A Spirituality of Imperfection: God Shines Through the Cracks in Our Armor

Nakedness and Inadequacy Remember that nightmare we've all had at one point or another about being naked in public in front of a crowd?  Do you remember what you feel in that dream?  Excited?  Elated?  Proud?  Seductive?

Most often we feel shame, fear, embarrassment, extreme vulnerability, powerful discomfort, maybe even horrified.

Why?  Because the dream is often about the fear of exposure, fear of rejection; that if people saw us for who we really are, they would not accept us, they might even ridicule us.  Dreams about nakedness in public is about a deep fear of inadequacy and even shame.

So our culture demands that we go out in public looking good, clothed not just adequately but impressively.  We grow up in families that equate high performance with value and worth.  We learn early on to hide our inadequacies as best we can in order to appear put together.  Perfection is the standard.

The irony is that deep down we know that perfection is not only unreasonable, it's pretty much impossible.  Read my last blog where I give the example of the hitting percentage of baseball's best players.  Even the greatest batters in history never hit perfectly.  And they're heroes.

And yet we continue to hold ourselves accountable to that perfection measuring stick, holding our self esteem and self worth hostage to an impossible standard.  And if you're a part of a religious community, that standard is spiritualized and theologized, raising the stakes even higher of having to measure up.

Connecting Perfectionism and Shame

Dr. Brene Brown, in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, points out that

"where perfectionism exists, shame is always lurking.  In fact, shame is the birthplace of perfectionism."  (p. 55)

That certainly explains our fear of exposure in our nightmare of being naked in public.  We will do whatever it takes to keep our inadequacies from being seen because deep down there's a feeling of shame connected to failure or imperfection.  We see ourselves as "less than" in our failures.

So we resort to whatever form of perfectionism most fits our goal of appearing "together" in every setting:  e.g. we'll not take on any difficult tasks or take any risks for fear of failing and being exposed; we'll automatically assume responsibility for something going wrong, taking the blame; or we'll refuse to ever own up to mistakes, blaming other people for what went wrong; we'll avoid any situations that might cause us to look like we're not good enough; or we'll refuse to leave the house unless we look just "right" in public, trying to maintain a predetermined image that's acceptable to us and others.  And the list goes on.

But let's face it:  this is a really really tiring way to live!  Isn't it?  It takes a lot of mental and emotional energy to try to maintain a perfect image for everyone else, including ourselves.  Exhausting!  And it keeps us from the freedom of really living life and enjoying life in new and wonderful ways.  That belief system narrows rather than expands our lives.

Three Ways A Spirituality of Imperfection is an Antidote to Perfectionism

One of the powerful antidotes to this debilitating life approach is the practice of a spirituality of imperfection.  That's right.  Healthy, genuine spirituality is based upon embracing the value of imperfection.

Here are several Whys and Hows to practicing this spirituality of imperfection.

First, imperfection is a call to practice compassion on yourself.

Dr. Brown interviewed scores of people who were engaging with the world from a place of authenticity and worthiness.  She noticed that all had a lot in common experience when it came to perfectionism.  First, they spoke about their imperfections in a tender and honest way, and without shame and fear.  Second, they were slow to judge themselves and others.  They operated from a place of "We're all doing the best we can."  Their ability to step into self compassion was extremely high.  (Ibid., p. 59)

The next time you make a mistake or do something less than perfectly, practice compassion on yourself.  Don't judge yourself negatively by going to that indictment, "I'm such a loser!  Why can't I do anything well!  If people knew I was this kind of a failure, they'd reject me for sure!"

"A moment of self-compassion can change your entire day.  A string of such moments can change the course of your life."  Christopher K. Germer

Second, imperfection is a place of Light.  Let it in.

The great spiritual teachers of the past saw imperfection as the crack in the armor, the "wound" that lets God in.

Meister Eckhart (the 13th century German theologican, mystic, and philosopher) wrote,

"To get at the core of God at his greatest, one must first get into the core of himself at his least."

This truth is applied by the contemporary Jungian analyst who identifies "addictions," for example, as one of the "wounds" that lets God in:

"Addiction keeps a person in touch with the god .... At the very point of the vulnerability is where the surrender takes place---that is where the god enters.  The god comes through the wound."

So rather than immediately condemning ourselves for a mistake, failure, or even continual "wound" whenever it manifests itself, pause ... embrace it ... and let it bring you to the point of surrender ... let it point you to God who comes through that mistake to embrace you and love you, and then to little by little bring healing to your wound.

Isn't that what we do as parents when our child falls down, scrapes himself, and comes to us bleeding.  We don't refuse him, telling him to get cleaned and bandaged up first before we embrace him.  We get down on our knees, pull him into our arms, holding him tightly and tenderly, whispering words of love.  We gently clean up the wound, put a band-aid on it, and then hold him close again.  That moment of "wounding" lets our love into his life in tangible, intimate ways.

The New Testament spiritual leader Paul, who wrestled with what he called "a thorn in his flesh" (some kind of either physical or emotional or spiritual ongoing ailment) and kept asking God to remove it from his life, was confronted by the grace of God in the midst of his wound.  Rather than taking the "wound" away from Paul, God came to him in the middle of it, and said,

"My grace is sufficient for you.  My power is made perfect in your weakness."  2 Corinthians 12:9

So embrace your "wound" and let it allow God's amazing compassion and love to shine through the cracks of your armor straight into your life.

And third, imperfection is a place of Light.  Let it out.

To paraphrase Leonard Cohen's lyrics from Anthem,

"There's a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets out."

It is a misguided myth which our perfectionism gets us to buy into:  that we lose people's respect if we fail and make mistakes, if our "wounds" show too much.

Truth is, people aren't looking for perfection from us; people are wanting authenticity, honesty and transparency even about our imperfections.  "Be real," people often say.

The same New Testament spiritual leader, Paul, emphasized this truth when he described human beings as "clay pots"--cracked containers.  His point was that the Light (he called it the "glory of God") that lives inside us is able to shine out into the world through our cracks (2 Corinthians 4:7).  No cracks, no visible light to the world.  God needs our cracks so God's glory can shine through us in order to reveal divine compassion and love to others.

So rather than running from our imperfections, rather than covering them over, or hiding them, or even denying them, we can "sanctify" them (give them over to a holy purpose)--that is, allow them to be used by the Light as vehicles through which the Light of Love radiates out to the world.

Leonard Cohen is right.  There's a crack in everything.  That's how the light gets out.

Sometimes, it's the "sinners" that are more appealing than the "saints."  Who wants to be around someone who tries to be perfect all the time, who refuses to admit imperfection in themselves or others, and who thinks they're more "righteous" than everyone else?  No grace or compassion there.  Perfectionism is, after all, an attempt to play God.

So embrace the crack.  Be vulnerable.  Be authentic and transparent.  That will be used by God to let the Light shine out, to show others that even in our imperfections, love and compassion can shine through and be visible and experienced by others.  Sometimes, it's our willingness to be "naked" in public that reveals the true glory of God.

It's Time To Get Over Our Perfectionism: How To Take A Lesson From Baseball

Baseball's Lesson It's fascinating to look at the sport of baseball and notice the greatest hitters in the history of the game---you can't help but see something profound immediately.  The all-time best hitter, Ty Cobb, had a career batting average of .366.  No one has been able to reach that level in a career before or since.  That's .366 out of .1000.

What this means is that over 6 out of every 10 times Cobb got up to bat, he went out.  And he's considered the greatest.

Which begs the questions, why is it that our expectations for baseball are so radically different than our expectations for ourselves and everyone else in the rest of life?

The Commissioner of Baseball in 1991, Francis T. Vincent, Jr., made this astute observation:

"Baseball teaches us, or has taught most of us, how to deal with failure.  We learn at a very young age that failure is the norm in baseball and, precisely because we have failed, we hold in high regard those who fail less often---those who hit safely in one out of three chances and become star players.  I find it fascinating that baseball, alone in sport, considers errors to be part of the game, part of its rigorous truth."

Ironic--that errors are part of it's rigorous truth.  Almost oxymoronic.  But refreshing and true.

Institutionalized Perfectionism

I grew up in a Church that rigorously fights an ongoing war against failure.  Error is seen as a lack of spirituality and trust in God.  If you simply trusted God more, you would overcome your tendency to "strike out" when you stepped up to the plate of life.  With God's help, you can get better and better at hitting the ball whenever you're up to bat.  And before the world ends, God expects you to hit home runs or at least hit safely every time you're up.

There's a word for this view:  perfectionism.

For the most part in my life, I played the game pretty successfully.  I knew the rules inside and out and was quite accomplished at fulfilling and living up to them well.  I certainly received a lot of accolades for how successful I was, at least on the outside of my life--which is the only side of anyone people can really see, right?

So when you live in a perfectionist culture where mistakes and failures aren't accepted as the norm, there's intense pressure to measure up to the highest standard in order to feel good enough.  Self worth becomes built upon performance.

Without realizing it, my sense of self was being constructed on a shaky foundation.  I had to make sure I was successful and didn't fail; I had to constantly prove my worth by my performance.  So if you're one of those lucky ones, like I was, who is able to be really productive within the accepted measurements, you're rewarded---you get praise and positive attention from others and therefore you can give yourself the same.

Until the big failure and fall.  And I had it.  Epic.  My whole world collapsed around me.  And in one fell swoop I was on the outside, no longer seen as successful, all my past accomplishments wiped off the slate of institutional memory.

Unlike baseball's radical paradigm in which the player steps up to the plate and strikes out, still maintaining his beloved stature as the valued and famed hitter even though he goes out 6 out of every 10 times---in my world it was, one big strike and you're out, for good.

Identity and Self Acceptance

Beyond the pain of the institutional response to me, my biggest personal challenge suddenly became, Now that I've blown it big time, what is my identity, where do my feelings of worth and value come from without that great reputation?  Can I accept myself even in the midst of failure?  Or am I simply a loser forever from now on?

My road back to a sense of deep personal acceptance and worth was long and difficult.  But in the end, the opportunity to build my sense of self on a much more stable foundation, than the shaky one of performance and perfection, was the most important outcome that could have ever happened to me.  It has given me a sense of confidence, security, and acceptance of myself in powerfully authentic ways like never before.

Perhaps baseball has a lot to teach us about life.  Like the Commissioner observed, errors are part of the game and perfection is an impossible and unrealistic and not even expected goal.  No player ever bats .1000 in a career.  Ever.

So the ongoing questions for me in my life is that whenever I make mistakes (and I do, often), whenever I don't live up to my values in even small ways, whenever I try something and make a mess of it, whenever I feel the need to present myself to others as all together, whenever I am tempted not to feel good enough unless I do it all perfectly--whenever I'm faced with these moments, can I still feel a sense of value, acceptance, and okayness and refuse to place my worth in judgment?

A Spirituality of Imperfection

What would happen if we built our view and experience of spirituality on imperfection rather than perfection, that we would stop expecting no mistakes or failures and start expecting errors as a natural part of the game of life?

Would it mean that we would simply compromise away our values?  Would it mean we're simply trying to rationalize and justify our mistakes?  Would it mean that we would be embracing an "anything goes" philosophy, that it wouldn't matter any more if we failed or made mistakes, no matter how many people we hurt along the way?

That's certainly not the way it's worked with me.  Re-establishing my sense of self and building it on the foundation of the reality of imperfection, and learning how to embrace myself in the midst of failure, has in fact increased my value for healing and wholeness, for showing up in the world in ways that elicit deeper trust and joy in others.

But I have done this on the unshakable foundation of self acceptance, not for how successful I am or am not, but for who I am as a child of God---fully loved and deeply accepted as I am, not as I should be.

When I get clear on this truth, I am much more empowered to grow, to take risks on my journey of transformation, knowing that when I step up the plate and strike out or ground out or hit a fly ball and go out, I'm still a perfectly loved and valued person who belongs on the team of life. My place is secure.

That freedom motivates me to be my best, to know who I am in every situation and live it out with confidence and courage, even if I don't do it just right every time.  Because the fear of failure has been removed.  I even allow myself to expect it from myself.

"Errors, of course, are part of the game.  They are part of our truth as human beings.  To deny our errors is to deny ourself, for to be human is to be imperfect, somehow error-prone.  To be human is to ask unanswerable questions, but to persist in asking them, to be broken and ache for wholeness, to hurt and to try to find a way to healing through the hurt.  To be human is to embody a paradox, for according to that ancient vision, we are 'less than the gods, more than the beasts, yet somehow also both.'  Spirituality begins with the acceptance that our fractured being, our imperfection, simply is:  There is no one to 'blame' for our errors--neither ourselves nor anyone nor anything else.  Spirituality helps us first to see, and then to understand, and eventually to accept the imperfection that lies at the very core of our human be-ing."  (The Spirituality of Imperfection:  Storytelling and the Search for Meaning, Ernest Kurtz and Katherine Ketcham, p. 2)

What this means is that we stop theologizing and religionizing perfection and imperfection.  Instead, we learn to embrace our humanity without negative judgment, simply what is.  And we allow ourselves to go on the journey of life with patience as well as resolve to become more and more whole, while living with our cracks.  And we ramp up our courage to actually admit, "Nobody's perfect.  Neither am I.  And that's okay.  I'm still valued and loved and accepted as I learn to grow and develop into my healthiest self.  I belong on the Team."

If I can do this, I can then step up and, using all of my growing skill and wisdom, boldly and freely swing away.  I can let it rip more often because whether I hit it out of the park or into a fielder's waiting glove I am still loved and deeply accepted in who I am as a valued child of the universe, to myself and to God.  Period.  I'm on the Team.

Next time I'll talk about some of the significant implications of the spirituality of imperfection and building on this unshakeable foundation of Self.  Stay tuned.

Three Steps to Choosing Authenticity and Getting Your Real Self To Stand Up

To Tell the Truth Do you remember that classic TV game show "To Tell the Truth?"  It was one of the longest running game shows ever, airing shows in every season for 45 years.

The premise was that four celebrity judges would try to guess which of the three contestants was the genuine character being described in an unusual and unique life story read out loud by the host.  All contestants introduced themselves by the name of the true character.  The two "imposter" contestants could lie with their answers, the true character had to tell the truth in every answer.  After questioning each contestant, the judges would vote.  The host would then say those famous words, "Will the real [name of the character] please stand up."

I used to love watching the show, trying to guess which was the real character.  I sometimes got it right.  But often I was completely surprised.  And I've never forgotten the host's line at the end of the vote:  Will the real ________ please stand up."

So what was the appeal to such a simple game show?  The drama of trying to figure out who was who?  Deception?  Humor?  Seeing judges voting?  Unusual life stories?  A competition of winning and losing?

Probably all of the above.  But I think there was also something else at play.  We are drawn to that which is true, to people who are able to stand up and truly be themselves.  We call this Authenticity.

Defining Authenticity

I'm inspired by the way Brene Brown, in her book The Gifts of Imperfection, defines Authenticity:

"Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we're supposed to be and embracing who we are."  (p. 50)

The "letting go" of this ideal self we think we're supposed to be (and even that can change depending on which environment we're in at any given time) is really hard.  Isn't it?  Why?

Why Living Authentically is So Difficult

Our external culture.  We live in a world that strongly encourages, sometimes even demands, that we fit in, don't stand out too much, conform to accepted expectations and standards.  Though our country was founded on individuality and the pioneering spirit, our culture has strong ways of limiting all of that.

We're raised to acquiesce to authority---the authority of parents, adults, institutions, people who know more than we do, power, position, status.  We're taught not to trust ourselves or our gut instincts or to look too deeply inside ourselves.  All true authority is outside ourselves, we're told.

No wonder we have in our culture an authenticity challenge.

Our internal Culture.  Compounding this cultural squeeze is the truth that inside ourselves we often have another battle raging.  It's a self-esteem and self-worth issue.  So that whenever we feel shame or unworthiness or guilt that creates self-doubt, we can quickly and easily sell ourselves out and say, "I can be anybody you need me to be.  Watch me!"

So we can allow our self-identity to shift with the winds and tides of our surrounding people---whatever it takes to please them or get their approval so we can feel good about ourselves.

We definitely have an authenticity challenge these days.

So how do we learn to choose authenticity more and more in our daily lives---to choose to be our real Selves in every context, living out the fullest and most confident expression of our true Selves?

Three Steps to Choosing Authenticity

Notice the three actions described in Dr. Brown's definition of Authenticity:

• Daily practicing

It's unrealistic to think that all of a sudden, one day we can simply declare, "Okay, I'm perfectly authentic now.  I'm good to go."

"Authenticity is a collection of choices that we have to make every day.  It's about the choice to show up and be real.  The choice to be honest.  The choice to let our true Selves be seen."  (p. 49)

When you consider that we are making this choice against everything that we've established through the course of life as being "true" about ourselves and what's really important---pleasing others at our own expense, living up to everyone else's expectations, letting every situation determine how "real" we should be, hiding behind masks, or trying hard to be someone we're really not---it's no wonder authenticity is a daily, even moment by moment, choice.  We have to practice it regularly.  We have to develop a new normal.

Authenticity is a process of becoming---a journey into being more fully genuinely ourselves.  So our practice demands:  "In this moment, faced with a choice of how I'll show up in this situation, I choose authenticity.  In this moment, I choose to be real and genuine and honest.  I will not hide myself.  In this moment, I will not let fear of what others might say or think dictate how I show up.  I choose to let my Self be expressed.  In this moment, I will be Me to the best of my knowledge and ability and in a spirit of respect, love, and compassion."

• Letting go of who we think we're supposed to be

We have to stop living our lives based on other people's expectations and standards.  We need to respect and honor their choices.  But we don't have to emulate them.  We are each unique individuals.  We have to let our masks go.  We have to let go of our attempts to squeeze into someone else's mold.  We have to let go of our obsession with pleasing and seeking approval in order for us to feel good about ourselves.

For a trapeze artist to let go of the trapeze and fly through nothing but empty air takes courage.  It's scary and even risky.

So is letting go of false identities---especially if we've lived them for a long time.  We end up flying through uncertainty, even at times lack of clarity about who we are.  We risk rejection and lack of acceptance.  People close to us might actually like us the way we've been.  We might "fail" at being Ourselves.  Yes, it takes courage to let go.

But we can't grab a hold of the true identity (the other trapeze bar) without letting go of the false.

• Embracing who we really are

Think of a time when you felt really true to yourself, when you felt completely safe, loved, accepted, honest, when you felt really strong and energized.  What was happening?  How were you showing up?

Chances are you were actually being your true Self.  That's what you have to embrace and grab a hold of.  That's the new trapeze bar you've been flying through space to catch.

That story you remember is a snapshot of your Authenticity.  Remember it.  Relish it.  Visualize it again and again.  Those powerful positive memories will give you courage to choose Authenticity again and again.  Embrace who you really are.

Embrace vulnerability.  Let go of the need for perfection, even in trying to be You.  Give yourself permission to fail, to make mistakes, to not do it really well every single time you embrace You.  That's okay.  You're on the journey of Authenticity.

Embrace compassion for your Self and for others.  Remember that you are made of both strength and struggle, as Brene Brown puts it.

Embrace the truth that you, as your true Self, are always enough!

Embrace that your greatest gift to the world---to everyone around you---the gift that God has given you and you alone, is You.  No one else is or can be You.  Stand in your Truth and that truth will set you and everyone around you free.  Only Authenticity gives freedom.  Don't deprive the world of your Authentic You.

So next time, when the situation arises and says, "Will the real You please stand up," jump to your feet, hold your head high, and with joy reply, "Here I am, you lucky people!" :)  And the rest of us will the better because of it.  So will You.

Choosing To Be Nobody But Yourself: The Costs and Rewards

E.E. Cummings once wrote, "To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself---means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight---and never stop fighting."

Wow! That statement really hits me deeply because I know that to be true in my life experience. There's a reason so many people don't go on the search for their authentic self---because it's so hard, sometimes even painful, definitely difficult. You're often battling against your own powerful limiting beliefs, against other people's expectations of and choices for you. It's easier to deny that nagging thought that we might not really be living our authentic selves.

No wonder it often takes a crisis to shake us off our pedestal, forcing us to go on the search for authenticity. When we choose to push against the system of our own beliefs and others' expectations, the system pushes back. You've felt that, haven't you? The systems in our lives use shame, guilt, religious dogmas (which in essence is using the "God" card---"you're going against God's will for you!"). We're told we're being selfish and narcissistic, thinking only of ourselves. "You just need to sacrifice yourself for the sake of others. After all, didn't Jesus say, 'Take up your cross and follow me?' Remember, life isn't just about you."  Those messages are deeply personal and painfully powerful to go up against.

Talk about strong push back. It always happens when you choose to practice authenticity, stepping into the full expression of your true self.

I remember walking the streets, sometimes in the middle of the night, wrestling and struggling with the implications of my choice to live my life rather than the life so many others I looked up to were telling me I was obligated to live. I felt so alone. The weight of the world burdened me down, sometimes even literally, as I felt the loss of so much I had valued in the past. The push back on every level was intense.

But little by little I began to realize that the alternative was even more potentially damaging. Even medical experts these days are recognizing this truth. Here's the way Dr. Brene Brown states it, in her book The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are:

"If you're like me, practicing authenticity can feel like a daunting choice---there's risk involved in putting your true self out in the world. But I believe there's even more risk in hiding yourself and your gifts from the world. Our unexpressed ideas, opinions, and contributions don't just go away. They are likely to fester and eat away at our worthiness. I think we should be born with a warning label similar to the ones that come on cigarette packages: Caution: If you trade in your authenticity for safety, you may experience the following: anxiety, depression, eating disorders, addiction, rage, blame, resentment, and inexplicable grief." (p. 53)

Sacrificing who we are for the sake of what other people think we should be just isn't worth it. There might be some short term pay offs (like superficial and conditional acceptance, affirmation, kudos). But the long term damage, as she points out, are brutal.

So what do you do when you're experiencing the Big Push Back? Brene Brown says she repeats three simply phrases to herself:

Don't shrink. Don't puff up. Stand on your sacred ground.

That's right. Your true Self is sacred ground. It's who God sees you to be and believes for you.

That's why Jesus, when the Devil tempted him to doubt his true Self, refused ... three times in a row ... in the middle of the hot desert ... when he was at his tiredest, hungriest, weakest.

"I don't need to do anything to prove myself to you, Devil, or to please anyone else's expectations for me. I know my truth because it came straight from the mouth of God when He told me, "You are my Beloved Son; I believe in you; I'm proud of you! Period!"

So next time you're feeling the Big Push Back, whether from your own inner doubts or other people or powerful institutions, remember to do three things:

Don't shrink! Don't puff up! Stand on your Sacred Ground!

And when you do, remember you're in good company. Even Jesus did that.

So here's to choosing authenticity. Here's to fighting the good fight. Here's to all the health and well being that come from standing in your truth.

And if you need some support to do this, write me (greg@gregorypnelson.com) and I'll suggest some ways I can be helpful.  GregoryPNelson.com

Three Ways to Shift Your Focus and Re-Shape Your Life

I read an insightful article in the Harvard Business Review last year by Kare Anderson, co-founder of the Say It Better Center and  a best-selling author.  The title was "What Captures Your Attention Controls Your Life."  She makes this statement:

“Whatever we focus upon actually wires our neurons. For example, pessimistic people see setbacks and unhappy events as Personal (It's worst for me), Pervasive (Everything is now worse) and Permanent (It will always be this way) according to Learned Optimism author Marty Seligman. Yet, with practice, he found that we can learn to focus more attention on the positive possibilities in situations to then craft a redemptive narrative of our life story. Consciously changing what you pay attention to can rewire your brain from a negative orientation to a positive one. 'Attention shapes the brain,' as Rick Hanson says in Buddha's Brain.”

Analyzing Your Words, Phrases, and Thoughts

Have you ever spent some time analyzing what you focus your attention upon?  It would be fairly enlightening to us, I'm sure, if we had someone follow us around all week long, taking notes of everything we said out loud.  What would those notes say about our primary focus and orientation?  Kind of a scary thought, isn't it!

Every once in a while, my wife Shasta will inform me that she hears me use certain phrases a lot, often on the negative side.  One of them used to be, "This is overwhelming!"

As I thought about my use of that phrase, I could see that my focus typically was negative, pessimistic.  Every time I used those words I was telling myself that my situation was beyond my capability to navigate well.  I was a victim to my circumstances.  It was beyond me to push through the obstacles.  In effect, I was wiring my brain to see weakness and inability and scarcity.  So because my brain was getting this message, it was sending that message to the rest of my body and I would always start feeling a physiological sag, too.  Body follows spirit.

Whatever we focus upon does wire our neurons.  Anderson's point is well made:  Consciously changing what you pay attention to can rewire your brain for good.  And that always impacts your whole body, as well.

Emphasizing Your Strengths Instead of Weaknesses

This is one of the reasons I love doing strengths coaching.  The emphasis on strengths instead of weaknesses is very empowering.

The father of strengths psychology, Donald Clifton, began his ground-breaking work by choosing to change the question psychologists were asking about people.  Instead of asking the question, "What's wrong with people?" he challenged that exclusive focus by asking, "What's right with people?"  He said,

"What would happen if we focused not on pathology but on strengths, studying how people are strong, what do they do that makes them feel energized, in the zone, competent, and more fulfilled?"

With this focus, we don't ignore weaknesses.  We don't pretend they don't exist.  We acknowledge that every strength has a shadow side that must be brought into the light and managed.  But our primary focus is on what makes us strong, our innately wired strengths and themes and talents.  Focusing on that reality creates an almost limitless possibility for growth, powerful change, and life transformation.

As Anderson pointed out, attention shapes our brain.  So choosing to be intentional about what we're focusing on in our lives will make a huge difference in the quality and outcomes of our lives.

Developing Your Conscious Competence

So take a few minutes to ask yourself these five questions and jot down some responses:

• What do my spoken words say about where I'm often placing my focus?
• How can I reframe my words/phrases to shape a more positive focus?
• What thoughts tend to captivate my internal attention?  Are they primarily negative or positive?
• Am I a strength-oriented person or a weakness-focused person?
• Do I know what my top strengths are?  And if so, how much focus do I put on them, how much intentionality in leveraging and using them more and more?  What are specific ways I can step into those strengths more often and more deeply?

Answering questions like these develop what I call "conscious competence."  The more aware and enlightened you are about how you're strong and what makes you strong, the greater your ability for competence and therefore for fulfillment and energy.  You can't practice and develop what you don't know you have.

So next time I'm tempted to droop my shoulders in despair and sigh, "This is overwhelming!" I'm going to say instead, "This appears difficult, but I'm strong and I can find a way through!"  It's a good place to begin.  Followed by applying my strengths to finding a way through.  That's a strong combination!

If you'd like some help going through this refocusing on strengths process, email me:  greg@flyagaincoaching.com.  It could be one of the more strategic decisions you make these days.

Why Paying Attention to Your Strengths is a Profoundly Spiritual Process

I do a lot of coaching with individuals, groups, businesses, teams, churches around the issue of strengths (utilizing the results they get from taking the online StrengthsFinder).  What are your top strengths?  How are you using them?  What are the shadow sides of each of your strengths and how can you manage those shadow sides?  How can you use your strengths more intentionally, consciously, and competently? How Strengths Work Increases Well-being

I love doing this strengths work with people because I've seen that when people tap into their strengths more deeply and consciously, their ability to live a more productive and fulfilling life at work, in relationships, and even in spirituality radically increases.  In fact, research shows that people who more often than not lead with their strengths are six times more meaningfully engaged in their life circumstances and they experience a three times higher sense of overall well being in life.

Who wouldn't want those kind of odds?

I'm noticing more and more that when people begin this exploration, increasing their understanding of how they're wired and what their innate talents are, they are in fact coming face to face with who they really are and who they are truly designed to be.  And that is a profoundly spiritual experience.

Why Strengths Work Is Spiritual

One of the descriptions of spirituality I appreciate is this:  "The intentional journey of becoming more whole, more fully alive, and more deeply human which results in authentic and meaningful connections with self, others, and the transcendent.”

The more in-tune we are with who we are, the more in alignment we are with how we are each designed and wired, the deeper and more authentic and meaningful our connections are to others and even to God.

One of the early Church fathers, Irenaeus, wrote,

"The glory of God is man fully alive."

Think about that for a minute.  God's glory is heightened and made more evident when people are living fully alive.  God's glory is shown, not when we constrict our lives or other people's live, not when we narrow our lives down, but rather when we expand our lives, when we increase our aliveness, when we alignment our lives to who we were made to be and to learn to live that way with more abandon and confidence and courage.

And that's exactly what happens when people tap into their strengths more consciously and competently.  They become more uniquely fully alive---they become more of their true selves, as God designed them.  Living out our strengths is one of the most significant ways we uniquely manifest the image of God in each one of us.

God is definitely not into the "cookie-cutter" approach to life.  All you have to do to see that is to open your eyes and behold---to pay attention and to notice---the profound and immense and rich diversity that exists in this world.

Some Strategic Strengths Questions I Use With Clients

I have the sacred privilege as a strengths coach to be a front-row witness to this wonderful diversity with every person and group I do this work with.  I always am in awe of how beautiful and unique every person is.  And that individual beauty I see only grows and deepens as people come to embrace their unique strengths profile and learn to live it more consciously and effectively day after day.

So here are some of the questions I assist people in exploring and processing about their strengths:

• How have you seen yourself using each of your top strengths?  Give specific examples.  Describe how you felt when you were engaged in that activity/behavior.
• What have you noticed is the shadow side of each strength?  What is your specific negative tendency with each strength at times?  For example, if your strength is Empathy, do you ever find yourself getting too emotionally involved in people?  Do you take on their feelings so deeply that you can't seem to let them go, to separate yourself from their feelings, so you can begin to feel exhausted, burned out.  Their negative or painful feelings you start to take on yourself?  Give specific examples of how you have manifested the shadow side of your strengths.
• How have you noticed your strengths playing out in your relationships?  Give some specific examples.  For instance, if you have Adaptability, do you tend to wait until the last minute to plan an activity with your significant other?  Do you prefer not to structure or plan something but to let it come to you or simply go with the flow?  How does your strength(s) impact your significant relationship?
• What is the strengths profile of your significant relationship?  How do your top five individual strengths react together as a couple?  Where are you both strong?  How does that reveal itself in how your relationship shows up in the world?  What do people experience in the presence of your relational strengths profile?
• Develop some specific, tangible goals for how you can increase the use of each one of your top strengths in the major life areas:  work, relationships, spirituality.
• What are deficiencies in your strengths profile that you need to consider bringing other people with complementary strengths into your life?  How can you partner or collaborate with people who bring strengths you don't have so you can be more productive and effective?

I typically go on a 12 session, 3 month journey with the people who want to really dig deep into putting their strengths to work in their lives.  And I can tell you, it's a hugely rewarding, satisfying, transforming experience.  They all tell me how life changing it is.  And the more I do it, the more life changing it is for me, as well.

How Strengths Work Impacts Organizations and Congregations

I also do strengths work with congregations and other organizations.  Once people begin to understand the role their strengths can play in their personal lives, this new awareness carries over into their actions within the organizational mission.  When we take a look at which of everyone's top strengths are most represented---based upon everyone's test results---that corporate strengths profile delivers some astounding and powerful implications for how the whole group is designed to be at their strongest in the way they serve their constituents and communities.  Effective mission and productive service grow exponentially.  And people who serve in those groups experience a much higher level of engagement and fulfillment than ever before.

The Final Question is About Sacred Stewardship

So in the end of life---whatever your view about how that happens in terms of divine accountability for your life---what's true is this:

God will not ask you why you weren't more like someone else.  God's only question to you will be, What did you do with what you were given?  Did you steward your Self as deeply, passionately, and faithfully as you could?  Were you your own true Self?

This is one of the reasons I think strengths work is so spiritually significant---and why I believe in knowing my strengths and using them as courageously and actively as I can.  It's about being the only Me that really counts in the end; and the only Me that truly brings me fulfillment, purpose, and joy.

Want to Know More?

Would you like to know more about this process?   Feel free to email me:  greg@flyagaincoaching.com.  I'd be happy to give you more perspective.  Would you like to engage in strengths coaching with me?  Feel free to contact me:  greg@flyagaincoaching.com.

IS ONLY RELIGIOUS SPIRITUALITY HEALTHY OR CAN NONRELIGIOUS SPIRITUALITY BE HEALTHY, TOO?

I have to admit I'm getting tired of reading more articles arguing about the whole notion of choosing to be spiritual but not religious.  I'm not tired about the theme—because I happen to be one of those who believe in the genuineness of spirituality outside of religious institutions.  I work with people in this category all the time and continue to be impressed with their sincerity and passion to be spiritual and compassionate people.  And indeed they are. So I'm tired of the pejorative tendency on the part of so many religious people to judge those who choose to remain unaffiliated or unattached to religious institutions but who still want to pay attention to their spirituality.

There was even a study that went viral stating that people who were spiritual but not religious had more mental illness than religious people.  "Aw, you see!  It's unhealthy to be spiritual but not religious," chortled the religion advocates.

Then I read some religious leaders' attempts to bolster that study's conclusions, stating dubious evidence that was suppose to support such a superficial and narrow judgment.  “Enough’s enough,” I said silently to them.  “It’s time to get over it!”  There are simply different legitimate ways to building one’s spirituality.

Church leaders, whose sole mission is to support and perpetuate organized religious institutions, speak out demonizing the SBNR (spiritual but not religious, which happens to be the fastest growing religious demographic in America right now).  SBNR adherents fight back, naturally so, arguing why they choose to be SBNR instead of religious affiliation.  Both sides consider the other irrelevant and out of touch.

Truth is, both sides have elements of truth as well as misguided, incomplete perspective in their convictions.

Three Vital Characteristics of Healthy Spirituality

So I thought I would evaluate this tug-of-war in the context of three vital  characteristics of Healthy Spirituality.  Can a person be spiritual without being religious, and can a person be religious without being spiritual?  Is it Either/Or (all or nothing) or Both/And?  Or Neither?

CHARACTERISTIC ONE:  Healthy Spirituality is a life of engagement and connection, not a life of isolation and alienation.  Paul Tournier, psychiatrist and author, makes the observation:  "There are two things in life you cannot do alone—be married, and be spiritual."

Now on face value, this truth would seem to favor religion's indictment against SBNR.  But not quite so fast.

We have to realize--and the more I spend time with people who consider themselves SBNR, the more I see this side--that there are many different ways of developing a life of engagement and connection.  Most of the SBNRs I know believe wholeheartedly in living within meaningful community and relationships.  They just do it outside of religious institutions.  They have deep connections with people where those connections are enjoyed in multiple and diverse environments--they just don't choose to do it within churches, synagogues, or mosques.

Looking for a place to learn and partner with not necessarily belong.  I have seen, as I've watched the trends in spirituality and religious affiliations, that more and more people if they look to churches at all, look  to them not for providing a place to belong, but as a potential place to stimulate their spiritual growth and personal development and as potential partners in addressing the many social ills of our world.  They want to learn.  They want to partner.

But they're not as interested in "signing up" for a place in which to build and establish all their relationships.  They want to be given tools and practices that help them experience greater life transformation but are not necessarily looking to "consume" the entire menu of services and ministries that a congregation encourages its members to engage in which often includes that church’s entire belief system.  They feel no need or desire for the whole cafeteria.

But isn’t that self-centered?  This is one of the issues that irks religious leaders and adherents.  Their indictment is, "That's completely self-centered!"  Their point is that healthy spirituality has to be lived within community (and it usually comes down to their community) because that's where we rub up against others who may be different than us and therefore it teaches us to learn how to relate, how to forgive, how to soften the sharp edges of our personalities and spiritual lives.

Community in different places.  The truth is, both groups believe in the importance of community facilitating healthy spirituality.  But they each look for it in different places.  Admittedly, both groups have people who think they can be loners in life and still be spiritually healthy.  Neither group is immune from this temptation.  Both need to look strategically and intentionally for community in which to learn the art of spiritual growth and spiritual health.  The point is, let's stop judging the others’ strategy by thinking we have the exclusive environment to shape meaningful community and spiritual life.

CHARACTERISTIC TWO, Healthy Spirituality involves a particular way of relating to others and to the world.  It's not just relating that is important, it's how we relate.  It involves relating in love.

Just before entering the Promised Land after wandering in the wilderness for so many years, God offered the Israelites a very clear and stark choice:

"I set before you life or death, blessing or curse.  Choose life, then, so that you and your descendents may live, in the love of Yahweh your God" (Deuteronomy 30:19-20).

Notice that choosing life, from God's perspective, is the same as choosing love.  They go hand in hand with each other.  Life and love.

Here's the way Dr. David Benner, in his book Soulful Spirituality:  Becoming Fully Alive and Deeply Human, puts it:

"Choosing life is choosing love.  And genuine love cannot remain for long as simply love of my life.  Love of life is contagious.  It spreads to all facets of my life, and it spreads to others.  That is the nature of love.  If I really love life, I cannot help but begin to value your life as well as mine.  If I genuinely love life, I will treat all life as sacred.  If I genuinely love life, I will care for the world because I care for the generations of humans who may yet be born."  (p. 73)

Needing a conversation centered on love.  It's sobering to me that so much of the conversation between religious adherents and those who don't religiously affiliate devolves into shouting matches about who's right and who's wrong.  There's no genuine dialogue emanating from a place of love, honor, and respect for the Other.  Instead there's finger pointing, judgments against the other, drawing lines in the sand where the side each is standing is the only true side.

That's not love.  Is it?

Ironically, love is touted as the supreme value in every major religion.  And yet history is filled with examples of hate and judgment and violence against those who disagree with the accepted norm of religious allegiance.

Love not tolerance.  I'm tired of people elevating the concept of tolerance in this world.  That's not love.  Love is compassion, caring, support, honoring, and blessing the other--not simply tolerating the other.

Healthy spirituality is about choosing to learn how to love more completely and deeply in every environment and setting of life.  And when we don't do it well, then we ask for forgiveness, and continue learning and practicing more effective ways to love others, especially those we disagree with.

Though both groups--the SBNRs and religious adherents--elevate the experience of love as defining genuine spirituality, the track record isn't very good about this happening effectively between them.  Both groups need to keep trying.  And both groups need to allow the other to learn the art of genuine loving wherever they choose their place of community and their style of artfulness.

CHARACTERISTIC THREE, Healthy Spirituality, which always engages in a life of love, is anti-legalism and anti-ritualism.

This is a defining characteristic.  Here's what I mean by this.  I do not mean that healthy spirituality is against law, rules, rituals, practices.  Not quite.  Rules, rituals, and practices are tools to help facilitate a deeper transformational spiritual life.

Every religion, and people who claim no religion, engage in practices and rituals to help themselves become better human beings—like meditation, breathing, mindfulness, prayer, scripture or devotional reading, or attendance in gatherings that lead a person to a higher spiritual place where their hearts-minds-souls can be inspired and moved (be it in church services or workshops or seminars or retreats).

People who take spirituality seriously believe that it's in relationships where we learn how to love and forgive the most effectively.  Developing healthy relationships is one of the greatest spiritual practices and rituals of all.  Relationships are our laboratory for the soul.  And the list of meaningful, effective practices is long.

“Ism-izing” spiritual practices.  What I mean by genuine love being anti-legalism and anti-ritualism is a refusal to  "worship" form over content or outcome.  In other words, when we elevate the style of practice over what the practice is suppose to accomplish in our lives we have "ism-ized" that experience.  We end up saying, "Your spiritual practice has to look like this and not look like that."  Or "True spirituality favors our accepted, traditional method or way of stating a belief."

I remember when I pastored traditional churches encountering some elders and deacons who believed that for the communion service to be legitimate, we had to cover the table of communion emblems (the bread and the grape juice) with a white cloth before the service, take it off during the service, and then put it back on immediately before the service concluded.  Anything short of that was sacrilegious.

And when the service was over, the unused pieces of bread and grape juice had to be disposed of in precisely the "right" way to maintain the holiness.  One church insisted on emptying the emblems into the toilet, another insisted on emptying them into a fire pit and burning it all.  Both believed equally that their method was the right one.  And if I didn't ask for it to be done the right way, or carry it out perfectly, I was deeply criticized and judged as a "less than faithful" pastoral leader.

That is "ism-izing" a practice ... where love has lost its true place in the spiritual life in favor of legalism and ritualism—when the rule or the ritual/practice supercedes the love it is suppose to generate.  We cast deep value judgments against people who act or behave or believe differently than we think is right.  We are convinced our way is the most effective way toward genuine spirituality.

Religious form instead of spiritual truth.  Jesus spoke vehemently about this tendency among the religious leaders of his day.  He exposed their "isms" when he pointed out things like "You are like whitewashed tombs--you look good on the outside, but inside you are filled with dead people's bones--you insist on tithing even the tiniest part of your income, but ignore the weightier things of the law, like justice, mercy, and faith."  (Matthew 23:23, 27)

Jesus was indicting a form of religiosity--legalism and ritualism--for its separation of love from law—in essence being religious without being spiritual—adhering to the letter of the law but not the spirit of it.  People were great at paying ten percent of their income--they practiced that spiritual ritual perfectly and faithfully.  But they were neglecting the actual practice or outcome of being loving with others, especially those they didn't agree with or who were different then they.  That’s legalism and ritualism.

This is one of the biggest indictments of Church I hear from people who have disengaged from religion.

Jesus’ core value.  I’m inspired by the way the eminent Islamic scholar Khalifa Abdul Halim describes Jesus' core value here:

"In Jesus we have the culminating point of that upward movement where God and religion are completely identified with love which has preference over all the legalism and ritualism."

Healthy Spirituality--the kind Jesus advocated--is anti-legalism and anti-ritualism.  Jesus summarized the entire Jewish Law (in the Old Testament) with love.  "On these two commandments hang the whole Law, and the Prophets--you will love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.  This is the greatest and the first commandment.  And the second resembles it:  You must love your neighbor as yourself."  (Matthew 5:43-44)

Healthy spirituality, both inside and outside religion, always centers on love; and the ultimate test of it being how we show up with those with whom we have our biggest disagreements.

"Just as love was the measure of his own life, so too Jesus made it the measure of human fulfillment and the supreme criterion of healthy spirituality" (David Benner, p. 73).

The only question that matters.  So the only question that truly matters—the question that helps guard against legalism and ritualism, in the end—is, Does this practice, this rule, this ritual empower me to love the Other more deeply and completely?  Does it help me to be more forgiving and honoring of all people, especially of those with whom I disagree?

Jesus truly stated the bottom line when he said, “By this will all people know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”  (John 13:35)

A Church that doesn’t genuinely love, and treat with equal honor and respect, all people is actually being religious without being spiritual.  A nonreligious person that refuses to love all people is only being nonreligious without being spiritual.

It’s time for all of us, whatever our religious or nonreligious perspectives, to step into a more Healthy Spirituality as we hold ourselves accountable to genuine love for all others.

PART 2, The Final Three Steps to Living in the Present Moment

How Good Are You at Being In the Present Moment? Most people I talk to these days all describe their difficulty in being able to live more deeply in the present moment.  The ability to stay present at any given time is becoming a rare art.  We get caught up in the crazy and often overwhelming demands of staying alive and what we think comprises living life.  Consequently, time flies by without us ever really having lived in the moment.  And we either get fixated on the past or anxious about the future.

My last blog post told a zen story from which emerges six powerful steps to learning how to be grounded more deeply in the present.

The Parable

A monk is being chased by a ferocious tiger through the jungle.  He breathlessly comes to a clearing and is faced with a cliff right in front of him with a rope hanging over the side.  With the tiger catching up and no more options available, he quickly grabs the rope and shinnys down along the side of the cliff until he reaches the end of the rope.  He glances up and sees the tiger baring its hungry fangs.  He glances down and sees huge, sharp, jagged rocks beckoning to him 100 feet below.  What should he do?  About that time, two mice begin gnawing on the rope above him.  Now what?

Caught between a rock and a hard place, he suddenly notices something that captures his attention.  It’s a bright red, delectable-looking strawberry growing out of the side of the cliff an arm’s length away.  Hanging on to the rope with one arm and both feet, he reaches out with his other hand, plucks the strawberry, and puts it in his mouth.  Eating it, he exclaims, “This is the most delicious strawberry I believe God has ever made and I have ever tasted.  Yum, yum!”

Quick Summary of the First Three Steps

I describe the first three steps in my last blog post:  First, notice the strawberry; pay attention to what's around you; Second, take a risk and reach for the strawberry; and Third, take it--don't just be a spectator, get involved, participate in life right now.

But if we stopped with these three steps, we wouldn't really be plumbing the present moment for all it can truly give to us.  The final three take us to a deeper, more fulfilling and satisfying experience.  Here are the next three steps the story describes the monk taking.

Step Four:  Eat the strawberry.

Had the monk simply hung there on the rope looking at the beautiful strawberry, or had he even just held it in his hand, admiring its beauty, he would have missed the most delightful potential of that moment.  He had to put it in his mouth and chew it.

I wonder how often we miss out on joy and delight by simply not partaking of what's in front of us?  We're great at analyzing and debating the pros and cons of strawberries.  We dissect the past and philosophize about the future--we're experts with this.  But could we be missing out on the deeper experience of the present, the eating of the strawberry itself?  We stop short of putting it into our mouths and tasting it.  We can talk about it until we're blue in the face, but if we haven't eaten it, we really don't know what we're talking about.

This is why sacred scripture makes this statement:

"Taste and see that the LORD is good."

No taste, no see, no good.  Without taste, everything else is only theory.

Step Five:  Savor the strawberry.

The fact that the monk, hanging on to the rope for dear life, is so present in his moment with the strawberry that he not only enjoys the taste but notices it enough to realize that it's the best strawberry he's ever tasted, shows that he has mastered the practice of savoring.

Savoring means you stay present long enough, you linger over something, that it deepens your enjoyment of it.

When is the last time you truly truly savored something?  When is the last time you stayed with an experience long enough to really really appreciate and delight in it?  When is the last time your lingering over something gave you an focused appreciation of the various nuances of delight caressing your senses in that moment?  That's savoring.

One of the reasons more of us don't savor is because savoring takes time in the moment.  We have to choose to invest more than a split second seeing and tasting something.  We linger and pay attention to what we're experiencing while we're lingering.  We develop vocabulary to describe what we're tasting or sensing or feeling.  And that takes knowledge and awareness, both of which take time to develop.

But if we practice it, we get good at it.  And consequently our delight and enjoyment and focus deepen and widen and profoundly increase.

Step Six:  Give Thanks for the Strawberry.

This is tying the bow on the gift we've just received.  Expressing gratitude.  The monk, in the throes of his culinary ecstasy while hanging precariously on a rope (with tiger above and rocks below), gives thanks to the God who could create such a marvelously-tasting strawberry.

Neuroscience research informs us that expressing gratitude is the strongest, most transformational activity your brain can engage in.  Brain function becomes more balanced, harmonized, and supple; your heart begins to pump in a much more coherent and harmonious rhythm; and biochemical changes trigger a host of healthful responses throughout your body.

Studies how us that people who practice gratitude consistently report a host of other benefits:

• Stronger immune systems and lower blood pressure
• Higher levels of positive emotions
• More joy, optimism and happiness
• Acting with more generosity and compassion
• Feeling less lonely and isolated

What's so amazing about this simple practice, step six in living in the present moment, is that it in the end grounds us and anchors us to the delightful moment we've just experienced.  It seals it for us, physiologically, emotionally, and spiritually.  It ties the bow on the gift we just received.

We could learn a great deal from that little old monk who hung there on the rope suspended between a fearful past and uncertain future.  There's always a strawberry.  So look for it, risk a reach for it, take it, eat it, savor it, and express thanks for it.

Your present moments will never be the same again!

Personal Reflections For You:

• When you notice something good in your present moment, do you take the time to taste it, to put it your "mouth" and feel it?
• Describe an experience when you truly savored something, lingered long enough to relish the flavors or delightful nuances to your senses.
• How often do you express thanks and gratitude for your positive experiences in life--whether it's to yourself, to others, or to God?
• Do you have a regular gratitude practice?  What or Why not?

Six Steps To Living in the Present Moment

The Challenge of Living in the Moment I was leading a telecall the other day with people who participated in my first spiritual retreat back in January.  At the beginning, we shared with each other brief updates about our lives--one high and one low over the last few months.  Most of us, including me, were wrestling with the challenge of how to be able to live more fully in and enjoy the present moment without being so obsessed and caught up in either the past or the future or the extreme busyness and demands of every day life.

I don't think we're alone in this challenge.  The ability to stay present at any given time is becoming a rare art with so many people.  We get caught up in the crazy and often overwhelming demands of staying alive and what we think comprises living life.  Consequently, time flies by without us ever really having lived in the moment.  We lose opportunities to create wonderful memories and experience deep enjoyment because we're so focused on other things.  And not living in the moment means that we're more likely consumed by the past or the future and whatever those two represent to us.

I shared the following story on our telecall out of which emerged during our conversation six powerful steps to being able to stay more fully present and plumb the depths of life.

A Parable

You've heard the zen story of the monk being chased by a ferocious tiger through the jungle.  He breathlessly comes to a clearing and is faced with a cliff right in front of him with a rope hanging over the side.  With the tiger catching up and no more options available, he quickly grabs the rope and shinnys down along the side of the cliff until he reaches the end of the rope.  He glances up and sees the tiger baring its hungry fangs.  He glances down and sees huge, sharp, jagged rocks beckoning to him 100 feet below.  What should he do?  About that time, two mice begin gnawing on the rope above him.  Now what?

Caught between a rock and a hard place, he suddenly notices something that captures his attention.  It's a bright red, delectable-looking strawberry growing out of the side of the cliff an arm's length away.  Hanging on to the rope with one arm and both feet, he reaches out with his other hand, plucks the strawberry, and puts it in his mouth.  Eating it, he exclaims, "This is the most delicious strawberry I believe God has ever made and I have ever tasted.  Yum, yum!"

The Parable's Point

What's the point?  If the monk had been totally preoccupied with the ferocious tiger (his past) or the menacing rocks below (his future) he would have missed out on the delicious strawberry (his present).  Right?

I often realize, when I'm reflective enough, that I tend to allow the guilt or regret or memories of the past to weigh in on me, which can overwhelm my present.  Or I tend to focus on the uncertainties of the future which inevitably raises my anxiety level in the present.

Why do we allow this to happen?  As one author puts it,

"The past is already gone, the future hasn't happened yet; the only moment we have is right now.  Why waste it?"

Notice what the monk does as he finds himself caught between his past and his future which empowers him to live in the moment in a beautiful way.  Six Steps:

Six Steps to Living in the Moment

FIRST, he sees the strawberry.  He notices it.  He's paying attention.

Do you realize how many "strawberries" you and I miss out on because we're simply not seeing or noticing or paying attention?  You can't enjoy what you don't see.

SECOND, he reaches for the strawberry.

It's one thing to see something.  It's another thing to reach out for it, to take an action to engage with what you're seeing.

Sounds easy enough.  But why then don't we do this more often?

Because reaching out for the "strawberry" takes a risk.  Think about the monk.  In order to reach out for the strawberry he has to let go of the rope with one arm.  That's risky.  Letting go is difficult.  But because he takes the risk, he ends up getting the reward.

I truly believe that nothing good in life comes to us without some risk.  You choose to love someone and you risk being hurt or rejected.  You choose

THIRD, he takes the strawberry.  You can't just reach for something, you have to take it to enjoy it.

So much of today's culture is a spectator culture.  People are satisfied simply sitting on the sidelines watching the game of life happen in front of them.

The tragedy with a spectator culture is that people actually delude themselves into thinking that watching is enough; that watching is the highest level of enjoyment and satisfaction.

It certainly might be safer on some levels.  If you're in the stands watching football, you're not getting beat up and tackled in the game.  But it's interesting, isn't it, that if the team we're watching wins, we feel really really good and satisfied.  But there's no way that feeling can match the exhilaration of the players who gave it their all in order to win the game.  Right?

"This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy."  George Bernard Shaw

We delude ourselves into thinking that spectating is good enough for joy and satisfaction.  But we're missing out on the deeper depths of truly worthwhile living.  We're robbing ourselves of real living in the moment.  We can't enjoy the strawberries unless we reach out and take them in hand.

Stay tuned for my next blog  the final three steps to plumbing the present moment for deeper joy and fulfillment.  "Six Steps to Living in the Present Moment."

Four Personal Reflections for You:

• Which is your tendency more often:  living in the past or living in the future?  Why?  What is it about either of those that traps you there?
• Describe a time when you simply missed seeing the strawberry in the moment--you weren't paying attention.
• What are some risks you face in order to reach out to the strawberry?  Which risks are hardest for you?
• Would you describe yourself more as a spectator or a participant?  Why?  Are there any excuses you have for watching more than participating?  What might be some fears you have of getting in the game more often?

Four Ways Spirituality is an Organism

The Power of Sacred Space One of the things I love about coaching is the opportunity to give people valuable space in time to think deeply about themselves and their lives, to reflect and evaluate and consider how life is going for them.  I find in every conversation that the person, given this intentional time for themselves, relishes the conversation and deeply values the privilege of having their lives witnessed by a trusted other.  After all, how often do we experience the affirmation and validation of being witnessed by someone else in a spirit of honor, respect, and caring?

I find this to be greatly true for myself.  For the last sixteen years I've had regular (almost weekly) conversations with my prayer partner and wonderful friend Paul.  In every phone call or at times in person when see each other, we listen deeply to each other as each one talks about what matters most these days.  There's incredible empowerment in having someone who cares bear witness to your life and express support, acceptance, and validation, including questions that stretch each other and clarify the struggles, questions, and life issues we're facing.

Life is Dynamic

Life is a dynamic organism.  It's not static or staid or one dimensional.  Life grows, morphs, evolves, changes, moves, stretches, transitions in multiple ways and directions.  As people we change and grow and develop.

Spirituality is no different.  In a book I'm reading, that's exactly the way the author, Dr. David Benner, describes it:

"Any genuinely soulful or healthy spirituality cannot simply be adopted from your family or acquired from your community or culture. It must arise as a personal response to your deepest longings and help you make sense of your actual life experiences. It will, therefore, be dynamic--evolving and changing. To turn it into something rigid and fixed is always to render it soulless, for that which is no longer evolving is either devolving or dead."  Soulful Spirituality, pp. 76-77.

Spirituality is an Organism that Living or Dying

Spirituality is an organism, too.  It's dynamic and evolving.  That's because spirituality is at the heart of what it means to be fully human (as Christian theology states, we're made in the image of God--so to center in that image is to step fully into our God-created humanity).  And since we humans change and morph and grow and evolve, so must our spirituality.

Which is why I'm more and more recognizing the absolute importance of carving out intentional time to do reflecting and evaluating of our spiritual lives and journeys.  It's far to easy for people to simply float along, staying in a default mode of habit and routine, never thinking about how it's going or where it needs to go or even how to grow more deeply and spiritually.

The Pitfall of Autopilot

For those of us who are attached to a regular church experience, this is a particular pitfall.  We never really evaluate our spiritual lives because we think that simply going to church as often as we do is enough.  We might engage in a few spiritual practices like prayer (at least at meals or bedtime).  But we never stop to reflect and evaluate:  am I growing more fully human, becoming a person of greater love and compassion? Am I showing up in my life with more confidence and contentment?  Am I manifesting more regularly the attributes of the highest and strongest form of life (Christian theology:  the fruit of the Spirit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self control)?  What is working in our spiritual lives and what isn't?  What is meaningful and empowering us to live with greater purpose, and what isn't?  Where are we in the stages of faith and spirituality?  What kind of spirituality fits us in the stage we're in?  How can we continue developing into the higher stages of spiritual growth?

As Dr. Benner reminds us, we can't simply inherit our spirituality from our family or community or culture.  It doesn't work that way!  The very nature of the spiritual life is that it comes from the deepest place inside each of us where God meets us and whispers to us and speaks truth to our souls and hearts.  If we're simply too busy and preoccupied to listen or hear those whispers, then we too easily remain on autopilot, thinking that we're doing all we need to do.

But truth is, we are either evolving and growing and transforming spiritually, or we're dying, and we'll ultimately pay the price in lack of meaningful living.

Just like plants have to be watered and nurtured to keep growing or they wilt and eventually die, so does our spiritual and personal life.  Development and growth must be carefully nurtured and intentionally paid attention to.

Spiritual Retreats

This is why I feel so passionate about offering spiritual retreats--a day and a half of sacred space and time for people to reflect upon and think deeply about life and the spiritual journey.  There's no substitute for it.

Here's a short video I made today about what I'm doing and why I'm doing this:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRNME0Fp2Z4&w=560&h=315]

I want to invite you to seriously consider this opportunity.  Two locations:  Walla Walla, WA (March 22-23) and San Francisco, CA (April 5-6).  Click on either name to go to the web site for more details and registration information, including the significant Early Bird discounts available until March 10.

Four Ways to Exercise Your Truth Muscle (and why it's important)

My wife and I recently watched the Oscar-nominated movie Flight.  It's an incredibly powerful and even disturbing story about an airline pilot (played in an Oscar-worthy performance by Denzel Washington) who is forced to come face to face with his own truth--something he's been avoiding his whole life.  Spoiler Alert:  The powerful irony of the movie is illustrated in the final scene where he sits in his prison AA group and remarks that he's never felt this free in his whole life. There is something very liberating that comes from standing in your truth, embracing who you are, owning your strengths and weaknesses, your successes and failures, and being willing to look past your performance to the more foundational issue of core identity.  Where does your true value and worth come from:  the roles you play every day?  The quality of your behavior every day?  Or is there something more grounded and centered and fundamental?

Captain Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) gets those two realities confused.  He's clear on his performance as an airline pilot--he's one of the best in the industry and the story's crisis reveals that truth.  But he has placed his identity exclusively in that role to the exclusion of admitting another truth:  his alcoholism.  And as long as he refuses to stand in that truth, his denial continues placing people, including himself, in painful harm's way.

Captain Whitaker doesn't experience true freedom until he finally embraces the whole truth.

So here are FOUR WAYS TO EXERCISE YOUR TRUTH MUSCLE:

Embrace the whole truth about yourself.

We all have a shadow side--that place that is trying to get heard in order to make sense of life--which often manifests itself in unhealthy, unhelpful ways.

For example, we lash out at and fight with our partners, not because we want to be jerks, but because we want to be heard, we want greater intimacy.  Unfortunately, we've chosen an approach that goes counter to the very thing we're longing for and instead creates greater distance.  We maintain some addictions, not because we want to imprison ourselves in unbreakable chains and create terrible chaos and pain and suffering in our lives and everyone else's, but because we're hungry for belonging, a sense of worth and value, and we desire deeper, more lasting pleasure and intimacy.  Unfortunately, we've chosen an approach that goes counter to the very thing we're longing for and instead creates greater distance and suffering.  We get hooked on unhealthy ways to compensate for our lack--it's quicker, sometimes easier, but far more deeply painful.

But the whole truth is also that we have a light side in us.  We love others with good motives.  We serve others for their own good not just ours.  We develop healthy intimacy with ourselves and others.  We give with unselfish compassion and caring.  We choose delayed gratification at times for the right reasons, in the right places, in the right ways.  We show honor and respect to people, including ourselves.  We affirm and appreciate others, including ourselves.

As the great wisdom traditions describes, we are this mix of yin and yang, shadow and light, healthy and unhealthy motives, ego and soul.  Both sides are a part of us which make up the whole truth.  To deny one for the sake of the other is to cripple the whole.

Honor your Shadow side.

Our shadow side must be acknowledged and honored for what it contributes to us--the understanding of what is trying to be heard from deep within ourselves.  My cry for intimacy, or for wanting to be seen and heard and honored, or for wanting to feel the depths of life and joy and happiness, or for wanting to feel significant is a deeply human hunger and need.  We have to address these desires.  To deny them is to deny our humanness and short-circuit the goal of being fully alive as God intended.  Our goal is to learn how to dig deeper for the most basic ache inside ourselves and then to choose the most effective, healthy ways to satisfy it.

Genuine satisfaction can not be experienced until the deepest, most true hunger is identified.

How would you describe your shadow side?  How does it manifest itself?  What is your shadow saying about what's most important to you?

By being willing to embrace your shadow and listen to it, your honoring it will facilitate your experience of your whole truth.

Learn from your Hungers.

Hungers are not bad.  Even Jesus affirmed and blessed hunger when he said in the Beatitudes, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."  (Matthew 5:6)

Having hungers is not bad.  Acknowledging them is a part of wisdom.  Understanding them leads to wholeness.

The hunger that has the most satisfaction and fulfillment, says Jesus, is the hunger for what is right, true, noble, pure, just, helpful, loving, compassionate, hopeful.  Hunger, which is the deepest, truest form of desire and want, is what must be honored and embraced.

So what do you learn about yourself from your hungers and desires?  What values do your hungers reveal are most important to you?  How do your hungers correspond to the above list of what Jesus calls the most satisfying?  What is it that you really, really, really want and how does that specific truth inform you about your whole truth?

Practice.

One of the powerful paradigms in the 12 Step Recovery program is the insistence on standing in your truth, the whole truth, and practicing it relentlessly.  That means refusing to deny the addiction and what it means to you; refusing to live in dishonesty; agreeing to name your shadow daily.  And it also means working hard to embrace the other side of your truth--learning how to feed the light side, live in it more completely and honestly, stepping into regular practices and behaviors that reinforce that part of the truth.

What are the practices you've developed that reinforce and solidify your experience of your truth?  Do you have daily mantras and inspirational readings that reinforce your truth?  Do you pray and meditate on it?  Do you finds creative ways to serve and give to others from a place of unselfish compassion?  Do you engage in self affirmations about who you really are, your true identity as a deeply loved and fully accepted human being by God?

In the end, as Jesus once observed, it is only the truth that sets us free.  Captain Whip Whitaker experienced that in a very dramatic way.  You and I can experience it in our own ways.  The nature of truth is that when it is honestly embraced, it is the most truly liberating and empowering experience on earth.

A Secret Ingredient for Spiritual Success

I read last week a fascinating New York Times article titled "Secret Ingredient for Success."  The authors interviewed highly successful people about what made them successful and discovered one common element.  The discovery was surprising--somewhat even counter-intuitive.  Beyond their natural talent and skill, their personalities, their strengths, their passion and vision, how hard they worked, their success came from this quality:  intentional, regular, rigorous self reflection.  Self assessment.  Self evaluation. It's called double loop learning.

"In this mode we question every aspect of our approach, including our methodology, biases and deeply held assumptions. This more psychologically nuanced self-examination requires that we honestly challenge our beliefs and summon the courage to act on that information, which may lead to fresh ways of thinking about our lives and our goals."  (Camille Sweeney and Josh Gosfield)

It got me thinking about the way so many people go through life.  We just kind of float along, going with the flow, never really reflecting or thinking about life, trying to avoid obstacles as much as possible, taking the easy path as often as we can, the path of least resistance.

And even with our spirituality.  We tend to rarely think about it.  We just do whatever it is we've always done, never really evaluating or reflecting about it, whether or not we're learning anything new, or whether or not it's actually changing us into better people.  We just slide by spiritually.

The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates once said, "The unexamined life is not worth living."

I was especially reminded of the power of this value of self reflection last weekend.  I conducted the first of three weekend retreats called "Ignite the Fire of Your Spiritual Life."  Our small group spend a total of 10 hours doing rigorous self-assessment and evaluation.  The purpose of this process was to give each person an opportunity to take stock of their spiritual life to determine what is working effectively and meaningfully and what isn't.

And we engaged within community--not just doing personal reflection but also sharing some of our reflections with each other.  The process of hearing and listening and being heard and listened to is extremely powerful.  When people are willing to hold the space for us as we do our work in a way that's safe and affirming and accepting, we are empowered to grow and transform in beautiful ways.

One of the participants texted me the next day and said, "Thank you for a breakthrough life-changing retreat--my spiritual life is already better ... Can't wait to see what more there is to come and I know it will be very good."

That's the impact of healthy and effective self reflection.  It comes from being willing to be intentional.  To pay attention to your life, your spirituality.  To do it honestly, authentically, transparently, participatively.

Most wisdom traditions agree on the process for enlightenment and spiritual wholeness.  Confucianism describes it as becoming fully awake, waking up to life, seeing life clearly.  According to the Li Chi, the classic Confucian guide to becoming spiritually developed,

"there must be a turning point in life when the maturing individual recognizes that simply being a human is not sufficient to becoming fully human."

Spiritual maturity is not an automatic occurrence.  We can't slide into spirituality.

Jesus called that conscious turning point in one's life repentance.  "Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand."  It begins with awareness, waking up to our need.  It continues with desire, seeing something better--something more--that we want.  It involves an intentional turning around to chart a new path to receive that Life.  "Wake up so you can experience the depths of God's kingdom that is right in front of you, indeed, right inside of you," said Jesus.

One of the poignant stories Jesus told was of the ten bridesmaids waiting through the midnight hours for the appearance of the groom.  All of them had lamps.  Five of them had enough oil for the lamps to keep burning through the night.  So that when the groom finally showed up, they were awake to be swept up into the wedding party and join the festivities.  The other five missed out.  No light.  Sleepy.

Light.  Wakefulness.  Clarity.  Awareness.

Some of the markers Dr. David Benner, in his book Soulful Spirituality, describes as identifying a mature spirituality include

"being grounded in reality and alive to the present moment, a personal philosophy that makes life meaningful, the capacity for forgiveness and letting go, inner freedom of choice and response, the capacity for reflection on experience."  (p. 35)

These qualities don't just suddenly show up in our lives.  They're developed.  We awaken to them through reflection, intention, attention.  Like the five wise bridesmaids, we stock up on enough oil, we trim our lamps, light them, and use them to become fully awake to what's happening inside us and around us.  We repent.

I'm planning two more spiritual retreat cycles this Winter/Spring; one in San Francisco again (April 5-6), and another in Walla Walla, Washington (March 22-23).  Here's the link for the details:  "Ignite the Fire of Your Spiritual Life."  If you want a powerful opportunity to engage in awakening your spiritual life in new and transformational ways, I invite you to check out these events.  It could be a turning point for you.

The two authors of the above New York Times article interviewed tennis great Martina Navratilova to find out the secret of her ultimate success:

"[She] told us that after a galling loss to Chris Evert in 1981, she questioned her assumption that she could get by on talent and instinct alone. She began a long exploration of every aspect of her game. She adopted a rigorous cross-training practice (common today but essentially unheard of at the time), revamped her diet and her mental and tactical game and ultimately transformed herself into the most successful women’s tennis player of her era.  What we learned from conversation with high achievers is that challenging our assumptions, objectives, at times even our goals, may sometimes push us further than we thought possible."

I wonder why so many of us fail to engage in this kind of rigorous self reflection and self evaluation in such a vital area of life, our spirituality?  Maybe it's because we simply don't know how to go about doing that.  Maybe we're afraid of failing or not achieving anything different than what we already have.  Maybe we just don't think about it--we're simply too busy or distracted by the rest of life.  Or maybe it's just not that important or appealing to us.

But maybe it is time to shine the light.  Time for the secret ingredient.  Time to awaken.  Fully alive instead of sleepwalking.  The best way to success and joy!

Just Take One Step: Navigating the Step of Faith and Mindfulness

Martin Luther King Jr. once said, “Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”

So, without defining the word "faith" in that sentence in any kind of religious or spiritual sense, what does the statement mean to you?  Why might it be important to your life?

Some of us, like me who has the strength of Futuristic--the ability and drive to paint a clear picture/vision of a preferred future in a way that is compelling and inspiring--are inclined to dream a lot, and spend time defining the dream, outlining it, specifying it, clarifying it, painting it in as great detail as possible.  Our temptation is to stay in that mode of thinking to the exclusion of doing the work of taking steps to get that vision.  It's the tendency to live in the clouds of dreams and vision without ever getting back to earth where the actual steps have to be taken.  We want to make sure we have all our ducks lined up in a row lest we jump "too quickly."

So King's statement is a powerful nudge.  Faith is first about taking a step toward the dream.  Moving forward, even by one step.  Faith is fundamentally a willingness to move ahead rather than sitting still to wait for more complete information.

Reflection:  Are there any places in your life where you find yourself stuck, sitting still rather than moving forward?  Can you determine why you're not moving ahead?  Are you waiting for something?  What?  More information?  A more complete picture of where you think you're going?  Are you afraid of taking a step?  Why?  What's keeping you from forward momentum?

Notice the second dimension of faith in King's statement.  Faith moves ahead even when the whole picture isn't clear yet.  You don't have to see the whole staircase in order to take the step.  There's an emphasis in this definition of faith away from the future back to the present.

The January 2013 issue of National Geographic Traveler highlighted an unusual cultural exchange between a 30-year-old Maasai warrior from the Serengeti and high school students, led by 55-year-old librarian Paula Busey, in Littleton, Colorado.  The kids raised money to bring this Maasai warrior to their community where he taught them about his culture and his people's wordview.  Our core value, he said, is to work at preserving communities and traditions.  And then he gave a significant observation:

"American kids are obsessed with becoming adults, with finishing university and starting to work.  I understand they have anxieties.  But I tell them the Maasai don't think about tomorrow.  We just try to make today excellent.  And if today is excellent, tomorrow will come."

Imagine living life more like that--refusing to constantly be thinking about the "tomorrows" in everything we do.  Imagine learning the art of living in the moment.  Experts call this Mindfulness (I think MLK was using the word "faith" for the same concept)--being fully present in the moment--savoring your one step--choosing not to allow the constant mental chatter and obsession with what's next or what's coming up or how am I doing with all of my "stuff," to affect this present moment--to discover and savor the beauty of this moment, this little step.

Reflection:  One of the great mantras for this mindfulness practice is, "In this moment, I have everything I need."  Say that to yourself a few times.  What does it feel like?  Does it feel foolish to you?  Why or why not?  Try making this a regular saying you repeat at different moments throughout the day.  See what that does to your attitude and presence.

It's not to say that the future isn't important.  We all have to plan ahead.  But our human tendency, especially in our culture, is to obsess on the future and it's every known detail.  And then to worry about the details we're sure must be important but we just can't seem to see or anticipate yet.  Either way, we're losing out--because we're not appreciating what is here right now, in this moment.  We've consigned ourselves to living in worry and anxiety over things that haven't even happened yet.

But here's the reality:  Yesterday is gone forever; tomorrow hasn't even happened yet; the present is all we have.  Why ruin it?

You don't have to see the whole staircase to take your first step.

Remember Indiana Jones in the scene from The Last Crusade where he brings his group to the edge of the precipice?  They have to get to the other side but the chasm that separates them is wide and deep.  Impossible to bridge.  

Indiana Jones pulls out his notebook which contains the map and instructions, finds their current location, and suddenly realizes that there's an unseen bridge that actually spans the chasm.  But it will only appear once you take the first step.  Would you take that step, even if you couldn't see the whole bridge?

He holds out one foot over the dark abyss.  Then he lowers that foot down into what looks like pure air and space ... and leans into it.  Suddenly, his foot touches something and immediately the entire bridge materializes into view.  And the group inches its way across the divide to the other side.

Faith is taking the first step even when you can't see the whole staircase.

Reflection:  What would it be like for you to follow the Maasai tradition of not thinking about tomorrow but just trying to make today excellent?  How would that attitude and intention impact the quality of your present moment?  What faith do you have that will embolden you to stick your foot out over what feels like an empty abyss and set it down even when you can't see clearly ahead?  What is one even small step you are being nudged to take right now, in this moment, that you need to take?

There's a reason why all religious traditions refer to mindfulness as a spiritual practice.  It's a discipline that has to be developed.  It takes practice.  Serious intention and choice.  Over and over and over again.

Think of all the great social and spiritual movements in this world that would never have materialized had this concept of faith not been acted upon.  Martin Luther King, Jr., who made this statement, was one of the greatest visionaries in the world.  His "I Have A Dream" speech painted a powerful vision of a future he longed for.  But he never completely knew the future, in every detail.  There were outcomes he never anticipated.  There were moments he even doubted the reality or possibility of this Dream of equality and justice for all people.  But he still took the first step every day.  He acted in a courageous and intentional way each new day.  He refused to let himself become paralyzed into inaction or to allow lack of clarity about the future to impede his forward momentum each day.  One step at a time.  But one step.

Every life transformation begins with the faith / courage to take the first step forward.  Don't worry about having to know everything about the future.  Just take the first step forward.  And then the next step will become more clear.  And then when you take that step, the next step will become clear.  Act on what you do know--take one step.

Spiritual Trapeze Artists: The Journey of Becoming

I remember when my kids were small taking them to a Ringling Bros. circus.  It was so much fun watching them be awed by all the commotion--roaring tigers, trumpeting elephants, fancy-suited bareback riders, brightly colored shouting clowns, comedic acrobats, ball and plate jugglers, jaw-dropping sword and fire swallowers.  And then the most dramatic of all--even I was looking forward to this act--the high-flying trapeze artists! There was always that moment (the one everyone goes to the circus for)--that moment of uncertainty and fear--when you could hear the collective breath being sucked in as the trapeze artist made one final swing and then let go of the bar.  We watched almost breathlessly as that woman soared through the air, wondering whether or not she would make it to the other bar at precisely the right time or whether she would fall precipitously to the net below.  What a collective sigh of relief that erupted into deafening applause when, sailing through that no-man's land of midair, she grabbed a hold of the opposite bar, swinging brilliantly and majestically up to the platform in the sky on the other side of the huge tent.

My kids were truly in awe.  I loved watching the expression of relief and delight on their faces.  I had the same look on mine.

Spirituality is a Journey of Becoming

Spirituality is essentially the journey of becoming.  In Christian terms we might speak of this as becoming our true self in God, becoming like Jesus, or merging and aligning our selves with the divine image in us.  In other spiritual traditions this concept is often presented in terms of becoming enlightened, awakening to what's true and highest, or becoming one with all that is.  In psychological language it is framed as becoming increasingly integrated, becoming free, or becoming all we can be, more whole and true to who we really are, more fully human and alive.

Early church father St. Irenaeus once wrote, "Man fully alive is the glory of God."

So the spiritual journey is about the process of becoming more fully human, more alive, more whole.  The two words "journey" and "becoming" signify two central elements of spirituality.  Both terms denote movement, dynamic process, stages of development.

And the reality is that the fulfillment of our God-given humanity doesn't happen automatically.  If it did, then the older people became, the more years they lived, the more fully developed and mature and whole they would be.  But we all know that isn't a given.  The becoming of spirituality is necessarily an intentional path.  It takes work, attention, practice, and persistence.

Spiritual Trapeze Artists

And this is where the trapeze metaphor comes in.  As in life, also in spirituality, every path has transition points.  So spirituality is a journey of learning the art of navigating transitions:  how and what to let go of, how to steer through the no man's zone of uncertainty before the new unfolds, and grabbing a hold of the new.  If we can't master these stages of transitions, our becoming is stunted.

That's exactly what happens when any one of the stages of metamorphosis for the butterfly is interrupted or messed with.  The egg becomes a larvae (a caterpillar which molts its skin 5-6 times) which becomes a pupa (during which it completely disintegrates in order to form a whole new body) which finally emerges in a rather violent and painful-looking process to become a beautiful adult butterfly with wings.  Tamper with any one of those transitions of becoming and the butterfly ultimately dies.

Developing healthy and effective spiritual lives are dependent upon our ability to navigate well the many transitions along the path of life.  Unfortunately, many people are living stunted spiritual lives because they get stuck in one of the stages of transition--locked up, paralyzed.

The Danger of Stunted Spirituality

I have conversations often with people who are experiencing this spiritual stalemate.

Some have allowed themselves to see this stuck place as their new normal.  They simply live with it, even though they're feeling unhappy, unfulfilled, and a bit stale (when they're willing to look inside and admit what they're feeling).

Others are paralyzed by fear--fear of the unknown they see coming if they should let go of the bar and fly through the "neutral zone"; fear of conflict with others should they keep moving ahead spiritually which might lead to rejection or ridicule or other negative judgments by people; fear of disequilibrium, losing their balance and sense of normal; fear of giving up control over every aspect of their lives; fear of sliding backwards, losing ground, and feeling like a spiritual failure.  The list of fears I hear from people goes on and on.

But the truth is, the egg-larva-pupa never become the soaring butterfly without going through each stage successfully and willingly.

We have to face our fears.  We have to confront our sense of inadequacies.  We have to look our weaknesses squarely in the face.  We have to be willing to let go of that which is no longer serving us.  We have to face uncertainty and manage a sense of insecurity at times.  We have to dream of the new, envisioning what could be and who we could become more of, who we truly are.  And we have to chart a path for this becoming.  We have to want to be more fully alive.

"Igniting the Fire of Your Spiritual Life"

These are some of the reasons why I am having my cycle of three retreats called "Igniting the Fire of Your Spiritual Life."  Each retreat is centered on each of the three stages of spiritual transitions:  letting go (Winter), uncertainty and planting seeds (Spring), and harvesting and undergirding the new (Fall).  Participants will be guided through each of these stages in ways that honor who each person is and what it means to each one to become more fully human and alive.

And since this process of spiritual transition is challenging and sometimes difficult and anxious and uncertain, we're going on this journey in community with others who are hungering for a transformational spirituality, too.  We are not alone!  And we can reap the rewards of joy and greater contentment and empowerment with others.

I invite you to participate in this round which begins January 25-26.  There are four spots left.  Here is the link to more information and registration:  "Igniting the Fire of Your Spiritual Life."

I Dare You to Trapeze!

My wife and I were walking on the Santa Monica Pier a few years ago when we came across a place where people were being given lessons on trapezing.  We stopped and watched.  A woman was doing a courageous job of trying to go from one swing to the other.  Bless her heart!  She encountered one fall after another.  I was glad there was a huge net below to catch her every time she fell.  But to her credit, and to our admiration, she kept trying.  Her instructor kept guiding her, giving suggestions, helping her.  And she kept trying.  I wasn't sure how long we wanted to stay.  But just about when we turned to leave, she swung way out on the right trajectory, let go of the bar, sailed through the air, and caught the next bar.  Grabbing tightly, she swung herself up to the next platform, beaming from ear to ear.  She had a look of extreme delight, satisfaction, and pure joy!  She made it ... and made it well!

That's what I wish for you and me on our spiritual journeys of becoming more human and fully alive.  Navigating our transitions will bring us the same exhilaration and satisfaction, too!  We just need to hang in there and keep going for it.  The egg-larva-pupa will become a butterfly.  You and I will become more deeply and fully ourselves in God's image.  So why not!

Clearing Space for the New

I was struck on New Years Eve Day with the rather immediate sense that some clearing away needed to happen as I approached the new year.  My wife Shasta and I were sitting in our office doing some work.  As I leaned back in my chair to catch my proverbial breath in the midst of my concentrating work, I looked around at my book cases filled with hundreds of books that surround me every day.  I glanced at some of the titles this time with a bit more awareness and realized that many of them no longer represented who am I these days.  And at the same time, I noticed the high stack of books on my desk that I'm currently reading which have no space in the completely filled bookcases. Almost instantaneously, we both decided that we needed to do a book cleansing.  One hour later, we had nine bags of books ready to be donated and all the spaces had been dusted and cleaned and rearranged.  The whole office had this clean, visually appealing look and feel.  We commented that we both even felt lighter inside (once the shock from the magnitude of what we'd done began to wear off).

Believe it or not, we had just engaged in one of the most significant spiritual practices for healthy spiritual growth that is particularly apropos around the new year.

I realized that all of the energy in those old books was a competing energy with my inner spirit, mind, and heart these days.  Not that there's anything wrong with having competing energies.  It's healthy to expose ourselves to things that stretch us or force us to reevaluate our beliefs and ideas and thoughts.  But if the old energy is taking up all the space so that there's no room for energy that is more in alignment with who we are now, we're inhibiting our growth within the new.

Here's the way Danielle LaPorte (author, speaker, coach) put it in her recent newsletter blog post:

"I think it's a universal law that you have to clear space for newness to enter; let something die for something to be born; cleanse to heal; let go to receive; just like we clear our lungs to take in new air."

I like the way she puts it, especially the example of breathing.  Imagine what would happen if we never exhaled; we only inhaled.  I've tried it to see.  I didn't get very far.  My lungs felt like they were going to explode from the pressure of all that air inside.  Turns out, lungs have a set capacity. So you have to clear your lungs to take in new air.  And you can't live without new air.

All of the wisdom traditions share the belief that there's something extremely powerful and transformational when we let go and clear space.  The new has a hard time entering our lives until we do this work of clearing.

Notice similar metaphors Jesus used.  He taught that you have to die to self for the new person to emerge; the seed must be placed in the ground and then die in order for the plant to appear; you must be born of water and the spirit to enter the kingdom of God (cleansing, immersion, being buried, before resurrection and new life).  Powerful spiritual metaphors about clearing space for the new.

This is the foundational ritual and practice I'll be facilitating in the first retreat weekend (of three total) on January 25-26.  The journey of "Igniting the Fire of Your Spiritual Life" retreats will necessarily begin with exploring what space needs to be opened up in your life.  What do you need to let go of in order to receive?  What space do you need to clear in order for the new to be invited in?  What needs to be exhaled before inhaled?  How do you need to reframe your beliefs in ways that more deeply serve you and others through you?  Spiritual growth and development must begin with this process.

I want to invite you to participate in this retreat cycle this year.  There are 5 more spaces open.  Here's the link for all the information, logistics, and registration:  "Igniting the Fire of Your Spiritual Life."  I guarantee you this will be a transformational journey for you in this new year.

On New Years Day, Shasta and I spent a couple of hours journaling our reflections to 20 questions looking back at 2012.  Some were more challenging than others; like, "What was the single most difficult event/experience in 2012?  What are you still hanging on to from that experience?"

As I journaled, I began to sense a movement inside of me.  It felt like an expanding; like space opening up.  I realized that I was letting go some of the pain from that experience.  I was exhaling the limiting beliefs I had formed around it.  I was breathing easier.

Do you need to clear more space in your life in order to let in the new you're longing for?  What kind of exhaling do you need to do?

The artist Picasso said,

"Every act of creation is first of all an act of destruction." 

In other words, unless you're the God of the Hebrew creation poem who created out of nothing, for you to create you must first replace, take away, deconstruct, destroy, let go, exhale, and then build, innovate, renovate, design, construct, and create.  It's about deciding what you can add to and what you need to take away and replace with.  It takes boldness, willingness, surrender, focus, and earnest persistence.  But it's always worth it!

Are you ready?