Alexandersmap

    Tag: change

    • Stepping Into a Larger Life

      “Only in those moments when we take life on, when we move through the archaic field of anxiety, when we drive through the blockage, do we get a larger life and get unstuck. Ironically, we will then have to face a new anxiety, the anxiety of stepping into a life larger than has been comfortable for us in the past.” — James Hollis, Living an Examined Life

      Many of us chase vibrant experience through state change. Early this morning I plunged into a pool to completely change my state from groggy to vibrantly aware of the world around me. As you might expect it did the trick immediately. But we don’t need a pool to change our state, any plunge into the unknown should get us there eventually.

      Many of us avoid change at all costs. There’s a reason that early morning plunges into a pool seems so unreasonable to so many—the majority would rather hit the snooze button and slowly reconcile themselves to another day of whatever it is that dictates their lives. People who deliberately and regularly challenge their comfort zone seem a bit… unusual. When you’ve got a good thing going why rock the boat? But isn’t it fair to ask: Why the heck not? When we consider the worst possible outcome to any given action, most of the time we’d come out okay in the end. We ought to take more examined leaps in this lifetime.

      What makes us unique out of the billions of people who have ever lived is our individual experiences and the perspective that is derived from them. That thought process cranking away behind those eyes that see (or don’t see) the world around them is the core to our identity. Call me crazy if you will, but I’d rather have the jambalaya version of life than the tomato soup. Throw as much as you can in the bowl and heat it up. We’ve only got this one meal together.

      The thing is, we’re all prone to both tendencies. For all my chasing of experience in this world, I live a relatively stable, some might say boring, life. But chasing state change doesn’t mean we have to throw ourselves into chaos daily. It simply means opening ourselves up to new experiences. Try to learn a new language, walk around the block the opposite way, have tea instead of coffee, write about something [eclectically] different every day, do something completely out of the norm this weekend… whatever makes the back of your neck tingle when you even dare to think about it.

      To step into a larger life, we’ve got to get used to treading into the unknown. When we dance with a bit of mystery we release magic into our lives. That measure of magic might just make us bold enough to go bigger next time, and the time after that. So it is that we grow into our lives one incrementally bolder step at a time.

    • Reaching Beyond Yourself

      Just beyond
      yourself.

      It’s where
      you need
      to be.

      Half a step
      into
      self-forgetting
      and the rest
      restored
      by what
      you’ll meet.
      – David Whyte, Just Beyond Yourself

      Reaching beyond yourself can be frustrating, humbling and sometimes humiliating. The ego wants to be in a happier place, warmly wrapped up in comfortable self-talk and stretching just far enough… but not too far. But that’s not where the growth is. That’s not where you’ll find your limits.

      If there’s a phrase that seems to be common amongst the overachieving set in this world, it’s “leaning in”. You don’t lean in when you’re just standing there – you’ll fall right over. You lean in when you encounter some resistance. Resistance appears when we challenge other people’s ideas about what is far enough beyond themselves, but more often than not it’s our own ideas on the matter. Why challenge the status quo? Where you are is pretty good, right?

      This will be posted on a Monday morning. Monday’s serve as a threshold of sorts – an entry into another work week. And another day we’re all blessed with the gift of living on the planet. Leaning in to the work ahead, the task at hand, will soon fill us with plenty of resistance to lean in on. But are you leaning in the right direction or simply being pushed a certain way? Just where do you need to be anyway?

      Setting your course implies moving beyond your current location – moving beyond yourself. Moving beyond implies self-forgetting who you once were and meeting your new self as you progress towards this new place. How many successful people tackle imposter syndrome? All but the most narcissistic and delusional. It’s normal to question where you’re going.

      Most of us rarely think in terms of self-forgetting, but we encounter it all the time. How many jobs seem to dead-end because your coworkers thought of you as whatever you were when you began working with them instead of what you would become? Sometimes you have to leave a company or an industry to get beyond the stalled beliefs others have of who you are to grow. But what of our own self-beliefs?

      Becoming whatever you’ll be, just beyond yourself, begins with leaning in to the resistance inside yourself and moving in that direction you know in your gut you ought to be moving in. The wonder lies in the transformation of who you believe you are as you move beyond that resistance. A move into something entirely different. Towards your new self.

    • Hummingbirds Squeak under a Waning Moon… and Other Observations

      Cool enough for a fleece this morning. It seems summer is tilting away faster by the day. The white noise buzz of crickets fills in. Other sounds penetrate. Cars in the distance getting an early start. Birds like my old friend the Brown Thrasher announce their presence, if further away than in July.

      The mornings are especially active now. The bees and hummingbirds flitter from honeysuckle to basil gone to flower and on to the next. Each have a unique sound; not shockingly bees buzz and hummingbirds, well, their wings hum as they zip by you. I smile when the hummingbirds squeak at each other, a chorus of animated bird banter filling the yard. They largely ignore me as I sip coffee and take in the show. As if to mirror them, the squirrels are jumping tree to tree dropping acorns and hickory nuts that thump to the ground for collection later. Two scratch around my favorite white oak tree on the planet, chasing each other in young squirrel frivolity with their own chirping chorus.

      Looking up, the Waning Crescent moon greets me in a crisp blue sky. This is September blue, always embedded on my mind these last 18 years, a reference point anyone around here that day will understand. A reference point from New England to New Jersey. That day remembered in random moments like this, then gently put aside. There’s a collective joy about September in New England, with an undercurrent of sadness for the summer fading away and change in the air. But it’s still August, even if it feels like we’ve crossed. Seasons come and go, and it feels time for summer to move along too.

      Back on earth, there are a few more tomatoes to harvest, a thriving and ironic grape harvest after my public shaming in the spring, fading flowers and herbs to contend with. Like the squirrels I’ve got to get my act together and do some work to prepare for the cooler days and changes ahead. My fingers are cold from sitting outside a layer short of comfortable. Time to move. So much to do and it stirs a restlessness inside of me. But first another coffee.

    • State Change

      Everything has changed. Well almost everything. New sounds; I’ve never heard that dog bark before. The rumble and back-up beeping of construction equipment is new too. Seems to be road work happening at the top of the hill. A young squirrel is working the oak tree in the neighbors’ yard and there’s a constant drip of acorns plummeting through the leaves and thumping onto the ground.  Seems early for the dropping acorns but the squirrel seems to know more than I do about the matter.

      Some birds remain, like the brown thrasher I spent all summer trying to figure out. But the bluebirds are gone, and with them the feeling of early summer. Some new birds sing but I can’t place them. Migrating from someplace to another destination, with a quick stop in my neighborhood. I don’t know birds like I know some other things. But the more I know about anything the less I seem to know about that very thing.  Such is the way of the world.  I’ve learned to respect the journey of self-education, and hate myself for falling into the trap of thinking I know everything about anything.  Worse still is acting so.  Better to be open to the world around you; a sponge not a bullhorn.  There are far too many bullhorns already.

      Autumn is in the air. I felt it on Buzzards Bay as the winds shifted. This is first day of school bus stop air, and we aren’t yet halfway through August. And here in New Hampshire with the cool, humid air and white noise background buzz of crickets singing their late summer song.  Getting outside away from media opens the senses and the mind alike.  But other changes are in the air. A quarter of the family flying to London soon state change kind of air.  Another quarter entering senior year in college kind of air.  And what are we doing in this big house with all this stuff kind of air.

      Gone for a week and everything is different.  It would have been different if I’d been here too, but the daily gradual change isn’t noticed the way it is when you step away for a bit. Everything changes constantly. And so do I. A little for the better in some ways, a little for the worse in others, but generally more growth than decline. We all know what the ultimate end game is, but that doesn’t mean you have to live like you’re dead already. I know too many people who live in virtual bubble wrap, watching the world pass them by. I want to shake them loose, and whatever cobwebs I’ve grown myself, and shout “Embrace the changes; there’s magic in the air if you’ll only feel it!”

      I have a drive to Connecticut to get to.  That drive brings me from New Hampshire through Massachusetts to Connecticut, then the reverse this evening for the drive back.  Four hour round trip drive time, and more like seven hours with meetings thrown in the mix.  I could probably stay overnight in Connecticut, but there are compelling reasons to get back home this week, and so I’ll do the round trip instead.  My state change is both literal and figurative today.  But I do enjoy the journey.