FREE OF REACTING

I'm being serious.  I have almost mastered the art of not having to be right, or needing to react to others, no matter what.   I decided that Reacting to others is totally up to me. Not reacting is freeing and requires nothing of anyone else.  Not reacting is a third way to be in the world.  The first and second require taking sides, deciding who is right and who is wrong.  Not reacting, the third way, demands I see through your eyes and mine, simultaneously.  I do not have to woman up or man up to
stay connected, or in relationship with you. 

This third way is a relief.  I can go to a place inside me where I do not have to be right,  prove anything or even insist you hear my side of things.  I'd like you to. yet, if you are unable to hear me, or see my perspective, at least I can practice feeling old reactive sensations in my body, knowing I will be fine, and free, if I hold space for you.  Just hold space. Meaning, I will listen and hear you (for a few minutes), and hold no requirement that you be able to hear me.  The third way has no requiremnt of fairness.

This is my personal work.  It's about stepping back from learned beliefs not my own.  It is a daily practice.  It can be fun to go beyond what I think emotionally possible.   I am a bit more free now. 

LIVING WITHOUT WORRY

I have another intention now.   To not worry.  I admit, I worry about this one.  I worry about learning to not have to worry.  Worry takes up so much of my time even when I am not aware of it.   Then suddenly, I realize I am worrying.  It is such an endless going nowhere, process.

I learned to believe that worry is normal, natural and part of being alive....or not being alive,  Not sure about that last one yet? I asked myself, "what would I do if I Could not worry.  Not that I wouldn't, but if I absolutely could not worry if I wanted to. "I would just be here with what is happening in each moment," was the response.  The worry voice came in right away, "Oh sure, read another book about power of now, be here now, and stuff about being present.  Uh huh." 

I made a commitment, like an adventure, to free myself of worry.  Worrying feels like walking on water with lead shoes,  I decided to practice not worrying, or at least notice when I am. I’ve given myself permission to believe there is a way to go through the day without the act of worry consuming my energy. and listening to beliefs not my own.  Worry goes in circles and resolves nothing, ever.  Not worrying is an adventure in going beyond what seems impossible,

 It’s a practice, a personal skill of trusting that moments will happen no matter what I attempt to control.   The inspiration is to be free. 

CELEBRATE CHILDREN

The five teachers opened the parent conference for our 13-year old son with the words, "We are all meeting here today to celebrate  your son."  I welled up with tears hearing the word Celebrate.   No one mentioned deficiencies or how he needed to improve, or be better, think of his future, or in some way, not be quite good enough yet.  There was no mention of grades, tests, college or rules broken.  Then again, this school doesn't use grades to measure people.  They use relationship, creativity, respect, personal connection and engagement.

For ten minutes, with out son present, we heard what was right about him.  It was not so much the content of what they said; it was more their calm and soft tone of voice, and their way of seeing children and the world - people wanting to do right, to be connected, inclusive, kind and creative.

I wondered what life would have been like for me had all my teachers seen what was right about me?  Whay joy that would have been.  So, I can do it now myself for others.  After the teachers finished, I  was asked if I had any questions.  "There is nothing to add," I replied.  "For our son to be around you folks all day long is all I could ever want."  

BEING THE IMPOSSIBLE: CHANGE

"There is a place within us where our daily life story can only go so far.  Attempting to understand, work out, find solutions, and feel better about a person or a situation, becomes .........ummmm, boring.   If not boring, at least appearing to be hopeless.   Believing we are lost, struggling, and "not doing what we should be doing, or not good enough yet," becomes a daily worry thought.   It can take us over.  We tend to be so familiar with blame, fear and the belief that something is missing in our lives, that to do anything other than feel victimized and wronged, seems not only impossible, but not even an option.

   So what to do?  We can Switch movies.  Just like a multiplex theater.  We  be the change we want and expect in others, any others, the closer the better.  The practice is simple, yet can feel impossible--- outside the possibility of any human being.  

We decide to hold space for everyone, everyone--- no matter who they are, what they believe, or what we believe they have done to us, .  Being the change, all by ourselves, works immediately.  It is a Shamanic act.  You demonstrate by action rather than dialog.  Tension dissolves.  And when it does, you’re inspired to do it again.  It gets easier, and soon mind thoughts and words,  have less influence.  It is then that our  intuition, hearts, and knowing self, kick in automatically.

  Instead of "waiting," we lead by living it, no matter what.  No matter what.   Global warming "out there" becomes heart warming inside you."

BABY AND THE WORLD

So what does a father and his six-month-old baby have to do with what is going on in the world between countries, governments and political chaos?  They do.  They just do  A father walked by me in a crowded little cafe, pushing a traditional carriage with his young six-month old boy lying flat on his back looking up in wonder....calm, silent and, just there.

The scene itself wasn't unusual, except the father was calm too.  They matched each other.  As they walked by, the father was having a quiet, easy respectful conversation with the boy.  I relaxed inside just being around them. They were with each other completely, their eyes touching. I didn't hear the words spoken.  I simply noticed his soft voice, gentle and equal, as if knowing the six-month-old person was already a full, total and whole human being.   Size and age did not divide them.  In the midst of the busyness and chaos around them, they were with each other completely.    

Witnessing the dad and his young son, reminded me to slow down and be where I am, over and over again………..and how children and adults of any age, and size, can always be.  They showed up in my world to remind me to be still inside, and make connection with everyone, or know when I am not……so I can be still again.  The world "out there" will feel it, even if I don't fully believe it will.  

NATIVE AMERICANS AND WHITE GUY

I was just a white guy from Los Angeles, suddenly finding myself working among and with Native Americans.  Native Americans, of all ages, from many tribes. 

This was my first experience, knowingly, being around Native people.  I knew “so-called” Indians only from TV and films.  I was told by the administrators of this particular Bureau of Indian Affairs project,a program designed to re-educate Indian people, that they were a stoic lot, no sense of humor and needed to learn the rules of the work world and formal education.    

My story here is simple.  It is not a make wrong or blame story.  It is not about Native people.  It’s about me.  It’s about how I have lived since my high school years when I got to be around, know and befriend African American women and men, Latino families, and the ways the white buracracy, attitudes, and beliefs, often do harm to those not white, nor in positions of power.   Being around Native people opened my feelngs and compassion not only for people different from me, but compassion for myself, beliefs held about others that were not my beliefs.  Hurt I may have caused.  And may still. 

I see the world now as more about awareness, exquisite sensitivity to people and ideas that are not only different, but even strange.  Strange has became an adventure instead of judgment.  An 18-year old Lakota Sioux native woman, without blame, smiled, looked into my eyes, and said, “You white people.  You talk a lot and say nothing, then added, “Everything in life is about relationship.  Everything.” 

WHO ARE THE CHILDREN, REALLY?

Racism in the world demands justice and fairness.  Everything and everyone demand fairness and justice.  Children around the world, of all cultures, demand fairness and justice.  And what would that look like?  What about the concept of authority, parenting, teaching  and raising "them," ultimately being in charge of the children in our lives---our own, or someone elses?

Many of our ideas about children are rooted in the same kind of fear and beliefs that form the artificial division between people of different races, gender and religions ….the belief that those different from us, are less than, or in some way, so different, that we tend to marginalize, dismiss and patronize them, if not out loud, then in our thoughts.  These attitudes are not naturally occurring in children or us.  They are taught.  

If we wanted, what would it take to step out of our adult/parent/hiearchal roles and beliefs, to see clearly who children are behind their size, age and appearing to be, disturbing behaviors?  We were children once.  We noticed how the adults in our lives knew little about who we were, what we knew or how we felt.  .  It wasn’t that they couldn’t, they just didn’t know how.  And there is no blame intended here.  None at all.  They too, were following rules, beliefs, fears and habits they had learned from the adults in their lives. 

If we were fortunate, we had at least one adult in our childhood that saw who we were completely and equally; able to connect with us beneath our size and age.  If so, we can be that for all the children we meet and know and live with now.  Age and physical size do not automatically exclude children from choice, decision making, respect and freedom from condescending, patronizing attitudes. 

As we access our own innocence, lightness of play, sensitivity, spontaneity, and pure presence, that may rest dormant within our own bodies and minds, we can more easily be with the children around us – almost all children, with ease, humor, kindness, and, free from any role identity.  The children “out there,” are us inside.  When we do not know and feel that, we become easily disturbed by them.

It is fair and just that children be seen as whole, exquisitely sensitive, wise, highly perceptive human beings that are no less, nor more than the bigger, older people in this world.  As we free the children from our learned beliefs that may not be our own, we free ourselves.  We reclaim our own innocence, play and inclusion of everyone.  We become what we want to see in others, and in the world.

REPENT

A young man was standing on the street, calmly and quietly.  He was handing out religious thoughts.  For some reason, I stopped and talked to him.  He handed me a small piece of paper that read, "Repent."  That's it.  One word. 

Respectfully, I faced him and asked, "What would I be repenting from?"  He was silent, holding the question for a moment. "Your sins," he replied.  "What is that sin?" I asked.

"Your conscience," he replied, "When you know the right thing to do, and you don't do it."  

 I had expected a different answer. The truth of his words startled me. I had nothing more to say. Out of my own silence, I thanked him and put the piece of paper with the word "repent" in my pocket. 

Moments later, my son and I came upon two street musicians, a white man and a Black man.   I stopped to listen for a moment. The black man noticed us and walked over.  He thanked us for being there.  As we started to walk away, he smiled a real smile and asked for a donation. His voice was simply a question.  I said something about bringing money
back later when we return, an empty statement I have often said to end the contact.  He smiled again. 

I felt the word "repent" in my pocket.  I walked back and stood directly in front of him.   I gently placed my hand on his shoulder and thanked him. I told him the story of what I had just learned with the religious man.  I showed him the word Repent.  I gave him some money and said, "The right thing to do is give you this money."  I felt a great release....  a gentle repent.   He teared up and we embraced.. 

SOFT HEARTS:

I continue to find that men in our culture, almost all, including me, are brought up in ways by the parents, schools, and culture, to be harder than they are inside. My own journey with softening, and finding the Yes in people, required lots of experience judging others, and a carrying of beliefs not my own, unaware I was carrying them. 

 When many of us "males" get down to tears, we are free. Really free. Getting to those tears, which represent our hearts shining through, requires a softness greater than our own, if for only moments. Our tears transcend judgment, make wrong, and all our learned beliefs. Our tears, or at least moments close to them, break the cultural trance, and all the teaching we received from our parents, teachers and bosses. 

Three women in my life, saw through my hardness and coldness, and blame stuff.   One male friend did too. It only took moments for me to discover that I was holding a belief, an attitude, a "distance" from those around me. It took a few people, and still does, that see me inside, (the hidden innocence), and have the gift of holding silence and space for a minute while I rant, blame or find fault. That quiet heartful space allows and invites me to come home to myself....the self when I was a very little child.  

Emotionally safe is what is required.  It is as though whatever I say with my mouth is less important than holding me, remembering who I really am inside, and
knowing that my blame and judgment are a protective shield I developed when young....surviving a world of parents, teachers often finding me wrong, or not quite good enough....or a sea of rolling eyes when I felt deeply. There is no one to blame in this evolving world, only to thank for bringing my awareness to the surface, where I can feel it. 


 

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The little boy

LINDA WORLDTURNER: WHAT IS SACRED?

It was Linda Worldturner, an 18-year-old Lakota-Sioux Native woman who taught me that everything in life is about relationship, and, what that looks like when practiced daily.  Linda grew up on the Rosebud reservation in South Dakota.  Her home life was filled with alcohol, drugs, violence and stuff that can destroy the spirit.  Yet, for whatever reason, her spirit soared  

 

When I first met Linda at a unique program for, what were referred to as American Indians, I was just a standard white guy who grew up in L.A. on sandy beaches,long freeways and an awareness of Native people only from the movies.  Linda shared her life story once, and never again.  She didn’t need to.  Instead, she practiced connecting with everyone, even the all white staff that tended to hold Native people as needing to be civilized. 

By watching Linda interact with people of any age, color or racial belief, I saw what sacred looks like when practiced, and lived.  Relationship, I learned, wasn’t just about getting to know someone, or living with another person.  It is a way to be in life daily with all people, all the time, everywhere.  Without using or thinking the word sacred, I came to practice, more often, relating to people as sacred no matter what they believed, or who they were. .   

Linda never spoke of these things.  She simply smiled often, looked into your eyes and and cared for everyone. 

 

DE-ADULTING

Children know stuff already at birth.  They know things inside themselves at a cellular, genetic level.  Stuff they do not know they know.  When Uninterrupted or judged by the big people around them, they have access to an endless, limitless source of information: information that can fascinate and startle the adult world of "what is for sure," and has always been "that way."  Adult big people tend to believe that "they" the new little ones, must learn what we learned, and in the same way we learned it.   We came to believe that.  That little person still inside us, our own innocence, knows and feels what is right and true too.  It wants to come to the surface and be lived out.

Sometimes, one of these new beings falls through the cracks of the everyday world, and is seen as a prodigy, brilliant, exceptional, even special.   Yet, she may simply represent all the other brilliant, special and exceptional young people that have gone into hiding from a world that does not see them, thus they do not see themselves either. 

There is no fault here, nor blame, nor make wrong.  It is an adult thing.  We did not grow into adults, we were pushed.  Where it all came from, I do not know.  Doesn't matter.  Well, it does matter a little.  Ummmm, a lot.  Perceiving myself as an adult, and all the self-identities and beliefs I carry, can cut me off from children, from play, from instinct, mostly all that is real and true and loving. 

An adult person is a set of beliefs and behaviors, not our own.  An adult is self-perceived   as a woman or man that behaves in specific ways.  She or he often speaks in a voice of authority, seriousness, and a language never quite their own. Take the adult out of me, and what is left?  Me.  The original me.  In my case, when I was 12 years old.  I remember me.  I freely danced, did hand springs, somersaults, rode my bike down hills that the adult would never do.  The 12 year-old, yet to be adult me, laughed a lot and made other people laugh.   Not at other people, but with them.   He found it difficult to take seriously much of what the adult me now finds important, often requiring a therapist, a "serious" talk or quite possibly, another meeting.    

A young child once told me, "I don't need you to be with me.  I need you to be with yourself.  When you are with yourself, you are with me."

HONOR STUDENTS

VOICE

My attention was drawn to the restaurant table next to ours, when I heard the father admonishing his seven-year-old son.  The mom sat silently,  yet I could sense she was upset.  Doesn't matter what the father was saying, only that the boy contracted when hearing his father's angry tone of voice.  It was a manners thing.  Blame for being spontaneous and playful.  The father was embarrassed by his son's behavior.

Probably, the dad was unaware of how he sounded, and the impact he had on those around him.  He seemed unaware of the pain he was offering his boy.  When he walked to the counter to get their food, I stood and reached over my table to hold out my hands, one of them holding a coin, and asked the boy which hand had a quarter in it.  The boy, hesitant, wondering who this stranger was, looked at me, and pointed to my right hand.  I opened it and there was the coin.  His face lit up.  We did it again and the boy touched the correct hand. 

When his dad returned with the food, the boy turned around to get his sandwich.  Without thinking, I got up and walked to their table.   Directing my attention to the boy, I said, "show your dad the trick I just showed you."   "Yeah dad, guess which hand I have the coin."  He guessed the correct hand.  I went back to my table leaving them to continue the game.  I watched as the father joined his son, showing him another trick with his hands.  Both laughing and creating new tricks for each other, the mother sat back relaxed and enjoying her family.  Me too.