“Neti, neti.”
“Not this, not this.”
- The Upanishads
That ol’ question, “Who am I?” prompts a lot of nervousness in we re-versioners. It is hard, when we’re trying to figure out a new path out of the cave we’ve dug ourselves into, to take that first step. Seems dangerous. Scary. Sure, there may be success there. But There Be The Failure Dragons, too, and a lot of us respond to “Who am I?” by reaching the other way: by defining who we are NOT.
“Not” is an important start. It closes the paths we don’t want to explore. It helps define what we might want to do.
Here's the rub, though -- it leaves "billions and billions" (apologies to Carl Sagan) of options from which we still have to choose. And sometimes, we’re so busy pushing away from what we are “not,” we neglect to embrace what we are. Hard to land a foothold in emptiness. Leaning on “not” means wandering the world like an Indian sadhu/holy man, murmuring “Neti, neti” (“Not this, not this”) at what you see/feel/think/experience until you pretty much have clobbered everything but god out of your life.
In India, people expect men who have raised their families and achieved their adult goals to chuck it all and sadhu for a few years, doing the “neti” thing. It’s a holy, an honorable, a good path.
In the West, not so much.
There is another way – a way that uses “neti, neti” to find what is YES (as opposed to what is NOT).
Think about what you are “not.” Say it. Write it. Define it. Then turn it around: Look at everything you can imagine standing around that “not”: What do you see? What IS there? Why are you so determined to define yourself as a “not”? What can you grab outside of the “not” that is a “something” instead of a “nothing”?
The source of “not”
Some “not”s don’t come naturally to us, but are pounded into us by our well-meaning others. A million years ago I met a very successful attorney in a “new careers” workshop. She did corporate law, made a ton o’ bucks, highly respected, written up in the law reviews, etc., etc., etc. Yet here she was trying to re-version herself, way back then, with all us little folk – who were nowhere near as “successful,” according to the world.
The instructor led us through a close-your-eyes-and-dream-while-you-listen-to-this-music exercise, which promptly made me impatient (in those days, I steered clear of the touchy-feelies – too many hippie experiences, I guess). As we went around the room, “revealing” our dreams to strangers (another thing I couldn’t muster), we came to the corporate attorney.
“And what did you dream, dear?” asked the workshop leader.
The attorney burst into tears.
“I want to draw bunnies!” she cried.
All righty, then. We all sat pretty silent.
But here’s the thing: the woman loved bunnies. Had always loved bunnies. Always wanted to draw their cute little tweaky noses and flitchy ears and soft curvy backs. Wanted to do the Beatrice Potter thing. Wanted to fulfill a childhood fantasy that her parents always said was NOT realistic, NOT doable, NOT a moneymaker, NOT something people cared about and why would she want to draw them?
She listened to all that “not” for a long time – through law school and the reviews and the corporate stuff and the success – until she discovered that getting successful in what you are “not” not only doesn’t make you happy – it brings the “not” into even more relief and makes you want to do it all the more.
The attorney quit her practice. She started drawing bunnies. She built a highly successful greeting card business where she was paid big bucks to draw her bunnies until they came out of her un-bunny-like ears.
Using the “not”s
So here’s a few things to remember when we try and define ourselves through our “not”s instead of our “I am”s.
• Turn your “not”s inside out. See what they ARE. Write those things down, touch them, feel them, play with them. Who knows? Your re-version may be hiding right around the edges of a little “not” you’ve been avoiding for a long time.
• Some “not”s are pressed into us by others. You can’t squelch those “not”s – sooner or later, the bunnies come back. Why put it off if the bunnies are going to haunt you anyway? Besides, how old will you be in five years if you don’t draw your bunnies?
So check our your “not”s. Turn the real ones inside out. Embrace the bunnies, and see where they lead. And if they point down a path you don’t want to explore, why, change your mind. It’s allowed.
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
You 2.0: The new revolution
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
- by Maryanne Williamson as quoted by Nelson Mandela in his 1994 presidential inauguration speech
The most amazing thing is happening right now in the world:
People are generous.
In the nanoseconds I’ve been blogging, I’ve discovered a world of new, kind, generous friends. They’ve linked people to Re-Versioning. They’ve taken time to comment. They’ve listed this site. They’ve sent me stuff. They’ve introduced me to places I never dreamed existed, where the new revolution is happening, where people are sharing freely, to change things.
And the world is giving everything back in return.
Here’s the funny thing about generosity: when the world gives to you, you want to give back. And, even funnier, you find you can give back.
Why we don’t give
What is sad about our present culture – or at least, about our professional culture as perceived by most of us who have been trampled on by capitalists without morals, bosses without sense, and fear-filled colleagues – is that it actively squelches generosity. It focuses on money. Success (= money). Rampant Individualism (= money). Celebrity (= money). Be Somebody (= money).
It tells us that we can’t afford to be generous. Generosity won’t make us Money.
So we start hiding things inside, to “protect” them: Ideas. Suggestions. Answers. Creativity. All our ideas to save the world.
And we tuck them into a dark, safe spot so hidden that even we can’t find them. Because we’re afraid that someone, somewhere, will find them and take them and there won’t be anything left for us. Of us.
Or that all of our protected, saved, "best" ideas won't amount to a hill of beans in this world.
The world feels this darkness, this black hole of fear, and stops being generous for us. This is no “woo-woo”: When we live from our fear, we stop experiencing what is out there. And we neglect to listen for the things people want to give us.
Conquering fear
Conquering our fears is one of the most difficult things we face in re-versioning. What if it won’t work? What if I can’t do anything else? What if this is all I cam become?
What if it were another way? What if we are so rich inside, so powerful, so amazing that if we just opened the dark spot a crack, the world rushed in with a big yell of “Yeah!” and started pouring generosity in?
Years ago, I was struggling to find a way to forgive my mother for a lot of unkind things. I had just begun practicing Zen. One day, I sat/meditated. I read a lesson from Shunryu Suzuki’s Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind, on a very simple concept that, at the time, I didn’t believe:
You cannot practice compassion for others until you have compassion for yourself.
I was (fortunately!) young enough, and in pain enough, that I meditated that day just on finding compassion for me. Here’s the phases I went through:
• This isn’t going to work.
• My mother doesn’t deserve compassion.
• I feel fine about myself – really.
• I don’t deserve to focus on myself.
• If I focus on myself, I’m being selfish.
• Now I’m REALLY being selfish!
Then it happened: I felt deep compassion for myself. I forgave myself for being mad at my parents. For feeling broken. For not being “successful” enough. For not being perfect.
For being afraid.
My tears watered the world that morning. And in a few minutes, compassion for my mother, my father, my whole family gushed out. And I was able to be generous with them, forgive them, build something with them.
Creating generosity
Change isn’t really difficult – especially if you really want to do it. Compassion isn’t difficult. Generosity isn’t difficult. Trust isn’t difficult.
What’s difficult is doing all that for our deepest selves – first.
Re-versioning, if it is to take us to 2.0, needs to start with our deepest selves. All of the exercises I’ve been posting only work when you go to the place that’s true. That can be hard to do, because we’ve been told not to go there. We’ve been “saving” it. We’re afraid of it.
Here’s a big “What if” for us:
What if Nelson Mandela is right?
Imagine what we could do for the world.
Let’s take a chance. Let’s be generous with ourselves. Let’s be clear with ourselves. Let’s trust ourselves, give ourselves compassion and kindness and generosity – and open the door to that dark place inside.
And give it to the world.
__________
After over 30 years in prison, Nelson Mandela was inaugurated as the first president of a demonstratic South Africa in 1994. In his acceptance speech, he used this quote from Maryanne Williamson's book A Return To Love:
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our Light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous,
talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small doesn't serve the world.
There's nothing enlightening about shrinking
so that other people won't feel insecure around you.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us.
It's not just in some of us -- it's in everyone.
And as we let our own light shine,
we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our own fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
Back to top
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Who Am I? #3
“Who am I? Where’s my car?”
-- Los Angeles, CA bumper sticker, circa 1990
I found the car. Where’s the map?
In the last exercise, I outlined my skills and interests, based on favorite things. It was a nice list. But it didn’t resonate – really – with clues that might help me move Into The Future. I still needed something.
Then I realized: you can’t move effectively from The Present to Your Future without beginning at the beginning – defining some kind of a road map. Otherwise, anything you did would be the right thing – even if you didn’t like doing it.
I knew that there would come a time when I would want to travel into the future without a strict set of directions or a firmly defined destination. But I wasn't there yet. I had my Board of Directors to think about. I didn’t want to draw conclusions yet about my future path, but I definitely needed to identify for my Board of Directors the directions that had real potential for me. That meant looking at my raw material from two points of view: the positive, and the negative.
In this blog, I’ll work through the positive, and leave the second half of this exercise for next time.
Identify what has worked
Once again, I reviewed what I had written down so far. I realized that what I had done well, I did because I liked to do them. That was an obvious place to start: Things I like to do/do well.
It’s no small thing to identify only the things you do well that you like. For example, I was touted by my 5th grade piano teacher as a kid who could Go Somewhere in the world of classical music. You know – Julliard, concerts, record contracts, the works. Since music was a dream of my mother’s, I was set on that path – to the tune of practicing four hours a day on weekends.
There were two problems with their approach to building me a future in music:
1. I wasn’t challenged by it. I guess I was good, but the things I did at the piano seemed obvious and I sure the heck missed playing outdoors on summer weekends. Besides, I didn’t like practicing, and I hated that metronome!
2. I didn’t like performing. Everyone around me forgot to ask me one simple question: “Do you like playing for people?” I hated it. The stage nerves, the inevitable one-note mistake, my mother’ chilling gasp when she heard it, being forced to play for my parents’ friends at parties – and knowing it bored them – added up to anger and boredom with the whole thing.
Those two things killed my desire for music. I quit as soon as I had the chance. And I still don’t play – unless the spirit moves me to play (badly) the few things I still like. (It’s ok – there’s no one else in the house but the cats.)
Thus the importance of identifying the things you do well that you like. Besides, if you like doing it, you’ll do it more, and pretty soon you’ll be better at it than anyone else, and someone is going to have to hire you!
So – first list this time: the things you like to do/do well.
Identify what you want to work
Somehow in listing all these things – favorites, skills, interests, things I liked – an important question came up. Whatever happened to all my childhood dreams? Like most little kids, I “grew up” and forgot about them.
I sat for a while and remembered, way down the road I had already traveled, back to those auspicious (or arrogant!) moments when I declared what I was going to be “when I grew up”: a jockey! (that died when I hit 5’7”); the first woman rider at the Spanish Riding School! (no horse); a model! (the American Everygirl dream); a writer! (that one actually worked).
Remembering was fun. But I wasn’t a child anymore, and besides, I had a lot more dreams to add to the list. So I answered the big question:
“I’ve always wanted to…”
I listed the first things that came to mind – then the second, and the third. I wrote it all down – without editing.
Your potentialities
Now I had two more lists: 1) Things I like to do/do well. 2) “I’ve always wanted to…”
I put the two lists side by side. They definitely pointed down a number of roads I could imagine from this point. But something in me was rebelling.
First, there were too many roads – my Board of Directors would have to help with that. However, I didn’t want to waste my Board’s time, so I decided to close off all of the roads that I knew were not going to be fun. That’s the subject of the next exercise.
-- Los Angeles, CA bumper sticker, circa 1990
I found the car. Where’s the map?
In the last exercise, I outlined my skills and interests, based on favorite things. It was a nice list. But it didn’t resonate – really – with clues that might help me move Into The Future. I still needed something.
Then I realized: you can’t move effectively from The Present to Your Future without beginning at the beginning – defining some kind of a road map. Otherwise, anything you did would be the right thing – even if you didn’t like doing it.
I knew that there would come a time when I would want to travel into the future without a strict set of directions or a firmly defined destination. But I wasn't there yet. I had my Board of Directors to think about. I didn’t want to draw conclusions yet about my future path, but I definitely needed to identify for my Board of Directors the directions that had real potential for me. That meant looking at my raw material from two points of view: the positive, and the negative.
In this blog, I’ll work through the positive, and leave the second half of this exercise for next time.
Identify what has worked
Once again, I reviewed what I had written down so far. I realized that what I had done well, I did because I liked to do them. That was an obvious place to start: Things I like to do/do well.
It’s no small thing to identify only the things you do well that you like. For example, I was touted by my 5th grade piano teacher as a kid who could Go Somewhere in the world of classical music. You know – Julliard, concerts, record contracts, the works. Since music was a dream of my mother’s, I was set on that path – to the tune of practicing four hours a day on weekends.
There were two problems with their approach to building me a future in music:
1. I wasn’t challenged by it. I guess I was good, but the things I did at the piano seemed obvious and I sure the heck missed playing outdoors on summer weekends. Besides, I didn’t like practicing, and I hated that metronome!
2. I didn’t like performing. Everyone around me forgot to ask me one simple question: “Do you like playing for people?” I hated it. The stage nerves, the inevitable one-note mistake, my mother’ chilling gasp when she heard it, being forced to play for my parents’ friends at parties – and knowing it bored them – added up to anger and boredom with the whole thing.
Those two things killed my desire for music. I quit as soon as I had the chance. And I still don’t play – unless the spirit moves me to play (badly) the few things I still like. (It’s ok – there’s no one else in the house but the cats.)
Thus the importance of identifying the things you do well that you like. Besides, if you like doing it, you’ll do it more, and pretty soon you’ll be better at it than anyone else, and someone is going to have to hire you!
So – first list this time: the things you like to do/do well.
Identify what you want to work
Somehow in listing all these things – favorites, skills, interests, things I liked – an important question came up. Whatever happened to all my childhood dreams? Like most little kids, I “grew up” and forgot about them.
I sat for a while and remembered, way down the road I had already traveled, back to those auspicious (or arrogant!) moments when I declared what I was going to be “when I grew up”: a jockey! (that died when I hit 5’7”); the first woman rider at the Spanish Riding School! (no horse); a model! (the American Everygirl dream); a writer! (that one actually worked).
Remembering was fun. But I wasn’t a child anymore, and besides, I had a lot more dreams to add to the list. So I answered the big question:
“I’ve always wanted to…”
I listed the first things that came to mind – then the second, and the third. I wrote it all down – without editing.
Your potentialities
Now I had two more lists: 1) Things I like to do/do well. 2) “I’ve always wanted to…”
I put the two lists side by side. They definitely pointed down a number of roads I could imagine from this point. But something in me was rebelling.
First, there were too many roads – my Board of Directors would have to help with that. However, I didn’t want to waste my Board’s time, so I decided to close off all of the roads that I knew were not going to be fun. That’s the subject of the next exercise.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Who Am I? #2
What does it all mean?
In the last re-versioning exercise, I explored my favorite things, and found some surprises on my list: professional projects from 20 years ago; new (and old) passions; vocations and avocations; places I’d seen and explored around the world. Even things I tried a little of and always wanted to do more of, but never “had the time.”
As we say in the training biz, I “compared and contrasted” my favorite things, and I noticed something: there were skills that many of the things had in common. And – surprise – there were elements of the things I’m consciously most interested in everywhere.
My “favorite things” list came out of playing and thinking about the past. But before I could step forward into the future, it seemed like I needed to take stock of What Is Now. This is that exercise.
Skills and interests
I looked at my list of favorite things I’ve done – work, personal, interactive – and compiled two more lists: a list of skills, things I think I can do well; and a list of interests, things I knew about or wanted to know more about, or “always wanted to do.” It was pretty “listy,” but you already know I love lists and words.
The “skills” list helped me condense a lot of the ideas that had been floating around in my head into some concrete, simpler things that I knew about myself: creativity; listening; organizing (lists!); planning.
The “interests” list was more subject-like, almost a list of college class titles from an Ideal University of You: learning to watercolor; mental health and physiology; ancient and cultural history. They weren’t all “egghead” things, either: horses and dressage were in there, as well as how things work and engaging in my community.
At this point, I felt like I was done already with raw material. It was time to head for the future.
I hear you: "But I hate making lists!”
If you feel frustrated sitting by yourself and listing all this stuff – or if your lists aren’t too satisfying – here’s an exercise to help you find your skills and interests.
You’ll need at least three people to do this exercise.
• Friend #1 is your Recorder. This friend will time this exercise, ask the questions, and write down or otherwise record your responses.
• Friend #2 is the Reality Foil. This friend will work with Friend #1 first, then with all three of you, to complete the exercise. Both of these people should be very good, honest friends (See “Choosing your Board of Directors”). (You may have more than one Foil if you want, but I would start with one first.)
• You.
You will also need:
• Paper and pens OR a voice recorder
• A watch with a second hand and an alarm or a stop watch or alarm clock that can mark brief periods of time (like 2 minutes)
• A place for you or your Reality Foil to sit without being able to hear the others. Doesn’t have to be a recording studio – if you’re sitting inside the house, have the Foil go out in the yard, or vice versa.
Here’s the exercise.
STEP 1:
1. Sit in a quiet space or place with the Recorder. Have nothing in your hands or around you to distract you. Sit for as long as you need to relax, to stop thinking about what you need to do next. You need to do this now.
2. The Recorder sets the timepiece for 2 minutes, prepares to write, and asks you: In simple words or phrases, how would you describe yourself?
3. Answer the question, with the first thinks that come to your mind. Don’t stop. The point of this isn’t a “right” answer; it’s to access some stuff you may not be aware of.
4. The Recorder writes everything down as fast as possible, using a short hand if necessary. No talking about your answer: the Recorder simply records as neutrally as possible.
5. If you stop talking, the Recorder will tell you, “Go on.”
6. If you’re still going strong after 2 minutes, the Recorder will let you go.
7. You can stop any time after the alarm goes off.
You’re done. Go sit and relax, and send in the Reality Foil.
STEP 2:
1. The Recorder repeats the exercise with the Foil, asking, “In simple words or phrases, how would you describe [You]?”
2. Foil: No talking about You. Just record the answers as neutrally as possible. And same rules on the timing: Keep the other person talking, and end after 2 minutes.
3. The Recorder brings You into the room. All you have to do for now is look at the two lists, and ask the Recorder or your Reality Foil any questions you have about the content, if you have any.
4. Keep the lists, thank your friends, and go out for coffee to celebrate.
OR:
This next part of the exercise you can do immediately after the steps above, or you may want to take time to think about it before you share your thoughts with your friends. Or not.
STEP 3:
1. Look at your list. What surprises you about the order in which you described yourself? What did you “forget” to state that you think is obvious now that the exercise is over? What do you want to add? (If you add anything, use a different color pen or otherwise indicate, “These words came later.”)
2. Look at your Reality Foil’s list. What surprises you about the content of the list? The order of the descriptions? How do you feel looking at this list?
3. Compare the two lists. What do they have in common? What is different? What does your Reality Foil see that you want to be more of? What does the Foil not see that you want to make more obvious?
4. Think about all these lists and words and questions. What does it tell you about how you see yourself in the world? About how the world sees you? What does it tell you about how you want the world to see you in the future – and how you want to see yourself?
5. Given the answers to the questions above: What most interests you in the world? What skills do you bring to the table?
I hear you #2: “But my friends won’t help!” or “I can’t ask my friends!” or “I don’t have any friends!”
We’ll work on some of those issues later. Meantime, here’s another fun way to investigate your skills and interests.
Presto! You are now the President of an amazing institution: You University (a.k.a. You U).
As I am the head of You U’s Board of Directors – your Virtual CEO, I guess – here’s your assignment:
Write the foundational curriculum for all new You U students who enter the university.
What’s in a curriculum? I want to see a couple of things:
• Department Titles: What are the main areas of interest where we need to hire professors, do research, enlighten students? Start with those.
• Required Classes: In each Department, what subjects, skills, and attitudes that you think each You U student must achieve in order to be successful in this world? In short, what are the basics that you feel are most important?
• Elective Classes: Now, what are the subjects and skills and attitudes that You U students might also want to learn? What else might be helpful for our students’ success?
• The Head Professor’s Resume: Write the job description for the Head Professor who will be able to help run You U. Now, secretly you want to apply for the Head Professor position, so write the job description including all of the skills that you already have. That way, when the position is filled, they’ll have to select you! (ha-ha-ha evil laughter here)
Now, this is your first draft, so don’t feel like you have to write the whole course catalog. But spend enough time on it to be able to show something substantial to your board.
Done? Leave it be for a few hours/days. Then head back and look it over. Make two columns on a piece of paper, one headed “Skills” and the other “Interests.” Use your curriculum information to identify both and create your lists.
The past, the present – now comes the fun part: the future.
In the last re-versioning exercise, I explored my favorite things, and found some surprises on my list: professional projects from 20 years ago; new (and old) passions; vocations and avocations; places I’d seen and explored around the world. Even things I tried a little of and always wanted to do more of, but never “had the time.”
As we say in the training biz, I “compared and contrasted” my favorite things, and I noticed something: there were skills that many of the things had in common. And – surprise – there were elements of the things I’m consciously most interested in everywhere.
My “favorite things” list came out of playing and thinking about the past. But before I could step forward into the future, it seemed like I needed to take stock of What Is Now. This is that exercise.
Skills and interests
I looked at my list of favorite things I’ve done – work, personal, interactive – and compiled two more lists: a list of skills, things I think I can do well; and a list of interests, things I knew about or wanted to know more about, or “always wanted to do.” It was pretty “listy,” but you already know I love lists and words.
The “skills” list helped me condense a lot of the ideas that had been floating around in my head into some concrete, simpler things that I knew about myself: creativity; listening; organizing (lists!); planning.
The “interests” list was more subject-like, almost a list of college class titles from an Ideal University of You: learning to watercolor; mental health and physiology; ancient and cultural history. They weren’t all “egghead” things, either: horses and dressage were in there, as well as how things work and engaging in my community.
At this point, I felt like I was done already with raw material. It was time to head for the future.
I hear you: "But I hate making lists!”
If you feel frustrated sitting by yourself and listing all this stuff – or if your lists aren’t too satisfying – here’s an exercise to help you find your skills and interests.
You’ll need at least three people to do this exercise.
• Friend #1 is your Recorder. This friend will time this exercise, ask the questions, and write down or otherwise record your responses.
• Friend #2 is the Reality Foil. This friend will work with Friend #1 first, then with all three of you, to complete the exercise. Both of these people should be very good, honest friends (See “Choosing your Board of Directors”). (You may have more than one Foil if you want, but I would start with one first.)
• You.
You will also need:
• Paper and pens OR a voice recorder
• A watch with a second hand and an alarm or a stop watch or alarm clock that can mark brief periods of time (like 2 minutes)
• A place for you or your Reality Foil to sit without being able to hear the others. Doesn’t have to be a recording studio – if you’re sitting inside the house, have the Foil go out in the yard, or vice versa.
Here’s the exercise.
STEP 1:
1. Sit in a quiet space or place with the Recorder. Have nothing in your hands or around you to distract you. Sit for as long as you need to relax, to stop thinking about what you need to do next. You need to do this now.
2. The Recorder sets the timepiece for 2 minutes, prepares to write, and asks you: In simple words or phrases, how would you describe yourself?
3. Answer the question, with the first thinks that come to your mind. Don’t stop. The point of this isn’t a “right” answer; it’s to access some stuff you may not be aware of.
4. The Recorder writes everything down as fast as possible, using a short hand if necessary. No talking about your answer: the Recorder simply records as neutrally as possible.
5. If you stop talking, the Recorder will tell you, “Go on.”
6. If you’re still going strong after 2 minutes, the Recorder will let you go.
7. You can stop any time after the alarm goes off.
You’re done. Go sit and relax, and send in the Reality Foil.
STEP 2:
1. The Recorder repeats the exercise with the Foil, asking, “In simple words or phrases, how would you describe [You]?”
2. Foil: No talking about You. Just record the answers as neutrally as possible. And same rules on the timing: Keep the other person talking, and end after 2 minutes.
3. The Recorder brings You into the room. All you have to do for now is look at the two lists, and ask the Recorder or your Reality Foil any questions you have about the content, if you have any.
4. Keep the lists, thank your friends, and go out for coffee to celebrate.
OR:
This next part of the exercise you can do immediately after the steps above, or you may want to take time to think about it before you share your thoughts with your friends. Or not.
STEP 3:
1. Look at your list. What surprises you about the order in which you described yourself? What did you “forget” to state that you think is obvious now that the exercise is over? What do you want to add? (If you add anything, use a different color pen or otherwise indicate, “These words came later.”)
2. Look at your Reality Foil’s list. What surprises you about the content of the list? The order of the descriptions? How do you feel looking at this list?
3. Compare the two lists. What do they have in common? What is different? What does your Reality Foil see that you want to be more of? What does the Foil not see that you want to make more obvious?
4. Think about all these lists and words and questions. What does it tell you about how you see yourself in the world? About how the world sees you? What does it tell you about how you want the world to see you in the future – and how you want to see yourself?
5. Given the answers to the questions above: What most interests you in the world? What skills do you bring to the table?
I hear you #2: “But my friends won’t help!” or “I can’t ask my friends!” or “I don’t have any friends!”
We’ll work on some of those issues later. Meantime, here’s another fun way to investigate your skills and interests.
Presto! You are now the President of an amazing institution: You University (a.k.a. You U).
As I am the head of You U’s Board of Directors – your Virtual CEO, I guess – here’s your assignment:
Write the foundational curriculum for all new You U students who enter the university.
What’s in a curriculum? I want to see a couple of things:
• Department Titles: What are the main areas of interest where we need to hire professors, do research, enlighten students? Start with those.
• Required Classes: In each Department, what subjects, skills, and attitudes that you think each You U student must achieve in order to be successful in this world? In short, what are the basics that you feel are most important?
• Elective Classes: Now, what are the subjects and skills and attitudes that You U students might also want to learn? What else might be helpful for our students’ success?
• The Head Professor’s Resume: Write the job description for the Head Professor who will be able to help run You U. Now, secretly you want to apply for the Head Professor position, so write the job description including all of the skills that you already have. That way, when the position is filled, they’ll have to select you! (ha-ha-ha evil laughter here)
Now, this is your first draft, so don’t feel like you have to write the whole course catalog. But spend enough time on it to be able to show something substantial to your board.
Done? Leave it be for a few hours/days. Then head back and look it over. Make two columns on a piece of paper, one headed “Skills” and the other “Interests.” Use your curriculum information to identify both and create your lists.
The past, the present – now comes the fun part: the future.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Watching For Foxes
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”
Benjamin Franklin
“When we’re still learning, we call it practice.”
Laurie 2.0
This post departs from a bit from the previous ones, but it's important in your process of re-versioning.
This is a meditation about pain.
How do people change? In nature, we ask, “How does change happen?” and consider it a natural tendency of the physical world. But since we’re “conscious, intelligent beings with free will,” we ask, “How do I change?”
I’m thinking the two are not unrelated, since we are nature and the physical world. And our change – the change of any sentient being – is sparked by an experience, an interaction, with the Real World Out There.
For example – my darling horse, DJ. Like most horses – wait a minute, like me, too – he is a creature of habit. 9 am: I whistle “meal time,” and he neighs “Good, I’m starved!” After breakfast, it’s out to the fields to Kaffee Klatch with the neighboring horses. Then – yikes, 11 am! – time to come in for “elevenses” and a drink. And since the water tank is right by the shelter, well, a little nap is a good idea in the heat of the day/cold of the morning. Then, 1 pm, time for a little something out in the field. By 6 pm he’s watching for my truck to come home, listening for the whistle, ready to neigh for dinner and literally run in: hay and crunchies. And every time he goes through his routine, he walks/runs along the same little pathways he’s created in the middle of the field. You can see them.
That’s his life. It’s a good one. It’s always the same.
Until it’s not.
What makes it change?
- A fox leaps out of a clump o’ grass during his morning walk to his elevenses. Presto, he starts a new path away from that clump – forever.
- I come out one day in the early afternoon. Shoot! Riding time! He ignores my calls at first, but eventually a resigned horse wanders in from the field.
- The neighbors ride their horses around behind our house. Yoikes! He runs out to the fields, races back, snorts, throws his tail over his back – what the heck is going on over there!?!?!
And he’s ever after different.
We’re the same way. We think we’re “in charge” of change, but really we just practice our stuff trying to get better and better until “better” doesn’t cut it anymore. All of our neighbors find our secret “back way” to the highway, and it’s too crowded to use. There’s no more surprises at work. Our mate stops listening to our excited rants about new ideas – wait a minute, we have no more excited rants about new ideas.
In short: our “practice” becomes “insanity.”
We start to feel pain.
Now for DJ, “ pain” usually means “surprise.” He doesn’t like those. He likes a nice, safe, predictable world where his hay and his naps and his crunchies all appear on time, safely, and comfortably.
All of us are like that. Only each of our definitions of “on time, safely, and comfortably” is different. So each of our definitions of “pain” is different.
Contrary to our “natural” reaction, pain is a good thing. Welcome pain: it’s the catalyst for change. It will transform you out of the world of “insanity” into the world of a new practice, a new way of being comfortable in the world. Pain is not the “necessary evil” – pain is a message from our un/subconscious bodies to our conscious/emotional/mental ones. Pain says, “Don’t do that.” Pain says, “Do it differently.” Pain says, “Try something else.”
Sometimes, it takes a while for us to recognize conscious/emotional/mental pain. Because sometimes it’s not as obvious as a fox spurting out of a clump of grass. It sneaks up on us – and we say, oh that’s ok, that’s not really pain, I’m just out of sorts today, I ate a bad apple at lunch, I’m getting a cold, my back hurts, my boss is a nut… In fact, all of those things are the fox leaping out of the bushes – the beginnings of the message from our un/subconscious selves to the top of the stack: time to change.
So watch for the foxes – even the little ones. Does it mean that, the second you feel a cringe of “something’s not right,” you drop everything? Burn the house, sell the horse and move to France? (my favorite escape fantasy) Of course not. But it does mean paying attention: Hey. There’s a fox jumping out of the bushes. There’s people and horses running over there. I wonder what that’s about? I think it’s time I go check it out.
This is a meditation about pain. Pain is a message. Listen. Accept. Explore. And trust that your instincts will keep you safe in the long run.
And you can begin to “practice” something else.
Benjamin Franklin
“When we’re still learning, we call it practice.”
Laurie 2.0
This post departs from a bit from the previous ones, but it's important in your process of re-versioning.
This is a meditation about pain.
How do people change? In nature, we ask, “How does change happen?” and consider it a natural tendency of the physical world. But since we’re “conscious, intelligent beings with free will,” we ask, “How do I change?”
I’m thinking the two are not unrelated, since we are nature and the physical world. And our change – the change of any sentient being – is sparked by an experience, an interaction, with the Real World Out There.
For example – my darling horse, DJ. Like most horses – wait a minute, like me, too – he is a creature of habit. 9 am: I whistle “meal time,” and he neighs “Good, I’m starved!” After breakfast, it’s out to the fields to Kaffee Klatch with the neighboring horses. Then – yikes, 11 am! – time to come in for “elevenses” and a drink. And since the water tank is right by the shelter, well, a little nap is a good idea in the heat of the day/cold of the morning. Then, 1 pm, time for a little something out in the field. By 6 pm he’s watching for my truck to come home, listening for the whistle, ready to neigh for dinner and literally run in: hay and crunchies. And every time he goes through his routine, he walks/runs along the same little pathways he’s created in the middle of the field. You can see them.
That’s his life. It’s a good one. It’s always the same.
Until it’s not.
What makes it change?
- A fox leaps out of a clump o’ grass during his morning walk to his elevenses. Presto, he starts a new path away from that clump – forever.
- I come out one day in the early afternoon. Shoot! Riding time! He ignores my calls at first, but eventually a resigned horse wanders in from the field.
- The neighbors ride their horses around behind our house. Yoikes! He runs out to the fields, races back, snorts, throws his tail over his back – what the heck is going on over there!?!?!
And he’s ever after different.
We’re the same way. We think we’re “in charge” of change, but really we just practice our stuff trying to get better and better until “better” doesn’t cut it anymore. All of our neighbors find our secret “back way” to the highway, and it’s too crowded to use. There’s no more surprises at work. Our mate stops listening to our excited rants about new ideas – wait a minute, we have no more excited rants about new ideas.
In short: our “practice” becomes “insanity.”
We start to feel pain.
Now for DJ, “ pain” usually means “surprise.” He doesn’t like those. He likes a nice, safe, predictable world where his hay and his naps and his crunchies all appear on time, safely, and comfortably.
All of us are like that. Only each of our definitions of “on time, safely, and comfortably” is different. So each of our definitions of “pain” is different.
Contrary to our “natural” reaction, pain is a good thing. Welcome pain: it’s the catalyst for change. It will transform you out of the world of “insanity” into the world of a new practice, a new way of being comfortable in the world. Pain is not the “necessary evil” – pain is a message from our un/subconscious bodies to our conscious/emotional/mental ones. Pain says, “Don’t do that.” Pain says, “Do it differently.” Pain says, “Try something else.”
Sometimes, it takes a while for us to recognize conscious/emotional/mental pain. Because sometimes it’s not as obvious as a fox spurting out of a clump of grass. It sneaks up on us – and we say, oh that’s ok, that’s not really pain, I’m just out of sorts today, I ate a bad apple at lunch, I’m getting a cold, my back hurts, my boss is a nut… In fact, all of those things are the fox leaping out of the bushes – the beginnings of the message from our un/subconscious selves to the top of the stack: time to change.
So watch for the foxes – even the little ones. Does it mean that, the second you feel a cringe of “something’s not right,” you drop everything? Burn the house, sell the horse and move to France? (my favorite escape fantasy) Of course not. But it does mean paying attention: Hey. There’s a fox jumping out of the bushes. There’s people and horses running over there. I wonder what that’s about? I think it’s time I go check it out.
This is a meditation about pain. Pain is a message. Listen. Accept. Explore. And trust that your instincts will keep you safe in the long run.
And you can begin to “practice” something else.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Who Am I? #1
Find Your Future In Your Past
I formed my personal “Board of Directors” to help re-version Laurie 2.0. They all accepted! Now I was committed: I had to act. One of my meetings would be “live,” in the small Wyoming town where I live. The other would be virtual, with people from California to New York talking together in a conference call.
I needed to make the meetings fun. But what to show? What to tell them to get their straightforward, creative, fearless juices flowing?
In the next few entries, I’ll show you exactly what I did.
A list of your favorite things…
Whatever Laurie 2.0 looked like, it had to be fun. But what was “fun” for me, specifically?
I needed a baseline, a foundation, a list o’ stuff that I could think about and use to define what I had been doing all of these years, and why it wasn’t working any more.
I began remembering “my favorite things” and asking myself questions about them:
• What had I done that I would describe as the best moments in my life? The peak experiences?
• Why were they fun? What about them made them spring into my mind, seem important to me, create fond memories and feelings?
By now, you know I love to deal in words. So I made a list. Specifically, What the projects were and Why I loved them.
It was fun: a little trip down the ol’ Memory Lane, and a big pat on the back for the things I did well – which happened to be many of my favorite things. Hmmmm – cowinkidink? More on that later.
So that’s the basic raw material: What you love to do, and Why you love to do it.
I hear you: “But I Can’t Write!”
Sure you can. But I won’t try to convince you of that here.
Here’s two alternatives to lists that even I use when words didn’t seem to hold enough:
Dream:
Get a big piece of paper – at least 11” x 17”. Bigger if possible. (Newsprint in the school section of your local discount store is good.)
Get something that marks paper – and can’t be erased: colored pens. Colored crayons. Colored markers, if your paper is thick. Colored pencils. Colored chalk. Get the picture? Colored stuff that marks indelibly. Don’t worry – There Are No Mistakes in this process.
Sit down in a quiet space where you have a chunk of time. Pick anywhere on that beautiful blank sheet (what will you discover?). Think about your favorites times in your life. Pick up a colored thing. Make a mark. Continue it. Fill it out. Label it. Make a stick figure around it. Draw around it. (“I can’t draw!” Well, this isn’t for art class – it’s for you. Let go of how it looks at the end, and get into what it can tell you today.)
Pick another place (anywhere on the paper, I mean). Repeat.
Take as long as you like, but I suggest a couple of long sessions in pretty quick succession so you can really get into it (as opposed to lots of quick starts-and-stops with weeks in between).
See What Happens. You’ll know when you’re done.
Put the paper somewhere you won’t see it for a few days.
Set aside a quiet time, as long as you can. Then get a cuppa your favorite (are we seeing “themes” here?) and look at what you’ve done.
Really look: as if someone else had done it. What does it tell you about the things you most like to do? Write your thoughts down.
I hear you #2: “But I Can’t Draw!”
You can do that, too, but that’s a goal for later. Here’s an alternative.
Collect:
Think about your favorite projects. And poke around your house: in the attic, in file cabinets, under the bed, in your mementoes box(es), in the backyard.
Pick things to represent each favorite experience. A teddy bear. A coin. A button. A mug. Or from outside: A leaf. A flower. A pile of good dirt. A handful of grass. Whatever truly represents to you specific projects or activities you’ve done that make you smile still, after all these years.
When you’re done (you’ll know when), clean a flat spot in an out-of-the-way place (not the dining room table)—even a small corner of your bedroom will do.
Place your collection there, in an arrangement that makes sense to you: First things at the back? Favorite things at the front? Small groups of related objects/experiences? Whatever makes you happy.
Now, Go Away for a while – maybe a day or two (if your collection is where you can’t avoid seeing it, put a sheet over it).
Ready? Set aside a quiet time and sit down and look at your collection: What does it tell you about the things you most like to do? Write your thoughts down.
I formed my personal “Board of Directors” to help re-version Laurie 2.0. They all accepted! Now I was committed: I had to act. One of my meetings would be “live,” in the small Wyoming town where I live. The other would be virtual, with people from California to New York talking together in a conference call.
I needed to make the meetings fun. But what to show? What to tell them to get their straightforward, creative, fearless juices flowing?
In the next few entries, I’ll show you exactly what I did.
A list of your favorite things…
Whatever Laurie 2.0 looked like, it had to be fun. But what was “fun” for me, specifically?
I needed a baseline, a foundation, a list o’ stuff that I could think about and use to define what I had been doing all of these years, and why it wasn’t working any more.
I began remembering “my favorite things” and asking myself questions about them:
• What had I done that I would describe as the best moments in my life? The peak experiences?
• Why were they fun? What about them made them spring into my mind, seem important to me, create fond memories and feelings?
By now, you know I love to deal in words. So I made a list. Specifically, What the projects were and Why I loved them.
It was fun: a little trip down the ol’ Memory Lane, and a big pat on the back for the things I did well – which happened to be many of my favorite things. Hmmmm – cowinkidink? More on that later.
So that’s the basic raw material: What you love to do, and Why you love to do it.
I hear you: “But I Can’t Write!”
Sure you can. But I won’t try to convince you of that here.
Here’s two alternatives to lists that even I use when words didn’t seem to hold enough:
Dream:
Get a big piece of paper – at least 11” x 17”. Bigger if possible. (Newsprint in the school section of your local discount store is good.)
Get something that marks paper – and can’t be erased: colored pens. Colored crayons. Colored markers, if your paper is thick. Colored pencils. Colored chalk. Get the picture? Colored stuff that marks indelibly. Don’t worry – There Are No Mistakes in this process.
Sit down in a quiet space where you have a chunk of time. Pick anywhere on that beautiful blank sheet (what will you discover?). Think about your favorites times in your life. Pick up a colored thing. Make a mark. Continue it. Fill it out. Label it. Make a stick figure around it. Draw around it. (“I can’t draw!” Well, this isn’t for art class – it’s for you. Let go of how it looks at the end, and get into what it can tell you today.)
Pick another place (anywhere on the paper, I mean). Repeat.
Take as long as you like, but I suggest a couple of long sessions in pretty quick succession so you can really get into it (as opposed to lots of quick starts-and-stops with weeks in between).
See What Happens. You’ll know when you’re done.
Put the paper somewhere you won’t see it for a few days.
Set aside a quiet time, as long as you can. Then get a cuppa your favorite (are we seeing “themes” here?) and look at what you’ve done.
Really look: as if someone else had done it. What does it tell you about the things you most like to do? Write your thoughts down.
I hear you #2: “But I Can’t Draw!”
You can do that, too, but that’s a goal for later. Here’s an alternative.
Collect:
Think about your favorite projects. And poke around your house: in the attic, in file cabinets, under the bed, in your mementoes box(es), in the backyard.
Pick things to represent each favorite experience. A teddy bear. A coin. A button. A mug. Or from outside: A leaf. A flower. A pile of good dirt. A handful of grass. Whatever truly represents to you specific projects or activities you’ve done that make you smile still, after all these years.
When you’re done (you’ll know when), clean a flat spot in an out-of-the-way place (not the dining room table)—even a small corner of your bedroom will do.
Place your collection there, in an arrangement that makes sense to you: First things at the back? Favorite things at the front? Small groups of related objects/experiences? Whatever makes you happy.
Now, Go Away for a while – maybe a day or two (if your collection is where you can’t avoid seeing it, put a sheet over it).
Ready? Set aside a quiet time and sit down and look at your collection: What does it tell you about the things you most like to do? Write your thoughts down.
Friday, January 5, 2007
You 2.0
Things begin: The Crash of v 1.999
I’d been bored for a decade and unhappy for a year in my job – as an instructional designer and training consultant for B2B corporations – and didn’t know what to do about it. From the outside, I had “everything”: my own business, flexible work hours, good pay, lived in a nice little house in a nice little town in the country, great community and friends. But inside? I hadn’t enjoyed my work for a very long time.
Finally, a really bad week got me going. I needed a New Me. I needed an updated version of what I wanted to do. I needed to create Laurie 2.0.
I needed a personal Board of Directors.
Selecting the Board
I needed opinions – from friends who knew me well, from colleagues I had known for literally decades, from clients who had seen my work and benefited from what I did best. But how to pick them?
Here were my criteria:
1. STRAIGHTFORWARD:
My first thought was “honest,” but I meant more than that. Of course all my friends are honest. But would they actually say what they thought?
I needed people who would have the gumption and courage to tell me the truth – but still be supportive, productive and generous. I have a lot of friends who, as kind and honest as they are, either can’t give a straight answer to an uncomfortable question (like “What don’t I do well?”), or are TOO strong in expressing their views – and not open to allowing others to build on them.
I needed kindness and honesty: my definition of “straightforward.”
2. CREATIVE:
My Board needed people who already had “out of the box” thinking and doing evident in their own lives. People who didn’t settle for a “status quo” of expectations in their jobs or their lives. People who were actively managing their professional and/or personal lives. People who could take an idea – theirs or someone else’s – and run with it.
3. FEARLESS (APPARENTLY):
First I thought “optimistic,” but the people I needed weren’t afraid of change, or at any rate, acted in the face of it.
Change is hard and disconcerting and unpredictable, but it’s also exciting, creative, sometimes mind-blowing, and certainly necessary.
All of my Board members had faced and handled change, sometimes daily, and weren’t afraid of it.
4. FRIEND:
Everyone has different kinds of friends in their lives: personal friends who share hobbies or common friends, professional colleagues who turn into friends because of common interests or a simple ability to get along, or a good history of working well together.
In my case, I also had clients, who knew something about my private life but whose primary experience of me was through my work.
Since “Laurie 2.0” was going to be a wholesale change in the way I live my life, I needed people from all three of these areas to contribute their ideas. In short, I called in some chits.
• Ah yes, the clients: I selected clients very carefully, since they were definitely in the training business with me, and I didn’t want to let it out that I was aiming out of the arena. So for that group, I added “discrete,” knowing that they would not spread the word among other clients and associates that Laurie was “out of the business” until I actually was, in fact, changing course.
5. LAUGH LOVERS:
Laughter is a big part of me: my life, my being, and my ability to cope with stress. So all of my Board members had to be able to laugh – at silly ideas, at jokes, at how strange life is to lead us to where we are now living, and even at the meaning of life. Deep laughers. Fun laughers. Kind laughers. People who liked my big ol’ loud, from-the-belly laugh that is (apparently) my trademark and that helps people know I’m in the movies, restaurant, party or theater.
Should you get a bunch o’ laughers for you? Not necessarily. But look at how you like to “be” with people: Seriously? Quietly? Slowly? Rat-ta-tat fast? Ask yourself: If my Board reflected my favorite way of being, what would it be? Then go with that.
The Big Step
With these definitions in mind, I mentally ran through the people I thought would be interested. I called ‘em up and outright asked them if they would take an hour to talk about the new me: “Laurie 2.0,” as my Board Member/friend Paul Ryder said it.
All agreed, and, to my surprise, all were excited. We scheduled it for a few weeks out. Short enough to put on a little pressure, and enough time to think.
Ooops: now I was committed: time to act.
AFTERTHOUGHT: How Many Is Too Many? Or Too Few?
Too many people: comments can be stifled because people don’t want to fight for airtime.
Too few: ideas stall because everyone has to work to keep the conversation going.
Just right: you, plus 4-5 friends per conversation. If they all know (or know of) each other, excellent.
How many meetings you hold is up to you. I did two group ones, and a few private conversations. I’d say that’s the minimum for me.
You know best, but beware getting too many conversations going – more can create confusion after a while. Plus it puts off the Big Enchilada: actually deciding to make a move towards change. Don’t cheat!
FOR YOU
If you want an easy organizer to help you select your Board of Directors for your transition to the new you, give me an "e": LazyL@wyoming.com
I’d been bored for a decade and unhappy for a year in my job – as an instructional designer and training consultant for B2B corporations – and didn’t know what to do about it. From the outside, I had “everything”: my own business, flexible work hours, good pay, lived in a nice little house in a nice little town in the country, great community and friends. But inside? I hadn’t enjoyed my work for a very long time.
Finally, a really bad week got me going. I needed a New Me. I needed an updated version of what I wanted to do. I needed to create Laurie 2.0.
I needed a personal Board of Directors.
Selecting the Board
I needed opinions – from friends who knew me well, from colleagues I had known for literally decades, from clients who had seen my work and benefited from what I did best. But how to pick them?
Here were my criteria:
1. STRAIGHTFORWARD:
My first thought was “honest,” but I meant more than that. Of course all my friends are honest. But would they actually say what they thought?
I needed people who would have the gumption and courage to tell me the truth – but still be supportive, productive and generous. I have a lot of friends who, as kind and honest as they are, either can’t give a straight answer to an uncomfortable question (like “What don’t I do well?”), or are TOO strong in expressing their views – and not open to allowing others to build on them.
I needed kindness and honesty: my definition of “straightforward.”
2. CREATIVE:
My Board needed people who already had “out of the box” thinking and doing evident in their own lives. People who didn’t settle for a “status quo” of expectations in their jobs or their lives. People who were actively managing their professional and/or personal lives. People who could take an idea – theirs or someone else’s – and run with it.
3. FEARLESS (APPARENTLY):
First I thought “optimistic,” but the people I needed weren’t afraid of change, or at any rate, acted in the face of it.
Change is hard and disconcerting and unpredictable, but it’s also exciting, creative, sometimes mind-blowing, and certainly necessary.
All of my Board members had faced and handled change, sometimes daily, and weren’t afraid of it.
4. FRIEND:
Everyone has different kinds of friends in their lives: personal friends who share hobbies or common friends, professional colleagues who turn into friends because of common interests or a simple ability to get along, or a good history of working well together.
In my case, I also had clients, who knew something about my private life but whose primary experience of me was through my work.
Since “Laurie 2.0” was going to be a wholesale change in the way I live my life, I needed people from all three of these areas to contribute their ideas. In short, I called in some chits.
• Ah yes, the clients: I selected clients very carefully, since they were definitely in the training business with me, and I didn’t want to let it out that I was aiming out of the arena. So for that group, I added “discrete,” knowing that they would not spread the word among other clients and associates that Laurie was “out of the business” until I actually was, in fact, changing course.
5. LAUGH LOVERS:
Laughter is a big part of me: my life, my being, and my ability to cope with stress. So all of my Board members had to be able to laugh – at silly ideas, at jokes, at how strange life is to lead us to where we are now living, and even at the meaning of life. Deep laughers. Fun laughers. Kind laughers. People who liked my big ol’ loud, from-the-belly laugh that is (apparently) my trademark and that helps people know I’m in the movies, restaurant, party or theater.
Should you get a bunch o’ laughers for you? Not necessarily. But look at how you like to “be” with people: Seriously? Quietly? Slowly? Rat-ta-tat fast? Ask yourself: If my Board reflected my favorite way of being, what would it be? Then go with that.
The Big Step
With these definitions in mind, I mentally ran through the people I thought would be interested. I called ‘em up and outright asked them if they would take an hour to talk about the new me: “Laurie 2.0,” as my Board Member/friend Paul Ryder said it.
All agreed, and, to my surprise, all were excited. We scheduled it for a few weeks out. Short enough to put on a little pressure, and enough time to think.
Ooops: now I was committed: time to act.
AFTERTHOUGHT: How Many Is Too Many? Or Too Few?
Too many people: comments can be stifled because people don’t want to fight for airtime.
Too few: ideas stall because everyone has to work to keep the conversation going.
Just right: you, plus 4-5 friends per conversation. If they all know (or know of) each other, excellent.
How many meetings you hold is up to you. I did two group ones, and a few private conversations. I’d say that’s the minimum for me.
You know best, but beware getting too many conversations going – more can create confusion after a while. Plus it puts off the Big Enchilada: actually deciding to make a move towards change. Don’t cheat!
FOR YOU
If you want an easy organizer to help you select your Board of Directors for your transition to the new you, give me an "e": LazyL@wyoming.com
Monday, January 1, 2007
It's Your New Year!
What is Re-Versioning?
Re-versioning is learning to evolve and change, to grow with the flow (sorry, 1960s!), to move from the past into a future that you want, that you can imagine, even that you can’t imagine. It’s exploration at its most intense: the exploration of the inner, limitless world in order to function in our outer, sometimes apparently limited one.
As I go through this "re-versioning" process, you can join me in the experience -- by using my ideas, games, and efforts with what's important to you. Here's one of the first exercises you might want to try. If you like it, leave it, love it, or hate it, don't hesitate to comment or email me -- I would love to hear what you think!
Words of...
Wisdom? You tell me. Here are some of the things I discovered today, using the process below. I hope at least one of them will resonate for you, and send you forward on your re-versioning experience.
What is an experiment? A new way of seeing the familiar.
Change = Growth. Commit Today – Now.
Just feel the ride.
Passion creates Enthusiasm. Find it in what you do – today.
Act as if you have Freedom To.
It gives you Freedom From.
Trust yourself first.
Kindness (to yourself and others) > Compassion > Forgiveness > Ability to act > Peace.
Follow your heart. The rest will follow.
What is it you’re after, anyway?
This exercise is more about enabling change instead of “trying” to change and setting ourselves up for failure. It’s a process I’ve done for the past 3 years, and every time it gets more profound (for me) in terms of who I am, what I want to change or achieve, and how I can get there. Its success is in trying to let go and access the things you can’t or won’t think about most of the time, so you can anchor your next action in something that will move you forward to your new version.
The key to this is to select a method that is the polar opposite of how you usually think about “things”:
· If you write words, draw or paint with color.
· If you paint, journal or sculpt or build.
· If you use your hands most of the time, write down key words.
· If you talk all the time, be silent and do something where you don’t have to speak.
· If you are a quiet person, speak out loud into the tape recorder.
· If you aren’t physical, dance for the video recorder. Give a live commentary as you do so.
· If you talk to yourself routinely, set up an audio recorder while you do whatever it is you do.
· If you’re good with words, colors, and the physical world, do all three at once.
· If you’re detail oriented, push the limits on how messy you can be.
· If you’re messy, see how neatly you can organize this.
The purpose: Access your sub/unconscious by doing something unfamiliar.
The point: There Are No Wrong Answers, Actions, Colors, Shapes, or Forms. Sorry – you can’t do this and be wrong, bad, or unsuccessful. Whatever comes up is valuable stuff, and will tell you a lot about what’s going on in your life. Guranteed.
The How
Get started.
· Gather your materials (paper and pens or computer, paints and paper, “stuff” and glue, comfy body and videocamera, voice and audiotape recorder)
· Get into a quiet space where no one will disturb you for at least two hours.
· Start doing without thinking about what you are going to achieve, or how “good” it will be. It will be perfect.
· Paint, write, sculpt, gather, dance, whatever, and record whatever happens. Go.
The only “rule”: put things in positive terms.
· Instead of saying, “I am too fat,” transform it into “I want to eat more healthily/reasonably/creatively.”
· Instead of saying, “I never want to work again!” (who doesn’t who is re-versioning?), write, “I want to work with my real passions/what’s important to me.”
· Instead of writing, “I’m a failure,” try “I have not yet achieved/discovered what is important to me in life. I want to do that.”
Challenge yourself on this: Everything you can say negatively can be put in positive terms. Everything.
Don’t stop doing.
· Don’t do the dishes, answer the phone, judge what you’re doing, try and figure out where it’s going.
I hereby give you complete freedom for these two hours to just do without goals.
· Without judgment.
· No one else will ever see this stuff.
· This is For You, From You.
Do it...
for 2 hours minimum, longer if you have the energy.
Take a break.
Not too long, depending on how you feel: from 5 minutes to maybe an hour. Don’t let yourself “forget” what you meant by avoiding looking at what you’ve created here.
What just happened?
Now, take your product in hand/on the TV/in the tape player.
Take a deep breath and listen/look/experience without judging quality. Go for meaning.
Review what you did. Look at the content of your work.
· What did you learn?
· What did you say that you’ve never said before?
· What did you do that opened your eyes to something you want, are, was?
· What surprised you? What seemed to “come out of nowhere”?
Pretend you are a stranger looking at someone else’s work. Look at the arrangement of colors and images on the page/the order of your words or dance movements/the emphasis in your sculpture.
· What is in the center?
· What is most important to this artist?
· What is on the periphery?
· What does everything have in common?
· What is unique on the page/dance/piece?
· How would you describe this to someone who doesn’t know the artist and never saw the work?
Moving forward
What you’ve just done is take your mental and emotional “temperature” today. You’ve accessed the stuff that, sub- and unconsciously, is the most important to you. It’s where you are today. It’s what’s important now.
Now you do need a piece of paper and pen/cil. Now you’ll set goals for the future based on this self-assessment of what you want and are.
· Look at any results or goals you may have described. What’s the most important about each goal? What can you do first to achieve it? Second? Third, et al?
· Find the things you don’t want to do again, if any. Compare to your goals. Identify any contradictions or conflicts, and find a way to resolve them.
· Prioritize your top three goals that encompass most of the things important to you. And I do mean First, Second, Third. Stop at three for today. If you have more, set a date in a month or so to review your goals and add/subtract to the list.
· Congratulate yourself on all of this work, which isn’t easy but infinitely important.
· Go have some fun!
Congratulations! You've completed the first step
None of this work – the original, the meanings, the lists – needs to be shared with anyone, ever. None of this means you are a good or bad creator, or a good or bad person. I suggest you don’t destroy anything, but put it in a private place to review tomorrow, next week, next month, and/or next year. Use it as long as it feels useful to you. When it no longer means anything – feel free to repeat the whole exercise. At the least, though, do it next year on or before January 1.
Enjoy your New Year!
Laurie 2.0
LazyL@wyoming.com
Re-versioning is learning to evolve and change, to grow with the flow (sorry, 1960s!), to move from the past into a future that you want, that you can imagine, even that you can’t imagine. It’s exploration at its most intense: the exploration of the inner, limitless world in order to function in our outer, sometimes apparently limited one.
As I go through this "re-versioning" process, you can join me in the experience -- by using my ideas, games, and efforts with what's important to you. Here's one of the first exercises you might want to try. If you like it, leave it, love it, or hate it, don't hesitate to comment or email me -- I would love to hear what you think!
Words of...
Wisdom? You tell me. Here are some of the things I discovered today, using the process below. I hope at least one of them will resonate for you, and send you forward on your re-versioning experience.
What is an experiment? A new way of seeing the familiar.
Change = Growth. Commit Today – Now.
Just feel the ride.
Passion creates Enthusiasm. Find it in what you do – today.
Act as if you have Freedom To.
It gives you Freedom From.
Trust yourself first.
Kindness (to yourself and others) > Compassion > Forgiveness > Ability to act > Peace.
Follow your heart. The rest will follow.
What is it you’re after, anyway?
This exercise is more about enabling change instead of “trying” to change and setting ourselves up for failure. It’s a process I’ve done for the past 3 years, and every time it gets more profound (for me) in terms of who I am, what I want to change or achieve, and how I can get there. Its success is in trying to let go and access the things you can’t or won’t think about most of the time, so you can anchor your next action in something that will move you forward to your new version.
The key to this is to select a method that is the polar opposite of how you usually think about “things”:
· If you write words, draw or paint with color.
· If you paint, journal or sculpt or build.
· If you use your hands most of the time, write down key words.
· If you talk all the time, be silent and do something where you don’t have to speak.
· If you are a quiet person, speak out loud into the tape recorder.
· If you aren’t physical, dance for the video recorder. Give a live commentary as you do so.
· If you talk to yourself routinely, set up an audio recorder while you do whatever it is you do.
· If you’re good with words, colors, and the physical world, do all three at once.
· If you’re detail oriented, push the limits on how messy you can be.
· If you’re messy, see how neatly you can organize this.
The purpose: Access your sub/unconscious by doing something unfamiliar.
The point: There Are No Wrong Answers, Actions, Colors, Shapes, or Forms. Sorry – you can’t do this and be wrong, bad, or unsuccessful. Whatever comes up is valuable stuff, and will tell you a lot about what’s going on in your life. Guranteed.
The How
Get started.
· Gather your materials (paper and pens or computer, paints and paper, “stuff” and glue, comfy body and videocamera, voice and audiotape recorder)
· Get into a quiet space where no one will disturb you for at least two hours.
· Start doing without thinking about what you are going to achieve, or how “good” it will be. It will be perfect.
· Paint, write, sculpt, gather, dance, whatever, and record whatever happens. Go.
The only “rule”: put things in positive terms.
· Instead of saying, “I am too fat,” transform it into “I want to eat more healthily/reasonably/creatively.”
· Instead of saying, “I never want to work again!” (who doesn’t who is re-versioning?), write, “I want to work with my real passions/what’s important to me.”
· Instead of writing, “I’m a failure,” try “I have not yet achieved/discovered what is important to me in life. I want to do that.”
Challenge yourself on this: Everything you can say negatively can be put in positive terms. Everything.
Don’t stop doing.
· Don’t do the dishes, answer the phone, judge what you’re doing, try and figure out where it’s going.
I hereby give you complete freedom for these two hours to just do without goals.
· Without judgment.
· No one else will ever see this stuff.
· This is For You, From You.
Do it...
for 2 hours minimum, longer if you have the energy.
Take a break.
Not too long, depending on how you feel: from 5 minutes to maybe an hour. Don’t let yourself “forget” what you meant by avoiding looking at what you’ve created here.
What just happened?
Now, take your product in hand/on the TV/in the tape player.
Take a deep breath and listen/look/experience without judging quality. Go for meaning.
Review what you did. Look at the content of your work.
· What did you learn?
· What did you say that you’ve never said before?
· What did you do that opened your eyes to something you want, are, was?
· What surprised you? What seemed to “come out of nowhere”?
Pretend you are a stranger looking at someone else’s work. Look at the arrangement of colors and images on the page/the order of your words or dance movements/the emphasis in your sculpture.
· What is in the center?
· What is most important to this artist?
· What is on the periphery?
· What does everything have in common?
· What is unique on the page/dance/piece?
· How would you describe this to someone who doesn’t know the artist and never saw the work?
Moving forward
What you’ve just done is take your mental and emotional “temperature” today. You’ve accessed the stuff that, sub- and unconsciously, is the most important to you. It’s where you are today. It’s what’s important now.
Now you do need a piece of paper and pen/cil. Now you’ll set goals for the future based on this self-assessment of what you want and are.
· Look at any results or goals you may have described. What’s the most important about each goal? What can you do first to achieve it? Second? Third, et al?
· Find the things you don’t want to do again, if any. Compare to your goals. Identify any contradictions or conflicts, and find a way to resolve them.
· Prioritize your top three goals that encompass most of the things important to you. And I do mean First, Second, Third. Stop at three for today. If you have more, set a date in a month or so to review your goals and add/subtract to the list.
· Congratulate yourself on all of this work, which isn’t easy but infinitely important.
· Go have some fun!
Congratulations! You've completed the first step
None of this work – the original, the meanings, the lists – needs to be shared with anyone, ever. None of this means you are a good or bad creator, or a good or bad person. I suggest you don’t destroy anything, but put it in a private place to review tomorrow, next week, next month, and/or next year. Use it as long as it feels useful to you. When it no longer means anything – feel free to repeat the whole exercise. At the least, though, do it next year on or before January 1.
Enjoy your New Year!
Laurie 2.0
LazyL@wyoming.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
