Light in the Tunnel- Change Management

This post first appeared on my blog at Soulseeds, and is the first in a four part series. All four articles are on the Soulseeds blog.

I have whiplash from following news of the economy in recent weeks. One day I read an article titled, “The top 10 reasons the U.S. will not see a double dip recession”. On the same day I read another report titled, “The top 10 reasons a double dip recession has already begun.” So which is it? Everyone has an opinion, and everyone is so sure they have the truth. In order to keep a little perspective in the madness, here are 10 lighthearted ways to know that we are in a recession.

10. For his birthday last week, President Obama asked for cash gifts….in Canadian dollars.

9. Angelina Jolie and Madonna have begun adopting American babies.

8. You now receive pre-declined credit cards in the mail.

7. Paris Hilton has changed her name to Paris Holiday Inn.

6. When you order your MacDonald’s burger, the server asks “Can you afford fries with that?”

5. When the ATM declines your transaction, you don’t know if it’s because you or the bank have insufficient funds.

4. You take your sales clients for a round of miniature golf.

3. A picture is now only worth a hundred words.

2. Wall Street has been renamed- Wal-Mart Street.

1. The light at the end of the tunnel has been switched off because we can’t afford the electric bills.

The economy is not a laughing matter of course, and many people are feeling its devastating effects. I don’t mean to minimize the difficulties in any way. However a little fun can release some of the tension and offer a little perspective. When you get up each morning, as you eat your Credit Crunch for breakfast and before you watch the so- called news, remind yourself that economic change is in itself a gift. Every economy, strong and weak, creates new, and unforeseen, opportunities. Many jobs today were not even imagined 20 years ago. A recession is an awesome time to get innovative, bolster your resilience and believe in the power of change.

There IS light at the end of the tunnel (and it’s NOT a train). It’s an LED bulb, which incidentally is one product that is selling well this year. This in itself is a sign of optimism. People are making a change to their energy habits after all the focus on sustainability in recent years. Change is happening like it always does and we seem to be finally catching on. Go with change because the light is calling you to make empowered choices and live with optimism. The darkness of the tunnel; your personal shadows, blind spots and forbidden thoughts, are punctuated by glimmers of light. Embrace the time in the tunnel, whether it’s a recession, an illness or a loss. The light is there in the tunnel, waiting for you to see it.

Optimism is the light at the beginning, middle and end of the tunnel. No matter how dark it feels, stay focused on the light which flickers with a reminder of your strength and brilliance. When you stare at light, you still see it when you look away. It’s the same when you focus on your inner light. It colors everything you see with optimism. With optimism, it’s ALL light and no tunnel, just open space and possibility. Follow the light of your intuition and you will arrive at new and exciting opportunities.

Where do you look for optimism? There is an ancient Sufi story about the trickster Nasrudin who loses his keys. His friends find him on his hands and knees under a street lamp. They ask him, “What have you lost?” “My keys”, he says. After a while, one of his friends asks him if he is sure this is where he lost them. He says, “No. I dropped them over in the next street but the light is so much better here.”

As the Zen proverb says, “If you can’t find it where you’re standing, where do you expect to wander in search of it?”

The shimmering new realizations arrive where you are because they ARE you in some new form.

Rumi wrote about light,

The lamps are different.
But the Light is the same.
So many garish lamps in the dying brain's lamp shop, Forget about them.
Concentrate on essence, concentrate on Light.
In lucid bliss, calmly smoking off its own holy fire, The Light streams
toward you from all things, All people, all possible permutations of good,
evil, thought, passion.
The lamps are different,
But the Light is the same.
One matter, one energy, one Light, one Light-mind, Endlessly emanating all things.
One turning and burning diamond,
One, one, one.
Ground yourself, strip yourself down,
To blind loving silence.
Stay there, until you see
You are gazing at the Light
With its own ageless eyes.

Trust the opportunity of change. If we learn nothing else from the ebb and flow of economies, let it be a reminder of the inevitability and opportunity of change. It’s those who adapt best to change who thrive on the waves of life. It is those who are able to stay present to the loving silence of the moment who find the treasures of change.

In recent weeks I have been writing about change that is forced on us by external circumstances- grief, job loss, divorce, physical pain etc. In these situations you can’t change the circumstance; you can only change your attitude towards them. I turn my attention now to a different sort of change, change that you help to create. These are the opportunities that present themselves for you to get active and get involved. They might be changes to your lifestyle or health, they might be changes to your consumption or energy efficiency, or they might be changes to the way society functions. Whichever it is, similar principles apply. The goal is to live and express beauty, truth, justice and love in your own life, and intend those same virtues for the entire planet. When you do this, you transform the world with light from the inside out.

In the coming days I will outline a three point plan for how to be an agent of conscious change, or in other words how to effect change in the healthiest way possible. It’s the AAA plan for change management that involves

1. Awareness,

2. Acceptance and

3. Action.

There is an article on each step at Soulseeds.

Transforming Grief

This is the fourth part in a series on grief. Please visit my blog at Soulseeds for all four articles.

Having allowed all the full range of grief’s emotions to move you, mess with you, mould you and make you who you are today, you may feel ready to pull yourself out of the funk and move forward with a greater sense of peace. You will never be the same again. But that is true in every moment, with or without grief. The question is whether you have the courage to live with the disappointment of an imperfect experience. Anne Lamott sums it up brilliantly-

You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly—that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.

There will be cold days when your grief feels arthritic. There will be other, more limber days, when the spring in your step will surprise you. Dance with a limp, live with the pain and roll with the punches. What else can you do? Trust what the experience of millions has confirmed; that grief comes in waves and like a wave, grief does subside with time. When the wave of grief feels overwhelming, stay with it and remind yourself that “this too shall pass”. Fight the waves, and you will exhaust yourself. Go with them, and they will subside more quickly and you will become stronger with every passing wave. Nothing can be transformed until it is fully accepted.

This brings me to the fourth truth of grief. The first truth is to feel the pain and let it transform you. The second truth is that you are not alone, because you have a unique version of a universal experience. The third truth is that grief follows its own timetable and patterns. The fourth truth of grief is that it is ONE part of your life, and even if it feels all consuming at times, you are more than your grief.

E-motion- Energy in Motion

Grief, and all of its associated emotions, are energy in motion. They are always on the move. Grief is not one, unchanging thing. Grief turns on a dime. Stay alert to the alchemy of grief. Burned in the fire of sadness, strength is born. Elisabeth Kubler Ross offers a visual analogy for changing emotions. She says that grief emotions will come and go. When they knock at your door, let them in, and say “Oh. It’s you. Come on in.” Entertain them, get to know them, talk to them. Let them have the run of your house for a while. Maybe keep some space apart from them. Don’t set a space at the dinner table for them.

Transformation takes place when you realize that emotions come and go. You can witness them, talk to them, feel them. But there is a “you” that is doing the witnessing, talking and feeling. At your essence, you are more than any emotion and more than any experience. Emotions and experiences impact and mould you, but they don’t fully define you.

Grief usually visits as part of a group of changing emotions. Hurt, disappointment, sadness, regret and so much more. Emotional mastery is to know what emotion is what, where it is coming from, to be present to them all, but not get stuck in any one emotion.

Rumi’s Guest House captures it well-

This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.

A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.

Shaken not Stirred by Change

This is the fourth part in a series on change. You can read all of the posts at Soulseeds.

Marilyn Monroe said,

I believe that everything happens for a reason. People change so that you can learn to let go, things go wrong so that you appreciate them when they're right…..and sometimes good things fall apart so better things can fall together.

Change is inevitable. That is the first truth of change. The second is that the future is open, and you can help to create it. The third truth is that chaos and change bring gifts of growth. The fourth truth of change is that there is something that remains stable while all else around you changes. It’s this unchanging spirit that gives you the courage and perspective to see the gifts of change. To paraphrase 007, change may shake, but not stir you.

Try this exercise. (of if you prefer, you can watch me demonstrating it here )Take your right hand and hold it out palm facing up. Something is about to change. Your hand will soon be facing palm down. It’s a 180 degree change. Conventional wisdom would say that it can’t be done without twisting your wrist. You are about to turn your palm down without twisting your wrist. Your wrist will remain stable while your hand changes direction. So, hold your right palm out in front of you with the palm facing up. Without turning your wrist, bring your palm up to your face. Then fold it down over your heart. Then take it out in front of you without twisting your wrist. Then bring it up to your face. Now hold it over your heart. Finally take it out in front of you. Now it is palm down. You did it without twisting your wrist.

In this illustration, your wrist is your unchanging inner spirit. You just changed without becoming limp wristed or losing the core of who you are. Everything can change around you; circumstances can be 180 degrees changed in your life. But you always retain the freedom and ability to choose your response. When this response comes from an inner place of peace, or equanimity, then you are not rocked by change. In fact you may even enjoy it.

Do you have something that needs to be released, some change that you feel brewing in your life? Hold your palm out, face up, so that what you need to release can fly free. Is it a relationship, a career path, a religious belief, a political hope? Let it go. Let it out. Let it fly free. Do it from the part within you that is completely free, the spirit that is still and peaceful in the midst of change. Everything is in perfect order. Reality is unfolding in perfect time, and you have the privilege of co-creating this reality as it unfolds.

This quote from Ken Wilber’s book One Taste is challenging but gets to the heart of that which is unchanging-

There is no inside and no outside, no in here versus out there. The nondual universe of One Taste arises as a spontaneous gesture of your own true nature. You can taste the sun and swallow the moon, and centuries fit in the palm of your hand. The pure I-I, the great I-AMness, breathes into infinity and creates a Kosmos as the Song of its very Self, and oceans of compassion fall as tears from your own very Original Face.

This is how I understand this beautifully poetic thought in practical terms. The lines on your palm change throughout life. The wisdom that some people believe you can discern from your palms is only a snapshot of who you are becoming in each moment, rather than a prediction of your future. There are other marks and signs on your palm; calluses from hard work, scars from injuries, etc, all reminders of your unique life experience. Some of these marks last a long time, but still change over time. I had a birth mark on my left palm that only started fading after 40 years. But there is something on your hand that is unchanging- your finger prints, the distinctive mark you leave when you shake hands with life. Your finger prints represent your unique human expression.

You do indeed hold centuries in the palm of your hand. Generations of genetic and environmental lineage make you who you are. You are changing from moment to moment, just as life changes from moment to moment. An open palm indicates that you aren’t hiding anything. You are ready to surrender to change with all of your vulnerable humanity. With an open palm, you give and receive, let go and begin the process of taking up again. An open palm is also snug. It signifies that you are okay with who you are becoming. This acceptance is the essence of your unchanging spirit. Everything can and will change around you. You will change; your mind, your direction, your path. Others will change. Systems will change. But through it all you remain grounded and stable.

To quote George Orwell, as he marveled at the human spirit that no system can squash,

The thing that I saw in your face no power can disinherit: No bomb that ever burst shatters the crystal spirit.

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.