Month: December 2018

That was my 90’s-ish disenchanted response to my daily A Course in Miracles lesson yesterday. I’m just being honest here. So, yes, I am on day 249 of A Course in Miracles (ACIM) in what is a year long process. I do, incidentally, recommend it thus far. That said, I do a fair amount of translating the language from its Christian-based perspective to my own personal form of spirituality, which doesn’t follow any particular religion (never has). The old patriarchal Father-Son language just doesn’t work for me. In particular, please stop referring to humanity as “the Sonship.” Just stop, please. I’ve read the justifications for this that suggest that Jesus, who is being channeled, utilizes the masculine in an attempt to heal all of our negative connotations of masculinity and to heal separation by including all genders in his definition of the Sonship. It just doesn’t work for me as a woman, which is to say that I still don’t feel included. I can see how it might work to guide a man into a mindset of inclusion. And, yes, you can argue that this is my own perceptual problem, but I would counter-argue that the problem is that our language isn’t capable of correctly portraying the way it really is. I endorse telling it like it is- God is not gendered and neither are our souls. If our language can’t convey this, then let’s invent words that can. You can see that when ACIM triggers me, I easily move into a full on rant.

This bothered me so much when I first attempted ACIM many years ago, that I stopped very early on because I couldn’t get past it. But I am determined this time to not let the language get in my way, so I just translate as necessary the essence of the lesson into my own terms. That has worked for me. Overall, I agree with the gist and intent of ACIM and have found it a helpful daily reminder, or mental operation as the case may be, in the midst of an intense part of my journey. There are those days, though, that it pushes my buttons. Yesterday was such a day. The lesson that I reacted to was this:

“Whatever suffers is not part of me.”

Is it pushing your buttons too? Just curious. If your reaction is anything like mine, the pushback is something like this: “Wait the hell a minute… my suffering is my G-damn suffering!” Again, just being honest, if not slightly dramatic. My reaction wasn’t all that, but I did feel my chest tighten as I read it. What that told me is that this is a sticking point for me. It also means that it is something that I am ready to look at and in fact have been working on very intensely this year.

To say a little more about the pushback, there is a flip side to all of this and really that was what instantly came up for me. And to be fair, this particular lesson can’t be taken out of the context of the 247 days that proceeded it. But I think the wisdom that it is attempting to convey is a sticking point for most of us. Other wisdom traditions say something similar. In Buddhism it is stated like this: attachment is the root of suffering. Hinduism aligns with Buddhism in this regard and both include desire and wrong-thinking as primary causes of suffering. What each of these traditions is trying to say is that it is our belief that we are our relative, embodied selves- our ego- that is the cause of suffering. In short, to be alive is to be subject to suffering for the simple reason that in order to be alive in the first place we kind of have to believe that we are separate beings. That is the function of our ego, to maintain this illusion of separation. But this separation from our divine nature is painful, and frankly, unreal.

So here is the rub for me. I like being alive. I think it is pretty dang cool and miraculous. I also think that life is divine in nature. In fact, I believe that there is nothing but God. That is my spirituality in a nutshell. ACIM, incidentally, agrees with this view. So something in me has an adverse reaction every time something or someone suggests to me that I should somehow want to overcome this condition of being alive. I’ll take it, suffering and all, thank you very much. Not that I am adverse to the alternative, it’s just that I don’t think that one state is inherently better than the other. Both states- relative (embodied, manifest) and absolute (unembodied, unmanifest)- are equally divine to me. That means that the suffering part is, in its own way, a gift.

Stated slightly differently, I react to the suggestion that my ego is not divine in nature. Really? If there is nothing but God (again, my view, which I am not asking you to adopt), then my ego has to also be God. This is where I may ultimately remain at odds with ACIM even though our view and end game is essentially the same, which is to say that this difference is more about semantics. Now mind you, I fully recognize that the function of my ego is to keep me convinced that I am not God. I get that. It’s just that at this point in my life I recognize that even this weird, backward-ass function plays a divine role in my process of becoming.

Now I am certainly not saying that I think that these wisdom traditions have it wrong. I don’t. In fact, I think they are right to point out that our suffering is of our own doing, generated in our own minds, projected out into the world, and then reinforced as our limited perception of what is what. If that was a mouthful, it simply means that we are making it all up. Again, I acknowledge that this is a trigger for many people. I can only hold space for myself and for you to consider it. ACIM is a good way to make space for this sort of considering. Come to your own conclusions. For me, suffering is based in the ego via attachment and the underlying misunderstanding of who we really are. Where I might differ from these traditions is that I don’t necessarily deem this choice to be a mistake. To the contrary, I view it as a necessary part of our process of becoming, of living into our divine nature. To know and experience who we are, we have to first forget who we are and then play out who we are not. I have found in life that I have to exhaust my ideas about myself and about the world before I can overcome my small-mindedness.

To bring this down to earth a bit, I would say that it is by moving through our suffering that we arrive at joy. And joy is our true nature. Again, this is in alignment with these wisdom traditions. There is a meme going around that suggests that maturity comes with damage, not with age. If that were accurate, then we would all be as mature as all get out! There is plenty of damage to go around and nobody is immune from it. Although I do think it is generally true that people who have more evident damage are more likely to be in touch with their damage and are therefore more likely to attain maturity. This is to say that for me the sign of maturity is the degree to which we are able to step into and own our damage (aka, suffering). For me I distill this into a four step process:

1. Gain awareness of the root of my suffering.
2. Face the part of me that is suffering.
3. Do the (hard) work of nurturing that part of me that is suffering.
4. Carry my suffering to the surface and expose it to the light.

The process ranges from easy to extraordinarily difficult. Some suffering lingers at the surface, but the deepest suffering in us has been hiding out for a long time- perhaps since birth, or even before. Simply discovering that it is even there can be difficult. Those deepest, most primal wounds tend to be the most allusive and the most subversive in our process of becoming. I liken getting to them as digging a well into the depths of myself. Basically, follow steps 1-4 starting with whatever is showing up at the surface, then repeat, repeatedly. Eventually you’ll get down into the center of the suffering. To me it is the regular and conscientious implementation of some process like this that is the sign of maturity.

I knew that I was earning my wings when I got deep enough into myself to understand that step 3 is about me becoming the parent to my own inner 5 year old child. This parenting is no easier than the real deal. Same difficulties, actually. That kid has a mind (and a heart) of her own! Kids don’t grow up overnight (although it seems that way) and we don’t necessarily gain maturity with age. I might argue that maturity as I am defining it is fairly rare these days.

The point of it all, though, is what comes with step 4. To expose suffering to the light is to release it. To release it is to experience the joy that it was hiding all along. This is what these wisdom traditions would have us know. That we are not our suffering. What we are is joy. Now I suppose it is possible that we could come to this realization without all of the well digging. Just a snap of the fingers and be done with the suffering. Let’s just abide in the joy that we are already! I think- and I could be wrong- that to achieve the level of joy that the wisdom traditions point to (heaven on earth or enlightenment in the highest sense) would be difficult to achieve without doing the hard work of acknowledging, facing, nurturing and exposing our suffering. If it were as easy as a snap of the fingers, then I seriously doubt that Jesus would have whined to God about being forsaken, or that Buddha would have starved himself to near death in search of the truth.

But my point is that the work itself doesn’t have to be a life sentence. Mastery of a process like the one that I outlined is what I would call a state of full maturity, or elderhood. It isn’t that the suffering goes away- that is a condition of life as the wisdom traditions say. We need our pesky egos to maintain the illusion of relativity that is the foundation of life. Mastery of the process, to me, is to fall in love with every second of it. It is to embrace and be grateful for this extraordinary opportunity of Self-discovery. We can find joy in the process itself. We can find joy in our pain. To do that is to transcend it in a way that allows us to remain here, gratefully and gracefully, in this gift that is life. This is different than trying to escape being here in search of some absolute state where suffering does not exist. I have no desire to escape life. This is to say that I do not believe that the state with no such suffering (the absolute, unembodied, unmanifest) is any more divine or any more wonderful than the state with suffering (the relative, embodied, manifest). That’s just me. You can choose whatever you like.

Moving toward a non-conclusion now. Maybe you have noticed, but all of the above contains a paradox. On the one hand, life is suffering. On the other hand, life is joy. On the one hand, we are truly not our suffering. On the other hand, we need our suffering to figure that out. This is the both/and that is life. Life is a beautiful paradox, and to embrace this is perhaps half the battle in healing the attachment that causes our suffering. Don’t try to solve it. On this front, here is one of my favorite lessons from ACIM so far: “I leave creation free to be itself.”

Last but not least, my end game might just be to save life on this planet. Facing where we are on this front has been painful. The level of loss that we are all being confronted with is extraordinary. It is easy to focus my attention outwardly on all of the things that I might help heal through my vocational skills. Believe you me I have been hard at work on that front for years now. Yet what I will leave you with today is that I have come to realize that there is nothing more important than the work that I am doing to heal myself. It is not even the case that I have to heal myself before I can heal what is outside of myself. Healing myself is the actual work. Period. Yes, and hopefully, others will be inspired by my healing and in turn heal themselves. But to keep this beautiful experience called life around, we each will have to ultimately do our own work to heal the illusion of separation that lies within. That is the crux of the issue at the moment. Godspeed.

“Life itself- our human lives- is a gift. Our lives, our talents, our abilities, our privilege to be human are given to us, and like all gifts they are not to be hoarded. They are not to be devoted, like the capital of classical economics, to the endless increase of me and mine, but must be passed on lest they stagnate and decay. The circle- really a gift web- takes care of its own, just as the ecological web of nature sustains every species within it. In other words, each gift eventually finds its way, usually in some altered form, back to the giver.” – Charles Eisenstein

This is your introduction to the book that I am just finishing up and that I would give to every person on the planet if I could. Yet even if I did, I recognize that it’s not easy to get through all 512 of its dense pages. The book is The Ascent of Humanity by Charles Eisenstein. So instead of imploring you to read it (please do ;-), I’ll just share the gist of it as it comes up in the moment. This is one of those moments.

Earlier this month I celebrated my 49th birthday. While I most often forget, always swimming around in my subconscious such that I do sometimes remember, is the awareness that I am only here by the stroke of a miracle. No, really. Actually, this is true for all of us. Think about the infinite number of contingencies that led to the creation of you. Any ever so slightly different turn of events and no you. My story has just always been a little more direct, if not in my face about it.

I almost died at birth. Long story short, my blood is RH positive and my mom’s is RH negative. I was the second child, with an older brother who is also RH positive. RH negative blood registers the protein in RH positive blood as a pathogen. That means that when an RH negative mother has an RH positive child, her immune system kicks in to create antibodies. The first child escapes unscathed. If another comes along, however, the antibodies get right to work. There is no polite way to say this (sorry, Mom), but quite literally my mother’s blood was trying to kill me the entire time I was in the womb. These days the problem has been eliminated pharmaceutically. But not back then. Back then, nobody even knew that I was in a fight for my life. When I entered the world I was, by all accounts, as orange as an orange. I was lucky to have made it to birth. The survival rate at the time was 50/50, and it was very much looking like I would fall on the losing side of that equation.

To add insult to injury, our doctor was out of town… and the hospital was not equipped to deal with me. My mother, who just happens to be a registered nurse, has always made it her business to know every doctor in town. Without hesitation, she commanded the hospital to load me and my dad into an ambulance and take me across town to a specific doctor. She was not allowed to come with. The chosen doctor received me and immediately got me hooked up to an incubator. Now imagine the incredible liability that doctors face. They have standard procedures to follow such that if they don’t, malpractice can destroy their careers. My blood cell count hit the magic level that dictated that a blood transfusion be performed or death would surely follow. But for God only knows what reason, the anointed doctor said, “Wait. Let’s just wait. Give her a moment.” And so they did, for a long while. Days. My blood count didn’t budge. It stayed right there until I ultimately caught my snap.

So here I am. I didn’t escape entirely unscathed, but I made it into this world. My maternal grandmother was a first had witness to this turn of events. Growing up, there was not a day that I spent with her that she did not tell me this story and remind me at least 10 times a day- much to my annoyance- that I was just a “miracle baby.” That’s the in my face part of the story. While I didn’t appreciate these incessant reminders as a child, I do now. I implore my internal maternal grandmother to remind myself as often as I can. I forget too often.

But when I do remember, what it calls my attention to is that I am here, by God! Every single day of my life has been a gift. What to do with it? Well, the answer to that question is in a constant state of discovery. Each day brings new clues. I heed them to the best of my ability. What I understand for sure is that there is only one me. I have a unique essence. I have my own unique gifts to offer. Nobody but me can give these gifts to the world. The only question then is, “to give or not to give?” The answer is obvious, but the execution takes awareness, courage, and action. Most of all, it takes a heapful of love.

So instead of sending everyone in the world a copy of this visionary book, I’ll instead pass along the gift of just one insight. You are a miracle. You have your own unique essence. You have your own unique gift to offer that nobody else in the world can give but you. For those of you celebrating this season in whatever religious tradition you follow, know that this idea of gift giving is sacred. It isn’t menial. It isn’t about commodification. It is meant to help us to remember that we have a gift to give in the first place. Give it. Give it wholeheartedly with no expectation of return and it will return to you threefold. That is true because we are already, and were never anything other than, one big, divine, beautiful interbeing. Your unique role is essential to the evolution of our interbeing. Give what only you can give.

“To live in the gift means to approach each person and each choice with the attitude, ‘What can I create? What can I give?'” – Charles Eisenstein

As you contemplate this season of giving, I offer you this final question:

“What would I most love to give to the world?” – Charles Eisenstein

Love to you all, and thank you for the gift that you are.

Let’s start with the girl. Listen to Greta… again:

Don’t cry. Remember that has been one of my rules. Most people who know me think that I am fairly even-keeled, which is a nice way of saying that I don’t seem to have strong emotional swings (until they erupt on occasion). People who get to know me better begin to experience my particular brand of stoicism as a sort of impenetrable wall. At first it may be a source of wonderment at what may appear to be a super-human like quality. But those who get even closer still come to the stark realization that, well, I’m not all that. It’s just my very well designed defense mechanisms. Upon that realization, the frustration begins to set in. Sensing that something much deeper is going on, the question begins to revolve around how to get past this fortress I have built (at least for those who are brave enough to go and stay there).

It’s frustrating for me too. Very frustrating. As the people closest to me try to reach me from the outside, I am frantically working from the inside to dismantle this thing I have built. My experience is often- damn, why did I have to build this so well? I haven’t cried uncontrollably to another human being since I was 5. The truth, however, is that I am super-sensitive. I actually cry at the drop of a hat. It’s just that my tears are silent, or if they need to be more than that they are shed in isolation. My very inner circle know this about me. I am bringing this up at the moment because what I want to share with you is that I cried deeply, outwardly, in heaving uncontrolled tears when I watched Greta’s TED Talk. In fact, the tears are still tricking out now as I write. And just to be fully transparent, you will start to notice that I am going to keep connecting these very big picture realities to my very personal experience of them. Notice that. It’s important. 

Before I get to the Three Amigas of Barcelona, I first need to say something more about Greta. Marty Webb, I know you are reading this, so this is for you. Part of the reason that Greta touched me so deeply is because of you, Marty. You know why. Let me explain it to everyone else. Marty is the founder of The Monarch School in Houston, Texas. Monarch is a ground-breaking school for kids with neurological differences such as autism. I had the great honor of being the architect of their campus. In the process, I had the privilege of learning from Marty, the brilliant staff, and their phenomenal students themselves about what it is to be human in this world.

The issue with autism, in a highly over-simplified nutshell, is that people who have it didn’t quite fully complete the individuation process during their early neurological development. That means that they don’t quite know where they end and the rest begins, which makes it very hard to make sense of the world in the neurotypical ways that we do. Stated differently, our social conventions don’t make sense to them because the idea of separation is foreign to them. What they taught me is that it isn’t them that are “off” – it’s us. Autism, as hard as it is on those who have it and those who care for them (Mary and Jim, I am thinking of you), is a gift to the rest of us for one simple reason: it reflects to us at this critical time in our story that we are all living in a state of disconnect. In a very powerful way, the epidemic rise in autism is showing us that our sense of separation is deeply problematic- if we would only pay attention.

People with autism don’t automatically fall in line with our separist worldview the way the rest of us do. At Monarch they have learned to work with each student to build a conscious, healthy connection between self and other, between self and nature. This process involves everything that is required in the regenerative processes that I now teach: self-reflection and self-actualization tied to systems-actualization. In short, it involves understanding that we are each nested into one big interbeing, each with our own unique role to play. I could go on and on about this, but instead I am just going to leave it at this: listen to Greta.

And now for Barcelona. I went to Barcelona to stretch myself. I feel the same sense of urgency as Greta does. So over the past year or so I have been working on entering into new arenas. Bigger arenas. This isn’t to negate the focused work that I am doing on the ground, it is to extend it. On the ground plane I utilize regenerative processes to catalyze Place. Places have their own inherent essence and unique gifts to offer. People as well have their own inherent essence and unique gifts to offer. My job, as I define it, is to unleash those. That is the game, in a nutshell. That is what will save us from ourselves, in a nutshell. 

I went to Barcelona to connect to an international community working on the resilience of humanity. They are primarily researchers who are feverishly trying to figure out what we need to do. There are about a million things that I could share with you about this, but let’s just stick with the nutshell as I see it. My nutshell is always a little off from the crowd. I am used to that, and I value that. In fact, that is probably the only thing that compels me to lend my voice to the equation. I have something to say that only I can say in the way that I say it. That is my unique gift to offer. My gift to the world is my voice. 

I didn’t know exactly what to expect of this particular crowd. It was my first time to be around them, rather than just reading their articles and twitter feeds (they love to twitter!). I don’t abide in the rational processes of research. I abide in vision, zooming in and out of perspective. But we have one thing in common- we all care deeply about the survival of humanity and those species which are threatened by us. If this is a bit too heavy for a Monday, I apologize. Hang in there. The nutshell is worth it.

Not knowing how they might respond, I decided not to hold back. For all I knew this would be the one and only chance that I would get to address them. So I chose to speak in a non-researchy tongue. I began by sharing with them that I replace the words “living system” with the words “living being” in my thinking. The former, although it isn’t meant to, objectifies what we are studying. The latter makes it personal. It instantly compels me to empathize with what I am looking at (a particular community for instance) and more importantly to be relational with it. In other words it isn’t something I am simply studying, it is something that I am in a process of becoming with.

Once we understand all things across all scales (humans, places, organizations, communities, cities, states, countries, the planet, etc.) as beings, we start to get the sense of respect that has been lacking. A being is a mysterious and magical thing in the sense that the whole is always greater than the parts. That is a mystery that we can never fully unlock. We will never be able to explain it away. Thank God, because then life would be boring. 

So anyway, I used my 15 minutes to explain how every being across all scales has a unique role to play in the evolution of the larger being. For you to be fully you, step one is to get in touch with your own essence where you will find your own unique gift(s) to offer. Self-actualization then comes from giving your gifts for the purpose of actualizing the larger being of which you are a part. This leads to co-evolution, which is to say the evolution of both you and of the larger being (family, organization, community, etc.) of which you are a part. Now I got a lot more specific about how to apply this to a community, but I’m giving you the nutshell. 

In the conference’s researchy presentation format, there wasn’t much time for reflection or conversation. My session was particularly time constrained and so it ended rather abruptly and in such a way that I couldn’t get a very good read on how it had gone over. But as the day went on a few people acknowledged hearing me in a way that I could tell they actually heard me. Two of those people became fast friends: Hanna Ruszczyk and Shivali Fifield. Together, over the next few days we became the Three Amigas, doing this whole conference thing, Barcelona, and the quest for resilience together. We had deep conversations and developed much respect for how each of us is working outside of the status quo in important ways. They are each doing amazing work by the way. Hanna works on actualizing the feminine voice to build resilience throughout the world, and in the Global South in particular. Go, Hanna! Shivali works on actualizing the voice of the community – much in the same way I do- in Glasgow. Go, Shivali!

Then the day after my presentation, a graduate student named Luca Arbau (from Brazil) approached me between sessions. He sheepishly began by saying that my session had been so intense that he needed the night to sleep on it. I couldn’t help but laugh, and then assured him that was the nature of the beast. He asked me to explain further the regenerative concept of how beings need to relate to the larger whole for the sake of resilience. I happily and slowly walked him through it again. Then we exchanged contact info so that I may continue to support him in his explorations. Go, Luca!

Not everyone who I wanted to connect to made it to my presentation. I was there in the first place because I respect the work that they are doing in the world and want to help them in whatever way I can. Here’s the thing about giving our gift. Can you remember a moment in time when a certain thing happened- a certain person said or did a certain thing for you- that changed the entire trajectory of your life? Of course you can. That’s how this game of interbeing works. Our human trajectory needs to shift. This seems impossible… until we remember that the slightest of encounters sends us off in entirely new directions. 

So I made sure to lend my voice to each of the people whose work resonated with me. First there was Isabelle Anguelovski who works on social justice issues relative to green gentrification in cities across the globe. I reminded her that nature deficit disorder is part of what is driving what her research bears witness to. It is fundamental to explaining why underprivileged communities resist green infrastructure (it’s half of the picture anyway- with the other half being justified gentrification fear), and therefore what needs to be healed in order to reset the trajectory. She knows this and kicked herself for not yet including it in her presentation. She was thankful for the reminder, in particular because it will help her answer to the kickback that she gets from those who are fighting for the inclusion of nature in such communities. Evolving a social-ecological system is complex, because they are complex beings that respond in radically different ways to slightly different inputs… just like us!

Then there was Timon McPhearson, an ecologist at the New School in New York. He heads up a team that is doing extraordinarily sophisticated resilience modeling for New York and other cities across the globe. The work is impressive and comprehensive… and highly technological. That said, they are running up against limits to what the work can do. The first thing that they are noticing is that it is difficult to get people to expand their vision of what is possible. The second is that they are having trouble figuring out how to include the voice of the community. Lastly, they are noticing that it is hard to get action in response to what they are discovering. From my regenerative perspective, all three limitations are related and there is an answer for how to overcome them. I talked to Timon about this and we will continue that conversation. There is no sense in leaving them out there hanging when the answers exist. He was grateful and very willing. I am looking forward to what may come of this.

Lastly, there is Stephan Barthel, who I am going to call my Swedish nature boy (although he is not a boy, he is very much a man who is adulting in the ways that Greta is asking of us). I have been following his work and communicating with him over the last year. He, like me, fundamentally understands that what we need to heal is our connection to nature. The way I understand this is that we need to overcome our separatist worldview. And to bring this full circle (finally!), it is exactly what Greta is pointing to. A non-separatist worldview is the new world that she is calling forth. So I will continue my conversation with Stephan about this and how we go about doing it. For you, Greta. This is for you. (Tears.)

Have you ever noticed that when you are focused on something, everything that flies across your radar seems to reflect that something? More on that another time. I was just saying something about arbitrary boundaries and then my good friend Amanda shared this post from Green Renaissance (who look to be doing amazing work):

“Life is not in a box. There’s no rules. It’s what you make with life.” – Elrieda Pillmann.

Then there was this gem shared by Jayna Hefford during her recent induction speech into the Hockey Hall of Fame. At one point she directly addressed her kids, who are too young to comprehend the magnitude of the moment, with  “I want you to know that there are no rules for your journey.” She goes on to say that she will support them in whatever their passions are. Can you imagine if we actually said that to all of our kids? And meant it?? What if we said that to ourselves?

The rule when I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s was that girls don’t play ice hockey. In fact, in the South (Houston) I am not sure it was considered polite for girls to be playing team sports of any sort. That was a hard reality for this typical tomboy, the only girl on the block that the boys allowed to play in (dis)organized sports including tackle football. And I held my own.

I come from a skating family (not from the South!)- my dad grew up playing hockey and my mom grew up figure skating. You can guess which one I was supposed to pursue. To this end, I was on the ice before I can even remember being on the ice (age 2ish). Looking back on it now, I think we would have to declare that the rule that girls don’t play hockey was- there is no polite way to put this- a dumb rule. Girls actually excel at the sport, as Hefford’s induction into the Hall of Fame lends testament to. 

So the question is, why do we follow dumb rules? I think my parents instinctively knew that it was a dumb rule for me… that maybe they should let me play hockey. They would never have put equipment on me and a stick in my hands if that had not been the case. But they did just that when I was little. It was only when I got old enough for organized play that the answer came back as a hard no. Don’t blame them. We all do it. We all give into dumb rules even when our best instincts are telling us otherwise. It’s just easier to not fight the world. At least seemingly… 

But fortunately our passions have a mind of their own. We can only hold them back for so long. You may be able to make it through an entire lifetime holding them back, but they’ll break through in the next one, or the next one after that, or eventually anyway. I was lucky. I didn’t have to wait that long. My little hockey passion had no patience. By age 18 it kicked that “no” to the curb as I walked onto the women’s varsity team at Princeton. Not only did I end up getting to play, but I excelled. It was a minor miracle. But then again, that’s just Passion’s M.O. 

But back to my question. Why do we follow dumb rules? Why do we bury our own inner voices and instincts and buy into the status quo? In the end I suppose it doesn’t really matter… our passions will ultimately get the best of us anyway. But the inevitability of that just makes following dumb rules all the more… dumb. So why wait? It’s pointless. Just let your passions have their way with you. You’ll be happy you did. 

Now for one more question. I am curious to know. What dumb rules are you noticing in your life right now? Please respond in the comments below. Let’s get them all out on the table!

Did I say I wanted to outdo myself in that last post? NO!!!!!! Delete, delete, delete! Granted, that is basically what I have been doing for 49 years now (as of next Tuesday… hint, hint), but enough is enough! Don’t you think? So this is a new one for me. I’m trying to turn over a new leaf here. That was a slip of the tongue. What can I say, old habits die hard.

What I meant to say was that I want to outbe myself. Being the greatest version of myself has little, if anything, to do with doing. It has nothing to do with accomplishments. It has nothing to do with achieving. Been there, done that. Not that I regret a moment of it. I think we kind of have to expend ourselves in order to fully realize our selves. Not to mention, truth be told, it’s been fun!

Seems we spend much of our lives working hard to lock in our identities. It’s a deeply human survival technique. You want to know who I am? Check the records. I’m legit. The records say so. Just look at my credentials. I have so many initials after my name that I have had to edit them! Ridiculous. You want to know what my records will show you? That I am a hopeless overachiever!

You want to know who I am? For that, you’ll have to get to know me. As in personally… through relationship. Now as you may have caught on by now, I am not easy to get to know. You’ve got to have some serious special agent tactical skills to navigate my defense mechanisms. I mean, come on, I AM an architect. I’ve got a well-designed (misguided as it may be) fortress inside! Expect a few bumps and bruises along the way.

Not that I am discouraging you. But how about this instead? How about I just make it easy on you? How about I just come out to play? That leads me to the first half of my new favorite word: outbe. In essence, outbeing is like coming out of the closet. Only in this case it’s a fortress, not a closet. Hello World, here I am! Here I am in all of my messy humanity. That’s the out part.

The be part is, well, gargantuan. That’s because when we really start to look at it, there is truly no limit to being. Oh sure, we draw boundaries around our being left, right, and center. But we are just making them up. When I say I want to be a better version of myself, what I am really saying is that I want to let down some of my arbitrary boundaries so that I can live into the much bigger Being that I Am. Put the two together, outbe, and what I am suggesting is stepping out into the light, outside of old, tired boundaries that no longer serve.

Go for it! I double dog dare you! Outbe yourself. 

Well that’s what she yelled as she sauntered by. “Shelly, you are a GOAT!” The very first thing that crossed my mind was, oh my God, did I forget to shave today?? Full disclosure… I have a goatee. Yep, sure do. See I was diagnosed with a “hormone imbalance” back when I was a teenager. I got tired of fighting it with drugs (by my early 20’s) and with various hair removal treatments (by my early 30’s) and never looked back. I decided that my hormones were perfectly balanced for me. That meant that I ultimately had to start shaving my chin. One of these days I am going to grow it out for all to see. Of course that will likely coincide with me retreating to our mountaintop tiny home, so maybe nobody will actually see me. But then again, maybe I’ll become known as the wise old mountain goat!

But that wasn’t what she was talking about, and really I knew that. I am an architect and a professor of architecture at a historically black university. The she in this tale is Nakia, one of my students. As she passed by I was discussing a detail with Shannon (my wife, a builder and our design-build specialist) and Rodrigo (another of my students) on the design-build project that my studio is working on. I looked at Shannon quizzically to see if she knew what she meant. Blank stare. I turned to Rodrigo for help. He shrugged. So I yelled after Nakia, “What does than mean?!” I had to know.