To expand is to wonder.
To wonder is to expand.
Yet, what do we master?
our poetry and our love.
I know I can trust.
a now, of who I am.
but to where I've always been.
a beautiful picture of reality.
in what I see, hear, and feel.
beauty still issues and abounds.
and releasing causes me to grow.
is the experience of reality.
Awakening from a typically strange−and way-too-complicated dream−I found my mind applying possible interpretation to this writing I planned to begin the same morning.
I formulate a story from this dream experience to encourage you into A New Confidence; your steady walk in purpose. The details of the dream are not important. Thank goodness I cannot remember them! What I do remember is about a series of doorways that seemed to always present great difficulty in order to pass through. In the dream I faced the uncomfortable entry and indeed passed through. It seems I had a good friend with me and the pass-through was made easier as I explained to him the steps for entry.
Inside, all the wacky dream-stuff occurred. But when it came time to exit with my friend, the doors were all wide-open and the light streaming from the outer space beckoned us to simply step through. And maybe that is where the deepest application was discovered.
I began to confidently pass through sure I knew what was in that beckoning light, and just as certain why I should hurry right on through. But my friend was not by my side as he had stopped at the first exit threshold, staring back at the flurry of stuff inside, now darkened in the shadows created by the streaming brightness of the outer space.
Yes, with light comes shadow.
It seems the brighter the stream of light the easier it is to lose from individual view certain things in the shadows. For the sake of my point here I refer back to the wacky space inside once my friend and I had passed through the doorways. This space is symbolic of how easy it can be to get one's Self lost in the fray of busyness.
The serious danger of busyness occurs when we mistake such for purpose.
A New Confidence flows forth through conscious Purpose.
It is an impossible task of opening something for someone else when the same something becomes closed to us by the repetitive difficulty of passing through.
In our organizational life it is too often true that the strength in the shadow is Purpose (individually and collectively). The strength of purpose is not something you find only after you walk through the clutter of busyness. Quite the opposite is true. The diversions of busyness begin to move out of your way in the streaming light of purpose. Now you confidently move through, around, over any remaining difficulty. You are walking in A New Confidence.
We must walk in this steadiness individually and together.
Let's commit to personal purpose, strengthen a focus on collective purpose, and make a difference in all we do in this world.
This is the blessing of A New Confidence.
but impairing it is not.
The life sciences perpetually teach us about the natural, life-giving tension of transition, and therefore transformation. We observe it collectively in the transition of nature through the overall transformative flow of seasons.
Change, as we most often use the word in western society, is momentary−usually focused on some specific. Transition may fire off some change, but it is never limited to one specific. Transition differs from change in that, while fired possibly from a specific, it immediately begins to connect across the spectrum−across the internal and the external, across individual and collective.
Robert has been an important part of my work for years. He has sent many individuals my way giving me the privilege of Coaching in his diverse treasure of connection. He is a courageous individual who stands consistently firm in his brand of leadership love. But for Robert it has not been a steady, upward progress in his leadership journey or in his overall evolution as an individual.
I admire much about this man. He has often felt guilty about the times we've talked through some of this suffering; a guilt focused on the mere technicality of not being currently engaged in a "paying" coaching process. For me these times of conversation were a smart business move as I simply cared for someone who has been a partner in building my practice. But mostly, and deeply, it has been about doing what I can for someone I love and respect.
The tension of transition may indeed feel like suffering. And if it feels like such, then for you it is suffering. And hence the pain in transition−it is not some thing being made different, it is You. We are always being shaped; shaped by forces internal and external and by influences individual and collective.
Change, some thing made different, is just that; specific and focused. Transition serves a broad evolution. Change is doing something in a different way. Transition is doing different things. So yes, transition is evidence of life flowing in and through the individual. And yes, transition does not always feel good.
Indeed, Robert has suffered; and many times he was his own worst enemy. However, not all causes of his suffering were self-inflicted. Through each suffering Robert's spirit would reenergize as he would consciously root a bit deeper into the soil of his Trueness.
Yes, it can be painful to have the name we may have assumed in our life worn away. Or, as Mark Nepo suggests, we may rather embrace experience as the story of a larger, truer name.
Like Robert, your Trueness can keep each suffering from impairing you into a downward spiral of despair, never to return. If you do not stop the spiral, the world will be horribly cheated.
The reality is that we come through our suffering stronger, better, Truer; and all are blessed in the process!