Whisper, the Heart

Angeles Arrien, a cultural anthropologist and famous master storyteller, exorts her readers to "pay attention to what has true heart and meaning."

No matter how many times I read that I seem to forget it. Usually when I need it the most, in the face of adversity, the daily challenges, the ups and downs of life, I go mental.  

We all do it.

Going mental is the safe route.  That's what the mind is there to do, sift through our experiences, our thoughts, make sense of the environment, analyze, compare, and conclude. It throws up solutions at an extraordinary pace, leaving us blinded by our mental superhighway.

And all the while, the heart remains still. It waits, sometimes a really long time. It doesn't speak in words; the language of the heart is more subtle and nuanced. The heart is like the blade of grass that pushes up and cracks the concrete sidewalk. It's insistent, patient, and ever present.

If there was a theme this week in my coaching practice it would be resisting the whisper of the heart. I would ask a client, how does that feel? "Um, well, I think ..."

Deep breathe, how does it feel?

That breathe is the distance between the mind and the heart. It can be a second or a million seconds. If you are patient, if you stalk your feelings, your mind will calm down, enough, for you to hear a soft whisper.

Don't miss it.  The whisperings of the heart tell us what is true, and good, and beautiful in our lives.

The Roar of the Mind

You've felt it, and you know the experience of having a mind that just will not shut off. Jibberish.  Yapping. Blah, blah, blah. The incessant meanderings, the demands, the nagging of a mind running wild, it can take us over, like an assault team. Go here, do this, read that, buy the other thing, what did he mean by that?, are you sure?, what if..., I can't, we don't...

And yet, the mind is our ally if only we would make it so.  Everyday is a choice to dedicate our thoughts and our energy to something that produces a quality of joy or hope. That's not the easy route.  The easy route would have us building walls, setting up barricades in a fruitless attempt to shut out, protect, and disconnect. If you're shaking your head right now, then you don't recognize that judgment, criticism, blame, and gossip, are some of the greatest and strongest walls we can create. That's the easy route.

Having read my posts before, you know already that feeding our thoughts is the most conscious and awake action we can take.  What thought fuels us in the moment of challenge? When we're cut off on the highway. When we get the results of some medical tests. When we watch the news. When someone treats us cruelly.

It's all there for all of us to shift inside of ourselves in any one moment.  We don't need to go up on a mountain and meditate until 2025. We don't need an ashram to pray, eat or love. All we need is the next moment, the one that triggers us, and then we consciously choose.

And the choice is not about the opposite of how we feel, it is about the twin of our thought. If we observe ignorance, can we shift to see innocence?  If we experience the arrogance of someone's certainty, how much farther do we have to think to find wisdom? Same goes for the rampant superficiality in relationships - in the loneliness and isolation of the superficial, do we discover clarity?

In a world of positionality, it works in our favor and to the collective benefit when the roar of our mind produces the twin of our thoughts.  In this way, lions become lambs, once again.

Sounds of Silence

No matter who I spoke to this week and last, there was this very subtle emptiness in their voices.  It made me wonder what that was all about.

It dawned on me after giving a speech at Bainbridge Graduate Institute's MBA program that perhaps the emptiness had to do with empowerment, or lack of empowerment.  I got lots of questions about being heard in a corporate setting and I heard huge amounts of frustration and disappointment around this feeling of 'holding back' and 'not saying what is so.' 

That brought me to the understanding that people want to know HOW to speak up. That floored me.  HOW to speak up is obvious, right?  We just load our brains, and shoot off our mouths.  Oh no, this was not what the real question was.  The real question had a twist. 

How do I speak up AND avoid risking my career and paycheck?

Whoa, and there it is, the fear.  Let's call it what it is, and maybe we can shift it. The very foundation of who we are as a society requires us to speak up, ask difficult questions, and know that we are safe to do so. When did it become so unsafe? Where are the pockets of openness, honesty, and genuine dialogue that honor our contributions and support our accountability? 

What I find right now is a genuine knowledge and wisdom just waiting to burst forth into open exchange.  There is a strong desire for change, and a passionate awareness of the need, no the urgency, to change.  And, there is silence. 

This silence is a gaping hole; we appease others, and go along, and don't rock the boat.  I've been there myself.  Not wanting to risk being seen as the one who spoils dinner, who stirs the simmering pot of conflict, I remained silent.  And I watched as the cultures of those companies I worked for and where I witnessed this pattern, diminished, slowly at first, and then rapidly.

The way forward is in cultures of openness, thoughtful patient dialogue, connectedness, and engagement.  Cultures that embrace discomforting discussion, and allow the full range of self expression within the boundaries of respect and integrity

Ask yourself today: where are you in appeasement?  Where do you choose to remain silent when your inner voice would have you speak up to shift a discussion or a decision? Do you work in a place that honors your voice and your wisdom?  And if not, how come you work there?

The Truth stands on its own, is heard for itself, and withstands even the harshest of critiques. Speak the Truth, say what is so, and be known as a person of high integrity. We need your leadership, NOW.

Wisdom's Ancestor

I'm sitting here tonight a bit confused and sad.  Maybe it's the Seattle weather, which trust me, would make anyone sad. 

Nah, not just the weather.  The feeling that's floating around me is hard to shake.  It's been a tough week.  The weekend's events shadowed the week.  Monday, I said good-bye to a fabulous client as she finished her work and is off to Africa!  I am thrilled for her and will miss her.  I gave a presentation at the University of Washington this week.  I usually love doing that, working with the students, offering them insights into their personalities, as we discuss the ways that humans affect the outcome of any enterprise.  Sigh.  Presentation fell flat.  Energy kept shifting. 

Rest of the week, more of the same.

Now I'm sitting here trying to figure out what's up.  Is this just me? Or are others feeling the same way?  My mind wanders back to Arizona.  Am I more affected by the shootings in Arizona than I have acknowledged? Are others?

I read an article this week that is rolling around in my head.  George Freidman wrote the article and in it he suggested that America is a Republic that accidently became an Empire.  We created this country to be one thing, and it became another.  Now it fights itself, Republic vs Empire, like the Black and White Wolf, a never-ending battle.  ( See below, Right Leadership:  A Story of Two Wolves.)

I realize I am more like the black wolf tonight: edgy, a bit frustrated, and itching for an argument. I set an intention for this week to be productive and full, energetic and prosperous.  Despite my best efforts, didn't happen.  My intention devolved to attachment, and now I feel disappointed and crappy. 

I am searching my knowledge for the nugget that applies here, for the wisdom that my teachers have shared with me and that I can pass along. 

At first nothing comes, and the edginess takes a firmer grip.  Slowly, though, like a wafting feather, something tickles me at the very back of my mind.  Tugging at this resisting thought, I finally yank it free.

"All energy is neutral, Kelleen."

I expel my breathe, the shoulders come down, I allow my head to hang for just a second. All energy is neutral, neither positive nor negative.  We transmute it, make it into something, and this alchemy touches the inner core of who we are and reflects back to us through the lens of our outer world. 

This discernment, wisdom's ancestor, is what went lacking this week.   I lost touch with my ability to discern truth and hold a vision.  It is a good lesson.

All energy is neutral. We make it otherwise. 

The Light and Dark Side of Power

"Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely."  So goes the only teaching I have ever had on power. So I've left it alone, or thought I did.  However, disdaining something and judging it....so not the same as leaving it alone!

And that could be why Power came looking for me this weekend. 

Somewhere back in the annals of history someone made the connection between the word 'power' and the word 'manipulation.' This became the origin of my logic, my knowing, of the word power.  My thinking went like this:  If you were powerful, you were likely to be someone who got things done, at any cost.  Power therefore equated to manipulation, the ability to control, force, demand, even change the natural course of a thing.  It is the antithesis of everything I stand for. 

This weekend someone mentioned that the work I'm doing, the research and the mentorships, "are very powerful." Oh my!  I was thrown into the deep end, no lifejacket.  We spent an hour discussing power and I emerged with my confidantes' beliefs ringing in my ear:  "Everything we do, say, or think, must always be viewed at the very least as a ploy for more power. To deny this, is to be dangerous to ourself and others."

I've spent the better part of my life, denying power its due. Rejecting it, resisting its presence, I see now how I forfeited many opportunities to express myself effectively, to listen actively, and to show up.  With new appreciation, I accept that Power IS the ability to manipulate AND it can both force an outcome and/or illuminate one.

With integrity, wisdom, and humility, we can step into our personal power, be impeccable with our words and actions, and illuminate and expand possibilities.  It is when we aren't in right relationship - when we lack respect for all things and deny service to a common good - that we fall prey to the dark side: control.

The Native People have a saying, "How do you corrupt a righteous man?  Give him one follower." In many tribes there is no word in the language for leader; each is a leader, by the fact of their existence, by original design. And that is the genesis of a deep sincere compliment expressed this way, "She is a leader without followers."

Now, today, when we are demanding accountability from our institutions, our governments, and our communities, take a moment to look to your own right use of power, to the moments when you sought first to clarify and illuminate, and, to those moments when you were impatient, 'certain' of the 'right' outcome, and determined to get it.

Notice the difference.  Be a leader without followers.

Choose to illuminate.