Open Will, Open Heart, Open Mind

In his book Keys to the Enneagram: How to Unlock the Highest Potential of Every Personality Type, A.H. Almaas writes about "a Fourth Way approach of bringing the full intelligence of the centers to whatever phenomenon [arises] in our consciousness." 

Inviting awakening from the gut, heart, and head centers entails "grounded presence, openheartedness, and a willingness to experience with an open, receptive quality of mind." 

This is ancient knowledge that Enneagram enthusiasts too often miss in focusing overmuch on the nine "types" or ego ideals.

Otto Scharmer has shown a parallel between opening the will, heart, and mind with seven sacred teachings from an aboriginal community — bravery/courage, respect/love, humility/honesty/truth:

• bravery/courage (open will: relaxing into the unknown vs. fear),
  
• respect and love (open heart: compassion vs. cynicism),
• humility/honesty/truth (open mind: curiosity vs. judgment).

"K" is for Krishnamurti

The devil and a friend were walking down the street, when they saw a man stoop to pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket.

The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?"

"He picked up a piece of the truth," said the devil.

"That's a very bad business for you, then," said his friend.

"Not at all," the devil replied, "I'm going to help him organize it."

This was a favorite story of Jiddu Krishnamurti, fondly remembered as "K" by community members of the Krishnamurti Centre in England, where I worked as a co-op for two weeks several years ago.

K maintained that "Truth, being limitless... unapproachable by any path whatsoever, cannot be organized, nor should any organization be formed to lead or coerce people along a particular path."

Imagine the paradox Krishnamurti then faced: trying to teach the unteachable. He came to this pathless path years after being "discovered" in adolescence by leaders of the Theosophical Society and groomed to be the World Leader of what later became the Order of the Star.

After experiencing his own process, a state of clarity I would call presence, he realized he could only embody the teaching by not being a leader. His proclamation met with dismay within the Order, but to me is the ultimate example of "walking the talk":

"I do not know how many thousands throughout the world -- members of the Order -- have been preparing for me for eighteen years, and yet now they are not willing to listen unconditionally, wholly, to what I say... You use a typewriter to write letters, but you do not put it on an altar and worship it." (Proclaimed leader in 1912, disbanded the Order in 1929).

Krishnamurti frequently claimed that the great religious teachers had come not to found religions but to destroy them, and throughout his life he asked questions of his audience to lead them toward discovering the path within themselves. 

"In oneself lies the whole world and if you know how to look and learn, the door is there and the key is in your hand. Nobody on earth can give either the key or the door to open, except yourself."

Parts Party

This modified Parts Party is based in part on Virginia Satir's Your Many Faces, as described in John Bradshaw's Healing the Shame that Binds You.

Take a deep breath, relax, and imagine this happening as you read:  

Close your eyes. . . Spend two or three minutes becoming mindful of your breathing. Relax. As you breathe deeply in and out, relaxing more and more, notice a screen in front of you and the number nine appearing on the screen. If you can’t see it clearly, hear a voice saying “nine” or picture yourself finger painting it. Then see, hear, or finger paint the number eight; then seven, then six, then five; then four, down to the number one, becoming more and more relaxed, breathing deeper and deeper. 

Let the number one slowly turn into a stage door and see it slowly open. Walk through the stage door into a small theater. Notice the walls and the stage. Look at the closed curtain. Sit down in a front row seat and feel the fabric of the seat. Look closely as you turn it into your favorite fabric. Make the chair comfortable. Feel yourself relaxing more and more into the chair.

Look around again and make this theater be any way you want it to be, all around you, then facing the stage and the closed curtain. Notice some movement behind the curtain, then watch as it slowly opens.  Notice your emotions rising, your expectation of something new, your body alert with excitement. As the curtain opens see a large sign covering the back wall of the stage. It reads The [your name] Parts Review. 

Think of an aspect of your mind, intellect, thoughts that you really like. Imagine a famous person or someone you know well who represents that part. Take your time and let this person walk out onto the side of the stage to your right. Hear applause all around you. 

Now think of your emotional self, and a quality of your emotions that you like. Imagine a famous person or someone you know well who represents that part. Take your time and let this person walk out onto the side of the stage to your right. Hear applause all around you.  

And now pay attention to your physical self, your body and instincts, an aspect of your gut self that you like. Imagine a famous person or someone you know well who represents that part. Take your time and let this person walk out onto the side of the stage to your right. Hear applause all around you.

Think of an aspect of your mind, intellect, thoughts that you dislike or hate or reject. Imagine a famous person or someone you know well who represents that part. Take your time and let this person walk out onto the side of the stage to your left. Hear boos being shouted all around you. 

Now think of your emotional self, and a quality of your emotions that you dislike or hate or reject. Imagine a famous person or someone you know well who represents that part. Take your time and let this person walk out onto the side of the stage to your left. Hear boos being shouted all around you. 

And now pay attention to your physical self, your body and instincts, an aspect of your gut self that you dislike or hate or reject. Imagine a famous person or someone you know well who represents that part. Take your time and let this person walk out onto the side of the stage to your left. Hear boos being shouted all around you.

Now imagine a wise and beautiful person walking to the center of the stage. Just let your wise person appear. Notice whatever strikes you about this person, who then walks off the stage toward you, taking you hand and walking back up onto the stage with you. 

 

Turning to the three people who represent parts of your thoughts, emotions, and instincts that you especially like, walk around each person individually and look them in the face. One at a time, ask each person how that part helps you. How does it hinder you? What can you learn from it?

Now turning to the three people who represent parts of your thoughts, emotions, and instincts that you dislike or hate or reject, walk around each person individually and look them in the face. One at a time, ask each person how that part helps you. How does it hinder you? What can you learn from it? 

Now bring all six parts to the center of the stage, facing each one at a time and imagining that part melting into you. Do this until you are alone on the stage with your wise person. Walk back down to your seat facing the stage, and see the wise person there on the stage, telling you, "This is the theater of your life. All these parts belong to you. Embrace your selves, love and accept and learn from each." 

 

Say to yourself “I love and accept all of me.”  

 

Show your wise person appreciation for the lesson. See your wise person walk away. Know you can call on your wise person any time.  

Now imagine standing up and walking out toward your theater doors. Turn around and see the number one on the curtains at the stage. Finger paint it and hear it. Then see, hear, or finger paint the numbers two and three on the curtains, then four and five, feeling the life in your fingers and toes, letting this energy come up through your legs. With the number six, feel your whole body coming alive. With numbers seven and eight, continue becoming fully conscious. At number nine you are restored to your full, waking consciousness.

Accessing A Meditative State of Mind Through Art

Many of us have heard about the benefits of meditation, but sometimes find it hard to do. Fewer of us know about the profound benefits of artistic expression. Creating art, however, is another way to access a meditative state of mind and the profound healing it brings. Maia Gambis, "Why making art is the new meditation," The Washington Post,  25, 2015

Nancy Bell Scott

I've come upon a most fascinating centering practice. I'd been painting with oils for most of a decade, then experimenting with acrylics and abstract painting, but always especially drawn to the interaction of arts--ekphrastic poetry, for example (poems written in response to visual art), found poetry (a collage of words that refashion existing texts), and art that uses words as part of the design, such as Kenneth Patchen's work.

Several years ago I discovered asemic writing in art, though Sam Roxas-Chua's Echolalia in Script: A Collection of Asemic Writing and the work of Nancy Bell Scott.

I'd also been following Jane Davies' Facebook page and, when she offered a downloadable workshop called "Text and Image," happily bought it. Some of my consequent text and image pieces included both asemic writing and lines from my own poetry. and I was charmed by the playfulness of this work, still thinking of these efforts as learning a process.

Mary Bast: "A Course of Action"

Then one of my clients went to the Helen Frankenthaler "As in Nature" exhibit and sent me a copy of the accompanying book.

Mary Bast: "Frankenthrall"

Instead of following the work others had done to combine words and art, I played with cutting out new shapes from Frankenthaler's paintings, and collaging them in abstract patterns, using her colors and textures as inspiration, making marks with black pen, frankly enthralled with the results, left.

I learned a lot about this artist, but more important, a new mode of expression had popped up from out of the blue, calling me to a completely centered creative space. There was no plan, no thought, no judgment, simply free association, playfulness, and joy.

This also drew me to the realization that I knew little about women in abstract expressionism, and quickly discovered I was not the only one. So, for many months I studied the works of historically underappreciated artists and created collages as tributes to their work.

When I had a pile of shapes, I put on disposable gloves, got down on the floor with a canvas, a big jug of M. Graham Acrylic Gloss Medium and Varnish, a brush, and just let things happen. Once the canvas was covered, and I felt the rightness of colors/shapes, I let it dry, then drew lines, circles, outline with a fine point Sharpie pen. New eyes. . . pure expression:

Contemplative beholding of art - indeed of anything - can lead to the animation of whatever is before us. New eyes, "the right eyes," suddenly open, waking us up, and consequently awakening everything around us. Arthur Zajonc, "Meditation and Art," Psychology Today, January 05, 2011.

A meditative approach [to art] advocates that we would be best served if we focused less on the "self" and more on the expressive part of the creative process. Such an approach is called pure expression rather than self-expression, because one has learned through meditation how to let go of the relentless self-referencing, self-dialoging, self-consciousness, self-criticism. "Art, Meditation, and the Creative Process," Shambhala Times, March 1, 2015.

Embracing Pain, Overcoming Fear

Soul Collage: My Creative Self

Tonglen is a Buddhist breathing practice to overcome our fear of suffering, awaken the compassion inherent in all of us, and release the fixations of ego. Anytime you suffer, this practice will be healing. 

Even if you can't name your pain or experience it fully, you can sense it in your body. Stay in contact with that awareness and breathe in your pain with the wish to take away your fear. 

Note that you are not asking to take away your suffering, but rather your fear of suffering. Then breathe out relaxation, relief, joy. Do this for several breaths.

You can also begin the practice by taking on the pain of someone you know, breathing in the wish to take away their fear, breathing out relaxation, relief, happiness for several breaths.

Doing so, you may come face to face with your own fear, resistance, anger or any form of personal pain, often when you are feeling stuck.

Then you can change the focus and do the practice for yourself and all others like you who are feeling the same pain. I especially love this third aspect of tonglen practice, breathing in the pain of everyone in the world who suffers the same feeling, breathing out relaxation, relief, and joy. It touches me as a reminder that none of us is completely alone, that all our emotions are shared with anyone who has ever lived.

Tonglen may be a formal meditation practice. You can also use it any moment you experience pain or see others in pain. As you invite this larger view of reality, you'll begin to notice your perceptions changing. Your assumptions of how things are will not be nearly as solid as before.

Metaphors of Transformation

One of my favorite stories about C.G. Jung is a reported dream where he was drowning in a vat of human waste and calling "Help me out!" to his therapist, who stood on the rim of the vat. Instead of taking his outstretched hand the therapist pushed Jung's head down into the liquid, saying, "Through, not out."

Isn't that exactly what it feels like when you commit yourself to greater self-awareness and then see what you've gotten yourself into? "Get me out!" 

This metaphor works extremely well for those of us in transit.  No matter how innovative our efforts, there is a quality of struggling in, yes, a vat of shit.

The psychologist Karen Horney described how – because children are not permitted to grow according to their unique needs and potentials – a basic insecurity leads to anxiety which prevents us from true spontaneity and creates an idealized image. "Self-idealization," she wrote, "entails a general self-glorification and thereby gives the individual the much-needed feeling of significance." 

The resulting "Idealized Self" alienates us from our real selves as it increasingly filters how we see ourselves and seek to be seen by others. According to Horney it's a natural and constructive urge to realize our potential, but we can only do this by being truthful to our real selves. Ah, there's the rub. Because once we commit to self-actualization, we have to turn and face those aspects of ourselves that don't fit the idealized image.

Furthermore, it's not possible to access those discarded parts of ourselves through intellectual understanding alone. One of the best ways to discover what's buried in each of us is by exploring symbols and metaphors: they cut past our linear, left-brain mode of analysis – through dreams, fantasies, projections, or any method that works with images. 

After I saw the film Avatar years ago, I couldn't stop thinking of how the Na'vi on Pandora greeted each other, and wrote a blog post entitled, "I See You." I didn't know then that these words appear in the written record of Buddha's teaching used the words "I see you to label the various mental states that are obstacles to awakening.

The Seventeeth Stage of Grief

I learned Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's five-stage model of grief. Now I'm reading there are seven stages. Nobody tells you until you go through it yourself that you will not experience this as a mental model. You will engage with your own gut-wrenching version.

Choose Your Own Mantra

My daily practice is the intention to stay present, to notice when ego's monkey mind takes over and—as in sitting meditation—come back to the present.

Often this means recognizing such triggers as anger, envy, hurt, or judgment and staying with the emotion, using what Stephen Cope in The Wisdom of Yoga refers to as restraint: ". . . the beginning of a process in which a pattern dies – beginning with the outward and visible gross behavior, and culminating with the death of the root of the pattern . . . These patterns, of course, take years or even lifetimes to be attenuated. But with each subtle attenuation comes an increasing sense of freedom and energy."

I've also used mantra meditation for many years, since I found the book Choose Your Own Mantra. Chanting (sometimes singing) a mantra can support your intention to be mindful.

In Sanskrit the word "mantra" is derived from two words—manas, "to think/mind," and trai, "protect/free from." Thus, the literal meaning of mantra is "to free from the mind." A mantra produces an actual physical vibration and carries high energy.

Because Choose Your Own Mantra is no longer in print, I offer readers a few possibilities to consider. (I recommend the Sanskrit instead of English because words in our own language have images that cause the mind to wander): 

OPEN WILL 

Om So'Ham (ohm soh-hum)—liberation from limitations of the body and lower mind.

Om Namo Narayanaya (OHM' nuh-MO NAH-RAI-uh-NAI-uh)—total liberation, the ability to dissolve obstacles resulting from egotism.

A great sage gave this mantra to his disciple, instructing that those who were not worthy should not hear it. The disciple immediately went onto the temple top and shouted it for all to hear. When the sage questioned his disobedience, the disciple replied, "I do not mind undergoing suffering if all these people can be freed."

OPEN HEART 

Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya (ohm nuh-MOH b'huh'-guh-vuh-TEY VAH-soo-dey-VAI-uh)—invitation to Divine love.

Om Sri Kalikayai Namah (ohm shree KAH-lee-KAH-YAI nuh'-muh)—grants mercy, in the manner of a loving mother to her child.

OPEN MIND  

Om Sri Maha Saraswatjai Namah (ohm shree muh-HAH suhr-uh-swuht-YAI nuh-muh)—deep study, mystical and academic wisdom. 

Om Sri Maha Lakshmiyai Namah (OHM shree muh-HAH luck-shmee-YAI nuh-muh)—serenity of mind, humility, compassion.

I Grok Spock

"Grok means to understand so thoroughly that the observer becomes a part of the observed — to merge, blend, intermarry, lose identity in group experience. It means almost everything that we mean by religion, philosophy, and science — and it means as little to us (because of our Earthly assumptions) as color means to a blind man." Wikipedia quoting Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land.

Michael, the hero of Stranger in a Strange Land, was born on Mars — where grokking was taken for granted. So he was unencumbered by the barriers to intuition many humans encounter. As an example, he grokked grass before walking on it to ensure he was not causing another creature pain.

Grokking seems such a natural concept and so appropriate to any conversation about presence — one can't logically explain exactly how to do it, but I think we're all capable of envisioning a connection so deep we are both one and all. I like Fred Lamotte's definition of grokking because it's more trusting of humankind's ability than Heinlein's suggestion that it means as little to us as color to a blind man:

‘To grok' is . . . the best Western term I have ever encountered for what in Sanskrit is called ritam bara pragyam: that subtlest level of energy that ripples on the verge of transcendental silence where all things are grasped as a whole before they become manifest in the multiplicity of the material world.

I've always considered the Vulcan mind meld to be a form of grokking - again, we must leave the Earth to find beings for whom such a deep connection comes naturally. So, I was delighted to find there's still a craze for "I Grok Spock" t-shirts. Why is that I wonder? Possibly because we are the strangers in our own land, longing to be able to grok, to meld.

What a combination--a deep mental understanding (which also requires physical contact) aligned with a complete emotional-intuitive awareness of another: body, mind and heart attuned.

Imagine! 

I See You

When I saw the film, Avatar, I was, of course, entranced by the fabulous technology. What stuck with me the most, however, was how the Na'vi on Pandora greeted each other: "I see you." The meaning of this phrase goes beyond the simple act of visual recognition; rather, it communicates, "I see into you, I see and acknowledge and honor who you really are."

In her Skin in the Game blog entry, Mutual Gaze, Sara K. Schneider describes how Buckminster Fuller returned the greeting Hello, how are you? with the reply, I see you... "a customary greeting in the central African highlands... the most intense of our mutual gazes imply deep connection, as well as the opportunity for sitting with both the dignity of our separateness and the beauty of our oneness."

Early in my coaching career, when I found myself disliking the behavior or values of a client, I would visualize myself bowing and giving the traditional Indian greeting, Namaste (acknowledging "the spark of the divine" in another) - as a symbol of my desire to be present to the person, without judgment.

What better way to remind ourselves to be fully present?

Namaste.

I see you.

Vanishing into Something Better

Sleeping in the Forest

I thought the earth 

remembered me, she

took me back so tenderly, arranging

her dark skirts, her pockets

full of lichens and seeds. I slept

as never before, a stone

on the riverbed, nothing

between me and the white fire of the stars

but my thoughts, and they floated

light as moths among the branches

of the perfect trees. All night

I heard the small kingdoms breathing

around me, the insects, and the birds

who do their work in the darkness. All night

I rose and fell, as if in water, grappling

with a luminous doom. By morning

I had vanished at least a dozen times

into something better.

~ Mary Oliver, from Twelve Moons (1979)

The Yin and Yang of Presence

Any problem you encounter can either feed your old, destructive patterns or provide an opportunity for major growth. A primary goal of change is "waking up" to habitual patterns. 

Borrowing from Stephen Gilligan (Summer 1999 Milton H. Erickson Foundation Newsletter, page 8), full presence requires both yin (receptive) and yang (active) qualities:

In the yin mode, providing sanctuary, listening deeply, receiving with curiosity and open heart, and bearing witness with kindness and understanding.

In the yang mode being relentlessly committed to your spiritual growth, attending fiercely, guiding, setting boundaries, and challenging self-limitations.

Our yin/yang balance can be lopsided if yang is overly activated by a prolonged sense of danger or other stresses. When this happens, we need to invite more yin with time for healing and regeneration.

A moving meditation such as qigong can heal gut, heart, and mind energies, to provide physical health, open the heart, and bring spiritual clarity.

A Leap of Imagination

Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society illuminates an approach to change that Tim Flood and I developed, based on the premise that staying completely within metaphors is an exciting and powerful way to bring about personal transformation.


Metaphor-driven change work also requires the coach to be fully present. But what is presence?

We first thought of presence as being fully conscious and aware in the present moment. Then we began to appreciate presence as deep listening, of being open beyond one's preconceptions and historical ways of making sense We came to see the importance of letting go of old identities and the need to control... leading to a state of "letting come," of consciously participating in a larger field for change (Peter M. Senge, C. Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, Betty Sue Flowers: Presence, pp. 13-14).

Spontaneous presence is absent of all preconceived notions, all self-talk, all assumptions and beliefs. It is trust in a knowing that has nothing to do with logical efforts. This knowing is absolute, unmistakable, and has a kind of magical quality.

The authors of Presence describe organizational examples. Here are two personal examples.

"Cloisonne Vases," by Mary Bast

In January 2008 I signed up for an oil painting class, purely from a desire to understand the medium so I could better appreciate works of art. To my utter amazement I found an affinity for painting, a complete engagement in the process: from preparing the canvas and setting up the palette to cleaning the brushes at the end of the class. I brought no expectation of being a "good" or "bad" painter, no preconceived notions, no need to control the outcome. By the end of the first year I had completed a large painting of two vases that had been in my family since the 1940's. I felt as if the canvas painted itself and I was the vessel of its creation by virtue of holding the brush in my hand.

My second example happened when Tim Flood and I were finalizing the materials for a conference play-shop about metaphors. We wanted to keep people moving and out of their left-brain preconceptions, so we envisioned notebooks that could hang from ribbons around their necks. We used every kind of logic to figure out the length of the ribbon, how to attach a pen, etc. but -- no matter what we did -- when testing the prototype the ribbon pulled the binding loose from the notebooks. Finally, when we were feeling "brain dead" (a good thing, as it turned out), I started laughing hysterically. Tim thought I'd gone completely off my rocker. When I could speak, I shared the image of a kangaroo with a pouch, my internal judge translating it as something "silly." But as I slept that night my self-critic also slept, and I awakened the next morning with the clear image of a two-pocket folder that could be converted, with a little snipping, into two "pouches." We had our solution.

When Intuition Becomes Psychic

I’d been thinking about how to teach a method for heightening intuition, struggled for two hours, reviewing books and articles, choosing quotes, feeling blocked, decided to take a walk, let my mind wander and suddenly thought, “You’re trying to explain it rationally. Use your intuition.” Duh!

We’re all trained to some degree to be analytical, and consequently to doubt intuition that isn’t tied to direct knowing or experience. In her introduction to Inner Knowing: Consciousness, Creativity, Insight, and Intuition, Helen Palmer admitted that her “anchor in intellectualism made it difficult to accept even profoundly convincing intuition as being meaningful and real.” Palmer was referring to several incidents of her own inner knowing, the first of which occurred when she was deeply involved in the East Coast movement of resistance to the Vietnam War: “my imagination became as believable and solid as the furniture in my room.” She knew, for example, that a friend must take a different route across the Canadian border than the one planned and later found that others who’d taken the original route were stopped and arrested.

Many people describe intuition as a hunch based on experience. A New York Times review by David Brooks (1/16/05) of Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking summarizes the author’s opening story. The Getty Museum in California was going to purchase a supposedly ancient Greek statue for almost $10 million. A team of experts with state-of-the-art measurement tools took more than a year to assure its authenticity. Then several art experts looked at the statue and knew instantly it was a fake. When asked to explain how they knew, one said he “heard” the word fresh, which seemed odd to him – on further examination he realized the statue was too “fresh” to be that ancient. Another felt a wave of intuitive repulsion. The outcome? “The teams of analysts who did 14 months of research turned out to be wrong. The historians who relied on their initial hunches were right.”

Well, certainly I encourage you to develop trust in your experience-based hunches. But the intuition that has served me so well is the kind Palmer experienced, the kind that led her to found the Center for the Investigation and Training of Intuition. Here’s what happened to me (a version of this was published in Charles Tart's "TASTE: The Archives of Scientists' Transcendent Experiences"):

More than thirty years ago, I attended a Silva course in mind training. Over several weeks we were taught relaxation and visualization techniques, including the development of a mental laboratory complete with desk, calendar, files, visual screen, a door beside the screen, and healing medications.

We were also told we would have an experience of extrasensory perception on the last day of the training, which I found intriguing but presumed impossible for me. For the final session we were instructed to bring in slips of paper, each with the name of an individual who had an illness or physical problem.

We first practiced on our own by placing the body of someone we knew on our mental screen and scanning for problems of any sort. I was mechanically following instructions when suddenly I saw a car colliding with a motorcycle at an intersection. I couldn't see the person's face, but because the friend I was scanning owned a motorcycle, I was alarmed. The instructor suggested I visualize the date of the accident and, if it had not yet happened, to send healing, white light to my friend. I pictured the calendar in my mental laboratory and was surprised to see the pages turning rapidly until they stopped at June 8^th. I assumed this to be in the future, as the session took place in February.

After a break we were assigned a partner. As instructed, my partner – whom I’d never met – handed me a piece of paper that bore only a man’s name and the city where he lived. I closed my eyes, visualized a man on my mental screen, and saw that his whole left side appeared darker than his right. Using one of the techniques we'd been taught, I imagined putting on his head, and was immediately torn by depression, sorrow, and resentment. I could feel that my left side was crippled, that I had no hearing in my left ear and no sight in my left eye. I knew that hearing was intact in my right ear, but vision in my right eye was limited in some way, though I couldn't describe exactly how.

Then my partner told me this man was the son of a dear friend; he was only 21 years old and very bitter because he'd been crippled on his left side in a motorcycle accident at a four-way stop where a car had failed to stop. He had no hearing in his left ear and no sight in his left eye; his hearing was normal in his right ear, but he had tunnel vision in his right eye.

I was spooked by this, almost afraid to ask when the accident had occurred. My partner named the same date I’d seen on my mental calendar: June 8^th. The accident I had pictured earlier that morning, before being assigned to her as my partner, had occurred the previous year!

Like Palmer I found this hard to believe, but the accident I “saw” was as real as the flash of an ad when watching TV. It was visible on my mental screen and in Technicolor, with sound effects.

See also, Spiritual Emergency: When 911 Can't Help, Reframing Spiritual Emergency as Positive Change

We'll See

"Such bad luck,"  said the villagers when a farmer's horse ran away.

"We'll see," replied the farmer.

When his horse returned with three other wild horses, they exclaimed "How wonderful!"

"We'll see," he said.

Then his son was thrown while trying to ride one of the untamed horses and broke his leg, The villagers, of course, offered their sympathy.

"We'll see," said the farmer.

Because of his broken leg, the son was passed by when military officials came to draft young men into the army.

Responding to the villagers' congratulations on his good fortune, the farmer replied, "We'll see."

This Taoist tale came to mind when one of my clients expressed frustration with the lack of growth in his business. "I might have to get a job," he said. "Horrible!"

His anxieties brought to mind my own concerns early in my career. I tested an online version of the John Holland Occupational Themes and found I was admirably suited to be a dental technician!

Seeking a logical solution may be helpful to some, but the failure of logic can be a cue to access your intuition. Maybe you'll only feel a nudge ("Something feels right about this, though I'm not sure why"). I've learned, even through experience that seemed to be a failure, how important it is to keep your vision intact: 

After completing my PhD, I quit the job that had carried me through graduate school to start my own business. Managing to squeak by for almost nine months, I finally reached the point where I couldn't pay the rent, and was getting desperate when a friend called. One of his former students worked for Shillito's Department Store's HR Department, and they were looking for an internal training consultant. The salary was barely a living wage, I regretted having to bypass my vision of independent consulting, but I had no other options.

We'll see.

Among other duties, I was responsible for sales training -- a real stretch for me. During my time there, I also worked on a project for the Director of Executive Development from the parent company Federated Department Stores (FDS), only a block away in downtown Cincinnati.

Three years into the Shillito's job, I was offered a job by a friend for twice as much as my current salary, working as an educational consultant with a software technology firm. I left Shillito's feeling somewhat disloyal, but I was barely making ends meet and couldn't turn down the extra income.

We'll see.

Three months after that, out of the blue, the FDS Director whose project I'd supported offered me a corporate OD job that again doubled my income. He said internal policies were such that I would not have been a candidate for that job if I hadn't left Shillito's.

In the corporate OD role, I gained experience coaching senior executives in Federated's many retail companies who were being primed for key positions in company leadership. Four years later, FDS was bought in a hostile takeover and their OD department eliminated. The severance pay was enough to live on for at least six months, but I didn't see any particular opportunities in my future.

We'll see.

A week later the Senior Vice President of Human Resources for CSX Corporation hired me as a private consultant for senior executive development in their subsidiary companies. I negotiated a contract with CSX that took me all over the U.S., yet left time to develop other business. I would not have known how to close that deal had I not had the sales training experience. And I'd not have been approached by the CSX HR person except for my work with Federated's executive development methodology, which he'd adopted for his corporation.

In the early stages of my new career as an organization consultant, a Cincinnati client introduced me to the Enneagram, which he'd learned in a spiritual retreat with Richard Rohr. Fascinated with how this model gave me useful insights into my clients' patterns, I started teaching it to all of them and taking extensive notes. This was early in the Enneagram's development beyond a small group of seekers, and no one was writing about its applications in business settings.

Intrigued by a request for articles on business applications from Clarence Thompson, then editor of The Enneagram Edicator, I contacted him, he began publishing my articles, became a dear friend and eventual co-author of Out of the Box Coaching with the Enneagram.

I could not have predicted or planned for the wavering trajectory of disappointments and opportunities that fulfilled my vision of having my own business, but on a scale of much greater experience and learning. Nor could I have known that path would eventually lead me into coaching by phone with clients all over the world.

As for what happens next, We'll see.

(An earlier version of this post was part of an article published in Enneagram Monthly, September, 2005.)

Play: The Stick That Stirs the Drink

Life without play is a grinding, mechanical existence organized around doing the things necessary for survival. Play is the stick that stirs the drink. It is the basis of all art, games, books, sports, movies, fashion, fun, and wonder. Stuart Brown, M.D., Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Mind, and Invigorates the Soul.

Early in his book on play, Brown describes his yellow Lab's reaction after a long car trip to a cousin's ranch: In half a second Jake is flying out the door, a blond blur zipping toward the pasture. He races at full gallop one way and reverses, paws tearing up the dust in a skidding turn, then accelerates to warp speed in the opposite direction. His mouth is agape, the corners pulled back in a canine grin, his tongue lolling out one side -- Doggie heaven."

Like Jake, we humans have the opportunity to take in a scene with all our senses and devote ourselves to playing there. Dr. Brown's research has demonstrated that play is not only fun, energizing, and enlivening, it is also a profound biological process that shapes the brain and makes animals smarter and more adaptable. In humans, play fosters empathy, makes complex social groups possible, and facilitates creativity and innovation.

I had a play-date with my friend Davis, arriving at Ichetucknee River State Park at 6:00 AM for a sunrise canoe trip. Eager to get started, we were the first ones in our canoe and thus the first ones to discover the cushions we sat on were damp from the fog clouding the water's surface and rising in swirls all around us. The temperature was 40° F and stayed there without significant change for our two hours on the river. Even though we both wore layers of clothing, we were soon shaking with the cold. We didn't even have the exertion of rowing to warm us because we were floating downstream in a group of canoes and only needed to paddle lightly to change course when heading toward a bank, another canoe, or an immersed tree trunk. 

Yet we were almost deliriously happy, every seemingly difficult obstacle to enjoyment an opportunity to laugh ourselves silly. Both of us are artists and we'd been talking for a year about photographing the Ichetucknee as inspiration for paintings. The river was incomparably beautiful, every element of water and shore made strange and new by the parting mist as we drew closer. 

It was completely different from photos we'd seen or paintings we'd imagined, and that difference was exciting and seductive. Between gasps of appreciation and shivers of cold, we each took photo after photo, our minds adapting to these unexpected circumstances with a playful attitude, no need to predict if it would get warmer or the mist would rise, so completely taken with this river's invitation to open all our senses. Like Jake, our mouths were agape, we were present to an environment over which we had no control, free to bask in awe, the shivering of our bodies irrelevant to the larger experience. The Ichetucknee presented itself to us as it was, not as we expected it to be. 
 

"When people know their core truths," writes Brown, "and live in accord with what I call their 'play personality,' the result is always a life of incredible power and grace." 

I'm intrigued by the idea of "play personalities," because play is the key element in changing our habitual patterns. The last section of my Self-Coaching Workbook, Pattern-Breaking Experiments, emphasizes "how to consciously enact a pattern, but with a small, creative, and often humorous twist . . . if you laugh when you think of an experiment, that's probably a good one to try." When brainstorming with clients about ways to change a pattern, I always know by their laughter when we've come up with something that will reframe their worldview and re-shape their brains. Imagine the difference between approaching a problematic pattern with a playful attitude or anticipating how difficult it will be to change something you've been doing all your life. 

For example, one of my clients described an aspect of himself he had to "watch," meaning he had to try to STOP doing it. Exploring this "do your own thing" part, he realized it was also the seat of his creativity and courage; it could be irresponsible, but also mischievous and playful. He wanted to feel more free to redirect his business focus without taking untenable risks, so I asked him, instead of saying NO to his mischievous part when it showed up, to consider what he might do that would invite its courageous aspect while remaining responsible. He immediately saw a lion "in the Serengeti Plains." This lion was "majestic, knows who I am, is attuned with my nature, assertive." 

So far so good. Then I asked him how the lion would express itself. "It would ROAR," he said, and started laughing. Ah, laughter, our cue that he could approach this change playfully.

The History of Metaphor in Change Work

For as long as humans have had speech, we've been drawn to stories. Story-tellers and bards were honored and respected, their tales and poems used to teach, explain, and/or entertain. Harvard Business School leadership guru John Kotter said,

Over the years I have become convinced that we learn best – and change – from hearing stories that strike a chord within us... Those in leadership positions who fail to grasp or use the power of stories risk failure for their companies and for themselves.

You know from personal experience how some stories have affected you, changed your attitude, inspired you, provided hope. So, the time-honored therapy tradition to use stories for healing is no surprise. A therapeutic metaphor can help clients gain the personal resources and enhanced world model they need to be able to handle their problems. Typically, as in the general history of storytelling, the therapist decides what story or metaphor will have the greatest effect.

There's also a growing interest in listening for a client's metaphor and running with it, while still staying alert to a direction that might resolve the problem. I used this more client-centered approach with a client who said she always felt "like the new kid on the block" when with her colleagues. I entered her metaphor by saying, "OK, I'm here with you. You've just moved in, and you're the new kid. What's that like? What are the other kids doing? How do they treat you? What are some ways you can get them to include you?" Notice how, even though we were both in the client's metaphor, the form of my questions kept me in charge of what direction to take. I was eager to find a useful outcome, and we did find one when she said, "They want to play with some of my cool toys!" She was then able to recognize "cool toys" in her current repertoire that helped her feel more comfortable with colleagues.

More recently, I explored symbolic modeling. Instead of the coach determining the direction of clients' metaphors, open-ended questions preserve clients' terminology and facilitate their self-discovery and self-development: "And being like a butterfly is for you...?" "And when does (your words)....?" "And then....?" "And just before that....?" The facilitator's questions are called "clean language," meaning they're not compromised by left-brain theories of where to take the session; the questions typically follow the client's lead.

Symbolic modeling theory has a formal structure, however, so the emphasis still leans toward tools the helper brings, which keeps the left-brain processes in gear. In the past few years I've moved into a more right-brain use of metaphor where I follow the client's lead, trusting that wherever we go will lead to a healing place.

The Enneagram: A Compelling Vision

Susan Olesek's TED talk on behalf of the Enneagram Prison Project (EPP), Both Sides of the Bars, is the most compelling Enneagram presentation I've ever seen, for her own transparency, for her clarity and vision, for her compelling examples, for her intelligent presentation, and most of all for the power of her presence. This is the finest example of how life-changing the Enneagram can be in the hands of someone on an authentic spiritual journey. See also this Forbes article about Olesek's work.

Creative Listening

In the executive summary of Theory U: Leading from the Future as it Emerges, Otto Scharmer writes:

Why do our attempts to deal with the challenges of our time so often fail? Why are we stuck in so many quagmires today? The cause of our collective failure is that we are blind to the deeper dimension of leadership and transformational change. This 'blind spot' exists not only in our collective leadership but also in our everyday social interactions. We are blind to the source dimension from which effective leadership and social action come into being. ("Addressing The Blind Spot of Our Time").

To access the source dimension, Scharmer suggests we slow down our listening, moving from the limitations of downloading ("Yeah, I already know that") and factual listening (the scientific approach, noticing what differs from what you already know), and even past empathic listening (knowing how the world appears through someone else's eyes), to generative listening (attending to the emerging field of future possibility).

Know Thyself?

At midlife I met my devils. Much of what I had counted as blessing became curse. The wide road narrowed, the light grew dark. And in the darkness, the saint in me, so well nurtured and well-coiffed, met the sinner. Connie Zweig, Prologue, Meeting the Shadow: The Hidden Power of the Dark Side of Human Nature (Zweig & Abrams -- Eds.)

When I was in college I wrote our dorm's script for the annual skit competition. The theme was "Know Thyself," drawing from the many sources for which that concept is key. Right now I can only remember biblical and ancient Greek references, and that we lost to a much livelier and less heady skit.

I was, of course, onto something that would lure me toward self-realization my whole life. But it wasn't until I was well into midlife, with only glimpses of my shadow self, that I began to truly engage with "the great burden of self-knowledge, the disruptive element that does not want to be known" (Meeting the Shadow, p. xxi, Introduction).

For the past few years I've been intrigued by Peter A. Levine's somatic experiencing approach to resolving trauma. Trauma is most obvious in severe cases such as the PTSD we've read about in war vets and victims of sexual abuse. Practitioners are now finding a similar freeze response in any situation of thwarted survival energy, such as the "normal" events of childhood that require tamping down our natural responses because of real or perceived threat, where we don't feel safe unless we hide from or conform to childhood situations.

The SE approach facilitates the completion of self-protective motor responses and the release of thwarted survival energy bound in the body, thus addressing the root cause of trauma symptoms.This is approached by gentle guiding clients to develop increasing tolerance for difficult bodily sensations and suppressed emotions.

I've recently found someone to help me deepen access to those most unknown parts. I'll give one example, noting that we don't have to understand any of this. No need to analyze, to know how or why certain aspects have been hidden. In my case, I had often expressed surprise that I'd never felt shame. I could be present to clients who experienced shame but, with one exception, I had no felt sense of it. I didn't particularly want to experience shame, and I don't know what triggered it for me this time, but two days after a session with my SE therapist, I awoke swimming in shame. She had given me the resources to stay present to any unfreezing and, though it was pretty awful, there was a difference this time from the earlier occasion linked above: I was also feeling excited, because I know all children are shamed to some degree ("How rude," "You're embarrassing me," "What a trouble-maker!") and I'd felt guilt ("my actions were bad") but now finally was finding shame ("I'm bad") more accessible.

The somatic experiencing approach is not one, I believe, that we can do fully on our own. I had tried to do so for several years after first reading Levine's In an Unspoken Voice: How the Body Releases Trauma and Restores Goodness. Any self-work vs. engaging with an SE-trained therapist is similar to the difference between rubbing your own neck and shoulders and having professional deep tissue massage.

What we can do on our own are some of the exercises suggested in Meeting the Shadow. These self-initiated actions can take you a long way toward knowing yourself:

Solicit Feedback from Others: This is one of the most effective ways to gain insight into your personal shadow, though it can be threatening. Learn how to listen and take in feedback that surprises or hurts you. When more than one person describes the same trait, especially, explore their observations more deeply.

Examine Your Projections: Whenever you have a strong like or dislike of someone else, examine them closely enough to identify the trait that pushes your button. The qualities you especially like or dislike are likely to be projection, a fairly accurate picture of your personal shadow.

Examine Your "Slips": Slips of tongue show aspects of shadow we wouldn't dare express consciously. Slips of behavior can be even more revealing. Think of a time when you said or did something that later dumbfounded you. A more subtle "slip" is discovering that others perceive you in a completely different way than you see yourself (see #1 above). This is information about an unknown part of yourself.

Consider Your Humor and Identification: What's said in humor is often a manifestation of shadow truth. Behavior that might otherwise result in fines or imprisonment can bring hearty laughter. People who deny or repress shadow may find few things funny. Notice when a joke or cartoon makes you laugh.

Study Your Dreams, Daydreams, Fantasies: Shadow may appear in your dreams as a figure of your gender or some opposite aspect of yourself, even in a form you fear and want to escape. Observe closely its actions, and attitudes, and words. When you're awake, where does your mind go, what images invade your thoughts? In these fantasies and daydreams are opportunities to know yourself, especially in ways that are difficult to accept consciously.