What little child hasn't dreamed of the passage of his or her life. She dreams of the famous actress or singer that she will be. He dreams of being a great firefighter, a police officer, a sports hero or maybe just walking the in the shoes of his father. Maybe both dream of getting married and having their own family. Their dreams may tend toward grandiosity. But we all know that those childhood dreams usually escape our grasp. Somewhere along the way our lives unfold along paths we never could have defined--sometimes happily and sometimes not so much. Nevertheless, we make decisions about our paths and as we live from places of power we leave certain ways of being behind.
In the stages of force and the powerful stage of courage that we have studied thus far there remains a tendency to desire to control life. We know where we are going and we know what life should hand us. We believe that picture will come. Those bent on control are often devastated when they can't attain what they intended. But in the stage that succeeds courage a person comes to learn that phrase that is all too regular around my house. (Probably because I need to hear it more than anyone). "It is as it should be."
It is as it should be! In other words, I can't control what other people say, what other people do or how they choose to live their lives. I can barely control myself! It is a recognition that life flows and when we seek to stand in the way of the flow we are the only ones who create anguish for ourselves.
This new level of power is known as neutrality. This is the level when one becomes aware of his or her own power. It is the place where inner confidence begins to truly bloom and one realizes that in this life we have to go with the flow. This is the level of safety where people are willing to release emotionality and simply learn to be.
About a month and a half ago, I was at Wrightsville Beach with my family. Two men came and began setting up a contraption that I had never seen before (apparently my life is more sheltered than I knew!) It was a kite board and when they had everything ready, the rider strapped himself in with all of the appropriate cords, made is way into the ocean and the wind lifted him up. He blew all the way down the island and back again over the hours that we peered out there and I couldn't help but be mesmerized by the process.
What I witnessed in those moments was a lesson that I must learn and relearn it seems! Here was a man that was willing to go where the winds of nature would blow him. He had his vision and some level of direction that he offered to the process but the winds were what carried him. This is what sitting in neutral is all about. When we live at this level of neutrality, we let life carry us toward our goals and sometimes they don't pan out like we thought but allowing life to take us where it will often brings far more amazing experiences than we could have conceived of our own volition!
Monday, August 31, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
A Choice for Courage
Kate Gulden was dying from that raucous disease we call cancer. Her husband, unable to deal with the situation ordered his adult daughter to come home from her high powered job in New York and to take care of her mother. The daughter was bumfuddled by this request. Was it not his job? He was her husband. He lived there! She did not!
It didn't take long for the daughter to choose to leave her work, her boyfriend, and return home to care for her mother. She learned to really cook and do the domestic tasks but somewhere along the way she also got a glimpse of her seemingly stellar father. She deduced that he was having an affair and she knew there was no way that she could tell her mother. When Kate noticed that some thing was wrong she inquired of her daughter who refused to confess what she knew. Then Kate said to her, "There is nothing that you know about your father that I don't know about him." She went on to tell her daughter that when you live with someone that many years, you make a choice--and sometimes a courageous choice. You accept them for all that they are and with whatever baggage they bring. In her words, you "choose to love what you have."
The daughter would learn later that her father was having an affair with alcohol and she chose to learn her mother's lesson. While the scene is only a movie known as One True Thing, it demonstrates the courage required to truly be family to one another. A person living out of the levels of force, when given Kate's situation, might easily have run away. But courage is the transition point to power.
Whatever challenges and changes life brings, at this lowest level of power, one has the ability to explore, to be determined, to learn new things, to be willing to face oneself and one's fears and to grow as a result. Life challenges to anyone living out of the forceful levels that we've examined thus far would be seen as frightening, frustrating, sad and hopeless. A person of courage chooses to look at life through a lens that says, "ride the wave, embrace the adventure." Courage is the level where productivity begins. So whether that's attempting a new sport, starting a new job or choosing to love what (and who) you have, this level invites us to empowerment.
In the stressors of our days, in the face of our self-imposed expectations for what our lives should be, in the face of all manner of opportunities, we have a choice for courage. May courage empower us to new heights this day! Amen.
It didn't take long for the daughter to choose to leave her work, her boyfriend, and return home to care for her mother. She learned to really cook and do the domestic tasks but somewhere along the way she also got a glimpse of her seemingly stellar father. She deduced that he was having an affair and she knew there was no way that she could tell her mother. When Kate noticed that some thing was wrong she inquired of her daughter who refused to confess what she knew. Then Kate said to her, "There is nothing that you know about your father that I don't know about him." She went on to tell her daughter that when you live with someone that many years, you make a choice--and sometimes a courageous choice. You accept them for all that they are and with whatever baggage they bring. In her words, you "choose to love what you have."
The daughter would learn later that her father was having an affair with alcohol and she chose to learn her mother's lesson. While the scene is only a movie known as One True Thing, it demonstrates the courage required to truly be family to one another. A person living out of the levels of force, when given Kate's situation, might easily have run away. But courage is the transition point to power.
Whatever challenges and changes life brings, at this lowest level of power, one has the ability to explore, to be determined, to learn new things, to be willing to face oneself and one's fears and to grow as a result. Life challenges to anyone living out of the forceful levels that we've examined thus far would be seen as frightening, frustrating, sad and hopeless. A person of courage chooses to look at life through a lens that says, "ride the wave, embrace the adventure." Courage is the level where productivity begins. So whether that's attempting a new sport, starting a new job or choosing to love what (and who) you have, this level invites us to empowerment.
In the stressors of our days, in the face of our self-imposed expectations for what our lives should be, in the face of all manner of opportunities, we have a choice for courage. May courage empower us to new heights this day! Amen.
Thursday, August 20, 2009
The Balance of Pride
My niece, Isabella, is 16 months old. I notice when I am with her how amazing she is. I marvel at her actions like banging on the bathroom door when her mother is trying for a brief span of privacy and saying, "Hey Momma!" I marvel at the rapid walking in which she engages. We, the adults, around her beam with every moment of growth. We are so very proud of her, for she must be better than or more advanced than any other 16 month old around! Right?! Of course right!
We are prideful and it is a perspective that we would do well to monitor. Pride is yet an even more advanced stage of forceful human consciousness than we have examined heretofore. We have looked at shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire and anger (see the anger article at www.btcevents.blogspot.com).
What we see with pride is a level that invites us to celebrate our achievements. We hold our heads higher, just like Isabella does when our family praises her successful actions. We boast about ourselves and believe that we are truly remarkable individuals. It seems there is a fine line between confidence and pridefulness. That old phrase comes to mind, "pride goeth before the fall" and it is so very true. A person who lives out of pride will find themselves standing very tall when life is going smoothly for them. They can call themselves a good catch and wave the gleaming resume in the air but when things aren't going so well they find that they can plummet back down to the lower stages of consciousness. A prideful person's esteem is rooted in what is occurring outside of themselves. It is rooted in being better than others.
I once heard someone say that no one is special. For if we make ourselves special then we make everyone else "not special." The downfall of this level of consciousness is in making ourselves better than anyone else, of valuing ourselves over everyone else.
As a family, we will do well to build Isabella up but also to teach her and remind ourselves that Isabella is equally as special as every other life on this earth. In so doing, hopefully we will release any bent toward the negative expression of pride.
On the positive side, we each have much to celebrate in our lives even down to the fact that those of us who live out of this level of life are inches away from growing toward a life of power as this is the last stage of forceful living before courage takes to experiencing a level of freedom.
I hope for each of us the ability to keep our pride in balance--to find that balance of being the confident people that God has created us to be but also being sure to honor the other remarkable people around us. May we celebrate one another this day! Amen.
We are prideful and it is a perspective that we would do well to monitor. Pride is yet an even more advanced stage of forceful human consciousness than we have examined heretofore. We have looked at shame, guilt, apathy, grief, fear, desire and anger (see the anger article at www.btcevents.blogspot.com).
What we see with pride is a level that invites us to celebrate our achievements. We hold our heads higher, just like Isabella does when our family praises her successful actions. We boast about ourselves and believe that we are truly remarkable individuals. It seems there is a fine line between confidence and pridefulness. That old phrase comes to mind, "pride goeth before the fall" and it is so very true. A person who lives out of pride will find themselves standing very tall when life is going smoothly for them. They can call themselves a good catch and wave the gleaming resume in the air but when things aren't going so well they find that they can plummet back down to the lower stages of consciousness. A prideful person's esteem is rooted in what is occurring outside of themselves. It is rooted in being better than others.
I once heard someone say that no one is special. For if we make ourselves special then we make everyone else "not special." The downfall of this level of consciousness is in making ourselves better than anyone else, of valuing ourselves over everyone else.
As a family, we will do well to build Isabella up but also to teach her and remind ourselves that Isabella is equally as special as every other life on this earth. In so doing, hopefully we will release any bent toward the negative expression of pride.
On the positive side, we each have much to celebrate in our lives even down to the fact that those of us who live out of this level of life are inches away from growing toward a life of power as this is the last stage of forceful living before courage takes to experiencing a level of freedom.
I hope for each of us the ability to keep our pride in balance--to find that balance of being the confident people that God has created us to be but also being sure to honor the other remarkable people around us. May we celebrate one another this day! Amen.
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