Tag: potential

Houston, …

We all know how this story goes. Yes, we have a problem. Our problem is appearing in a million different ways, making it seem like a million different problems- environmental, social, economic, political, relational, personal, physical, emotional, psychological, and on and on and on. But it’s just one problem. And it’s my problem every bit as much as it is yours. It’s the root of all of our problems. We have forgotten who we are. At least that’s one of the easiest ways to say it. 

Now maybe you are thinking you know exactly who you are. I myself have a pretty good sense of who I am. Of course there are all of the activities that have defined my sense of self: student, gymnast, hockey player, coach, architect, professor, etc. and so on. Then there’s the resume stuff: accomplishments, degrees, awards, positions, affiliations, credentials, etc. and so on. Then there are my relationships: child, sister, parent, friend, mentor, colleague, partner, soul mate. Let’s not forget my possessions: lake house, tiny house, mountain (well, halfish a one anyway), car, phone, computer, clothes, etc. and so on. Put all of these things together and my identity looks pretty darn solid. You might look at me and think that’s one sturdy self you got there. Sure. Of course it is. I’ve spent almost 50 years building it. Have I mentioned that I am an overachiever?

Yet none of what I just mentioned really tells you anything about me. I am actually none of the above. And that’s just the first thing. The only way to get any sense for who I am is to be in relationship with me. There you will begin to find the real stuff of me: my passions, my feelings, my thoughts, my patterns, my energy, my wounds, my joys, my triumphs, my presence, etc. and so on. In other words, being in relationship with me gives you insight into my actual experience of life. My experience is unique, just as is yours. Is this, then, the realm of our true selves? Am I my experience? I think that for most of us, our identity does tend to get stuck in the realm of experience. This is to say that how we experience life tends to define who we think we are. More about this some other time.

Whatever the case, we have a dying need to know who we are. For certain. Where do I end and everything else begin? This isn’t simply an individual phenomenon, it’s also a collective one. So you could say that a family, an organization, a company, a team, a city also form identities in all of the ways mentioned above. Houston has many identities: Space City, Bayou City, Clutch City, H-Town, Screwston, etc. And then there’s the branding. This is what we promote in an effort to control how others perceive us. My branding would hopefully lead you to perceive me as somebody who cares deeply about environmental and social justice issues. Houston’s current branding is “The Energy Capital of the World.” Mind you, this was a deliberate replacement of the previous brand name “The Oil Capital of the World.” Well, nobody needs to explain why the change. Identity is important. It’s how we navigate the world, currently anyway. My question is, how much stock should we really put in it? 

Ah, Houston, you are such an easy target. That is to say, I’m not buying it. And mind you, I am a native Houstonian. In fact, in so many ways I am Houston. But now I am getting ahead of myself. Just understand that I am in a very real sense calling myself out in saying what needs to be said in this moment- “Energy Capital of the World” my ass. No. Not. Not even close. Houston, you are still very much the Oil Capital of the World. You do not get to transition from oil to energy until you actually do the work to do so. Sorry. When the Exxon Mobiles of the world start taking this transition seriously, then I’ll bite. 

For now, I think that it is critical that we all work to see ourselves clearly. This is as true for each of us individually as it is for us collectively. Who am I? Well, if we are talking about my little self- the embodied, relative, human version of me- then the best way to tell who I am is to look for my patterns. For example, I have a tendency toward overachievement. To get to who I really am, just follow the overachievement to the root of it. There you will find a vulnerable, unconfident, insecure, shy, hurt little girl who figured the only way to survive was to succeed. So I did. But if you want to really know me, you have to get to know that little girl. Who is she and what is she really after? You know the answer. We all know the answer. Love. That is both the who and the what of it. The irony, of course, is that who we are is what we are after not realizing that we are already it. 

But back to Houston. Houston, in looking at your patterns what I see is flooding. You know why? Houston is a swamp. Let’s be real. I see unbridled exploitation of resources. You know why? The city was founded on speculation… in the spirit of the wild west. Now before you all join me in throwing stones at Houston, stop. Stop because not only am I Houston (and stones hurt!), but we are all Houston. Houston is, unequivocally, the epicenter of our current world paradigm. Don’t think so? Just follow your own wealth, or the lack thereof, and you will find it is rooted in the discovery of none other than black gold. Oil. Oil was discovered just a stones throw away from Houston. Now these two patterns that I have mentioned are entirely related. Houston is a swamp because it used to be ocean. It was built up over time by the layering of dead organic matter from the sea under the erosion of mountains delivered via rivers. Layer upon layer. Throw some salt in there too. Add a ton of time and pressure and walla! The energy of the sun, having been collected by organic matter, is turned into the most dense storage of energy the world has ever known. And it made us all rich (generally speaking). 

Well, we all know how this story goes. Houston, we have a problem. Some of the most extraordinary minds in the world are working on what to do about it. Some are still not, in large part because their wealth is rooted in the oil economy and they have yet to realize that their pensions are about as real as Enron’s were. Listen, I get it. This is hard stuff. Do you want to know how Houston I really am? My family moved to Houston when I was six months old to chase the dream of black gold. My father is a geophysicist. He was quite good at finding the stuff. I am a pure product of the “Oil Capital of the World.” I know the place like the back of my hand. Not only did it shape my every experience, and therefore me, but I have studied it’s patterns for 30 years now. 

This all leads me to what I need to say in this moment. Houston, after 50 years, I have left. I have left you for higher ground. I am in so many ways a privileged climate refugee. It’s embarrassing to even say that. I had the means and the vision to move out of harm’s way. So I did. I am gone. Yet I have not abandoned you. Not at all. I am Houston. I always will be. I will always keep one hand reaching back for you. So here is what that hand looks like. The most important thing to know is that we have to shift the story. We can no longer focus on the problem. For as long as we focus on the problem, we stay stuck in the very way of thinking that produced the problem. This isn’t news! 

We must instead look for the potential. The key to finding the potential is to follow the patterns. Follow the patterns all the way back to the very thing that was being sought in the first place. What was it? What were we after? What was this place after? What is it really about? What is its essence? What is it really wanting to be? What would it be if it achieved its full glory (potential)? Maybe it is the energy capital of the world, maybe it isn’t. What does that mean anyway? I mean really mean…at the deepest level that we can think about it. If it is wealth we are after, then what is true wealth? Houston, the world is looking upon you now more than ever to solve the problem. I am telling you not to offer a solution. Rise above the problem instead. Move into a new potential like only you can. Just make sure that this new potential creates real wealth (for everyone and everything), rather than the slippery black slope that we have been down. Henceforth let us say, “Houston, we have potential.” 

Stories & Fields

We all have our stories. You know, the story about how a particular turn of events went down, which when strung together with all the rest forms the story of our life. The stories that play over and over and over again in our heads ad nauseam. Yes, I have such things. For most of my life, my stories never made it out of my head. Yet life has a way of calling us out, pulling at us, pushing on us, driving us nuts until we surrender. At least that’s how it’s been for me. There were little toe dips in the deep end in early adulthood, but any (near) complete gushing out would have to wait until much later- and even then only to a trusted few. Not that I wasn’t practicing my storytelling in the meantime, because boy was I!

One of the interesting things about stories is how compelling they are. So much so, that it would be accurate to say that we are our stories. Or more accurately, our stories are who we perceive ourselves to be. Our story is our identity. There is nothing wrong with this per se, in fact one might argue that it is a condition of being human. The same is true, in fact, for an entire group of people. Our collective story is what we call culture. It’s a bit hard to imagine living either without our own story or without a culture, nor am I sure we would want to. Our stories are how we make sense of things, how we connect the dots, how we do the most important thing that we do- to connect. To connect is to love. So from this perspective, I say by all means… tell your story.

Sharing my stories has proven extraordinarily helpful in my own personal evolution. One of the reasons is that the simple act of saying it out loud helps to bring whatever energy or patterns that a story is carrying out of the subconscious realm and into the conscious realm. Another is that sharing it with another can help bring clarity to the experience, regardless of the other person’s response or maybe sometimes because of it. Most importantly, sharing enables us to do that all important thing- connect. We find out that our experiences aren’t so outlandish, or then again maybe they are, but still not so much that it makes you seem like an alien being. Telling our story is crucial.

To not gloss over my first point about bringing the story to the conscious realm, this is what enables us to examine the energy and patterns that otherwise dominate our continued experience of life. One of the main realizations as we do this is that our personal stories have been to a large degree predetermined by the cultural story that we were born into. Maybe that is a great story, maybe not so much. Either way, what is gained by bringing it to light is your own creative powers. When we gain control over our own story, we get to write anything we want. Who wouldn’t want that??

All that is a lead up to where I find myself these days after a good fifteen years of intense storytelling, which is… tired of it. I’m tired of my same old stories. I mean really, how many dang times can you watch the same dang movie or read the same dang book?! Good grief. Enough already. There was a time when the energy of these stories demanded to be told and to be heard. Now… not so much. If you want to know these days you are more likely to get a yawn out of me! I don’t think that one situation is better than the other, just that each should have its day. I’ve already talked about why the former is important, so let’s talk about this new one.

I am actually feeling a little excited about this turn of events. My intuition is telling me that what it means is that I am ready for a new experience. It is signaling to me that actually, I am under no obligation to remain trapped in the past. Sure, my story to date has set deep patterns in my being that will likely always remain familiar to me. But all the same, I can create new patterns. I can tell new stories. I can tell whatever story I want to tell. That is my divine right. I can even tell a different story about things in the past! Think about it. We are required to edit the world as we are taking it in. Our senses simply cannot process everything that is happening. Once something is in the past, we edit even more to make sense of it, to fit it into our one, neat story of self.

The problem lies in the fact that we forget we are editing. We forget that our perspective is grossly limited in the first place. We are always only seeing an infinitesimally tiny fraction of the whole picture. Yet we have convinced ourselves that we are seeing with perfect clarity. One of the reasons that it is so important to share our stories out loud is to help both ourselves and others to gain a more complete picture of events. Of course, that only happens for us if we listen with an open mind, recognizing that there are infinite more perspectives of any turn of events. I had an interesting experience recently that brought to light that one of my ingrained stories was leaving out a whole heap of my childhood experience. This was my gymnastics story. Gymnastics set up a significant portion of my worldview, including challenges, approaches, patterns, etc. It wasn’t that my story was incorrect. It’s just that it was, well, edited. What was left out was practically all of the joy, the fun, the good times. Those stories didn’t make the edit. They only came out during my recent gymnastics team reunion. I either hadn’t told, hadn’t thought of, or had forgotten altogether some of these stories. And the fact that I had is as significant as what I had elevated to being important enough to be included in my official storyline.

You see for the book to make sense, one chapter has to flow from the next. That means that my story was going to be about trials and tribulations rather than about joy and celebration. Ugh. No wonder I am tired of my stories! And it’s not that I have to start completely over. There is some really great stuff in my book so far. Trials and tribulation, yes, but also triumph for sure. Challenging, yes, but also mystical, miraculous, and mind-blowing. I wouldn’t trade my life for anything. It has been exactly what it needed to be to tell the story that I am here to tell. It’s just that maybe I need to keep working on it. Maybe I shouldn’t be so quick with my edits. The truth is, I have no idea what the ending will be. I don’t know the path ahead even. I don’t know what my experience will be, what it will mean, or who it will touch. There is nothing but unknown ahead. And that’s cool. It wouldn’t be possible, though, if I hadn’t already exhausted the old stories.

This leads me to what has been in my awareness over the last couple of weeks. There is a direct link between our stories and the field that we are creating around us. You’ve probably heard about this phenomenon through concepts like we attract what we are thinking/being, we see what we expect to see, we get what we expect to get, etc. It’s all of that Law of Attraction stuff. Perhaps you’ve tried that out. Maybe you’ve had success with it, maybe not. Either way, I think the key is that it’s not just about the stories we are telling ourselves, it’s about the field that we are creating because of it. We could religiously repeat the story we are wanting to experience in our head and police any deviation from said story in our thoughts/words/actions. But I dare say that if we are working that hard at it, we aren’t really believing it. We are trying too hard. And the Field knows. We can’t hide the truth from the Field. It knows how we really feel. And besides, this overworking reveals an underlying attachment to an outcome that the Field may or may not deem to be in the best interest of our story. So we are likely to be disappointed.

So instead of trying to manifest a certain reality, these days I find myself just trying to focus on my field. What story is playing in my head from moment to moment and what sort of field is that creating around me? You get this field thing, right? It’s your personal energy field, which is inextricably and profoundly connected to the Field (everyone’s and everything’s field in totality). Really, when we think about it, the ultimate goal- at least, o.k., what I think about it- is to just be in a state of interbeing with the Field. To me, nothing really matters beyond that. Whatever happens, happens. So what? To me, this state of interbeing is joy, is love, is enlightenment. That is consistent with what the wisdom traditions say. What more could we want? I think it is important to say that this in no way rules out experience itself. It simply opens experience to a potential greater than anything we could imagine on our own. And that is really cool.

Now to be completely real about this. That just made it sound way easier than it is, or at least than I find it to be. As I am going about trying to bring awareness to my field, I am finding that it isn’t all that great these days. It certainly isn’t where I would like it to be or on par with where I know it could be based on past experiences. And I know that my experience is being subdued because of it. This week one of my students asked me gleefully how I was doing before class started. I answered honestly. “I am o.k.” He immediately shot back “Why just o.k.???” Mind you, this was one of my Ecology & Man students and they perhaps tend to think of me as their guru. Trust me, I am no guru! Nor do I aspire to be, nor do I want anyone to think of me that way ever. So an honest answer he got. I replied, “Well, that is a great question. What I am working on these days is trying to be aware of the field that I am creating, and I am noticing that I am not always doing such a great job with that. So I am working on it, but for the moment I am not doing such a great job with that!” “Oh!” he replied, “that makes sense.” “How are YOU doing?” I asked. “Stupendous!” he exclaims. “That’s great! I am so happy to hear that,” I reflect back to him. Good. So good.

This student just happens to be a quiet football player, who doesn’t say much in class, and who just days before had pulled his hamstring which was going to set him back a few weeks. I have been talking to him lately about his personal experience in football and how it has defined him for his “story of self” project for the class. The class before I had chatted with him afterward about his injury and encouraged him to give it time and space to heal. I would like to think that just the fact that he had been heard and seen and not simply dismissed for a dumb jock led him to this moment of sincerely asking me how I was doing. And, I think he appreciated my honesty in return. I think it helped him to see that I am human just like him. This is how our stories connect us. This is how we weave our collective story. And, I believe, this is how we will change our field of possibility. This is how we will create a viable future for humanity- one story at a time. The trick is to not get so caught up in the story that we don’t notice the field that it is creating. In short, I am thinking that my best bet is to focus on my field first, from moment to moment, and just let my story tell itself. We’ll see how it goes!

The Zone

To be perfectly honest, I had such a rough week that I didn’t have time to wonder what I might blog about. Typically something starts brewing in my head at some point during the week, but this week just didn’t lend itself to that. I was that much under the gun. Then yesterday morning the above diagram came across my FB feed via a page I follow called Unify. Immediately it provided a common thread through everything that this week brought across my path. So to the zone we go!

Let’s start at home base in the comfort zone. Aaaaah… comfort. This week was not at all comfortable for me. I wasn’t the only one. I associate comfort with being at ease. It’s a carefree, worry-free space. It’s feeling safe and secure. It’s not just knowing that everything is going to be o.k., but sensing it experientially. To me, and I think for many people, this state of being seems like a prerequisite to happiness. And for that reason alone, we are highly motivated to stay within the bounds of our comfort zone. The comfort zone tends to get a bad wrap, right? The above chart paints it in the alternative light of fear avoidance. While that motivation is equally true, I think it’s helpful to recognize the both/andness of the comfort zone. Why, after all, should we not be comfortable in life??

I have to insert here that I am highly motivated to seek happiness at this moment in my life. This comes at the heels of a long period (many years) of sober reflection about the state of humanity and who and how I need to be in relation to that. It has not been fun. I miss light and carefree. I do know that state. I’m willing to bet that a lot of people feel the same, feeling exhausted from whatever has been holding the focus of your concerns be they sociological, political, economic, environmental or all of the above. It’s easy to arrive at a place of, well, nevermind. As in never let me bring that to mind because it disturbs my peace. And I can’t do anything about it any way so there is no point worrying about it. This is how our status quo is upheld. Less through conscious assertion and more through subconscious omission.

I find myself questioning if and how I can hold an honest view of the state of humanity such that I show up to it with integrity, while also abiding in a state of happiness. I have an inkling of an idea that figuring out how to do this is critical to any viable path forward. I’m trying. When I get it figured out, you’ll be the first to know. Of course I know that it is the trying itself that stands in my way, but that’s a whole other story that I’ll leave for another time. For now, I will say that I do think that happiness is tied to a profound sense of comfort. Profound, however, is the operative word, which is to say that there are different levels of comfort.

The lowest level of comfort is the bubble to the left in the above diagram. The bounds of this version of comfort is very much dependent on that which has been given us. That is to say that it requires us to accept without question our society and our given identity and role within it. We hardly made any of this up. Neither did our parents or elders. But somebody did, and the rest of us have just accepted it as a given. To question the given is to leave the comfort of your place within it. This. is. Not. Comfortable. So much so that while all of us test those waters, most of us learn to leave them well enough alone. In this sense, what holds us in place ranges from pangs of discomfort to existential fear. Leaving this comfort zone in a very real way threatens our survival, given that our survival is – whether in this country we like to admit it or not- dependent upon our social relations.

I currently have the responsibility of walking my students up to the edges of their comfort zone in order to bring its boundaries to consciousness. While I always proceed with this work delicately, this week brought me face to face with how fragile our worldview and accompanying identity is, and therefore how scary it is to question it. As I looked across the room to the end of the table I could see the sheer terror on one of my student’s faces. She was able to verbalize that everything that she believes in was being challenged and she just needed to be quiet. I, along with everyone else in my class (which I was quite proud of), went out of our way to assure her that she is safe. For as scary as it is, we are profoundly safe. Yet that isn’t readily apparent. What also isn’t apparent is that questioning our boundaries doesn’t mean that everything within them is wrong. What I find oh so important as we help ourselves and others to break free from old constraints is to point out that our ruling perspective isn’t wrong, but simply limited. To be clear, the thing that might help us to transgress our boundaries is the realization that we could understand and experience more of what we are already seeing and experiencing, more of who we are. The transgression doesn’t have to be a revolt. It might more fruitfully be a simple act of wonder.

Fear is powerful. It manifests in all of the ways represented above and then some. It can get ugly. We can get ugly when it takes hold of us. I can’t imagine living in this zone, but certainly some do. When somebody is operating from this state, it is difficult to know what to do. The best I can figure is to recognize it for what it is and don’t get sucked in. Just hold space for other states of existence, other zones, to emerge for that person. Maybe some day they will. Maybe they won’t. But either way, it does no good for another person to get stuck there with them. Patience, forgiveness, and wisdom are key here. It is also o.k. and fully appropriate to sometimes just walk away. We are as adults each ultimately responsible for our own growth. Our real job is to be aware if we are ourselves operating from fear and to make adjustments if so. This is no place to hang out. I’m needing to keep this front and center in my awareness at the moment. My life has me in full training mode on this front as well.

Yet the real question is can we move through all of the above levels while maintaining a state of comfort. That is what I mean when I ask if it is possible for me to show up to our challenges full on while maintaining a state of happiness. Our knee jerk reaction is that comfort equals stasis and growth requires discomfort. From one perspective, yes. Moving beyond our boundaries means stepping into the unknown. It’s hard to imagine feeling any sense of comfort there. Yet is there another perspective? What if we could embrace the mystery of the unknown? Then would it feel uncomfortable? Then would it feel scary? Or might it instead feel exciting, enriching, invigorating… dare I say fun? In fact I think it does and I think everyone has had some experience through which to relate to this alternative view. I also think that there are some people for whom this is their m.o. I envy such people, in a good way.

Applying this thought specifically to my life and my dilemma, what I see is that I don’t know what is going to happen to humanity. I don’t even know what is going to happen to me next! There are some likelihoods of course, but then life is full of surprises. That is the very nature of life- spontaneous emergence (some other time 😉 ). All it means is that anything can happen at any time. I will say, however, that what happens is very much tied to what we believe can happen. You know what Billie Jean King says- “You have to see it to be it.” When I coached I often used this principle with my players. I would tell them that if they wanted to be a college hockey player or a national team hockey player or whatever, then the best bet is to start behaving like you already are. Start carrying yourself like such a player does, training like such a player does, eating like such a player does, thinking like such a player does, etc. We are very powerful. We visualize the future into existence. Our problem is that we don’t realize that we are doing this and therefore keep reenacting our old limitations.

Step one is therefore to realize that we are creating our own realities. This is what the process of challenging our comfort zone is all about. Until we do that, we stay stuck in our old limitations. This work comes with the realization that who we are was made up by somebody other than ourselves. It was given us. Moving beyond our comfort zone is to move from acceptance of the given to acceptance of our creative powers. It is to reclaim the full possibility of ourselves, which I would claim is unlimited. It sure doesn’t seem that way though! How do we access this realm of pure potential? Now we are talking! This is what we call “the zone.” This is a very different zone that the comfort zone. “The zone” I am talking about now is the one that athletes, musicians, artists, and geniuses talk about when they describe something flowing through them as if it is coming from somewhere else. Well it is coming from somewhere else. It is coming from the extended realm of pure potential. Some call this universal consciousness, or universal intelligence, or the field, or the All That Is, or just plain God. You are a drop in that ocean, and therefore you have access to it. When you access it, you are in the zone. This is how we reach beyond old limitations.

What is scary about the current state of humanity is that we are a mess! Good grief, are we a mess. Fear is rearing its ugly head without abandon. We are so extraordinarily uncomfortable as limitations close in on us that we are clinging tightly to any old boundaries that we believe might return us to a sense of safety. None of this will work. The only way forward is… forward. It is easy to react to our predicament by operating from a place of fear, but what if we instead operated from a place of wonder? What if we met the observation of the failure of the old boundaries of our comfort zone (who we are) not as a threat, but as an opportunity? What if we leaned into the field of unlimited potential to become more of who we are, rather than less? This is how I, and many, many others, are choosing to interpret this moment in our history. Does it mean that we are for sure going to evolve to a higher state? No. We might just as easily devolve into a lower state, or no state at all. Yet that choice is fully up to us. And while that realization is daunting, it is also really, really cool.

But I don’t want to leave it there. In order to get to any future state, I have to show up in some viable way on a daily basis. It isn’t sustainable for me to be in a constant state of pressure or fear. I need to be comfortable in my skin in my everyday life. I need to get back to happiness. Even more so, I need to abide in the more profound state of joy. I need to do this while staying square in the knowledge of what is. Blinders will not get me to a higher state. Yet neither will staying stuck in the problems. I need to see through to potential. I need to see it to be it. We all do. Joy comes from a deep sense of knowing that we are all of it already. We are already all Olympians. We are already all enlightened beings. We are already the higher state we seek. That being the case, what on earth is there to not be joyful about? Our old crappy selves are a thing of the past. Soon. Very soon.