase except to say that it is a virtue that one commits to, regardless.

“I never speak or act out of anger” has to do with me, not others or circumstances.

I am not yet a week into my commitment to this code and have already noticed abundant fruit in my life and the avoidance of a number of destructive fires that I could have started and which would likely still be raging within and interpersonally.

There is more room in my heart and in my head. I feel more spacious. I feel more centered. I feel more of my inherent strength.

I am finding that choosing one code naturally connects to every other code, inasmuch as committing to one code makes us more alert and consciously aware of all of life.

Several times today, I felt the tingling of anger developing within me. I checked in with it to see if it was the kind of anger that is appropriate for the situation and that should prompt right action.

Each time, the anger was a matter of irritation and limited perspective.

By taking the time to check in on it, feeling the sensation in my body, and coming back to the grounding life of breath, I also gave myself time to look around and see what else I might be missing.

Each time, I found that I had been missing a lot.

The experience is similar to looking around with a patch on one eye for awhile, then noticing that I’m only seeing with one eye and removing the patch to see a fuller and truer and more accurate perspective.

I can’t tell you how many times I have received a text message or email, thought it said something, got all riled up, and spent the day working it around in my mind and body only to find out later, when I re-read the text or email in my “right mind,” that it did not say what I thought it said.

There are times when I have not only misinterpreted the text or email, I have left some parts of the message completely unread — important phrases, key words, syntactical cues, and subtle nuance.

It was as if, operating out of the natural negativity bias of the human brain, I went into a reactive mode that engaged the lower-back parts of the brain that are great for fight/flight/freeze but not at all good for most of daily life in the modern era where we need to engage the top-front parts of our brain that help us think, reason, problem-solve, and communicate clearly.

Commitment and consistency have been keys to countering this natural negativity bias, gaining new perspectives, building resilience, moving out of reactivity, and developing the cognitive/emotional/somatic awareness to respond to life in ways that are more loving, wiser, and creative.

For much of my life, I poo-pooed routine and consistency because they felt legalistic, formulaic, and too restrictive for my free spirit that loves to trust its intuition, act spontaneously, and not be fenced in. 

The irony has been that my commitment to daily routines (such as ice baths, sitting meditation, breath retention, exercise, and writing) has helped free my spirit even more, connect me to deeper intuition, and feel more open to acting with wisdom in the moment because of the connection to an unchanging core that I experience as a safe haven and secure base.

As Spring approaches, I feel like I am experiencing the birth of new life within that I haven’t seen before.

With that sentiment, I’ll let Lorin Roche take us home.

“Oceans embrace a continent.

Space welcomes the sun.

Embrace yourself this generously.

Form your arms into a circle

And cherish the arising of serenity.

Attend the birth of something new.

Thoughts dissolve into peace,

As you become the One who embraces All.” (Radiance Sutras, p. 91)

Peace

Editor’s Note: Our family plays a version of Uno that came to be called “White Chocolate Badger.” Here is the story behind the name, a story that was first told on an Idaho mountain summer morning to a young boy asking for a tall tale while waiting for the sun to rise.

Once upon a time, there was a lonely albino badger. He lived in a badger community with a badger family, but never seemed to fit in like the rest of the badgers.

Strangely, the only way that he could get anyone to spend time with him was to allow them to lick his white pelt.

His life motto could have been summed up as follows: If you don’t like me, lick me.

One day, tired of being licked to be liked, he left the loathed life he had led and went to the local city park where he saw a group of children drawing at a picnic table. He came up to them in an effort to make some new friends, but as soon as they saw him, they screamed and ran away.

Alone at the picnic table, he saw the half-finished drawings and decided to give it a try.

As he was finishing up his first sketch, the children (who had hidden behind a nearby tree) crept up and shooed him off.

“Badgers can’t draw!” they yelled after him as he scurried away.

Wallowing in his most recent rejection story, he walked along the edge of the park pond and seemed to hear the baying of an angry hunting dog.

He had never swum but he was more scared of dogs than water, so he jumped into the pond.


To his surprise, he was a rather good swimmer and soon reached the far shore, out of the reach of the dog that wasn’t really a dog but just one of the children acting like a dog.

He got out of the water feeling great about his swimming feat, then looked back and noticed a milky white line through the water, tracing the exact path of his escape swim.

He dipped his badger hand into the water, collected some of the white substance, smelled it, and then tasted it.

“White chocolate!!”

A sudden realization struck him. Someone had dipped him in white chocolate as a baby.

Back at the badger community, the badgers were doing their badger things when the lonely badger came running up.

“You guys! Someone dipped me in white chocolate.”


“Oh, we know,” said the badgers.

“Well, why didn’t you tell me?” said White Chocolate Badger.

“Where’s the fun in that?” they replied.

Uno.

I’ll begin with the disclaimer that this piece should probably begin where it is ending, but it doesn’t, so here we go. Let’s see what happens.

Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “I’m simply interested in what is going to happen next. I don’t think I can control my life or my writing. Every other writer I know feels he is steering himself, and I don’t have that feeling. I don’t have that sort of control. I’m simply becoming. I’m startled that I became a writer.”

Studying literacy and composition in my undergrad, Vonnegut was a writer with whom I often identified, not so much because of his writing, but because of his writing about writing.

His idea of “simply becoming” still speaks to me, although I hear it differently than I did 30 years ago. Messing around with language, I would probably say that I “simply am,” or maybe that I “simply am-ing” as I am simply becoming.

And, while there is a level that I can influence my life and writing, I do agree that I don’t so much control it. I am “simply am-ing” as I engage with the moments of life and the moments of writing.


Then there is that part where Vonnegut said he’s simply interested in what is going to happen next.

But I’ve become more and more interested in what’s happening now, which maybe makes what happens next shine even more when that moment is now.

Maybe I should have chosen another quote :).

Let’s see. The steering part. Yeah. I agree. I don’t feel like I’m steering myself, at least not completely.


But much of the recent emphasis of my life has been geared toward becoming consciously aware of life, which has led to more conviction, lasting commitments, clearer goals, and maybe more steering.

Well, I still like the quote, but I’m somewhere in both/and land, which also seems to be where I simply am-ing more and more in life.

I used to read this quote and quotes like it written by writers I admired and I would really feel it and want to fight for it and identify with it and say, “You got it right, Kurt! I’m like you!”

But now I know that I already am like Kurt. And I’m like “them”. I’m like us. I am-ing like us. And we are.

I suppose this short essay has devolved a bit, but it can’t be helped because what I began to write about was Kurt Vonnegut’s famous quote, “Write what you know” until I discovered that for the past 30 years I’ve been mis-attributing something to him that at least dates back to Mark Twain.

I’m sorry for many years of ignorance, Mr. Twain. It was at least honest. I will do better and someday, I will write about things that I know, things like simply becoming and letting go of control.

Tonight, though, I will just pass along the quote I should have begun with as a prelude of what was to come, is coming, and has now come:

“When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.”

Well, sometimes. :-)

Thanks anyway, Kurt. It feels good to be known.

Peace

“A strong community helps people develop a sense of self, for only in community can the self exercise and fulfill its nature: giving and taking, listening and speaking, being and doing. But when community unravels and we lose touch with one another, the self atrophies and we lose touch with ourselves as well. Lacking opportunities to be ourselves in a web of relationships, our sense of self disappears, leading to behaviors that further fragment our relationships and spread the epidemic of inner emptiness” (Palmer, 39)

Parker Palmer penned these words in A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life in 2004. I happened upon the book as soon as it was published while studying developmental psychology in my Masters program. It was hugely influential in my life then and has continued to be a source of support and encouragement for two decades now.

For 20 years, I have been slowly and imperfectly moving toward the undivided life that Palmer refers to, sometimes more intentionally and consciously aware than others.

Much of my work in my “former life” with The College Board involved working with diverse groups of people, often groups who were not excited to see us and were reluctant to listen to outsiders who were supposed to have answers they didn’t.

I was lucky enough to be studying group theory in my Masters of Counseling program at the same time I was facilitating these groups around the United States, and it was the perfect opportunity to practice.

Soon, it seemed that if I was going to a school district, something was on fire and resistance was high.

I loved it. I loved the challenge of being with a group of people I had never met, finding out who they were, listening to their problems and complaints, and working alongside of them so that the best versions of their Selves emerged.

Each training, by the end of the first day (sometimes by lunch on the first day), there was a growing sense of alignment - shared values, shared goals, and shared determination to do the work that needed to be done together.

There were really tough cases, though, including an older teacher named Dr. A who called me over to her table the first morning of a training and said, “Boy, are you planning on becoming an administrator?” I said, “No.” She said, “Thank God, because you’d be terrible at that, too.”

I smiled and told her that I hoped she would give me the chance to change her mind and asked for any specific feedback that she might have that I could use to be better at my job.

She didn’t have any feedback.

And she didn’t like my response. She turned her back to me and started talking about me to her table group.

To be fair, Dr. A had a reason to be upset and what she was upset about had nothing to do with me.

The Second Agreement in the book The Four Agreements is “Don’t Take Anything Personally.” What people do is because of themselves.

This is a hard lesson to learn and I certainly hadn’t learned it way back then, but I was learning it.

During a break in our training, we learned that many of the participants had been given pink slips - they had lost their jobs that very morning with no warning - but were required to finish the training for the rest of that week. And it was only Monday.

This training was at the end of the school year, which meant many of our participants were sitting through a training they wouldn’t be able to use the next year after just finding out that they had been fired.

In my Masters program, I had just learned that there are three sub-groups of people in any group: buyers, sellers, and visitors. The positive folks are the buyers, the naysayers and complainers are the sellers, and the folks on the fence are the visitors. Naysayers tend to sit with each other and work (consciously or unconsciously) to bring the visitors to their side. If this goes unchecked, the negative energy spreads quickly through the group, eventually taking it over.

By noon, I had a sense of who was who in the subgroups and so I re-grouped the tables so that the strongest naysayers were alone at tables of mostly buyers and a few strong visitors, thus redistributing the energy. Negativity takes a lot of energy and without a constant dose of affirmation from her fellow naysayers, Dr. A found her voice becoming more and more the subject of the room’s ire.

Visitors began to become buyers, those who were light-sellers drifted to visitor status, and the whole vibe of the room changed and became positive enough to move us into the working stage.

By the afternoon of the first day, Dr. A was still at it, disagreeing with everything that we did, spending her time in her group trying to recruit people to her position, sowing dissent, and attempting to bring a spirit of negativity to every moment.

But she was wearing out.

And finally, after she intentionally misrepresented her group’s position while reporting out to the whole group, several of her group members stood up by their table and called her out in front of the room. They asked her to leave if she couldn’t find a way to find the better part of herself as they had done. They acknowledged how ridiculously hard the situation was and they empathized with her. But they called her out of her negativity and they called her up to her better self.

It was a very humbling moment for us all.

There was no sense of satisfaction that she had been put in her place, but there was a sense that we would move forward together. Dr. A didn’t say much after that, but her group didn’t ignore her and kept engaging her as appropriate.

At the end of the day, as she was leaving, I checked in with her to see if there was anything more we could do to help make the best of the situation. She didn’t have anything to say to me, but she also knew that she was welcome, that her voice was welcome. Her scowl at me wasn’t quite as intense as she walked away that day.

By the end of the five days of training, Dr. A hadn’t had anything like a complete turnaround, but she wasn’t derailing her group anymore. She had several tender moments with her group members during the week in which they were able to comfort her in her real and felt sense of discouragement and despair.

I found myself in awe of the people in that room. 1/3 of my group had lost their jobs. And yet they showed up and participated and gave of themselves and approached the training as a chance to be the best version of themselves in the midst of incredible challenge. “Inspiring” doesn’t do justice to describe the scene.

As we finished the final day, one of the older male teachers in the group came up to me and handed me a card. He then told me that before this week, he had lost all sense of purpose and hope in his profession. The past few years had been an unbearable grind.

“But, that hope and purpose are back. I can’t remember feeling this alive and vibrant and excited to do what I love doing. I found my light again.”

He then shook my hand and walked out the door.

Palmer says, “We cannot embrace the challenge [of being whole] all alone, at least, not for long: we need trustworthy relationships, tenacious communities of support, if we are to sustain the journey toward an undivided life” (Palmer, 10).

My week with those teachers wasn’t an official “Circle of Trust” that Palmer advocates for, but it was a week in which a group of human beings accessed the deeper parts of their souls in community and experienced - albeit incompletely and with exceptions - a sense of deep meaning, purpose, and hope in the process.

As I walked out of that building, I had the sense that I was doing something that made my soul come alive, that I was finding my light. Little did I know what would be in store for me in the coming years and how my sense of calling and identity would seem to come to a sudden and shocking end before it would be re-birthed in more fertile soil with deeper roots.

Today, riding home along the Boise River from Boise State University after teaching and working with groups of students, I felt radiating joy and gratitude for this new season of life, a season where I am increasingly joining with others in what are becoming caring, safe, supportive, and vibrant communities where our souls are venturing out of isolation and into the meadow of life.

We are finding our light together.

So good.

Peace.

Holy buckets!!! This universal virtue business of “I never speak or act out of anger” is a doozy!!

From the outside looking in, I’m not a person who displays anger very often. Many people I know haven’t seen me exhibit anger in an outward way.

But. Wow.

On a micro-level, I am noticing how my blood pressure rises during the day and how my mouth and body are reacting in ways that, while indiscernible in most cases, are reactivity in action inside my body. And these reactions keep me from living at harmony with myself and others.

Today, two instances occurred within a very short time of each other. In the first, I felt like I was being taken advantage of (a biggie for me because I shut my voice off for many years and let people cross boundaries). In the second, I found myself in stark disagreement of a friend’s actions.

In both cases, no one on the outside could see the reactivity brewing inside of me. My mind was in target-lock mode and my vision narrowed into a very small perspective with little to no ability to see other perspectives and other choices.

Not speaking and acting out of anger is an inside job.

So, I went inside with the focus of my awareness.

Literally, I decided to lie down and meditate by finding my breath, deepening my breath, feeling the natural relaxing chemical elixir that follows such breathing.

Then, I decided to look around and feel what was going on inside.

I noticed a lot of constriction in my neck and throat area, accompanied by an unsettled stomach and a sense of high frequency movement in the body.

So, I just felt them.


I turned the spotlight of my attention on them and just felt into the center of the sensations, feeling around them, their perimeters, their cores.

As I did, I noticed that my breathing deepened again and the feelings began to migrate and change and transform into other feelings.

I also noticed that my mind allowed itself to unlock from the targets. I didn’t try to figure out why I was thinking the way I was or solve any problems or write any new stories.

As soon as I felt into the sensations, they morphed, and the attached thoughts morphed with them. I noticed a whole world of possibilities within my cognition and belief systems that literally had not existed in my awareness 5 minutes before. 


The creative unconscious at work.

Wow.

Jack Kornfield says, “If you become aware of your feelings, they don’t last very long. We feel like we’re angry for a day, or sad for a week, or happy for a month, or grieving for a while — as if those feelings lasted that long. But if you look closely and you let yourself feel what is here and pay attention — feelings rarely last more than thirty seconds, maybe a minute, and then turn into something else. Guaranteed. If you have some feeling that feels like it’s lasted much longer than that, you haven’t paid attention to it. This is how loving awareness frees us.”

I first read Jack’s words while I was doing the ice bath meditations. I have done extensive work with feeling sensation in the body through my TBI recovery and training/practice with yoga nidra and mindfulness meditation. But I had never had someone talk specifically about the potential brevity of the sensations when we look at them and give them our loving awareness, our welcoming presence.

So, I’ve been watching and feeling feelings with Jack’s words in mind/heart as these months have progressed in 2024. I haven’t found an exception.

Including today.


As soon as I stopped creating stories, trying to think my way out of the feelings, trying to problem solve, trying to get away from the feelings (all while being in target-lock mode), as soon as I stopped and simply and intentionally allowed myself to feel what I was feeling, the feelings evolved. In fact, some of them had the sense of dissolving.

Today was one of many incredible moments, but brought more into focus because of this universal virtue I am working with: I never speak or act out of anger.

Inside, where the anger was today, was a part of me just waiting for attention, waiting to be heard and seen and connected with. And as soon as it was, it was able to finish its job and move along, no longer dammed up within me.

Target successfully unlocked. Reactivity transformed into responsiveness.

Wise action followed this sequence and my next steps were performed out of a sense of calm, clarity, and peace. Wow.

Wow.

Peace

In my Peace and Well-Being in an Age of Anxiety course at Boise State University, students and I are using Buddha’s Brain by Rick Hanson and recently came across the compelling phrase “unilateral virtue.”

Hanson says, “Virtue sounds lofty, but it’s actually down to earth. It simply means living from your innate goodness, guided by principle. When you are virtuous no matter what other people do, their behavior is not controlling you.

He continues, “As a therapist, I’ve seen many couples in which each person says essentially the same thing, “I’ll treat you well after you treat me well.” They’re stuck in a standoff — which neither of them truly wants - because they’re each letting the other person determine their behavior.

On the other hand, when you are unilaterally virtuous, you head directly toward your own enlightened self-interest whether or not the other person cooperates. It feels good to be good, enjoying ‘the bliss of blamelessness’ with a mind untroubled by guilt or regret. Staying principled fosters inner peace by reducing wrangles that would otherwise weigh on your mind...Doing the right thing draws on both head and heart” (p. 146).

It occurs to me how our world would change overnight if just 10% of the population decided to live this way.

And it occurs to me how my life and the world I interact with would change immediately if I apply unilateral virtue to several areas of my life.

Hanson gives the example of the Wise Speech section of Buddhism’s Noble Eightfold Path: “Say only what is well-intended, true, beneficial, timely, expressed without harshness or malice, and - ideally - what is wanted.” Hanson decided to take up the precept of never speaking or acting our of anger and found that it forced him to slow down in interactions, to avoid making matters worse by pouring gasoline of anger on a smoldering fire, and to feel down below the anger for the real issue (e.g., hurt, worry, guilt). This leads to feeling good about ourselves and to know that we can stay in control and not add our own reactivity to a tense situation.

He quickly adds that this doesn’t mean not speaking up for ourselves and others in situations where boundaries are crossed and need to be re-established.

That being said, I felt a wave of “dis-comfort” in reading his example, knowing that something was pinging my heart and calling me out.

I have a list of missteps throughout my life that are directly connected to my reactivity coming out of my mouth and making tense situations worse.

I don’t like to admit this or write it down for anyone to see.


But I see it.

And, since I’m doing these challenges (that includes taking this writing challenge another 30 days), I figure it is time to bring this intention into the foreground and to work with it explicitly.

So, here goes my version:


I never speak or act out of anger.

When angry, I wait to speak and act by staying in touch with my deeper feelings and wants, taking responsibility for getting my needs met, communicating primarily for myself, experiencing my truth as I speak it, and preserving my fundamental orientation of compassion and kindness.

Shorter: I never speak or act out of anger. When angry, I wait to speak and act by allowing myself to accept and feel what is in my body. I embrace what is present.

I have no doubts that I will have moments where I veer off of the road, but the signpost of my intentions will be there to remind me to get right back on and to act wisely and compassionately in the present.

I never speak or act out of anger.

It is so interesting how it is necessary to use the word “never” to really feel this sink into my heart. It flushes out the opposite of the pair that I might work with it in the present. That opposite is “I do speak and act out of anger sometimes.”

And while this may seem like word play, try it out for yourself. Find a statement that connects to a unilateral virtue that you want to establish in your heart.

And then play around with words like “always”, “never”, and “sometimes”. Feel it in your body. You will notice that there is an energy to these words and their implications. Choose the one the seems to fit your intention.

I never speak or act out of anger. I always speak and act out of wisdom, love, truth and compassion.

For now, I’m just going with the simple “I never speak or act out of anger.”

That is actually enough. Those 8 words will guide me where I need to go and be a clear signpost along the way.

And it will be fun to chronicle this journey into a place that has been calling me for some time.

Update: in the brief time between writing this and getting ready to publish it, I have had plenty of opportunities to practice and this is much more of a challenge than I anticipated, especially with my family. I am noticing how reactive I have been with anger and how it seeps out in words and actions in very subtle ways. Just after I walked the dog tonight, I felt quite misunderstood by a family member and I could feel myself getting ready to say something that was being birthed from the anger.

As I was getting ready to just react, I heard “I never speak or act out of anger.”

And that actually kind of “made” me angrier! Haha! I felt so justified in my initial reaction.

However, since this is now an experiment and a bit of a game, I gave myself a pause, took a deep breath, felt the sensations in the body, evaluated whether or not I needed to say anything at all, and watched as the feeling passed.

It was quite temporal. Less than 30 seconds. But it was really hot at first and the impulse was very strong.

And I realized how I have been letting other people and external situations too much control over my behavior. Thus, the need for a universal virtue that I abide in and by.

Yeah. I have found something in my life that needs to be purified by this fire. Here we go!

As Hanson says, “Virtue sounds lofty, but it’s actually down to earth. It simply means living from your innate goodness, guided by principle. When you are virtuous no matter what other people do, their behavior is not controlling you.”

Peace.

February 13, 2016

St. Gertrude’s Spirit Center

On Retreat with Emily

“Each scene is beautiful, no matter what.” Sister Jerri as she was looking out over the Camas Prairie on a cloudy morning in which the sunrise was hidden from view.

“Let it Rise”

Watch the sun rise this morning.

Breath

Taking

Life

Giving

Gratitude

Inducing

Vision

Inspiring

Peace

Bringing

Let it rise.

Let the dream rise within you.

Let faith have its way.

Let your heart hope in certainty.

Let the vision bring its clarity.

Let the calling sound its call.

Let the beauty enliven you.

Let the wonders create wonder within you.

Let the miracles be what they are.

Let the joy be unrestrained.

Let the life live within you.

Let the sun shine upon you.

Let the waves wash over you.

Let rest wrap her arms around you.

Let peace well up within you.

Let the earth sing its song to you.

Let the light be the light.

Let it rise.

Emily and I have the profound sense that we are in the midst of a new season. Some doors are closing while others have begun to open. Passions and dreams that once seemed dead are being given new life. Our hearts are being knit more tightly together. While we don’t know many specifics, we know that our job is to let the dreams rise, wait patiently, and move forward together. Looking forward to the beauty of the next scene.

“Letter to My Heart”

Allow yourself to feel, my heart.

That you might be poised to heal.


To receive healing. 

To be a conduit for healing.

To heal.

Allow yourself to feel deeply, my heart.

That you might be poised to deeply heal.

To receive deep healing.

To be a conduit for deep healing.

To deeply heal.

I will meet you in the longing.

You belong to me.

February 13, 2016

St. Gertrude’s Spirit Center

On Retreat with Emily

Peace

In the middle of the night, I awoke with a full-blown migraine - one of the kinds of migraines that used to stick around for weeks, even months.

When I used to get these kinds of migraines, I would almost panic because of my history with them after the last brain injury. They were excruciating, debilitating, and effectively shut down my normal day-to-day functioning to the point where our entire family’s life had to adjust to accommodate me

Now, to be fair, I spent 12 hours of my life yesterday in a gym full of bright lights, loud crowds, loud music, and as much sensory stimulation as I think a human can endure :-). We entered the gym at 9 a.m. and left at 9 p.m.

I chose it and I’m glad I did.

So, when I awoke in the middle of the night with the mother of migraines, I wasn’t surprised.

And, I wasn’t afraid.

And, I wasn’t deciding how long it was going to stay.

And, I wasn’t beating myself up for putting myself in a setting to get one of these babies.

I was just really aware that I had one.

I don’t have that migraine today.


Yes. That’s right. I don’t even have a slight headache.

When I noticed that the migraine was present in the body, I wish I could tell you what happened and why it isn’t with me today.

But I can’t.

Not really.

I didn’t make it go away.

And, I didn’t make it stay.

So, what happened?

I really, really wish I could access what occurred more clearly than I can, but I have a vague outline.

Years ago, a friend loaned me the book “Zen in the Martial Arts” by Joe Hymas. In the book, Hymas tells the story of a martial arts master who severely injures his hand doing a demonstration and guides his hand back to healing by imagining little men coming to work on it each night before he would go to sleep and while he was asleep. His recovery was, by all accounts, miraculous and unprecedented.

When I was first reading this story, I immediately had a vision that I will re-tell at another time, one that led to incredible and almost instantaneous healing of several symptoms.

And I have invited similar imagery during different stages of healing with different ailments to great “success.”

But that’s not what I did last night.

At least, I didn’t do it intentionally.

All I did was give the migraine permission to exist - to be in my body - and I allowed my Self to become curious about it.

To calm my nervous system, I began to do 4-7-8 breathing (4 inhale, 7 hold, 8 exhale, repeat).

On the breath hold, I noticed a buzzing in my brain, electric and vibrating, accompanied by loud and hot ringing.

During perhaps the third cycle of 4-7-8 breathing, I could feel deeper and deeper into the brain, which was like dry ramen noodles closely bunched together.

As soon as I noticed this felt image of “ramen-ness,” warm fluid began to flow into and around the dry noodles, loosening them, and softening them until they were saturated with liquid and flexible to all subtle movements.

At this point, my consciousn awareness gave way to the deep unconscious awareness and, while I was very awake and alert in this state of consciousness, I was there as an observer rather than an active agent.

In this state, I was aware that there were three pillars of practice that I would cycle through over and over and over throughout the rest of the night.

They were clear and understandable and somatic, but I cannot articulate them in words.

I do remember reciting them so that I could write them down when I came to the fully waking state, but they did not translate into words.

Nor would I really want them to, because what happened wasn’t something that I can cause or intentionally repeat. At least, I don’t think so.

It was the creative unconscious doing what it does and I, somehow, was allowed to witness it unfolding as one witnesses a magic show or a sunrise or a sunset or a summer storm or falling snow or a river flowing.

I can take no credit for how it all transpired.

I have a hunch that becoming good friends with my body and mind and heart and soul through sustained practices of yoga nidra, mindfulness meditation, and guided meditation has at least something to do with it. But I don’t really know that. I can only surmise.

Just learning these practices has been a gift. Grace.

And sitting here today without a migraine is a gift. Grace.

Grace. Grace. Grace.

Peace.