I just discovered this wonderful poem “How to Be Alone” performed by the poet, Tanya Davis and filmed by Andrea Dorfman. It expresses so much of what I was feeling as I wrote about solitude.
FollowGrowing Old ~ Samuel Ullman
Nobody grows old. merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.
~ Samuel Ullman
Solitude
In my current preoccupation with developing this website I have been contemplating the photo in the page header above (gotta use a bit of that techno-lingo that I have been struggling so hard to attain). There is something that I have really liked about this photo since I found it on the internet; something about it touches me deeply. Yet, I have been wondering whether it fits with the theme of itineris, the journey. The one piece of feedback I have receive confirmed my sense – “it seems so lonely”.
“The loneliness of the journey” has become a recent focus of my reflection. It reminds me of a book, The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner. That book was assigned reading in one of my undergrad courses. I never read it but the title has haunted me. Loneliness has been a part of my journey, more so at some times than others but it is hardly the aspect of journey that I want to emphasize in this venture. “The loneliness of the journey” is not exactly a great marketing jingle.
As I pondered whether to write anything about this, wondering if it would feel just a bit too vulnerable, I read in today’s reading from A Year With Rilke: “But in the midst of these very unfamiliar conditions your solitude will be a support and home to you. It will be the starting point of all your journeys.” Well, I guess that the universe is speaking to me and calling for some reflection. A couple of things show up for me as I think about my relationship with solitude and how it relates to my journey.
The first thing that I notice is the difference in texture between “loneliness” and “solitude”. In the language of my coaching training, these are both assessments – judgments that I place on the experience of aloneness. As assessments, these are choices that I have some control (or at least some influence) over. I can chose to experience my alone times as the curse of loneliness or as the gift of solitude. Some of my very best memories of childhood were of the freedom and joy of traveling alone on my bicycle, exploring as much of the world as my legs could handle. That, for me, is solitude at its best and it is the same experience that I often have on the journey. And then there is loneliness that comes uninvited and can suck the joy out of any journey. I would like to say that I have learned the skill to be able to transform loneliness into solitude at will but my emotional alchemical skills are not yet that well developed.
Another thing that I am struck by is Rilke’s observation that solitude “will be the starting point of all your journeys” – not the destination or the totality of the journey but the starting point. I know the truth of this from my own relationship history. Until I was able to be with myself, to be my own best friend, I was not prepared to be in relationship as a companion. Solitude has taught me the importance of distinction as well as linking (in the model of Daniel Siegel’s healthy integrated mind). Before I can truly connect with another person, I need to be grounded in who I am and this learning journey has been rooted in solitude. It was, in fact, a big part of my three day solo vision quest where I was my only human companion.
So, with these reflections, I am now much more comfortable with the photo. I know that the journey involves solitude and I also have come to trust and believe that I don’t have to be alone all the time on this journey. Relationships that are deeply grounded in the wisdom of solitude are available and they are precious. I wonder who this journeyer will discover around the next bend in the road and what they will discover together.
Your Call to Be Peacemaker
This is a retreat that I will be attending next month. Having heard and read about James’ work for a long time, I am looking forward to being in a retreat with him.
Integrating Mind & Heart
My website is beginning to assume a form. Shape and structure are starting to emerge and I notice the sense of comfort that this gives me. Things are in their place; there is now a skeleton on which I can add muscle and tissue. And yet, I also sense loss in this emerging order, the loss of possibility.
As I have been struggling with the technical learning necessary to develop this site, I have also been struggling with an inner sense of disquiet. How do I make sense of all that is important to me and that I want to reflect in this website? This disquiet has taken the form of restlessness and distraction and even a sense of overwhelm with the chaos. And then, categories began to emerge and things began to fall into place and I notice that I feel more at ease now that I can see a map for this mind-space that is my website.
But the loss! I feel sadness for those things that are not reflected in the categories – for “heart” and for “relationships” and for “nature” or “Earth” and for “peace and justice” and for “spirit” and “consciousness” and “transformation”. These are all as much part of who I am and what intrigues me as “ontology” , “epistemology” or“healthcare”. But they are softer and seem less professional, less how I think I should present myself if I want to attract real work.
It would be easy enough to add these as new categories now that I have learned some of the basic skills of WordPress. But, where would the process end? How many categories would I end up with and what meaning would there be in so many categories? This is the epistemological challenge – how to represent the richness of the territory within the confines of a map? How to preserve the complexity and beauty of the oneness and still be able to describe it? My mind requires distinctions to express itself and with every distinction comes a choice and a loss and a diminishment of the whole.
Has my organizational schema created an artificial distinction between resources (those hard ideas that the mind loves) and inspiration (the domain of the heart and spirit)? Maybe I will discover a way to integrate these two domains through this website. If so, it really will be a reflection of who I am as this feels like a big part of my personal and professional life journey.
Neuroception & Aikido
One of the new concepts that I have been learning in my Interpersonal Neurobiology program is neuroception, a relatively recent discovery of how the brain assesses threat. I was so excited by the information I gained from an article by Stephen Porges that I summarized the findings and applied them to my own experiences in aikido.
Neuroception (pdf. document)
Mindfulness and the Brain
Last month, I gave a presentation to the Snake River Correctional Institution (medium security prison) on my learnings about neuroscience, mindfulness and how the brain works. This presentation was a summary of two classes I had taken in Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) from Portland State University and extensive reading and listening to recorded presentations (see my Neuroscience Resources page for resources).
To help me organize for the presentation, I wrote the following paper for my INPB class and received some very useful feedback and clarification from my instructor, Bonnie Badenoch.
Mindfulness & the Brain (pdf document)
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Chaordic Path
The Chaordic Path is one of the models from the Art of Hosting that I have found most valuable. The model is portrayed in the drawing on the left. Following is a description from the Art of Hosting Workbook:
There is a path to take between Chaos and Order that leads us to the new – to collective learning and real-time innovation. Instead of relying on controlling every detail in our organisations or communities from the top down, many leaders today see the need to access the collective intelligence and collective wisdom of everyone.
We are beginning to understand and treat organizations and communities more like living systems than static machines. After all, the chaordic path is the story of our natural world – form arises out of nonlinear, complex, diverse systems. New levels of order become possible out of chaos.
This “chaordic confidence” – the capacity we need to stay in the dance of order and chaos – supports a generative emergence that allows the new, collective intelligence and wise action to occur. In this space of emergence, we leave our collective encounters with something that not one of us individually brought into the room. This requires us to stay in a transformative shift, though we may want to veer toward either chaos or order.
And in fact, we will move between chaos and order – this is the generative dance, an oscillation often seen in the natural world. A balance between two seeming polarities, which instead complement each other.
As we tread the line between chaos and order, individually and collectively, we move through confusion and conflict toward clarity. We are all called to walk this path without judgment – some will feel more comfortable with chaos, others with order. Both are needed as, together, we walk the edge between these two toward something wholly new.
On the far side of chaos is chamos – despair. On the far side of order is control. When we move toward either of these extremes, the result is apathy or rebellion – the very opposite of chaordic confidence, where the new cannot be born.
So, the question becomes – How much order do we need? How much chaos would be helpful here?
There is a path toward common ground, co-creation, and wise and strategic action. There is a “sweet spot” of emergence with tangible results.
We call it the Chaordic journey….a path less travelled.
U. S. Peace Index
A new report by Institute for Economics and Peace ranks the fifty sates by their level of peacefulness as defined by five indicators:
- Number of homicides per 100,000 people;
- Number of violent crimes per 100,000 people;
- Number of jailed population per 100,000 people;
- Number of police officers per 100,000 people;
- Availability of small arms.
The study also found that peacefulness is good economic development. “Reductions in violence and crime to levels equal to Canada would yield an estimated $89 billion in direct savings, $272 billion in additional economic activity, and potentially create 2.7 million jobs.”
US Peace Index from Vision of Humanity on Vimeo.
Vulnerability
My conversation this morning with Simone helped me notice the journey that I am currently on and to crystallize my current questions in exploring the development this website.
First a word about Simone Poutnik… It has been a real joy to watch Simone grow and to discover her gift as a witness, whether of the emerging democratic movement in the Middle East or of my first steps in web development and blogging. This morning she shared with me a beautiful little process of three questions from Human Systems Dynamics Institute: What? So what? And , now what? These three little questions provided a nice process for reflecting upon this journey of web presencing.
Yes, as always, the process is the journey. Being consciously present in developing my website is raising issues that are far deeper and richer and more personal than just how to position text on the screen and what kind of organizational structure to utilize. Yesterday, I was reflecting upon integration of heart and mind and how this shows up in this website. Today, I am recognizing that this question is really about vulnerability and strategy and that these are questions that are part of my current learning/growing edge.
Vulnerability? How vulnerable do I want to make myself? Sharing like this feels a bit like taking a bath on my front porch (this is purely conjecture as I’ve not tried it). Do I want to share my process and questions as I develop this web presence or do I want to reflect privately and post something that describes the destination and not the journey? Much of my life I’ve done the later and have left people wondering what was going on inside. Now I an yearning to live with more authenticity and transparency.
Maybe as I am able to share some of the journey in writing I will develop more courage to share myself in relationship (though probably no baths on the front porch). And, in the spirit of authenticity, I do need to acknowledge the safety that I feel in knowing that there is probably no one reading this blog and I always have the option of checking the private option and hiding the post. I need not feel constrained by the level of courage and comfort that I feel right now.
Strategy? Will this website be a way for me to attract work? While that has not been my primary objective, it has always been part of my consciousness. After all, I have chosen my business name as the name for the site and I have been treating this as a business expense. So, I need to think of this as my business identity. It has been clear to me all along that I don’t want this to be a place for me to talk about what I had for dinner last night or to post pictures of my family or my vacation (that’s what Facebook is for). Yet, in the world I want to live in, the distinction between life work and personal life is pretty artificial. I bring myself to my work and my work is a big part of who I am. This site is about life and work as a journey and I can’t be true to my values without sharing my own journey. Perhaps this kind of reflection and sharing is at the heart of what I have to offer.
But I also want to be involved with the transformation of healthcare and to be able to offer my coaching and hosting and consulting skills in the nonprofit and business world. What will potential clients think if they see this level of authenticity? If I share my questions more readily than my answers? If I speak from my heart and not just my head? If I model vulnerability? If I speak of values and processes that are outside the conventional “professional” discourse? Will I be presenting myself as a flake and limiting my opportunities?
These questions are very real for me and they comes from a place of fear. They also reflect my sense of scarcity and my presumption that I need to “market” myself to attract work. These are old patterns of thinking and beliefs that do not serve me and do not support that person I want to be and the world that I want to live in. I want to trust in the abundance of opportunities and in my ability to be of service and value by showing up fully and authentically. Maybe there are individuals and organizations that are looking for this level of presence and they are the ones that I really want to work with anyway. Today I am feeling the courage to show up and allow myself to be seen (augmented, of course, by the safely of that privacy button).
In conclusion, I am reminded of the quote from Marianne Williamson: “There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.” This is the guiding principle that I want to remember as I develop this site.