June 3, 2008 Intention

Hard to distinguish intention from vision, goal, mission,…  All of these words have a role in propelling us to the future…and sometimes I think the difference is in my mood.  What it looks like today is that my intention is motivating me to stop this and start that, to get on with it.

My intention is to focus on my income potential… so this looks like indulgence – It’s taken a while to babysit with Camron, cook and eat breakfast and break away from today’s book.  So I’m behind.  Have to pass over my email and get going.  Money distracts me and I have to undistract.  Always helps to restate my commitments-bringing joy and satisfaction to people’s lives – in harmony with Earth; environmental sustainability, social justice and spiritual fulfillment to all.

May 26, 2008 Happy? Monday

This is about contradiction.  There’s no work.  There’s no school.  It’s a perfect day; temperature 80+, cloudless sky, just the right breeze.  And it’s memorial day.  Be happy.  Remember the dead, the brave, the sacrificed.  Watch war memories on television with the windows open.

How do we be on a day like this?

Here’s how I am.  Happy, playing with happy grandchildren, being outside.  Praying the war will end — everywhere, praying for us to build our future, not destroy it — saying what I want, writing poems.  Being grateful for what we have, for what works, for today.

Going for a walk.

May 22, 2008 New Ideas

Group Coaching is an interesting phenomenon,,, a lot like a jazz combo – one riff comes after another and flies above it.  The rhythym of the group creates a certain tension that facilitates the solos.  Sounds strange, I know, but the things that are said are often unpredictable.

Last night we dealt with each person’s goals.  I saw that the way we normally treat a goal is similar to the way we usually deal with a project – in some sense like a straight line.  Here’s the starting point – then this step, that step, and on until this milestone is reached, then that and so on.  That’s not even what happens with project plans.  We lose sight of “Man plans, God laughs.”  When plans are fixed, we often scramble to deal with frequent emergencies, shifts in outside factors, oversights, etc.  They often seem to rely on one or two people who somehow deal with the breakdowns and move forward regardless.

Goals rarely start with a well-defined plan; the plan -if any – is usually incomplete or non-existent.  There’s often floundering around, searching for a useful direction.  I use the prairie dog metaphor — constantly sicking your head out and scanning the horizon to see what’s next.  Course correction is constant; ‘next’ is often more valuable than ‘forward.’  Too many people are discouraged by an apparent blunder.  Blunders teach.

Anyhow – ’nuff said.  I’ve begun to listen … Our hierarchy is often urgent – important and, if we’re good – commitments.  The trouble is we confuse contexts.  Commitments are paradigmical; urgent – even important are in a different domain.  When I coach, I put that in the domain of my commitments.  For me it’s all interconnected with a sustainable world, spiritual fulfillment and social justice.  And it’s all in the domain of living a joyous and satisfying life, in harmony with earth

May 21, 2008 Getting There

I haven’t been up to getting moving – It’s 3PM and I’m starting.  email takes too effing long; even just deleting…

I am working at separation — separating the work I do for tomorrow and the work I do for today.  It’s difficult because in my mind tomorrow always has precedence.  But today is earning a living.  Today has the virtue of immediacy, the call of urgency.  Tomorrow has the virtue of pleasure, the call of importance.

It seems we are all caught by the pull of urgency and the call of importance.

And between Scylla and Charybidis is commitment… my commitment to a sustainable tomorrow – without it there ain’t me, us or it… the commitment to spiritual fulfillment that makes it all worthwhile, that gives it meaning beyond facts….the commitment to social justice becayuse it’s not just you and me and never has been… and we forget that.

May 19, 2008 Starting Over

I’m back for real.  Making all those decisions that starting over requires – Forgetting vacation is not hard; the vacation disappears –But recreating myself is hard; a week without myself is strange.  Because nothing else stops when I do and I don’t have externally provided routine to get me going.

So I’m back.  My daughter’s moving; another is having my 8th grandchild (a son) – And most important, I’m renewing my commitments.  Vacation is over.  I will no longer drive over 55 MPH.  I am committed to minimizing plastic.  I’m committed to listening to the people I trust to coach Me.  No more fucking with my diet.

I stand for environmental sustainability, social justice and spiritual fulfillment.  I promise  you to provide joy and satisfaction in harmony with Earth.  I am grateful that I can take this stand and make this promise.

May 9, 2008 Departure

We leave today at 3:30.  Who knows what to pack?  Summer?  Winter?  Sweated yesterday, froze this morning.  My last client is at 3 so we leave at 3:30.  Nancy has been looking forward to this vacation for months; I just started thinking abut it – male responsiveness.   But I am excited; I love the Cape.

See you on the 17th

May 8,2008 Dancing and Praying

Things work out.  But you can’t know that until they do.  So you have to put in every effort — dance like there’s always music — pray because you know you’re not alone.  And have gratitude for the ending.  Because they do work out.

You don’t need to hear stories; you have yours.

Stay true to your commitments, your vision, your purpose, your mission.  You’ll define yours for yourself.  When therre’s too much going on, relax – that’s the way you want it, even though it’s messy.

Mine is simple – to empower people to have joy and satisfaction, to live fulfilled lives in harmony with earth… to make real a sustainable environment, spiritual fulfillment and social justice.

May 7, 2008 A Brief Absence

I’ve been sick and incommunicado.  Ah, well.  I’m back.  I’ll be gone next week –in Cape Cod.  Just thought I’d catch up.

Being in the hospital –entirely my stupidity – I have to look at the vcalue I got from it.  Most important, I see my most fundamental mind game:  “this doesn’t matter to me.”   I give great, great coaching.  But do I pay attention to myself?  Why should I?  This doesn’t matter to me.

I went for a walk in the hospital and I borrowed their socks.  They have grips on the bottom and they’re grey on top.  I put them on and had never seen grippers before; I thought they were decorative.  So I carefully turned them upside down.  A nurse told me it was backwards.  And I noticed how often we ALL do that – Do exactly the opposit e, thinking —no knowing — we’re doing it right.

Anyhow, a hospital is not a fit place for sick people.  They are kind and loving and do the best they can, but they really don’t have a mindset of health; they have a mindset of medicine.  They don’t have the slightest understanding of nutrition – You can’t get whole grain anything; only white rice, dot dot dot.  But they eventually get you out and it will only take a few deays for me to re-learn how tro heal myself.  This time not succumbing to “I know better; it doesn’t matter to me.”

May 1, 2008 More Learning

I tried an experiment last night.  Me to We coaching is based on these premises – 1)  that people who make a contribution are more open to be contributed to 2) that when one person sees something, the sharing will register with other people.3)that anything is an opportunity for fruitful coaching.

Last night I ran a session with a total of eight of us, really to test the validity of these premises.  And the premises are valid; an excellent session

What do you think about being a fly on the wall for one of those coaching sessions?

To me, this is just one of the ways that I work to fulfill my saying that I bring  Joy and Satisfaction — Environmental Sustainability, Spiritual Fulfillment and Social Justice to  People’s Lives 

April 28, 2008 Quanta

Another week starts.  We see things as discreet.  They’re not.  Seeing them as discrete entities erases their historie, their extensions, their interconnectedness. 

I notice that when I wake up, I am thrown to seeing a new day.  It’s not, not really.  It is the current stop-start in a continuity of thousands of days.  As I look back over these, I see how prone I am to individualizing my writing and the days I write.   Of course this isn’t so.  I suspect that there is some sort of story unfolding and unfolded.

This is one of the things we all do.  As I age I have some small sense of history – some of my own and some of the times I’ve lived in.  Now I focus on a sustainable environment on spiritual fulfillment and on social justice.  Pieces of this have marked my life – sometimes not at all – sometimes constantly.

Keep learning and keep seeing more of it.