Opportunity

From Evan Almighty -
GOD asks: ” If someone prays for patience, you think GOD gives them patience? Or does God give them an opportunity to be patient? If they pray for courage, does God give them courage or give them the opportunity to be courageous? If someone prays for their family to be closer, do you think God sends warm fuzzy feelings or gives them the opportunity to love each other?”

A lot of what I post here comes from a warm fuzzy place, a place of security about where I am in relation to the message I want to help get out. Its much harder to do that, to feel secure enough about getting a message out when I'm struggling to feel its truth in my own life. But its come to that.

I've been spending much less time training for my upcoming race season, much less time looking for ways to move my career forward, much more time eating and drinking what I want, much more time at this computer playing Mafia Wars and watching old DVDs than writing decent posts and finding balance in my life. And I'm increasingly more frustrated by doing what I want rather than what I should. Its the dreaded 'slide into complacency' that I've feared ever since I was relieved of my day job, and night job, and , well, any job.

So as I was lying on the couch yesterday morning at 10am, still unshowered, watching the rest of the movie the kids started before the bus came - the dialogue from the beginning of the post jumped out at me - I am being given the opportunity to pursue all that is important to me. Why, then, am I on the couch feeling sorry for myself? How did I get to this place? But more importantly, how can I get out?

Any of you that know me know that I am wonderful to be around in a crisis. When challenged I become this superwoman that you can count on for anything and nothing phases me. But give me tons of free time, relative security in finances and an open book on life and watch me stumble, watch me falter.

I want to write. I want to train. I want balance.

I haven't got the answers yet, but I did get the memo. I have been given the opportunity. Knowing that is a decent start.

Namaste

In India, when we meet and greet and we say "Namaste", which means: I honor the place in you where the entire universe resides, I honor the place in you of love, of light, of truth, of peace. I honor the place within you where if you are in that place in you and I am in that place in me, there is only one of us. --Ram Dass

I want to be one of those people...

I want to be one of those people you read about that started with nothing, made a million dollars, lost a million dollars and made another million dollars a totally different way. And then maybe they lost it again, who knows. I don't care, its not about the money, its about risk. What risks am I willing to take? And am I ever 'All in'? Because I don't think you can make a million unless you are willing to risk losing a million. I think its that simple.

We're taught to think of 'risk' in a negative sense mostly. Risk is a liability. It seperates the prudent from the foolish. We are constantly calculating what is an 'acceptable risk'. And this is valid for many practical life applications - driving in bad conditions, etc. But when it comes to our life decisions, decisions we should be making based on our inner voice, our instincts, towards satisfying our goals and dreams, those are the times we should never be hedging our bets. We should never be less than 'All in'. That's where I want to risk a million, make a million, lose a million and risk it all again. Throughout all my life. Always All in.

CwG CH8 - Relationships

Conversations With God, Chapter 8 – Relationships
Neale Donald Walsch
(excerpts and limited paraphrasing) SLM

[Note: If you're familiar with these books and the work of Neale Donald Walsch, this is a good brush up on relationships. If this is new, enjoy! I like to think of it as divine practical philosophy, useful every day.]

Relationships are constantly challenging; constantly calling you to create, express and experience higher and higher aspects of yourself, grander and grander visions of yourself. Nowhere can you do this more immediately, impactfully, and immaculately than in relationships.

Once you clearly understand this, once you deeply grasp it, then you intuitively bless each and every experience, all human encounter and especially personal human relationships, for you see them as constructive, in the highest sense. You see that they can be used, must be used, are being used (whether you want them to be or not) to construct Who You Really Are.

That construction can be a magnificent creation of your own conscious design, or a strictly happenstance configuration. You can choose to be a person who has resulted simply from what has happened, or from what you’ve chosen to be and do about what has happened. It is in the latter form that creation of the Self becomes conscious. It is in the second experience that Self becomes realized.

Most people enter into relationships with an eye toward what they can get out of them, rather than what they can put into them. But the purpose of a relationship is to decide what part of yourself you’d like to see ‘show up’, not what part of another you can capture and hold.

Relationships do not ‘fail’, they change. When they no longer produce what you want or when they change in ways no longer conducive to their survival, they may end. But these are the wrong reasons to be in a relationship. There can only be one purpose for a relationship – and for all of life: to be and decide Who You Really Are.

It is very romantic to say that you were ‘nothing’ until that special other came along, but it is not true. Worse it puts incredible pressure on the other to be all sorts of things he or she is not. Not wanting to ‘let you down’, they try very hard to be and do those things until they cannot anymore. They can no longer complete your picture of them. They can no longer fill the roles to which they have been assigned. Resentment builds. Anger follows.

Finally, in order to save themselves (and the relationship), these special others begin to reclaim their real selves, acting more in accordance with Who They Are. Its about this time that you say they’ve ‘really changed’.

It is very romantic to say that now that your special other has entered your life, you feel complete. Yet the purpose of relationship is not to have another who might complete you; but to have another with whom you might share your completeness.

Two people join together in a partnership hoping that the whole will be greater than the sum of the parts, only to find that it is less. They feel less than when they were single. Less capable, less able, less exciting, less attractive, less joyful, less content. This is because they are less. They’ve given up most of who they are in order to be – and to stay – in their relationship. This losing of the Self in relationship is what causes most of the bitterness in such couplings.

When you lose sight of each other as sacred souls on a sacred journey, then you cannot see the purpose, the reason, behind all relationships. The soul has come to the body, and the body has come to life, for the purpose of evolution. You are evolving, you are becoming. And you are using your relationship with everything to decide what you are becoming.

Your first relationship, therefore, must be with your Self. You must first learn to honor and cherish and love your Self. And so I tell you this: be now and forever centered upon your Self. Look to see what you are being, doing and having in any given moment, not what is going on with another. It is not in the action of another, but in your re-action that your salvation will be found.

When you do get hurt by the actions and words of another in a relationship, you must honor your feelings, for honoring your feelings means honoring your Self. If your first feeling is a negative feeling, simply having that feeling frequently is all that is needed to step away from it. It is when you have anger, have the upset, have the disgust, have the rage, own the feeling of wanting to ‘hurt back’ that you can disown these first feelings as ‘not Who You Want To Be.’ Mastery comes from living through enough experiences to know in advance what your final choices are. The master is one who always comes up with the same answer – and that answer is always the highest choice.

What is the highest choice? It is the same to answer the question ‘What would Love do now?’ No other question is relevant, no other question has any importance to your soul. And the answer – the highest choice, what Love would do, is that which produces the highest good for you. It may take lifetimes to understand this but the highest good for you is the highest good for another.

If you ask ‘What promises should I make in a relationship, what agreements must I keep? What obligations do relationships carry? What guidelines should I seek?, The answer is simply ‘none’. You have no obligation in relationship. You have only opportunity. Opportunity, not obligation is the cornerstone of relationship, is the basis of spirituality. Never do anything in a relationship out of a sense of obligation. Do whatever you do out of a sense of the glorious opportunity your relationship affords you to decide and to be Who You Really Are.

Do not confuse longevity of a relationship with success. The success of a relationship is measured by the amount of opportunity for mutual growth, mutual expression and mutual fulfillment, no matter how long or how or short.

To have a good relationship, be sure you and your mate agree on purpose. If you both agree at a conscious level that the purpose of your relationship is to create an opportunity, not an obligation – an opportunity for growth, for full Self expression, for lifting your lives to their highest potential, for healing every false thought or small idea you ever had about you, for ultimate reunion with God through the communion of your two souls – if you take those vows instead of the vows traditionally taken, then the relationship will have a very good beginning.

Know and understand there will be challenges and difficult times. Don’t try to avoid them, welcome them. Gratefully. See them as grand gifts from God; glorious opportunities to do what you came into the relationship – and life - to do.

Extend the depth of your vision to see more in your partner than what they show you. For there is more there. Much more. It is only their fear that keeps them from showing you. If they notice that you see them as more, they will feel safe to show you what you already obviously see.

Expectations ruin relationships. But opportunities help them flourish. People tend to see in themselves what we see in them. If we limit our vision of them to fit our expectations, we limit them. Yet the grander our vision is of them, of what they can become, the grander their willingness to explore the part of them we have shown them.

Is that not how all truly blessed relationships work? Is that not part of the healing process – the process by which we give people permission to ‘let go’ of every false thought they’ve ever had about themselves and reach for the opportunity they have to become their True Self?

The work of the Soul is to wake yourself up. The work of God is to wake everybody up. We do God’s work in a relationship by seeing in others Who They Are and reminding them of Who They Are and we can do this best by being Who We Are. That is all you need to remember.

Each New Day

What would you do today if you knew you could not fail?

What would you choose today if you knew it was your last?

What would you begin today if it was your very first?

Three simple questions from three different outlooks all pointing to the same truths about the choices we make and the perspective we make them from. Every day we make a million choices and most of them we make unconsciously, we make them without regard to our options, to our goals, to their ramifications. We choose a lot of things but feel as if we have no choice about them which is patently false. If I convey nothing else in this post then I hope I convey this – in every action we not only have a choice, but our choice reflects our inner self, whether we are comfortable and happy there, whether we are uncomfortable, whether we are searching and even whether we recognize ourselves any longer.

Fine, you say, to ask philosophical questions and pose lofty answers. But take work for instance, sure I could stay home – that’s a choice, but who will pay the bills? (Please, substitute your own ‘what I don’t feel I have a choice about’ here.) Okay, I’ll take work then. Boy would I love to. (Pun intended.) Because of the practical issues, you may not feel you have a choice about going to work, but you do have a choice about how you go to work, what frame of mind you arrive with and what attitude you apply to the work before you. It sounds trivial but actually the most important choice we make every day is what perspective we take in making the choices that we make.

If you could not fail, would you plough ahead with some plans you want to make but have been hedging on? Would you barge into your boss’s office and ask for the raise or recognition or responsibilities you feel you deserve? Would you address a difficult situation in your life? Would you walk away from a dead end situation confident that you have options? Would you make entirely new plans or goals? Would you choose to do something great or even more daring, would you choose to step back and make time for yourself? Feeling that you could not fail is a perspective of strength. But it is not dependent on our strengths. In your life, of the things that have truly mattered, have you ever failed? In my own life, things do not always turn out as I had planned, but the goals I have made I have always achieved one way or another. I have not failed. And I know that, I feel that, whenever I am choosing a new goal these days.

If today were your last, already set before you as it is (you aren’t suddenly rich, a babe magnet or at an ashram in India), would you spend your time in the same way? Forwarding the same emails, surfing the internet, flipping through the TV channels? Would you spend more time with people? With people you enjoy being with? Would you have different conversations? Would you leave them with a different sense of who you are and what you bring to their lives? A clearer understanding of what brings you together? Would you let them know you care about them? And even just being around people you don’t particularly like or don’t even know, would the knowledge that they were a part of your last interactions here on earth change the nature of them? Would you see them more clearly as another fragile human, with their own stories, their own baggage weighing down their hopes and dreams? Would you take offense as easily or dismiss them as easily for things you don’t like? Would you see more clearly in them and acknowledge to them the things you identify with or even admire? This is a perspective of what value things hold in our choices and not having regrets about our choices.

My favorite choice is choosing compassion over judgment in a difficult situation. It is compassion I feel for the horrific mom freaking out at her kids in the most obnoxious way in the line at the grocery store. I always try to convey a genuine smile because, face it, I have been shades of that mom. Maybe I never called my five year old a ‘stupid fucking idiot’ for some small infraction, but I don’t know her story. And if I can ease her stress by not looking like I am judging her for the outburst, she may just soften inside enough to let it pass. That usually is what happens, to varying degrees. Only once have I gotten a truly hostile response, and that was preceded by utter confusion. Someone so removed from expecting any kindness from a stranger that they couldn’t recognize it. I backed off, but still I couldn’t bring myself to judge. If I was hit by a bus at the next crossing, I know I wouldn’t regret showing kindness over passing judgment.

What if today were your first day here? Would you start fresh? Choose a healthier lifestyle in what you eat, how you spend your free time and how you interact in your relationships? If you had no bad habits to break, would you continue the behaviors that led to them? If you held no hurts and grudges inside, would you treat others the same as you treat them now? If you felt young and fresh and new, a life ahead of you full of possibilities, would you have more optimism, more energy, and more love to give?

There is no reason we cannot begin each day with some sense of what these perspectives convey. This is the first day of the rest of your life. This may be the last day you have. You are incapable of failure if you are willing to believe in yourself. Your choices do matter. Each one of them. Make the choices that you would make, an optimistic, aware and infallible you, your true self.

And if all this seems too removed from your current perspective on life, try this; for the next two weeks make two conscious choices every morning, choose something that you will do for yourself and choose something you will do for someone else. Do that for two weeks and I have no doubt you will begin to see how much your choices matter, how much your perspective matters, how much can be gained by waking up each morning with a true sense that it is truly a New Day.

Steeling Their Courage

Click on the title of this post to connect to a wonderful story from the Boston Globe on how steel workers on the new center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute are connecting to the pediatric cancer patients watching from their windows across the way.

For me the story highlights many wonderful truths; how easy it is to give courage to someone, the power of the written word, especially our own names and the value of human connection (more on those later).

A couple of days ago a good friend relayed a happy hour conversation about me and my ability to poke, prod, wheedle and coax people out of their comfort zones to accomplish things they never knew they could, all while making it a comfortable or pleasant experience. (I'm paraphrasing... maybe embellishing.) What made me happy about the comment was the last part, that challenging people to reach for all that I see inside them, isn't a negative experience for them. It certainly isn’t for me.

Giving someone courage is as easy as communicating your confidence that they are capable of enduring, overcoming, achieving or winning the challenge before them. Your opinion of whether they will or won't, whether it will be hard or painful is not relevant - but simply communicating that you know they are capable, that they can – well – it often has a huge effect. That's all most people need to know to find it within themselves the motivation to move forward. To see that such a simple small act on our part can help others achieve great and difficult tasks - that feels really, really good.

The picture at the top of this post is of two close friends just after their first 10K race last April. Don’t they look genuinely happy? Amy had had the 10K in her sights for a while, I’m sure, when I suggested it a month before. Mike, on the other hand, had no such foolish illusions. In our conversations about running, what I did sense within him, though, was that he didn’t really feel tested with the 5Ks he’d been doing for years. That he knew he was capable of more. That’s all I needed to see to ‘encourage’ him to try it. I’ll bet he tells a different story about my methods, but as it has come to pass, he also finished his first half-marathon last year and still doesn't feel he has reached his limit. (I'm not surprised at all.) And you know what that means, right Mike?

Wayde’s inaugural 5K was out in Sedona a few weeks ago and Jason’s is coming up in March and I’m just thrilled every time one of the dozens that I’ve encouraged to run crosses the finish line. I share in their celebration. Not just of their running, but of their willingness to test themselves, test their limits. It becomes addicting, seeing just what you are capable of, and maybe even trying something, you had always dreamt of, or had never dared to dream of... Its a beautiful thing to watch unfold in the lives of your friends and loved ones.

I don't think I have any special abilities to 'see' inside people, to sense their abilities, their hopes, dreams and fears. But they are almost always very clear to me. It’s usually written all over them, in their body language, the tone they use when discussing certain subjects, the interest they show when listening to others. Sometimes it’s easier when you know them well, but sometimes that makes it harder because you see our own version of them (some would accuse me of this). But whenever I see an opportunity to convey support, sincerely, I don't hold back. What may seem like a little or insignificant thing at the time, taking the risk that they would care that I care, is usually a huge boost for them. Because it is that, underneath it all, that I am communicating – that I care. Its not as risky as it sounds because I haven't found anyone yet who didn't appreciate knowing that somebody cared about them.

They say the devil is in the details, reflecting that it’s often the little things that get us down or trip us up. Don't sweat the details, right? But it’s also the positive little things that can save us, that can change our views internally. Turning the mundane into a gift by simple gestures can communicate how often we think of someone or how deeply we value them. Martha Stewart has made millions off that simple truth. We can enrich our own lives and those we love by embracing it too.

Compliments, encouragement, support, celebration and sharing; those are at the core of giving courage to others. They’re free, painless to give and usually return tenfold. In this economic climate, that’s a hell of an exchange!

The Timelessness of Friendships

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy – Friendship
“Friendship is a distinctively personal relationship that is grounded in a concern on the part of each friend for the welfare of the other, for the other's sake, and that involves some degree of intimacy. As such, friendship is undoubtedly central to our lives, in part because the special concern we have for our friends must have a place within a broader set of concerns, including moral concerns, and in part because our friends can help shape who we are as persons. “

So what is it about some friendships that you can lose sight of each other for months or years and yet within minutes of a phone call or visit, you find yourself back in that sweet spot of mutual understanding, a common sense of humor and platonic intimacy?


These thoughts came bubbling up as I sat alone at the bar at SBC’s in Branford waiting for my family to join me for dinner. Just after I arrived, a couple of guys walked in talking animatedly, laughing loudly, back-slapping and carrying-on, just having met up in the parking lot. Within minutes they were joined by two more in a similar manner and the conversation continued with guesses and pronouncements as to who would brave the elements for their social event (it was between rain and snow since early afternoon hours before). They pulled out cell phones and began strong-arming anyone who answered from home. Drinks were ordered and sometimes treated, one friend to another as a surprise. I sat there drinking it all in, an addicted people-watcher, trying to catch all the little conversations, trying to imagine their stories…

Their stories are long.

Did I mention that not a single one of the two dozen that eventually crowded the bar looked under the age of 75? Or acted over the age of 25? That’s what was fascinating to me. Their playfulness, sense of familiarity, the evidence of deep bonds, and the mischievousness – it betrayed nothing about their ages. The only truly unusual aspect was that nearly 18 of the two dozen ordered wine and just barely a handful still able to sling back beers. Promptly at 6:30, they headed to a back room and the aha! - Rotary, Loins or whatever - hit me. I also noticed the stiff legged limp of more than a few and calculated that most of them had likely seen and fought in the Korean War. You couldn’t tell any of that by the rich and genuine depth of their laughter though. You could only tell that they had been getting together like this for a very long time now.


I still had time at the bar to reflect on the scene before my own clan arrived. Time to think about my friends, how ridiculously silly and immature we can be when we’re together even though we’ve ‘grown up’; gotten jobs, got married, became parents, moved far, far away and dealt with things way more serious than we had ever encountered when we first met. There are the Orange Dress stories (to come, I promise), the ‘Duct Tape’ parties (I will find those pictures), the summer’s eve dinners in the backyard of the Eastern European grad students (the vodka flowed like water but you’ll never find more graceful Waltzers), climbing road trips and hiking vacations. The best part of those get-togethers is how young you feel in the midst of it, usually the same age as when you met, or first bonded for whatever mundane or bizarre reasons. There’s a sweet affinity for your closest friends, a fierce loyalty, reluctance to judge, a sincere longing for their happiness, a deep wish that they’ll turn to you for support when they need it and a hope that you’ll always find time for one another.

Those are the best friendships. The long ones. They keep you young. But there are lots of other kinds of friendships, and they all keep you young if you allow their sincerity to infect your soul.


There are situational friendships – I think of the time spent in Mississippi helping clean up after Katrina, infinitely rich layered experiences over the course of a few days starting out as virtual strangers and ending close as family. And there are instantaneous friendships; the moment shared in the checkout line when you realize you went to the same high school more than 500 miles away, on the sidelines of your kid’s soccer game when you share anxieties for every fall, every missed play, the nervous idle chatter of two triathlon newbies waiting for the race to start, the first time flyer next to you on the plane for an international flight. They are opportunities to connect, to find commonality, to communicate interest or caring for another person, for no other reason than the pleasure it gives both of you.


Really good friends I call keepers. I would like to always have them around because they add something valuable to my life. They are of all ages, political and religious stripes, life situations, professions. They cover a broad spectrum of beliefs, goals, hopes and dreams. When I think of each one of them, it is often a single trait that stands out; the sheer volume and depth of Jane’s laughter, the youth of Wayde’s giggle, the breadth of Joe's smile, the drama of Bwana, DaveZ and Tamara, the slapstick mishaps of Rebecca and Mike, the hyperactivity of Annette and Mikita, the corruptiveness of Jason and MOG, the willingness of Kathleen, Christy, the mischievousness of Martina, Mick, Taco and Woody, the hilarious cynicism of Sarah, Bart and Joanne, the fringe preferences of Nathan – and here I feel a bit like Miss Judy from Romper Room, looking through her magic hand-mirror, saying hello to all her friends at home, the boys and girls that watch her show – I have many, many more and I’m thankful for each one of them.


Finally, for those of us lucky enough, there are the friendships of our families. Hopefully, our spouses or significant others, our brothers and sisters, our parents, our children. I remember how grown up I felt when my friendship with my mom first blossomed, one woman to another, when I was in high school. And I remember how good it felt to rediscover the friendship with my sister, now elective since we had moved away from one another, after her first child was born. With my own daughter, I hope I am laying the groundwork for a bond beyond parent-child that will help us through the approaching teen years and all their excitement.

Maybe the sense of timelessness that comes from the experience of friendship has everything to do with their ability to get us in touch with our true selves, which is often found in doing something for the sheer pleasure of it, but when it is shared, our enjoyment is reflected in the smiles and laughter of those we feel close to. Maybe. And maybe it’s as simple as this; laughter, the key ingredient of any friendship, feels really, really good and is easier to share, with one or many, than the big-O (not Obama), which is also timeless. (I hope you’re laughing now.)