Archive for March, 2011

The Sacred Art of Creativity

Tuesday, March 22nd, 2011

A long time ago, when I was a novice coach, I had a download hit about how to show up in a ‘sales’ conversation. I had been struggling with how to ‘sell’ my services. But I had the dynamic wrong. It was not about me at all. It was not about me forcing myself on people.  It was about the support of the person I was engaging with. I needed to get out of my own way, and be in full service to the other. This is the very core DNA of coaching. If I am concerned about what you think of me, I will not be a great coach for you. Or, for that matter, a great friend. “Me” will get in the way of “we”.

Now that is not to say that I allow myself to be walked over. Quite the contrary. When I step into the coaching dynamic, it becomes about service to other. I maintain my clear boundaries as an I, but in my engagement with you, the client, it is about you.

This very profound shift in how I show up in any conversation of service has also informed the way I parent any creative process.

Any one who has spent time with young children will know that each child is born with their own personality. Personality is not something that arrives one day, or is crafted by the parent. The intrinsic ‘who’ of a child is present from birth. Yes it matures and shapes itself through life experience, but the core DNA was present from day one. Our role as parent is to not inflict the child with our own stuff, but to craft an environment where the child’s unique and present ‘who’ is allowed to flourish. We can take a seed that is to become an oak tree, and tamper with it, (genetic engineering), and know that the end product is not the oak that started in the seed, but something else. This is acceptable if that is what is desired. A variation of an oak tree. But if we wish to stay true to the integrity of the original seed, then our role is not to tamper, it is to shepherd, to parent.

An idea is akin to the seed. It has its own DNA. Its own implicate order. Like a child, it might be birthed from my mind, but it is not ‘mine’. It is a total of my life experience to date, shaped by the interactions of many people, alive and dead.  Our desire to have it be ‘mine’ is informed by our models steeped in scarcity. Just as you belong to no one person, an idea belongs to no one person. I can be the parent, the one that provides the nourishment, opportunity, environmental conditions for the full manifestation of that idea, I can be in a deep and profound relationship with the idea, but it was never mine. I can invest in the flourishing of the idea, and be a recipient of the fruits of the idea. And because it was birthed from me, the idea will carry aspects of my DNA, but only so it can transcend me through inclusion.

When an idea is birthed, if we are to really honour the integrity of the idea, then we seek to learn from it what it needs from us in order for it to flourish. We bring wisdom and maturity to the shepherding of the idea into its full expression. We may invite others to participate in this. However, rather than impose our will on the idea, we respect that the core DNA of the idea will provide us with the wisdom to support its fullest expression.

Some ideas have a long life, others a short life. Some captivate our love and attention for years, other ideas inspire us for only a moment. Great ideas are lost because we fail to give them the attention and nourishment they need. Or because we fail to take any action, to ship it, as Seth Godin would say. Or because we have no discipline around our ideas. Or because we do some heavy duty tampering.

If we do choose to tamper with the original idea, its DNA will change. Constantly tampering with the idea DNA will probably create such a hybrid mishmash, that it may never become a vital atrefact.

When a design team is working on an idea, there are many competing elements seeking to tamper with the idea. The core integrity of the idea is easily lost in this kind of process, to the degree that no one really knows what they are working on creating. The question is, can anyone take a stand for the idea that is wanting to be birthed, and really hold the integrity of that, transcending their own ego impulse to inflict themselves on the idea?

What to do with an idea? Just as we would ensure a seed was planted in the right kind of soil, in the right environment (heat, cold, moisture, nutrition), we need to place our idea in the right environment. Who needs to be present? How do we nourish the idea? What is the core DNA of the idea? What is its integrity? When does it need attention, and how regularly? Where does it need to be birthed, what its its best environment? Does this idea really need to be birthed? Is it calling so loudly to us that to not respond to it would be a tragedy? Or is the idea just a fleeting thought that really doesn’t seek to build deep, strong roots in our soul?

By placing the idea in the centre, having our focus be on supporting its healthy animation, and removing the focus from our egoic self, the idea has a very good chance to mature into its fullest expression, whether that be life cycle or a day, or decades. We are the servants of the idea, not the masters.

When we approach any creative act in this way, we truly honour the sacredness of creation. Not in a religious sense, but in the sense of bringing a deep and abiding respect to the idea and its implicate order. Any idea held in this space is art. It has the ability to move people, inspire people, attract people… because the energetic impulse that was the original idea has been made manifest.

Great art speaks to us because its integrity is honoured. For those of us who seek to be shepherds and parents to an idea, the process is a joyous adventure, where the hardest task is to keep our grubby little ego directed fingers off the creation.

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Small and large meltdowns….love and other catastrophes..

Monday, March 14th, 2011

6 Foot Track, Trail Run, Blue Mountains, Australia,  2011

 

I have been running for 17 years. I started running to get fit after giving birth to my daughter. It has become a way of life. I have run close to 20 marathons around the world, and many ultra marathons. My favourite events are the trail ultra’s. Being out in the bush, totally focused on my very next step, and holding this focus for plus 5 hours. People ask what I think about. Rarely do I find myself thinking about anything outside of the immediacy of the needs of my body. It is a very cyclical internal conversation. Monitoring everything. Focusing on every step, for to lose focus for even a micro second means a potential trip, a fall, a sprain, an injury. Everything disappears for the time. It is you, your body, and the forest. I find great beauty in that. Life becomes so very simple.

Last year I ran the famous 6 Foot Track in the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney for the first time. I did not know much about it, I had no idea of the course, the hills. I just showed up, and ran. Often this is the best way. It is a pure adventure. A complete surprise. It was a great run. I felt the best I had felt in years. I did not find it hard at all. (Meaning, my body felt well, and strong, no nausea, cramping, difficulty, my movements seemed to flow. Yes, I did get muscle soreness, and it was hard to work the hills, but I felt good.)

This year…well…no experience is ever the same. Some runners go years seeking that moment where everything comes together. That was last year. This year I became aware very early on that something was not right. My quad’s (anterior thigh muscles) felt weak. Unbelievably weak. ‘Recovering from being bed ridden for a month’ weak. This is not good when you have 2,250 metres of vertical climbing (1.39 miles) ahead of you. I had never experienced this before. Not in 17 years of running. Ok.. I said to myself…this too may pass…just notice, let it go…send energy to my legs…For in a 45 km race (28 mile), feeling bad may turn to feeling good at any stage. And vice versa. It was hot, much hotter than last year. While the water stations were very regular, I was thirsty. I was not carrying water with me. Last year it was not necessary. Hmm. Lesson learned.

After the first major climb I knew my trouble was deepening. Not just weakness now, dizziness, wobbly on my feet. And already very slow. Not even half way into the race. Ugly. Tried to drink sports drink, eat some food, get some energy happening.

On Thursday night in Sydney I had met with my beautiful goddess friend Lindley. She has been guiding me on bringing my yin (female) energy into more balance. Running trails is more yin than road running, if you allow your body to breath with nature. But if you hunker down, and push past all intuitions, it reverts to a very yang form of running. I have been very strong in my yang energy for most of my life, in almost all aspects of my life. And in my running, other than the Kokoda Challenge last year, I have only ever pulled out of one event. I have pushed through stress fractures that became full breaks, extreme nausea, hyponatremia (Ironman NZ 1997), and all the other bad days at the running office. Never give up. Never quit. Grit your teeth and finish it. You could count on me to finish, no matter how long it took.

Last year at Kokoda I learned about pushing to collapse. I am wiser now. And older…I heard a voice in my head say…”you do not have to flog yourself any more Christine.” Oh heavens, what a relief. I don’t want to flog myself any more. I have nothing to prove, to me or anyone. I can stop. Surrender. Let go. There is no shame in that. Indeed, the opposite. There is a reverence for my body, and myself.

So when I started to get random intermittent cramps, something I never suffer from in my running, I knew I was in quite serious trouble physically. My body was in melt down. Those were the words that came to me. My cooling system was gone, my body electrics were all out of balance.

I have been thinking this morning that it is strange that these descriptive words are also the words being used to discuss the Japanese nuclear situation as a result of the earthquake and tsunami. On Friday late afternoon when I got to my accommodation in Katoomba I had learned of the Earthquake in Japan, watching, like most of the world, the images of the tsunami that were almost impossible to comprehend as real, and not crafted from some Hollywood blockbuster. Once again, I was crying, feeling so deeply the pain of the people, of earth, of loss. I have felt like I have been crying all of this year so far. The Queensland floods, so near to me, the cyclone, again in Queensland, the Earthquake in New Zealand, and now this. Lurching from disaster to disaster.

My own meltdown was of such insignificance in the scheme of things. However, I am getting that there really is no insignificant event, or thought, or action. As Caroline Myss writes in this very powerful article, we must start seeing and experiencing Mother Earth as a living breathing evolving entity in her own right. Not some static dead thing. When we go into the forest, the forest hears us. When we rape and pillage Earth, she experiences pain. When we are completely out of balance..when there is way more yang energy, then the balance must be restored. And given that Mother Earth has been around for a very long time, I suspect she has the wisdom to know how to restore the balance. However, it will come at a cost…the cost of our gross neglect. And the tragedy will be felt at the human level, as it is being felt now. The heartbreak of real loss of life.

I surrendered. I stopped running. While a part of me didn’t like it, I knew I had made the right decision. The one that honoured me and my health.

Instead I got to hang out with the wonderful volunteers of the Rural Fire Brigade. The 6 Foot track is one of the best run events I have ever attended. (It beats the Boston Marathon hands down.) The Rural Fire Brigade are an extraordinary group of people. I spent several hours in the back of a truck driven by Jack, 18 months retired from being in charge of the Blue Mountains Fire service. Jack signed up when he was 14, in 1953. He rode his horse 10 mile to a meeting, paid his shilling, and rode back home again. Sometime later he was offered a paid position, so, as he said, that 10 mile ride defined his life. As I heard later from John, the bus driver on the trip back from the finish line to Katoomba, Jack was loved by all in his role as leader. His people trusted him, and his skill and knowledge were masterful. Now retired he brought a Harley Davidson, and volunteered at the 6 Foot Event so he could meet up with all his mates. He is as Aussie as you can get.

Something opened in me this last weekend. I have noticed an increase in small miracles…little things…like needing a hair tie at the pool today and almost immediately looking down on the ground and finding one lying there. People being in the right place at the right time, offering to give me lifts, take me to the airport, or the train…

Having spent 50 years with a deeply held belief that life is hard, maybe in no longer being interested in flogging myself, I have released myself from the grip of those smothering tentacles. And in so doing, as Rumi says, life rolls in ecstasy at my feet. Or as Lindley said on Thursday, treat yourself as you would your very best friend. (Would you verbally beat your friend up if she made an innocent mistake? Would you have your friend push themselves into the danger zone just to suit you? Would you want your friend to suffer from overwork? Would you starve your friend for the sake of appearance? Or deny your friend of regular good sleep?)

I will keep running, for now. I may even be back for 6 Foot Track next year. But my intention has changed. I run to be in balance with all, to partner with my body, and nature. To flow with. This is where the joy is. This is where my heart sings.

And my meltdown. I have been in a meltdown for a few years now. My reactors (everything that makes me react instead of respond) are being/have been exposed, and they need cooling. I have sat in my anger, and my fear. Now it is time to be in my love, and be love. What a revolutionary, evolutionary thought.

Sending love to all the people in the world who are suffering. And to all the animals who are suffering. And to Mother Earth in her suffering. Lets stop flogging ourselves, and our world, and each other.

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Posted in Change, Current Affairs, Guinea Pig C-personal category, Personal Development, personal sustainability | 2 Comments »

Drinking the Kool Aid

Tuesday, March 8th, 2011

when scarcity IS our operating system

In the past few months I have been attuned to a yearning I feel, both inside me and that I sense in many other people. I would love to hear if what I am experiencing resonates with you at all.

My sense is that many people know, at a deep soul level, without having the right words to be able to explain it, that our way of giving and receiving value in the world is fundamentally and irretrievably flawed. Our model for money, exchange, banking, debt, credit, capital, what has value and what does not have value; the foundations of our economic system, are keeping us stuck in the very broken patterns and system we long to escape from.

Some people/companies feel they have ‘cracked the code’, but on closer examination, all they have done is found a new ‘smart’ path into a system that is already broken.
When I hear people talk about money and success, they speak entirely in the old language, animating once again a system that is designed to do exactly what is now going on. A very wealthy club for the few, and decreasing returns for the majority. Galloping inflation, increasing cost of living, food scarcity…..

We are so blind to this, and have accepted the status quo on this to such an extent that very few people question it. They just keep seeking ways to crack the code, thinking when they have that they have somehow found the keys to the kingdom. All they have done is drunk another version of the kool aid.

The keys to the kingdom are in another room entirely. Most of us have been tapping, banging, trying to break down the wrong door. In fact, very few people I know on this planet actually understand the very system that conducts our life. And that would include me. I have often used the metaphor that if our economic/value/exchange system was a language, most people cannot count to 10. After studying it for several years, I am lucky if I can count to 20. I am sure that the leaders of our governments would have trouble counting to 20. A very few bankers might be able to get to 30. Seriously, how scary is this…decisions are being made by people who really have no clue!! (well are we really surprised?) Our business ‘moguls’ are certainly not fluent in the language, but instead have spent their time becoming fluent in how to have the system work for them, at the cost of others. For indeed, our economic system has as its operating principle, scarcity…which means, in order for someone to win, someone has to lose. And that is the game we have all been playing, day in day out, whether we like it or not, whether we know it or not…although now to not know it means that we have to be in complete denial that the children starving around the world, or being forced into prostitution, has anything to do with us. Sorry people, no pass…it has everything to do with us. Our wealth comes at the price of their hunger.

Scarcity is the root of our work/life. Built with intention into the system that we use every day. How scary is that? Our whole lives are built on a platform of intentional scarcity! It is no wonder the fear factor in human beings is going through the roof, rampant depression, suicide, and all the myriad side effects of stress and rabid fear.

Several years ago, as I increasingly realised that we are the fish in the water and that the water is polluted, yet no one questions the water, I decided to find out who on the planet is fluent in our current system, or at least has a high degree of fluency, and of these people, who ALSO has a high egoless intention to support the creation of a healthy system that supports all of humanity to survive with dignity, and to thrive.

I confess part of my motivation was a yearning to gain understanding of this myself, so I could make different choices in how I work and play. And the other part of my impulse behind this was the sense that many others feel as I do.

You guessed it…I have not found many people. One of these people is now part of The Constellation. David Martin. Please check out his weekly blog. Caution, David is not an easy read. You need to persevere. However, his thinking will challenge you. David has designed an integral accounting platform that considers value in 6 domains. When working with Dave, the practice becomes thinking in at least these 6 domains about pretty much everything. It is a really trippy mind warp. Yep…in the practice you simply have to start seeing things differently. An indeed, for anyone really committed to a new value mechanism, we must begin to recognise just how entangled we are in the tentacles of our current system. The other person I have met is Bernard Lietaer.  Bernard’s expertise is around complementary currency. He and David have different pieces of the puzzle, both important. I will also reference my great teacher, R.Buckminster Fuller. Bucky wrote about our current system extensively. In 1983, he even predicted the coming ‘bail-outs’, using this exact language.

In their own way, these three are mystics. They understand the energetics behind money, and our economic system.

David has also crafted a new model which he calls the Fusion model. When I first saw it, it was like seeing something I already knew but did not have the words to explain. It encompassed everything that was intrinsically right, respectful, honouring, in a way of adding value to the world.

In plain English, what all of this means is the creation of a economic system, able to be used in parallel to our current model, that allows people to create ‘enoughness’ through their own work, and in so doing, allows for the respect, care, and dignity of all of life.

Today as small group of us are working to create ways we can bring all of this knowledge to the people who are yearning for it. Plus to create platforms that allow people from around the world to live and work in a way that embraces what Bucky would call natural design, what Joseph Campbell would call following your bliss, and in so doing create enoughness, and lives that are built on a platform of abundance, respect, care, dignity, and love. Sounds like pie in the sky? Not at all. Nature has been doing this for ever.

But first, we have to get that we are drinking the Kool aid.

Would love to hear your thoughts. And let me know if this exploration is something that interests you? Would you like to really understand our current system so you can make a different choice? Would you be interested in explore the alternatives? Have you felt that the value you have to offer the world is never honoured because you are not a marketing genius, or you don’t know how to work ‘the system’? Ask me questions, tell me what you want to know…

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Why “Conscious” Businesses Collapse

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011

We are entering a new era, whether we like it or not. People are seeking new ways of being in relationship to each other, whether that relationship is in business, at work, in our service to, in our home, family and friends. However, the path forwards is completely unchartered. There is no model, no outstanding example.

As an observer learner, I am watching many companies who tout that they are conscious fall into a messy heap that is the result of the very same transformations they teach/pro-port to be transcending, manifesting in their own business, relationships and engagements. The outside might look beautiful and glossy, but inside is a stink hole of incongruence.

Why is this? What is going on?

First, it is important to be clear that we are literally operating between two worlds. The world of the old system, where everything is built around a model of eternal growth, money making, success at all costs, status as measured by your external success, the accumulation of stuff, staff, lists, names, how many books you have written, how many this and that. The endless pull of never enough… This world is seductive, attractive, egophrenic. Like the beautiful siren, it calls us into a trance like state where all of our original impulses are lost. We are so saturated in this world we simply cannot see the extent to which it en-amours us.

And the world we are moving towards, where there is a deep abiding respect (reverence) for the value of people, nature, the environment, in all its shapes and sizes. Where the recognition of abundance is a guiding principle. Where reverence as a business practice is the norm. Where what is said, is what is done; inside, outside, within the individual and within the group. Where the choice to move to mastery is a daily practice. Where there is no “there” that is reached, but a deep respect and love for the journey unfolding. Where living in the space of emergence, not knowing what is coming next, or how it will look, is held as normal, and people move within this without the paralysing fear and contraction of needing the security of knowing. Where value that makes a healthy contribution to the whole is respected and honoured, as value. (And activities that contribute nothing to the whole are seen for what they are, scams.)

Yesterday I was describing to my partners in The Constellation that I felt like the cartoon character with one foot on one cliff, and the other foot on the cliff on the other side, and a very large chasm between both legs, my legs in a full split, sweat rolling off my face….between these two worlds, holding tight, feeling the pull of both, needing to take a complete step into the new world…trying desperately to straddle both. I am not alone…many people I suspect feel the same. Straddling between these two worlds.

Why do businesses that set out with the best of intentions, end up in a mess?

What is the original impulse to start the business in the first place? Lets get clear about that. If it is to make money, own it. Nothing wrong with that, except when you project to the world that you are doing something else. In other words, be in total truth around that original impulse. Anchor into it. Choose to describe it carefully, as the words you choose will carry with them their own energetics. Your original impulse, if it is clearly articulated and truthful, will energize you. If you are seeking to create a conscious business, then your original impulse will be about service to others, or things outside of your self. If this is not it, then be clear about what it is you hold as the intent. (Becoming famous, making money, getting status, winning the prize, teaching people a lesson….be honest about this, OK?)

If your business has been going for some time and is starting to go pear shaped, then take a weekend off and get together with your foundation team and get back in touch with the original impulse. Get deeply in touch with it. Including the stuff that you have tried to keep hidden, like…”oh and by the way, I would like to show all those jerks you said I would amount to nothing, that they were wrong.” Name it all. Own it all.

Until you have total aligned clarity around your original impulse and it totally rocks your world, your business is likely to implode.

What commonly happens is a company starts with this original impulse/intent, and then if and when the ‘goody bag’ shows up, full of all the sirens of the old world, money, fame, success, ego, long email lists..etc….and through micro agreements, called little atrocities, negotiations are made with that original impulse…nano-bit by nano-bit. Its called seduction, temptation…and before we know it, we are under a spell, completely disconnected from the truth of why we started the business, completely in denial as to what is going on within the business, now enacting the very same behaviours we are teaching the outside world not to do. It no longer becomes about how we can serve the world with our work, it becomes about some other distraction from the original impulse..like.. list building, where we offer this for free, but we need your email address first…or we write long one page shpeal to people using very seductive language that sucks people into pressing the ‘buy’ button. Oh, and don’t forget that they are getting $976 worth of value for just $99! (Even if the product being sold is great, it is tainted with the energy of con and seduction.) Integrity and transparency are lost…it has been reduced to a seductive con.

Or…we make the original model we co-created, the ‘this model’, or the ‘that model’, the God, and forget that life is about constant emergence, constant change, and we are now operating our business as a closed system within a fully emergent dynamic Universe. Our way is the right way, and we reduce ourselves to an ‘ism’. Unless you buy/use/live by this model, you are dead/ineffective/not in the club…And in the process, we forget that in a truly integral world, there is never one model, one view, one way. The old model seeks speciality and niches, the new demands being a comprehensivist..or as Bucky Fuller would say, starting with the Universe first.

Or…we make the founder of the business, Guru X. The all knowing, all egoic, “I have all the answers” King of the World. In this space there is no listening, no humility, no openness to other levels of genius from the ‘lowest of the low’, or anyone else for that matter.

And sometimes it is all of these toxic seductions combined..and more..

Then…. poof!!…implosion…something that had the potential to be truly transcendent has gone….literally imploded onto itself.

So tragic…very common. And what is left…people still seeking a place to work and play where the original impulse is honoured, where truth is Truth, and what is said is done, and reverence is afforded all parties, internally and externally….the longing to find a space and place for that to be truly the ground of the business.

People are hungry for this, longing for this…and while here needs to be a clear declaration that in the manifestation of this in the world, perfection will not be achieved, perfection as a goal is imperfect. Instead, the business will remain in an honest, open, integrous dialogue with all stakeholders, holding the original impulse as sacrosanct, for as long as it serves all stakeholders, really willing to invite wisdom from all domains, and to continue to embody every aspect of what the business stands for, internally and externally.

To do this is not easy. It takes commitment and investment of the highest order. It takes making choices that refuse to compromise the core DNA of the original impulse. Clarity, courage and integrity. Rigor, reverence and wisdom. And love.

Please share your experience and insight into why ‘Conscious’ Businesses collapse. I would love to explore this topic with you.

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