LIFE STEPS COACHING

Just recently my 27 year old brother David was diagnosed with stage 2 cancer.  It came as a total surprise to me, my family, and not least of all David.  Within a week he had surgery, and now this week he is begninng a 9 week chemotherapy treatment series.  I've noticed that sometimes I find myself very aware of my feelings and reactions to what David is going through, and then other times I am tuned out, on auto-pilot.  With any life-altering situation, it is really hard to imagine how you might react until you actually experience it.  My first and instinctive response to David has been to speak words of hope, optimism, positivity, confidence... anything and everything along those lines.  I went so far as to make a request that he endure his battle against cancer with a sense of hope, a sense of opportunity, and even a sense of grace and gratitude.  In some ways I am wary of coming across a little unsympathetic, even lame for suggesting he take such an idealistic and profound approach... as if it were so easy.  While meanwhile, there is no way for me truly understand the levels of fear, anxiety, and pain he must be experiencing.  At the same time, I know that we play different roles in each other's lives at different moments.   And in my relationship with my brother, this is the role I feel good about playing right now.     

I told David that this is a life-defining moment.  Cancer doesn't have a "face" you can look in the eye.  Its not something you can reason with, so it is up to you and you only to face the unknown.  I told David I picture him like the Hero because Heroes are the bravest among us.  I see a Hero as someone who: calls on their internal resources and energy for focus, clarity and willpower; believes they are fighting for something worth fighting for!; and believes they are not alone in their fight, but are so focused on their cause that this wouldn't matter anyway.  David has certainly begun to get in touch with the powers of a Hero.  When he completes his journey, I hope David gains wisdom, confidence, and faith in himself and the divine nature of things.  I hope he takes the opportunity to make positive healthy changes in his life regardless of the uncertain cause of his cancer.  Like the Hero who endures his battles, suffers loss, and admits small defeats before the final conclusion, David will earn the right to experience the true nature of glory and victory.  I know he will be blessed with access to a special kind of joy in understanding the gift and reward of something won, something achieved, learned, and maybe even something sacred.

My brother David is my Hero!

I am currently reading the book Identity and Violence by Nobel Prize winner Amartya Sen.  As you might guess, it's not especially light reading.  But i am nonetheless feeling the buzz of enlightenment coming from his ideas and inspired vision.  At the most elemental level this book is about the power of our perceptions and the importance of exercising choice and reason.  (This is fundamental stuff to coaching as well!)  Sen makes the philosophical argument that it is our confusion over the concept of identity (both how we identify ourselves and others) that has ushered in a period of global political confrontation and violence.  He says the world is increasingly seen as "a federation of religions or civilizations."  My interpretation is that he is saying we approach something as beautiful and complex and immeasurable as human identity by categorizing all human beings as members of fixed and limited numbers of groups.  Sen goes on to say that "this approach can be a good way of misunderstanding nearly everyone in the world."

Seriously.  Think about this!  This is one of the most opportunity-rich and powerful insights.  It should be demanding every individual's attention, not least of which the leaders of the new millennium.  First, think about how you "identify" yourself.  Then, think about how you "identify" the other 6 billion + people we share the planet with.

I'll demonstrate.  At some level, my personal sense of identity goes something like:  I am an American citizen, of Minnesotan origin and California residence, with Irish and German ancestry, a woman, married, a professional life coach, a yoga practitioner, a dancer, a music fan.  I am deeply committed to the learning, health, the study of vocation, and travel.  I am profoundly concerned about the environment, the value of life, and the positive transformation of our world into a place where potential is maximized not minimized. 

• How do you identify yourself?
• How expansive is your view of personal identity?

Now, how do I identify the other 6 billion people?  This is where it gets interesting, because in this world context I see the Brit, the Afghan, the South American, the Chinese, the Moroccan, the Haitian, the Turk, the Malaysian.  I also see the Muslim, the Buddhist, the Christian, the Jew, the Hindu.  I see the Western world, I see Eastern. 

• How do you identify others in the world? 
• What do you notice about the way you group the people of the world?

The first thing I notice is how unintentionally limiting I find my answers.  Sen offers up a simple "awakening" by helping us recognize that there is a way in which these cultural and religious identities are all profound mis-descriptions.  None of these ought to be taken as any human being's only identity or singular membership category!!  According to Sen, the point is that the "freedom to determine our loyalties and priorities between different groups to all of which we may belong is a peculiarly important liberty which we have reason to recognize, value and defend."  I love it!

Imagine the danger in the limited perspective which denies our "inescapably plural identities" as human beings!  Sen calls for a paradigm shift in our conceptual thinking about identity. 

• What kind of boxes do you put other individuals in? 
• How might you change the ways in which you unwittingly identify people?

As a coach, I wonder how each of us can exercise a change in our perspectives to see the "wholeness" that exists in both ourselves and others?  I return again and again to the co-active principle of seeing each client as "naturally creative, resourceful and whole." 

• How can we incorporate this perspective into the way we interact with others each day?
• How might you identify yourself as being naturally creative, resourceful and whole?

Because Amartya Sen has so exquisitely captured it, I can't help but toss in a last excerpt from Identity and Violence:  "Our shared humanity gets savagely challenged when the manifold divisions in the world are unified into one allegedly dominant system of classification--in terms of religion, or community, or culture, or nation... The uniquely partitioned world is much more divisive than the universe of plural and diverse categories that shape the world in which we live... The hope of harmony in the contemporary world lies to a great extent in a clearer understanding of the pluralities of human identity, and in the appreciation that they cut across each other and work against a sharp separation along one single hardened line of impenetrable division."

I am overcome with "Amen".

Today's entry is in the form of a poem. This feels like the easiest way for me to express the theme of "Light" that I have been playing with today!

Light Blessing

Blessed be Light.
Energy of all color,
   colorless.
Being of all forms,
   formless.
Sound of all noise,
   vibration.
Self folding into Self,
   sustaining.
Source of illumination,
   bright.
Taste of clear,
   brilliance.

Radiant awareness,
   complete unconscious.
Connection point to wave,
   motion blending still.

Blessed be Light.
Divine obliteration!
Open into All,
  Beginning with no end.

Something I've been drawn to cultivate via my last few juice fasts is a simple gratitude for the beautiful bounty and quality of food I am blessed with. I grew up saying "grace" with my family before meals. Then, for my entire adult life I felt distant from that ritual, even rejection of it, while taking food and eating for granted. I guess food and eating rituals have simply either lacked my attention altogether, or engaged me in frustraing battles for so many years as I've jumped from scattered pieces of advice or information about food, to one diet or another. Juice fasting is beginning to have the positive effect of bringing me back to the beginning. With a limited focus on the simplest of foods entering my body, I feel a truer and more refined sense of gratefulness for the gifts and pleasure these foods give me. I think about the short and otherwise insignificant life of each piece of fruit on each plant, the sun, the soil, the watering, all this energy multiplied so many times over, the farming, the harvesting, the packaging, the delivery - all of this just to make a simple drink. As the juice fast gives me the insight to see it this way, I am actually overwhelmed with very tender humility. It moves a desire in me to extend this level of sensitivity and appreciation out into my everyday life.

Today is Day 3 of a 5 day juice fast. I discovered the benefits of juice fasting this year while on a yoga retreat and have since decided to fast on a routine basis. Quite simply, fasting is just taking a rest from food. The motivation for my very first fast was to facilitate good health and loose weight while at a yoga reatreat. I was also just partly curious to see what the experience had to offer me. Since then, however, my motivation has shifted as I've tuned into so many other levels of benefit resulting from fasting. This is my 4th fast since the original and this time i haven't even had the desire to do a before/after weight as I did previously. Instead, my intention is to use the fast as a guide for enhancing focus and self-discipline.

Willpower
Too often I let myself "off the hook" with clever excuses. A tricky little voice inside says something like "You planned to go to yoga class every other day this week, but what's the harm in skipping today's practice? It's only missing one class and afterall, sleeping in is good for your body too." In coaching we refer to this little voice as the "gremlin", "inner critic," or "shadow self" and it certainly makes many appearances during a fast! But the fast is allowing me to meet this little shadow head on because, as I persist in my focus, I can actually feel the pleasure and sensation of my body's health fortified through cleansing. It is the old psychology around successfully doing the thing that feels hardest for you that also enables the "I can do anything" attitude! For me, the juice fast feels wonderfully affirming, validating, motivating and confidence-building in this way. I feel totally surprised by this, too, as before ever having fasted, I would have imagined myself to never have the willpower to follow through on such a thing. So I am now seeing my fast like a building block that empowers change through sharper focus and healthy self-discipline.

Internal Focus
The fast is a totally internal experience, highlighting for me how miraculous my body is; how miraculous the human body is! I've always understood this in principle, but the fast gives me another access point to connect with my body on the level of Temple: something sacred, something mysterious, and powerful. I feel fine-tuned with the raw energy of physical transformation, and the mind-body connection. And for me, it is usually during times of full mind-body connection that the additional element of spirit becomes very strong and enabled.