Trust Yourself Even When Life Hurts

This article was first posted on Soulseeds, where I post most days. Please visit Soulseeds for regular inspiration and encouragement.

Maybe you feel jaded because your trust has been betrayed and you have built high walls of protection around your heart. Thats understandable. Life can be harsh, and people can be cruel. Now you have a choice. You can either let the betrayal define you and become closed and bitter, or you can rise above the hurt and become even more determined to do whatever you can to create a world of unconditional love. Trust without any guarantee that your trust will be respected. Love without any guarantee that your love will be returned. Be kind without any guarantee that your kindness will be appreciated. This is the dance of authenticity, the risk that being completely yourself will open you to the most satisfying of all relationships.

Learning to trust an unpredictable world changes your whole outlook on life. It makes the world a more open, inviting and friendly place. Don’t give your trust recklessly. Give your trust mindfully; aware that there are no guarantees and there is always the chance you will be hurt again. In your calmest moments, you know that the risk to keep your heart closed is nothing in comparison to the joy of sharing love.

Are There Any Guarantees?

It seems backward, but the first step to building trust in relationships is to accept that there are no guarantees. As Comedian, Randy Millholand said, “There are people I know who won’t hurt me. I call them corpses.” Trust offers no certainties, or else trust would not be required. But don’t give up working on trust no matter how jaded you feel, or else you might as well be a corpse.

Find your balance. Being jaded and being idealistic are equally dangerous when it comes to relationships.

Be realistic. I have presided over too many weddings where young couples stand before me with stars in their eyes and no idea of how much they will likely hurt each other at some point. Some of these same couples have knocked on my door within weeks or months with awful stories of broken trust.

If people truly realized the intensity of making vows of commitment to another human being for life, they would wear a crash helmet to the wedding. Not a veil, but a crash helmet. Love is an act of faith. I sometimes feel like sending couples out with the instructions, “Do not try this at home without a safety net. It’s risky!”

Be realistic. There are risks involved. But also believe. Believe that there is something stronger than the risk- that is the joy of dropping your guard with another person, letting that person into your private wthoughts and dreams and making a commitment to love each other through thick and thin. Risk your trust in return for the adventure of being in love. Trust opens the gates to love.

Trust is more important than love. Saying to another person ‘I trust you” is often more profound than saying “I love you.” You may not always trust the person you love, but you can always love the person you trust. Trust is a gift. When you offer someone the gift of trust, you create an opening for something greater. Trust frees you from your fears and helps you give birth to love.

Building Trust in Relationships

Stephen Covey, son of Stephen Covey who wrote Seven Habits of a Highly Effective People, is the author of The Speed of Trust; The One Thing that Changes Everything. He offers the analogy that every relationship has a trust account. When you build trust, you make a deposit. When you break a trust, you make a withdrawal. The withdrawals are typically larger than the deposits. Therefore the fastest way to rebuild the trust account is to stop making withdrawals. The other way to rebuild trust is to make new deposits.

Here are 10 practical ways to build trust.

1. Practice with small and safe deposits first. There are big things to entrust to someone, and there are smaller things. How many people would you trust with your life savings? Probably very few. What about telling someone a secret, or starting a new business with someone? Again, very few. But would you be prepared to trust someone with a smile, or a kind word, even knowing that they might abuse your vulnerability? Start by making small deposits into your trust account and build confidence from there.

2. Gather information to get the greatest return on your investment. Trust, to a certain extent, is built on information. Instead of taking a blind leap of faith, take a calculated risk. Gather as much information as you can before you trust, but keep in mind that trust implies incomplete information. Wendell Berry said this- “Knowledge, like everything else, has its place, and… we need urgently now to put it in its place… Let us…abandon our superstitious beliefs about knowledge: that it is ever sufficient, that it can of itself solve problems… Let us give up our forlorn pursuit of the ‘informed decision.” Gather information, but also be prepared to take a leap with incomplete information.

3. Be transparent. Suspicions often emerge in relationships when people act in a way that is outside their character or routine. Even if you don’t know why you are behaving the way you are, or if you don’t know why you are pushing love away, just express that you are going through something and need some space. Transparency leaves less room for imagination that can easily create unnecessary drama.

4. Be consistent. Make sure your words match the way you live. Mean what you say and say what you mean. There is nothing that can devastate trust more quickly than inconsistency.

5. Believe in the strength of your partner. He/ she can deal with your feelings and doubts and questions. Express yourself as lovingly as you can, and trust your partner to stay with your honest thoughts and feelings.

6. Agree to boundaries with other family and friends. Your relationship has its own intimacy boundaries, and this has as much to do with sharing private information and personal feelings as sexual intimacy. If you are telling a friend something that you haven’t or wouldn’t tell your partner, you may have crossed a line into emotional infidelity. This can create major barriers to trust.

7. Don’t confuse trust with forgiveness. They operate differently. You usually forgive people well before you trust them. You might forgive an apologetic jewel thief, but not leave him alone in a jewelry store. You might forgive people who have hurt you, but not leave them alone with your heart. If there has been a breach of trust, work at forgiveness as the first step towards trust.

8. Each person has their own trust account. People operate their trust accounts differently. You need to deposit into the other person’s trust account in a way that speaks to that person. Garrison Keilor tells a story about a couple who had been married for many years. The woman wrote a sonnet to her husband that amongst all the things she loved about him it was when he was working on the broken washing machine that she gained a “trust for tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after that.” Be clear about how trust accrues, and ask direct questions to know how trust builds for others.

9. If you have breached a trust, don’t make things worse by lying about it. Take responsibility quickly, and begin regaining broken trust. The more time that passes, the more tangled the web, the harder it is to come back from broken trust.

10. If in your situation the broken trust is too deep, then work at a healthy ending to the relationship. There is more at stake than the relationship (and kids if there are kids involved). Your ability to trust yourself and get back on a path with integrity is the biggest issue at stake. Work towards loving and leaving the relationship, giving thanks for what it has meant, forgiving life for disappointing your expectations and moving forward positively.

Trust – What Are You Ultimately Protecting?

A Zen Master lived the simplest kind of life in a little hut at the foot of a mountain. One evening, while he was away, a thief sneaked into the hut only to find there was nothing in it to steal. The Zen Master returned and found him. “You have come a long way to visit me,” he told the prowler, “and you should not return empty handed. Please take my clothes as a gift.” The thief was bewildered, but he took the clothes and ran away. The Master sat naked, watching the moon. “Poor fellow,” he mused,” I wish I could give him this beautiful moon.”

The beautiful thing about this story is that the Zen Master wasn’t holding on too tightly, so trust was easier for him. Be generous in your relationships. The more freely you give, the less you will feel that you have to lose.

Maybe you don’t need a crash helmet after all. Life is generous, and always offers second chances. People are flawed, but there are always opportunities to rebuild trust. You have an inner courage to get back up after being hurt and keep loving anyway. Let go, trust the adventure of being alive and enjoy intimacy without defensiveness.

Living "as if"- the Power of Intentions

This article first appeared on Soulseeds where I post several times a week, along with many other articles and resources.

When I was 17 and finishing high school, I wanted a career in property. So I wrote to the CEO’s of every major property investment firm in Sydney. Most of them sent back form letters thanking me for my interest but declining an interview, but a few kindly invited me to call and schedule an interview. I had to scramble as I had no suitable clothes, no resume and no experience beyond my paper route, although in my defense I had visited a lot of properties delivering papers. When the day arrived for my first interview, I thought I had thought of everything. I had researched the way business people dressed and what they carried. My intention was to turn up looking and sounding like I was already a business person. Half an hour before I was due to leave home, I realized that I had forgotten to buy one crucial piece of my outfit- a pair of black socks to match my gray suit. There was nothing even close in my closet. Not to be put off, I had what to this day may remain my craziest idea. I took a black marker and scribbled some socks on my ankles. I put my shoes right on top of my bare painted feet and went off to my first job interview. During the interview I looked down and noticed that the marker was smudging. Holes were growing in my fake socks right before my eyes. I kept both feet planted on the floor and no one seemed to notice.

By the time I left the interview, I had my first job offer. 3 weeks later I turned up for my first day at work….with REAL black socks on. Within one year in this job, another altogether different passion took hold of me and I left that job to set out on a path towards my calling as a spiritual leader. I learnt something profound from my brief foray into the corporate world, something that I intuited before the interview, about the power of impressions. The spiritual truth is that the first person you need to convince is yourself. The third big life lesson was that sometimes you have to improvise to reach your dreams. If you have a dream to be someone, the place to begin is to live as if you are already that person. Live as the person you aspire to be and start now. In the words of the 18th century German writer Goethe,

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.

Attracting Your Intentions

Over the past few weeks I have been writing about the power of intentions. First I wrote about imagining the end point and working backwards. In this my last article about intentions for the time being, I want to focus on the potential to be who you want to be right now and work forwards. In between the first article and this one, I wrote about the power of perseverance, creative inspiration and relationships in setting intentions.

My intention here is to inspire you with examples, from my own life and others, ordinary stories about fake socks and cocktail napkins, of people who have embodied their dreams. No matter how old you are, you are too young to give up on your ideals. No matter how overwhelmed you feel, you have more resources than you imagine. No matter what obstacles you see in your path, this is the time to get clarity on your dreams and begin making them a reality by living them, walking them, dressing in them, thinking them, talking them and breathing them with every breath.

I know someone who took this advice to extremes. She had a deep desire to be in a relationship with a man but there was no one in her life at the time who rocked her boat. Before she met her future partner, she bought him birthday cards and anniversary cards, and even went so far as to buy two tickets to some upcoming concerts. Sure enough, she met him within weeks. Now I’m not saying this always works out so neatly. We can’t always explain why and in whose timing things do or don’t turn up in our lives. There is power in living AS IF things are already true. If at some point, you change your path or alter your course, then clarify your new dreams and make your new dreams a reality.

I love the story about a man with a passion for singing. He was good, but couldn’t land a singing job that paid the bills. So he improvised. He found a job that paid the rent, where he could sing all day long to his heart’s content. He became a bus driver, in fact quite a famous bus driver in Chicago. People would time their trips in the hopes of catching his bus. He said in an interview, “I drive the bus to get a captive audience every single day”, and no one seems to mind one little bit.

Do the best you can to align your intentions with your reality. Let your intentions and who you are become hand and glove, and you will find a way to manifest all that you want to be in the world. Your life will sing and people around you will enjoy your authenticity.

Try it out. When you get up in the morning, after brushing your pearly whites, get dressed as the person you want to be, the person you know yourself to be beyond all the self doubting voices and negative talk. Walk as that person. Be that person. Live that person’s life.

Intentions Overcome Obstacles

Very often when you live AS IF something is already true, you turn “as if” into I AM and I CAN. During the week I was trying to write and it just wasn’t flowing. So I decided to take a break and turned on the TV in perfect time to see part of the memorial service for Betty Ford. I received the inspiration I needed. I caught a clip from Presidential Historian Richard Norton Smith. He spoke movingly about Betty as someone who broke the mould of what you expect from a First Lady. In one nice turn of phrase he described her as “The feminist next door, a free spirit with a dress code.” She overcame her own obstacles to create the possibility of recovery for many. Smith told the story of a time before the Betty Ford Treatment Center had opened. She was on Frank Sinatra’s private jet and conversation turned to funding for the new center. She had no pledge cards on hand, so she improvised and took the first pledges for the Betty Ford Center on Frank Sinatra’s cocktail napkins.

She had clear intentions and nothing was going to stop her. That’s the way with clear intentions. You find a way and often improvise on the details. Betty Ford also believed through her own recovery that she was serving a Higher Power. She held her intentions accountable to this higher purpose. This is part of what makes it possible to overcome obstacles. When you are fully committed to a worthy cause, some higher energy moves with you. Doors open that you couldn’t have imagined, hurdles turn into spring boards to make giant leaps and gains. You can call this higher energy any number of things, including God, but whatever you call it, it is a conspiracy of coincidences that colludes to make your intentions inevitable.


Talking Up Your Intentions

Do you ever catch yourself, saying things that sabotage your intentions? “It’s never worked before”, “Others have tried”, “I don’t expect this to work but….” If you are truly serious about making your intentions a reality, then align your language with your intentions.

There is a You Tube video that recently went viral about a blind guy who was sitting on a street corner asking for money. He had a sign that said, “I’m blind. Please help.” A woman stops at his mat and writes something on his sign. He doesn’t know what it is, but quickly people begin leaving more and more money in his jar. Later the woman comes back and says to him, “I wrote the same message with different words. Finally the sign is revealed, “It’s a beautiful day and I can’t see it.”

Frame your intentions in the most positive, empowering, optimistic language. Take the same three sabotaging sentences and turn them around.

It’s never worked before becomes, “I will now do something new and exciting.”

Others have tried becomes, “I will continue what others have started and do it in my own unique way that no one else has ever tried before.”

I don’t expect this to work becomes, “I’m going to give this every chance of success.”

Find Your Authentic Swing

When it comes to setting intentions, you have to be willing to try, swing, miss, change, try alternatives, try again, and make choices. You need to see various paths unfolding in front of you, and choose the one that is most authentic. Let me end with an example from golf. I’m no great golfer, but the times I have played golf I never could understand the practice swing. I have the sort of golf swing that you don’t want to practice. The less I repeat that swing the better……

When I saw the movie based on the novel The Legend of Bagger Vance, I came to appreciate the practice swing. A great golfer, Ranolph Junuh, is left traumatized from fighting in WW1. After the war, Bagger Vance becomes the voice of his Higher Power, the voice of intention, as he overcomes his demons to play golf again. There is a description in the novel of a conversation between Vance and Junuh about the swing of another golfer, Jones.

Around Jones, encompassing his body in vibrating concentric fields, spread an aurora of energy. It seemed to be his body, but expanded, augmented. It was a field itself. Then there were other fields, an infinitude of them. You could see his will, as Bagger Vance said, his intention select the field he chose, which was the fairway and the target line. Lines of force, which were chromatic not just visually but aurally as well, vibrating like music, extended from Jones' intentionality down the fairway to the target area. But there were at least two exceptional aspects to this will and to the force lines it apprehended.
First, the force lines seemed to exist outside time, independent of it. And second, they seemed to exert an intentionality of their own. Let me try to be precise, for this is exceptionally important.

Jones waggled now and set himself over the ball. I saw his swing before he swung it. But it was not a single swing, as if predetermined; rather it was a number of swings, I would guess a hundred, two hundred, all vibrating simultaneously in Jones' field, as if in alternative futures. Possible futures. They were all recognizably Jones' swing. But some were duffs, tops, skulls, and so on. Bad swings. I could see Jones' will search among those swings, like you or I would hunt through a file drawer for a patient's chart. Jones seemed to settle. To still himself. The auroras surrounding him consolidated. The bad swings fell away, evaporating like a dream; colors intensified around the swings he had intentioned, until there were only half a dozen very closely arrayed swings remaining. As Vance had said, intelligence seemed to pour from Jones' grip, from his hands ("educated hands" no doubt). Receptive intelligence, searching the Field, drawing from it and upon it. Then Jones swung. In actuality. You could see his motion in the physical dimension track along the motions he had intentioned, not perfectly, but very close to those pre-swings that existed outside of time. I was numb, dumbstruck; I couldn't absorb it. The ball rocketed away down lines of force, with everything humming and glowing and vibrating in some keen cosmic harmony.

I must remember that the next time I play mini golf, as I try to plan for the ball to ricochet off a windmill before going down a shute, across a bridge and into the hole in one shot.

Setting intentions is like preparing for a golf swing, rehearsing a speech or making a pro and con list. There are a number of paths your intentions could take, and they are all possible. Few, if any, of them would be a mistake. But one of them is your most authentic path. Finding that path is the gold. When you find your authentic path, nothing can stop you. It will be true in that case that you can do your work and step back, letting go of the outcomes because you have already succeeded.

In that sense it is true that if you follow your heart and build what fills you with passion, the right people will come at the right time and for the right reasons.

The Sufi poet Hafiz once said, “I should not make any promises, but I know that if you pray, somewhere in this world -- something good will happen.”

If you set intentions that come from your highest self, align your life with those intentions, live and breathe them with perseverance, then something amazing will happen, somewhere and sometime.

Getting Ego Out of Intentions

This article first appeared on Soulseeds where I post several times a week.

Yesterday I rode 50 miles on my bike to watch an Australian rugby team beat a New Zealand rugby team. Not that there’s any rivalry between Aussies and Kiwis :). But it was a glorious day and made extra special by being with the only Kiwi I know in America. Isn’t it funny the way we feel some sort of pride when our team wins? As if I was on the field……

Just in case my head swelled too much to fit into my helmet, I was brought back down to earth with a thud on the ride. I thought I was doing pretty well until an 80 year old man pedaled past me like a streak of light. He was pulling two kids in a buggy behind his bike, and they were stopping at garage sales along Lakeshore Drive. Every time they stopped at a sale, I rode past thinking to myself, “How do you like me now old timer?” Sure enough a mile or two down the road, he flew past me again, now with dolls houses and scooters from the sale piled on top of the kids in the buggy. It was my ride on the inner roller coaster called “Ego”. This was supposed to be a relaxing ride on a beautiful summer’s day and a nice time with friends. That was my intention. But a tiny word with a massively sinister plot threatened my enjoyment until I realized what was going on.

Intentions are so much more powerful and effective when you are aware of the role of ego. This is part 4 in a series of articles on intentions. First I described the power of visualizing an end that excites you and then working backwards to make it happen. Then I wrote about perseverance, where you find whatever resources you need to continue moving towards your vision and no matter what the obstacles you keep going. Third, I wrote about creative inspiration when you tap into a power that is within and around you with effortless effort. Now I want to take the conversation a little further by looking at the role of ego in setting intentions.

What the world needs now, at this troubled time, is for many people to step up with bold intentions that serve the common good. Too much of what we see right now is ego driven. The news about Rupert Murdoch closing down his News of the World paper is an example of egotistical intentions catching up with a business. His intention to run a media empire of epic proportions led him to compromise acceptable standards of ethics and stoop to hacking into private voice mail systems, a strategy that interfered with the investigations of missing children. What began as a worthy intention, ie to inform the public, was hijacked by ego and led astray by an insatiable desire for power and profit.

Modern day capitalism is a brilliant and worthy intention. In itself it is not egotistical. It supports economies and efficiencies that have the ability to create common wealth and serve the common good. But when ego takes over, in the guise of an insatiable desire for size and power, capitalism becomes a destructive force; industries fix prices, companies avoid tax, bribe officials and control the outcome of elections. In these cases, ego gets in the way of the intention of running an efficient and profitable business and comes back to haunt all of us; such as banks that have to be bailed out because their collapse would destabilize global systems.

It happens at an individual level as well. The desire for control in relationships is insatiable. When one person sets the intention to get what they can from a relationship or a work colleague, no matter what they have to do to get it, it becomes destructive.

There are other subtle ways that ego infiltrates intentions. Setting intentions based on prestige or appearance is another example of the ego’s insatiable desire for importance. If you desire more money or prestige because you think it will complete you as a person, this is a trick of the ego. Ego says, “If only I have this amount of money, this property, or this partner I will be happy.” You need to turn this sentence around for healthy intentions. Once I get happy with who I am right now, then I will start manifesting my highest intentions.

Healthy intentions follow the golden rule. If you are looking for more money, then be more generous and participate in the easy flow of money. If you are looking for more acknowledgment, then acknowledge others and participate in the easy flow of praise or encouragement or positivity. Whatever you are looking for in life, start by giving to others and you will avoid ego’s traps.

Enough of the ego driven intentions. We’ve had enough destructive intention, enough corruption, enough violence- enough EGO. Whether it’s the imperial intentions of media magnates or the personal intentions of individuals like you and me, the world is crying out for intentions that serve the common good. The first step is to ask some questions of your intentions. Shine some light on them to see why they are important and who they are serving.

The Motivation for Intentions

We get some clues about this from the world of super heroes. My favorite super hero has always been Wonder Woman and not just because of her star spangled spandex speedoes. She was a ground breaker, bringing women into the super hero realm and paving the way for Zena Princess Warrior and Lara Croft and others. One of Wonder Woman’s secret weapons was her Golden Lasso, an unbreakable rope that corrals the truth of out of people like a cattle herder. When her mother gave her the Goden Lasso, she said,

This is the Golden Lasso. Besides being made from an indestructible material, it also carries with it the power to compel people to tell the truth. Use it well, and with compassion.

Maybe in the past you were taught that God is like a cowboy in the sky, ready to lasso you if you slip up and bring you back into line. God as John Wayne or Gene Audrey, and you as the cattle. That’s not what I’m talking about. The Golden Lasso is a personal thing. It’s also known as your conscience. Swing it round in your mind and consciousness like a lasso and it can garner all the inner truth you need. Use it well and with compassion.

The Golden Lasso is the foundation of the Golden Rule. Once you realize at a deep level the truth that you are one with others, you transcend the ego’s delusion of separateness and set intentions that benefit everyone involved. The Golden Rule becomes completely natural and effortless.

Lasso the truth of your intentions’ motivations. Are they self serving, or do they take into account the broadest circle of concerns possible? Be truthful with yourself, listen to your inner motivations, and act on your highest intentions that come from a place of self awareness and an authentic desire to see the world change for the better.

Healthy Sense of Self

When you set intentions, the point is not to remove your ego. The point is to have a healthy sense of self. Zen master, Shunryu Suzuki said, “How much "ego" do you need? Just enough so that you don't step in front of a bus.” That’s a good starting point, but I think we need more ego than that. You need enough ego to get out of bed in the morning. You need enough ego to believe that you can make a difference in the world and you need enough ego to trust that you have a unique calling in the world.

Where ego becomes a problem is when it tries to convince you that you are a self made person, separate from all others and that your actions don’t impact others. You aren’t a self made person. You are made up of all sorts of other people. Ego becomes a problem when it convinces you that your intentions are more important than other people’s intentions, or that your intentions don’t affect other people.

I remember being in a prayer meeting in rural Australia many years ago. Someone in the group prayed for a dry day so that they could enjoy their family picnic. This was in drought stricken territory where another dry day would mean the loss of another farm. This is an example of an egotistical intention.

A more extreme example was something I heard about after the Columbine shootings in 1999. It was a chain email written by a girl who was in the school on the day of the shooting. Even though she was in the firing line, miraculously bullets sprayed around her and she was not shot. She claimed it was because she was part of a prayer group which met in the school and as the shooters moved around the school she was praying for protection. If her assessment was correct, this would mean that God caused the same bullets which narrowly missed her to, in turn, hit and kill 13 other teenagers.

However you understand God, it makes no sense to me that God would play Russian roulette with people’s lives choosing for some people to be saved while others die. However you understand the universe of intentions, it’s egotistical to set intentions that don’t include the widest group possible. The universal field of intentions wants good for everyone, even if we don’t always understand the timing or unfolding of events in our life. Regardless of your perspective on the cause and origin of intentions, set intentions that serve the greatest good for the greatest number.

It’s Not All About You

When it comes to setting healthy intentions, it is always about more than yourself. Occasionally I play a game with the kids when I drive them to school. We set the intention to drive all the way to the school without stopping. There is only one rule- it has to be legal. This sometimes involves slowing down well before a red light so that it changes before we get there. Everyone in the car is literally on the edge of their seats.

There is one flaw in the game, and it’s an important truth that relates to setting intentions. There are OTHER people on the road. If you set intentions that ignore other people, you are likely to end up in a car wreck. There are things you can’t control, like traffic lights and other people’s actions. Set intentions that include as many stakeholders as possible. Don’t play Russian roulette with other people by setting mindless intentions.

What this means in practice is that if you set intentions that disregard the people around you, it will end in disaster. It also means that if you are in a relationship where one partner is setting healthy intentions and the other person is not participating, it won’t work. If you have the most awesome intentions and strategies for parenting, but your kids are not participating, it won’t work. The right idea at the wrong time won’t work. The wrong idea at any time won’t work.

Set healthy intentions that take into account true empowerment for as many people as possible. Begin with your own motivations.

Bold Intentions For the Good of Humanity

I’ve given plenty of examples that describe intentions wrapped in ego. Let me end with a wonderful example of intentions that include a healthy sense of self. The more I understand of the life of Betty Ford who passed away this past week, the more impressed I am. She was a true super hero in the mould of Wonder Woman. After dealing with her own demons, she set the intention to make a difference in other people’s lives. You would think that having the highest profile drug and alcohol treatment center in the country named after you might be an ego trip.

On the contrary, apparently she agreed to her name being associated only reluctantly. In fact, it was a matter of accountability for her. She said this, “The center's name has been burden, as well as honor. Because even if nobody else holds me responsible, I hold myself responsible."

I like to believe that so many people have been helped by Betty Ford and her treatment center because she set healthy intentions to begin with, and did so with a healthy sense of self and a desire to genuinely empower people in their recovery just as she was empowered.

What are your bold intentions for yourself and the world? Whether you set large scale intentions like treatment centers or whether it’s the intention to live in more peaceful relationships or the personal intention to live with greater balance, get your ego out of the way and get on with the business of being the change you want to see in the world. Participate in the raising of a global intention, galvanizing the collective power of millions of kindred spirits, to bring healing to the world, one person, one community and one nation at a time. There is an abundance of the resources that matter most. Together we have the power to transform entire systems for the greater good of all of humanity, for generations to come.

Creative Inspiration

This piece first appeared on my blog at Soulseeds, where I post several times a week.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been exploring some of the key features of intention; whether it relates to a relationship, career, goal or vision. This is the third in the series.

First I wrote about the power of intention, where you visualize an end point and work backwards, best described by Michelangelo who said about his masterpiece the Statue of David: “I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” The second week I spoke about perseverance, intention’s close companion. When you are truly jazzed by your vision of the future, you hustle to make it happen. You do what it takes, trying things, being willing to fall down, get back up and push through any number of obstacles to get where you want to be.

I had a vague idea where I wanted to take this next, but it wasn’t clear and I struggled to find clarity. If I had been been using a typewriter there would have been scrunched up paper flying around the room, the pile of paper rubble a reminder of my frustrating cognitive cul de sac. My stream of consciousness had dried to a trickle. All I had was the one word “creativity” but no idea why this word was significant. Finally, after struggling for several days, it all fell into place like the last pieces of a jigsaw puzzle while I was riding my bike. Eureka! The third topic is inspiration, the counterpart to perseverance. Alongside the need for effort, I add the role of effortless effort. Suddenly all my ideas fell into place easily. I completed the piece in about 30 minutes.

Here’s a question as it relates to the theme? How long did it take to write this article- 30 minutes or 3 days? When did the preparation begin- 3 days before or a lifetime ago? Maybe everything that has ever happened leads to this moment and falls together in this theme. And who wrote the article? Well I put the pieces together but whole networks of people conspired to make it possible. That is the awesome power of inspiration. You are not alone. You don’t have to do it all yourself. All you need to do is tap into the limitless power that is within and around you all the time, and let it flow.

Inspiration- Where Does It Come From?
On the one hand, most of life’s great achievements come about through determined, hard work. For example, world famous Cellist, Pablo Casals practiced every day for 4 hours. Someone once asked him, 'Mister Casals, you are a master, you have accomplished so much. Why do you keep practicing four hours a day even though you are 93 years old?' He said, 'Well, I'm finally beginning to notice some improvement.' Legend has it that he even completed his daily regimen of scales on the morning that he died. So on the one hand, Casals is an example of the truth of persistent, hard work.

On the other hand, some of life’s great achievements appear effortless. You hear of people who sit down and write whole books in a matter of days or weeks as if the words are dropping straight from the sky into their brains and from there to their fingers and screen. The great composer, Handel, composed The Messiah in three weeks without leaving his house. Another composer, Mozart, said that his music often presented itself to his imagination as if from nowhere. He had no choice but to stop what he was doing and write the music down. It was as if something beyond his own consciousness was writing his symphonies.

So which is it? Is true inspiration effortless or hard work? Maybe it’s both at the same time. The playwright, Arthur Miller was once asked in an interview, “Are you writing another play?" His answer was brilliant. He said, "I don't know, but I probably am."

Are you working on something brilliant and inspirational right now? Probably. When did it start? At the beginning of time. Who are you working with? All the creative energy that exists. The philosopher Daniel Dennett once posed the question,

How long did it take Bach to create the St Matthew’s Passion? An early version was performed in 1727 but the version we listen to today dates from ten years later and includes many revisions. How long did it take to create Bach? He had the benefit of 42 years of living when the first version was heard and more than half a century when the later version was completed. How long did it take to create Christianity without which St Matthews Passion by Back or anyone else would be inconceivable? About two millennia. How long did it take to create the social and cultural context in which Christianity could be born? Somewhere between a hundred millennia and 3 million years depending on when we decide to date the birth of human culture. And how long did it take to create homo sapiens? Between three and four billion years, roughly the same length of time it took to create daisies and snail darters, blue whales and spotted owls. Billions of years of irreplaceable design work.

The counterpart to attaining your intentions through perseverance is to tap into the energy of inspiration that is already there and just waiting for you. You just haven’t connected to it yet. You can understand that in a very logical and systematic way like Daniel Dennett because everything is constantly being created whether you realize it or not, or you can think of it in more of a synchronistic way like Wayne Dyer who said, “It's the difference between motivation and inspiration. Motivation is when you get hold of an idea and don't let go of it until you make it a reality. Inspiration is the reverse- when an idea gets hold of you and you feel compelled to let that impulse or energy carry you along. You get to a point where you realize that you're no longer in charge, that there's a driving force inside you that can't be stopped.”

You know this experience. It happens at moments of surrender, maybe after some resistance or struggle. You stop the struggle and move with intuition. Maybe you surrender to new love or a new opportunity. It doesn’t necessarily make logical sense at the time, but you jump anyway. It’s inspired. It feels fateful, like it was meant to be and all you do is hold on for the ride.

Creative Energy is Playful
One of the ways to remind yourself that there is a field of intention, or collective genius, or however you describe the latent powers around you, is to remember that creative energy is playful. One of my favorite comedians, Ricky Gervais, does a satire on reading the Genesis creation story literally and in particular the creation of light.

God created the heaven and the earth….. IN THE DARK. How good is that? I would have created a little bit of light, then taken a look and said, “Right, I need some planets.”

He went, “Zap. That’s everything. Now let’s have a look. Brilliant! Then He made man out of dust…. just because he could.”

Compared to a lot of violent creation myths, the Genesis creation story has a certain playfulness about it. For a start it all happens out of God’s nostrils. If you look at your nostrils in the mirror for long enough, you have to laugh. They are funny looking things, not the most dignified part of the human anatomy and not the first part of the body you associate with the creation of the universe. Yet the story says that all of life emanated from the nostrils of God. Psalm 104 described the creator “stretching out the heavens like a tent.” You have to have a sense of fun to parallel the creation of the universe with pitching a tent. All I can say is that we’re very lucky that I wasn’t the creator. If you had seen some of the tents I’ve pitched in my time. The universe would be collapsing back in on all of us in the middle of a rainy night. Creative energy manifests intentions out of raw imagination and whatever resources are available at the time. Inspiration doesn’t have to be grand. It can be real and fun.

The value in bringing playfulness into your intentions is captured in the Chinese phrase Wu Wei. I think of it as “get out of wu wei, or get out of your own way.” Wu Wei means effortless effort.

Blossoms like a flower, flows like a river, reaches like a tree.

Wu wei is like water. You get in the flow, get out of the way of your own limiting voice of doubt, and enjoy the journey. This is an important principle in setting intentions. You want to keep your eyes open, and keep looking around, but you don’t want to overlook your intuitive insight.

I learnt this lesson when I was in England for my brother’s wedding. In good English tradition we shot clay pigeons on the morning of the wedding. It turns out that when it comes to shooting, I’m about as accurate as Dick Cheney. The instructor kept saying, “Don’t think about it. Just shoot.” He was right. See it and shoot. Don’t think about. See it and shoot. It’s tempting to second guess yourself and shoot where you think its going. Every time I second guessed myself and waited, I missed. Every time I followed my instincts and shot immediately I hit it.

How does clay pigeon shooting relate to inspiration? Combine the two big ideas of this article. You are ALWAYS preparing for each moment, and DON’T over think, then you come to a beautiful balance for setting intentions. Everything that happens in your life is building your wisdom and resources. At the same time, everything you need is available right now for whatever act of creation is required. It is both hard work, perseverance AND inspiration all at the same time.

The famous scientists, Watson and Crick, are great examples of the principle of minimal effort. You might imagine they worked around the clock in their ground breaking discovery of DNA. In fact, Watson played hours of tennis every afternoon, and apparently went to Cambridge parties every night. Crick rarely turned up to work before 10am and then took a coffee break within an hour. They apparently lost interest in their study of DNA at various points and made some of their most significant discoveries standing in line at the Lab’s Cafeteria. This is often the way with inspired intention.

Whether it’s riding your bike, goofing around at parties or walking the dog, some of your most creative moments happen when your mind is open and receptive but not stressed and strained. Fun is not just fun. It also reminds you to surrender control of the outcomes and join in the thrill of creative interchange. This leaves you open and ready to receive the inspiration you need and want.

Creativity and Inspiration
Break the idea down a little further. Where is the mind- is it contained in the brain, or does it extend further than your own brain? What is the relationship between the individual mind and its environment? Think about this classic thought experiment. Two people are travelling to a museum at the same time. One of them is of sound mind and the other one has Alzheimer’s. One knows the way to the museum by memory. The other one with Alzheimer’s Disease has the directions to the museum written in a notebook. They both arrive at the museum at the same time. Which one is using their mind? We more easily equate memory with mind but they are both clearly using their minds. The mind of the second person extends to include the notebook. His notebook is part of his mind. He created the system, trusts it and uses it to inform his memory.

Technology takes the idea of an extended mind even further than a notebook. Do you remember when TiVo first came out? It records television shows based on past choices. There was a famous case in the early 2000s about the guy who complained that TiVo thought he was gay because it kept recording shows with gay themes. He tried to correct TiVo’s assumption by overcompensating and recording lots of violent war movies and wrestling shows. TiVo then decided he was an insane Nazi and recorded documentaries on the Third Reich. His story ended up as an episode on the comedy show The King of Queens.

It’s clearly not always right, but TiVo is an example of technology where you extend your mind to interact with your environment. Now Amazon will send you suggestions based on patterns in your purchases. Google is an even more sophisticated form of technology that extends your mind. The more strategic you are with the wording of your search, the more helpful the answers will be. I found a site called Funny Google, which puts your own name in place of the Google logo, making the experience even more personalized. Now your google search is a literal extension of your mind and identity.

Whether it’s a notebook, a slide rule, TiVo or Google, these are all ways of taking your mind out into the world and letting your environment help you think.

Beyond technology, conversation is a way of putting people together and bouncing ideas off each other, to the point where you might say “Whose idea was that anyway?”

When you think of DNA, you most likely think of Watson and Crick. But very few people have heard of Rosalind Franklin who was instrumental in Watson and Crick’s discoveries. In 2003, Dr. Raymond Damadian spent $300,000 to place ads in major newspapers claiming that he should have been included in the Nobel Prize for the invention of the MRI, and not the two scientists who were given credit for the invention in the early 1970s.

Creative energy is like that. It is a process and a network. You can’t always tell who is responsible and you can’t always tell when discoveries are made because many people and many energies collaborate in new advances and they are happening all the time.

It’s the same with intentions. You have to believe them to see them. Picture a bold intention for your life or the world. Hold it steady in your mind with detail and clarity. Add in a burst of perseverance to the image, something that signifies a never say die attitude. Then add in a large dose of surrender to the latent powers of inspiration.

There is nothing you can’t achieve if you partner with the creative energy of the universe that wants you to succeed, and will support your efforts if you have good intent.

You are making a difference, and having fun doing it. In the immortal words of Sinatra, “do it wu wei” and get in the flow of life.

The Power of Persistence

This piece was first posted on Soulseeds in the Grapevine blog where I post most of my writing.

During the 2000 Sydney Olympics, Kenyan long-distance runner Kip Lagat was asked why her country produced so many great runners. "It's the road signs," she replied with a cheeky smile. "'Beware of lions'!" It was one of those priceless moments you can’t script and there was a ring of truth to it as well.

Why ARE Kenyans such good runners? There are lots of theories about this. Some argue that Kenyans are genetically endowed with a high ratio of slow twitch fiber in their muscles, as opposed to the high proportion of fast twitch fiber in sprinters’ muscles. Others argue that it’s all related to environment. In Kenya, kids aren’t dropped at school in SUV’s or yellow school buses. They run to school, and they run a long way. The average Kenyan teenager runs 12 miles a day. I don’t even drive that far in a day. They run to school and turn around and run home at the end of the day.

The genetic factor is no doubt significant, but it’s just as much a learned skill. The environmental factor in Kenyan running ability is enormous. Running is a way of life, it’s a matter of status and for many Kenyans it’s a matter of life and death. It’s like the difference between a rabbit and a fox? The fox is running for dinner and the rabbit is running for its life.

Whether its long distance running, parenting, learning new skills or setting bold intentions, we now understand that to a greater degree than we ever imagined, we can create an environment to support our ideals. It’s an incredible time to be alive, as science gives more and more significance to environment over just being determined by genetic makeup. Passion, persistence and process are every bit as powerful as genes in creating the life we want to live. As a father, this leads me to stand alongside my children, tell them to reach for their dreams, fill them with self belief and optimism and help them create the type of environment that supports their dreams. As a spiritual leader, it leads me to stand alongside people who are dealing with difficult life circumstances and remind you in the words of Christopher Robbin to Winnie the Pooh, “You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem and smarter than you think” and I would add, capable of far more than you give yourself credit for.

In the past, we believed that God set the limits on human ability, and that we were born with divinely ordained traits and limitations. If you achieved anything it was a gift from God. If you fell short, you justified it because it wasn’t God’s will. It was a disempowering belief. For the last 100 years, genes have replaced God as the standard bearer of human determinism. The incredibly liberating truth of our day is that neither God nor genes need be self limiting concepts.

Don’t get me wrong. There are genetic limitations. No matter how much I practice, there is no chance in the world that I will EVER become a world class ballerina. No matter how much money I spend on lessons or dance instruction, I will never make a living as a ballerina. Genes are significant. It’s just that they don’t control your destiny anywhere near as much as we previously believed. Science now tells us that genes only become traits when they interact with the environment. This is why genetic scientist Steven Pinker can have the baldness gene and still have a head of hair that would put Samson to shame. It explains why sets of identical twins with identical genetic makeup can be quite different in some areas of their personality or circumstances. It is due to environmental factors.

This has huge significance for the topic of persistence. Persistence is part of the process of learning and growing through life. It is about becoming, and overcoming limitations. It tells me that like the rabbit, your level of desire will mostly determine whether you attain your goals.

As a father, I was moved by Will Smith in the movie The Pursuit of Happiness and his commitment to his son while he overcame so many obstacles. At one point he said to his son,

Don't ever let somebody tell you you can't do something. Not even me. All right? You got a dream... You gotta protect it. People can't do somethin' themselves, they wanna tell you you can't do it. If you want somethin', go get it. Period.

Will Smith, the civilian, seems to believe this just as much as the characters he portrays. A few years back he gave an interview where he spoke about the secret of success. He first described the power of intentions. He said, “Make a choice. Decide what it’s gonna be, who you’re gonna be, how you’re gonna do it. I can create whatever I want to create. We are who we choose to be.” Then the interviewer asked if others without his opportunities could do what he has done. He then spoke about the power of persistence. The key factor is “I will not be outworked. You might have more talent than me. You might be smarter than me. You might outdo me in 9 categories out of 10. But get on a treadmill together, one of two things is going to happen. You gonna get off the treadmill or I’m gonna die on that treadmill.” The power of persistence is hard work and hustle.

You put two people alongside each other; sportspeople, business people, whatever. The two people have similar genetic makeup. Which one is more likely to succeed? The one who has the burning passion to persist through pain and obstacle, with little sleep and little reason to keep going, but they keep going anyway. The one more likely to succeed is the one who will stand in the flames of struggle to fulfill their dreams. Put two visions or plans alongside each other- the one that is backed by passion will win every time.

Persistence and Growth

Persistence is an essential companion to intention. Work out where you want to go, decide how important it is to you to get there, then follow that burning passion with dogged determination. Once your imagination is captured by vision and passion, you will climb Mt Everest if you need to, to make sure your intention becomes a reality. Speaking of climbing Mt Everest, take the persistence of Sir Edmund Hillary as an inspiration.

In 1953 he scaled the highest mountain then known to man-29,000 feet straight up. He was knighted for his efforts. But you have to understand the persistence that led to his success. In 1952 he failed in his attempt to climb Everest. A few weeks later he was speaking to a group in England. He walked out on stage to huge applause. Hillary was deeply moved by their belief in him because he was feeling like a failure. Caught up in the moment, he abandoned his prepared speech. He walked to the edge of the platform, made a fist and pointed at a picture of the mountain. He then said in a booming voice, "Mount Everest, you beat me the first time, but I'll beat you the next time because you've grown all you are going to grow... but I'm still growing!"

I’m still growing. This is the mantra of persistence. You’re still growing. You’re always still growing. Your growth is outpacing the growth of your challenges. Growth may even be slow. At times it may feel nonexistent. Human growth is like the bamboo plant. After it is planted, there is no visible growth for up to five years - even under ideal conditions! Just when you think it has no hope, it suddenly begins growing at the rate of nearly two and a half feet per day, reaching a full height of ninety feet within six weeks.

It’s unexpected, but if you could see beneath the ground, you would see the incredible system of roots that are developing for those first five years. It’s the same for you. Even when you feel discouraged that you aren’t growing, or aren’t growing as fast as you would like, there are roots developing deep within that are preparing you for leaps of epic proportions. Every time you persevere when the going is tough, your life becomes more deeply rooted in strength. Every time your detractors tell you that you can’t do something, and you refuse to believe them, your intentions become more deeply rooted in passion.

In 2009, a man named Joe Willie “Pinetop” Perkins won a Grammy Award for his album Pinetop Perkins and Friends. That in itself is not noteworthy. It’s only surprising if you know that Pinetop Perkins was 95 years old when he won the award. You could say he was a late bloomer, like a bamboo plant. After a life of setbacks and struggle, he never stopped believing in himself. He got his first break in his eight decade, and never looked back. He died in March of this year, at age 97, a chain smoker to the end.

Human Spirit

As much as I believe in the significance of genes, there is no gene for the human spirit. There is no gene for persistence. It is a learned trait, a passion fired in the crucible of human experience. Thomas Edison, who knew a thing or two about trying and experimenting, once said, “Genius is one percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration.” It’s like the Zen saying, “Fall down 7 times, get up 8.” Edison went well beyond 7 stumbles. But it’s not even about failure. Reframe the saying, “Attempt 7 times, and succeed on the eighth.” Try something 999 times, succeed on the 1000th. If that involves falling down, so be it. It’s all part of the process of learning, growth and becoming. Persistence is believing that success lies at or just beyond the next attempt.

To this point I have used the words persistence and perseverance interchangeably. Is there a difference between persistence and perseverance? If there is a difference, it is in their scope. Persistence is in the details and perseverance is in the big picture. You persist with a course of action or a plan. You persevere with a vision, an idea or a belief. This is important, because there are times when you have to change your course of action and you can do that without giving up on your vision. Let me illustrate.

We got a family pet about 6 months ago, a little dog named Millie. At home she is meek and mild, but when in the woods surrounded by squirrels she becomes a monster. She chases every squirrel in sight with a passion that makes your heart sing (and makes the squirrels heart skip a beat). She hurdles logs and charges through bushes like a maniac. You know what- she NEVER even gets close to them. But that doesn’t put her off one iota. She finishes chasing one and turns around to chase another, as if it’s her duty in life.

On the one hand, I want to live like Millie. When I know what I want to achieve in life, I want to chase it like Millie chases squirrels. When I hit an obstacle or a challenge, I want to charge through it in search of my dreams. When I fall down, or hit a dead end, I want to get up and keep running. On the other hand, there comes a time when you have to realize you’re living your life like a dog chasing a squirrel. It’s time to change the plan. But don’t lose the vision. Persevere with the vision, even if you don’t persist with a course of action.

Of course Millie just enjoys the chase, and we could all do with a little canine joy in the process without concern for outcomes.

Where Does Motivation Come From?

Many of us were taught to persevere because God demands it. It was a matter of obedience. We were taught that God has set a race for us, and our role is to persist to the end which is eternal life. We were told that it’s a straight line and heaven is the reward and the motivation.

Now many of us don’t think of God or the afterlife in the same literal ways and we KNOW from experience that life is rarely lived in a straight line. So where does our motivation come from to persevere even through the most difficult trials? It comes from an inner drive for authenticity, a trait that many feel comfortable calling the God within. Whether you give this quality divine language or not, it is a process of becoming rather than a fixed state or an end point. Your motivation is to become more of who you are, to sing the song that is in your heart demanding to be sung. I like using divine language for this process because it reminds me that there is something magical about being captured by a cause larger than myself. There is no set plan for the future. My vision allows plenty of room to change direction along the way. We are creating the future as we go. But when you persevere with a vision, it feels fateful. It feels as if it was meant to be. It feels divinely inspired. How could you give up on something that is divinely inspired?

This doesn’t mean it’s easy. Sometimes you feel all at sea, as if there is too much moving and changing all around you. Just as it helps to look at the horizon when you feel sea sick, it also helps to look above the surface level changes to your vision to remind yourself why it’s worth persevering. The reason for sea sickness is the imbalance caused by two much movement, your body is moving and the boat is moving. Looking at the horizon stabilizes your posture and helps to distinguish between the movement of your body and the movement of the boat. Perseverance is the determination to maintain your inner posture when things outside of you are changing.

There is no gene for inspiration, just hard work and determination. In short, perseverance is recognizing what you have inside of you, and setting out to make it a reality AND keeping on going even when the odds are stacked against you because you see the big picture. Look for it out at the horizon of possibilities.

The Power of Intention

This article was first posted at Soulseeds in the Grapevine blog.

What is the difference between a prayer and an intention? Depending on how you think about prayer, probably nothing. They are both proactive and powerful. If you take a passive approach to prayer, however, it has less in common with the power of intention. Take for example the Day of Prayer planned by Texan Governor Rick Perry. His website claims that they are unable to fix many of the problems in America and so they are looking to Jesus to fix them. The event is called The Response which is ironic because they appear to be abrogating all responsibility. Their view of prayer follows the old country song, “Let Jesus take the wheel.” The website says, “There is hope for America. It lies in heaven and we will find it on our knees.”

There are many solutions to the problems in America and Jesus won’t be solving any of them. It is the responsibility of every one of us to be an active part of the solution. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. I can only imagine that if Jesus was around today he wouldn’t be running prayer meetings. He would be at the frontline addressing peoples’ needs in tangible and practical ways.

So what is the role of prayer in America’s problems? Even mainline views of prayer are more balanced than Rick Perry’s apparently passive Day of Prayer event. Take for example the conservative televangelist Oral Roberts who died in 2009. When you fly in to Tulsa Oklahoma you can see the entrance of Oral Roberts University from the plane. At the gates there is a massive sculpture known as The Praying Hands, standing 60 feet tall and weighing 30 tons, the largest bronze monument in the world. At first glance, it appears to be a straightforward image of two hands in prayer pose. But when you look closer, you see that they are not two identical hands. You have to dig a little to find the reason for this, but Oral Roberts himself said, “The Hands represent the hand of a physician using the natural forces of God’s earth and the hand of the prayer partner offering the prayer of faith.” One hand represents prayer and the other hand represents human expertise.

Oral Robert’s view of prayer is closer to the mainstream. It keeps the sense of personal responsibility. Prayer is not an excuse for inaction. Each of us has a responsibility to use our hands, and brains and skills to serve the whole. So what is the purpose of the other hand, the prayer hand?

There is a partial truth in Rick Perry’s Day of Prayer initiative. He says there are some problems we can’t solve. This is true, but the problems in America are not among the unsolvable problems. The problems in American are very solvable if we have the will to do so and work together. There are other things we can’t control. The role of prayer, and this is true across many different views of prayer, is to acknowledge that we can’t control everything in life. Prayer is an act of surrender, humility and intention. Prayer is a way of releasing the burden of control over circumstances such as natural disasters, other peoples’ choices and evolutionary forces. It includes an element of gratitude for forces that hold the universe in place beyond our efforts, and it includes a surrender of outcomes beyond our control.

It’s not so much about “ask and you shall receive.” It’s more about, “express your deepest questions and doubts and at the right time the answer will become clear.” In the meantime, get comfortable with uncertainty, stop expecting that two and two will not equal four and give up what your ego has convinced you that you need to receive. The initiative and the power lie within you to discern between things you can control and things you need to surrender. If you can’t control or fix or change something, then change your attitude to the situation. Surrender to the flow of life, and all that you truly need will find you because it is WITHIN you. You just need to peel away some of the protective layers and pride. Prayer is one way to do this.

My own view of prayer has evolved a LOT over the years. I used to think of prayer as communication with a supernatural being external and apart from myself. Now I think of prayer as communication with the part of myself that is larger than me but still deep within me, my higher power by any name. God is no longer a mysterious OTHER, and is now the mysterious MORE that fills life with meaning and powerful possibilities beyond my small concerns. This mysterious more includes the untapped power of mind, the limitless strength of character, the collective power of shared vision, the wisdom of nature and so much more. There is more possibility in life than our small perspective usually allows us to see. Prayer is one way to tap into this power.

Prayer and Intention

Prayer is less about asking and more about imagining. This is where prayer merges with intention. With intentions, you have the power to imagine the future of your wildest dreams, a future that serves you and others in powerful ways. The power of intention is the ability to think from the end and work backwards. Imagination is your memory of the future.

Michelangelo once said about his masterpiece Statue of David: "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." It existed first in his imagination, as if he was carving it out of his memory. It began in his unconscious mind, and then came to birth in the marble.

Some people argue that the unconscious, or most ancient, parts of the brain have no way of distinguishing between what is real and what is imagined. There seems to at least be some truth to this statement. Anyone who screamed out loud in Spielberg’s new movie Super 8 knows what I’m talking about. Our brains have the ability to feel fear about things that are not real and may never be real. We also have the ability to imagine futures that are incredibly exciting. To the extent that this is true, you could say that if you focus on imagined fear your brain will think this is real. If you focus on an exciting future, also imagined, your brain will think this is real. Either way it’s a choice.

This is how intentions work. You look out to an imagined end point and work backwards. You train your brain to believe that your future is a reality and begin to take steps to live this reality. There is an awesome example of this from Shell Oil Company. Oil companies need to project a long way into the future, including the price of commodities, global forces and unrest in the Middle East, to name a few. In the early 1990s, when they were projecting an oil price of $20 to $30 per barrel let alone the $120 a barrel we now have, they contracted a surprising support person. Betty Sue Flowers is a PhD in English, and worked closely with Joseph Campbell on the Power of Myth. She was contracted to write stories for Shell. She participated in meetings with strategists and economists and crafted their numbers and strategies into story form. Every day she revised the stories and circulated them to the team.

Eventually they created a series of scenarios about how the future might play out. The scenarios were based on scientific predictions but included some wiggle room for uncertain forces. The team was then able to choose their preferred scenario. In an interview, Flowers said this, “when you tell stories about the future, even if you're not claiming to forecast, there's some sense...that actually the future is the story you choose. Now that is very un-economic in its basis. It's not the "invisible hand" working out invisibly, like a machine. Its human beings coming in and saying "I choose Scenario A, not Scenario B." It's a different emphasis--it puts the human being more in the center, in very nuanced ways, instead of these huge impersonal forces. It's very subtle. But it makes a big difference.”

They learnt some important things that relate to intentions.

1. You don't know the future- but you can create scenarios that make sense and CHOOSE one.

2. The scenarios don’t necessarily have straight lines and fixed outcomes. You can rewrite them as you learn and experience more of life.

3. Use your preferred vision of the future to create the present that you want.

Visualizations

Visualization is one way of practicing the power of intention. You can actually visualize the future you want and begin to make it a reality. Try it out. Choose something that comes from your deepest sense of purpose.

Visualize a powerful intention for your life or for the world. Let it come from your highest purpose where what you want, what others need and who you are, are one and the same thing. Picture it in your mind with as much detail and clarity as you can. Feel it in your body. Be it with all your might. Frame it in a scene that is full of blue sky and light. See yourself in the vision, looking strong and fulfilled.

Now let it become part of your present reality. Let your intention loose. Let it unfold. Let it be a path on which your dreams can travel.

Consider adding an affirmation to your visualization. Something like this-

A vibrant and exciting future is unfolding in perfect order.

Unlike the view of prayer where you let Jesus have the wheel, this view of prayer is empowering and full of personal responsibility. You have everything you need, right within you, to both create the reality you desire and surrender the parts of life that you can’t control. It’s all within you, waiting to be liberated like Michelangelo’s angel in marble. Carve the life of your wildest dreams out of the raw material of your humanity; your memory which has more knowledge of past, present and future than you could imagine, your strength that is shaped by life’s challenges, your skill that is honed by years of practice and your wisdom that knows what to change and what to surrender.

You are connected to the source and power of intentions, your own and others. It is a power that no single religion possesses. It can't be possessed. Religions can hint at this power with stories and metaphors, but this is far bigger than any religion. This is a global awakening. Imagine the revolution when people unite their loving intentions for the good of all. There is no limit to what can be achieved.

Are Your Truths True?

This article is linked from Soulseeds where I post more of my writing. Please sign up for the weekly Soulseeds newsletter.

When we arrive home after a few days or weeks away, someone in the family will inevitably say “AJ” as they walk in the door. There is a particular odor that we all associate with the previous owner and even though we’ve lived here for 8 years, the distinctive smell remains. We only notice it after we’ve been away. Otherwise we don’t notice it because we’ve become so used to it. I guess that’s why it’s sometimes easy to miss your own body odor. You’re used to it, and it’s impossible to get away from yourself for a few days even if others wish you would…get away.

Some of the thoughts in your mind are like a lingering odor. You are so used to them that you don’t even notice that you are living as if they are absolutely true. You take them for granted without question, unless you arrive back after a mental getaway, sniff at the edge of your consciousness and see your thoughts in a new light.

There are many ways to look at your thoughts in a new light, and most personal growth systems offer techniques to challenge unquestioned beliefs. Both personal development leader Byron Katie and the philosopher Michael Foucault who died in 1984, devised a series of questions to do just that. They are an odd couple, with no obvious connection to each other except that their questions share a strange synergy. Katie’s questions are coming from a personal perspective, and Foucault’s questions are coming from a social perspective.

Here are the questions they each ask

Katie
What is the truth?
Can you absolutely know it’s true?
What self belief does the truth lead to?
Who would you be without the truth?

FoucaultWho can tell the truth?
What is the truth about?
What are the consequences of the truth?
What is the relationship between the truth and social authority?



The Personal Dimensions of Truth

Katie calls her work The Work. It goes something like this.

What is your truth? X doesn’t care about me because he doesn’t listen.

Can you absolutely know it’s true? It feels true, but then again he did hear me last week when I told him about my fear and he seemed to care then. There could be many reasons why he seems distant, and they might have very little to do with me. I get mixed messages from him, but I really don’t and can’t know what’s going on inside his head or in his life. I don’t know for sure that he doesn’t care.

What self belief does the truth lead to? Thinking that X doesn’t care about me makes me feel rotten. The less I feel his care, the more I strive to earn it. It makes me feel unworthy of care from anyone. Ultimately it reminds me of my own self loathing.

Who would you be without the truth? I would be liberated without the thought that X doesn’t care about me. I would spend less time second guessing his thoughts and feelings, and more time healing my relationship with myself.

With this approach, you can change the story, and turn around some of the painful thoughts. The turn around here is that I care about myself, I listen to my feelings and if X listens to me it’s a bonus. I can enjoy the moments where I feel cared about, and I’m not devastated when I don’t feel cared for because I don’t expect my self worth to be filled by other people.

I appreciate the simplicity of Katie’s approach and use versions of it often in my own life. However it’s not always as simple as that. Sometimes there are related issues.

The Social Dimension of Truth
Some of the truths you tell yourself grow out of your relationships; with parents, children, teachers, the media, the government or social norms accepted without question. In Foucault’s case, he wrote a lot about sanity, prisons and sexuality. As a prisoner, your view of the world is formed by your relationship with the penal system. Prison is not just punishment. It also creates a belief that you are constantly being watched. Mental health and sexuality are defined according to the categories given to you by society, eg gay, straight, insane, schizophrenic etc. If your truths don’t match the categories, you feel pressured to conform your truth to match society.

Who can tell the truth? All truth is formed in a context. When you claim your power as a fearless truth teller, you realize that you don’t have to be or do what other people expect of you. You tell your own truth AND it can change over time and in different circumstances. You tell your truth in the context of your various roles in society, which create your unique insight.

What is the truth about? Truth always has a trajectory. Society usually decides the direction of truth- for example women are this way and men are that way. Decide on your own story. Claim your gender, sexuality and personality without apology and without society’s biases.

What are the consequences of the truth? Foucault famously said, “People know what they do; frequently they know why they do what they do; but what they don't know is what what they do does." Your truths have consequences in the world beyond your mind. They affect other people’s truths and the systems that we are all related to. Live mindfully. Are your truths nurturing the sort of environment where diversity and authenticity can flourish for you and all others?

What is the relationship between the truth and social authority? The 1990s song from the Disposable Heroes of Hypopricy said, “Television- is it the reflector or the director? Do we imitate it, or does it imitate us?” Is society the way it is because of our collective truths, or are our truths formed by society? Likely a complex mixture of both. Choose to focus on self determination. If they give you lined paper to write on, write sideways. Be the best version of yourself, a perspective that includes the good of others.

Nothing But the Truth

Katie keeps the process grounded in personal responsibility and reality as it is rather than the stories that aren’t serving you or those around you. Foucault also focuses on personal responsibility but offers some broader perspective to the personal dimensions of Katie’s work. Together they offer some key questions for checking in with your assumptions and habitual thoughts.

A concluding quote from Katie-

“A thought is harmless unless we believe it. It’s not our thoughts, but our attachment to our thoughts, that causes suffering. Attaching to a thought means believing that it’s true, without inquiring. A belief is a thought that we’ve been attaching to, often for years."