Category: Writing from the red chair

This category started out as sidebar pieces, but they are really pieces of writing that are what I am noticing in my world – inside me and around me.

Rewire the reptilian

 

In a month’s time I will be going on a vision quest. My intention is to recalibrate my reptilian being.

I wrote last week about citizen superpowers and two parts of our brains: the part that serves as our deeper, higher Self (the middle prefrontal cortex, what Shirzad Chabine calls the Empathic Circuitry (mirror neuron system, the insular cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex) and the right brain; and the  fight-or-flight parts of our brain (brain stem and limbic system). The former generates what I call our citizen superpowers, our passion to improve, while the latter is the source of Chabine’s ten saboteurs (see citizen superpowers).

The brain stem and limbic system is also known as our reptilian brain. It is in survival mode at all times, but in  my life, I do not need to be in survival mode at all times.  I have reliable shelter. I have a good food supply. Far more than my basic needs are met. Yet this old part of my brain tells me that there is never enough, that it will never last. I puts me on the defensive and the offensive. It feeds my behaviours that sabotage me and my ability be my best Me.

The reptilian me is focused on scarcity.

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When it comes to food, I have engrained habits that are based in deprivation. I eat whatever is in front of me because it feels like it is my only chance. A few years ago I tried my first diet and it worked wonders. I lost 30 pounds, was physically active and felt super fit. I felt wonderful. I even learned some good habits in the process – I now crave vegetables and fruit.

Inevitably, I started to gain weight back because I lacked the willpower to deprive myself of the foods I want. And when I have access to the food I want, or when I find myself super hungry, I eat like I will not have an opportunity to eat for a couple days. After depriving myself, the reptilian part of my brain takes over when it has a chance. Depriving myself of food I like/want is a pattern of scarcity.

The reptilian me is focused on scarcity.

_____

I can feel a shift underway.  I long to trust my body and its signals about what I need to eat and when. I want to fully appreciate what my body is and what it looks like. I want to shift to appreciate my body from  within, rather than external measures (weight, people’s comments, the mirror).  To pursue this exploration, I am embarking on an experience that will involve true deprivation: a fast.

In June, I will be heading out on a Wilderness Quest on a mountain in the Eastern Cascade mountains with the support of Ann Linnea, Christina Baldwin and Deborah Greene-Jacobi. It is a rite of passage that started when I chose to do this, though I can not better describe what I am moving from, or moving to. That will come. What I learn on this journey could be entirely different from what I imagine. I know I will ease myself into life on the mountain for a couple days, then head out alone, fasting, for two days, then circle up with my fellow questers to “digest” our learnings and prepare to re-enter the world.

My only expectation is time to explore and discover. And I may discover nothing right away.

There is a bigger ME that sees abundance.

_____

My intention is to rewire my reptilian brain, to awaken my whole being to what real scarcity looks and feels like. My intention is to experience what the reptilian me sees, and bend with it to more fully see and appreciate – and embody – the abundance in life.

My quest is my abundant Self. 

 

 

 

 

Take a step back from the edge

 

I must confess that I did not live up to the expectation I have of myself to release 4 blog posts into the world last week. I was really struggling with the last post, Choose the right leap. Ironic, as I was writing about struggle when faced with a big decision.

I had a hard time finding a clear message for this post as I was writing. I had a hard time finding a photo that displayed, adequately, the choice we had before as we stood at the edge of a surge channel on the West Coast Trail. Today, I sat down and could easily see the text to take out of the post and the picture appeared immediately in my search. It seems a few days away from a struggle can take the pressure off and help me see more clearly.

It is necessary – and appropriate – to take a step back from the edge from time to time.

It helps me see what I could not see.

My next post will continue exploring thresholds in choice-making.

_____ _____ _____

This post forms part of Chapter 6 – Emerging Thresholds, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence). Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.

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40,000

 

My friend Ann Linnea, during the months after her 43rd birthday, paddled around Lake Superior. She calls this her Deep Water Passage, a spiritual journey at midlife. I have just turned 43 and I feel that I am at the beginning of a trek of some sort myself, though I am not entirely sure what it is.

Or do I just tell myself that I don’t know?

Ann’s words, as she starts to tell her story, ring out:

When we deliberately leave the safety of the shore of our lives, we surrender to the mystery beyond our intent.  

With a poet’s eye, I look at these words again:

When we deliberately leave  
the safety of the shore 
of our lives,   
we surrender   
to the mystery beyond    

our intent.   

And again:

When we deliberately leave the safety 
of the shore of our lives, 
we surrender to the mystery  
beyond our intent.    

Her journey has a clear destination: to circumnavigate the world’s largest lake by kayak. She knows this is a learning journey; she was prepared for it to change everything in her life. With her paddling partner, she declared intent and commitment to embark on a journey for which she had no idea what would emerge. She surrendered to the mystery beyond the immediate destination. The destination was beyond paddling around the lake; Ann herself would change.

My question to myself – what am I circumnavigating?

I have embarked on a journey to write a book about our evolutionary relationship with cities, a journey to figure out what I see and to share it with others. Inside this journey is a desire within me to be in relationship with others about work. That is why I have chosen to share it on my blog while I write. You get to see parts of it here before it miraculously appears on bookshelves all spiffed up. I started sharing it long ago.

My paddling trek, if you will, is to enter into a more explicit relationship with readers. I wish to reach out to folks interested in this work in a more active manner. And this makes me feel uneasy and uncomfortable because it feels, at first glance to me, as my ego pushing myself out into the world for ego reasons. Upon deeper examination of my motivations, however, I see that it is really about being in a more explicit relationship with my readers. When we choose to hang out with each other, what we will do together will emerge. I desire to know what you find valuable in what I offer. I desire to know what I can do to offer more value. I need to reach out to do this.

My ‘safe shore’ is here, where I quietly do my thing and passively share it with you. I rely on you to find me. Over the course of 2013 I will be leaving the safety of this shore and reaching out explicitly to you. I will actively   seek connections with you (and many others) through this blog, newsletters and social media. Ann’s destination was to circumnavigate the planet’s largest freshwater lake; my destination is to be in relationship with 40,000 ‘followers’.

I am way beyond my comfort zone to say that I want to have 40,000 followers, let alone write it here. It churns up negative feelings of hubris in me. I choose, however, for this destination to mean this: I trust that when I reach out, those that want to be in relationship with me will subscribe to do so. We have work to do together and we need to find each other. I am taking the initiative to describe this work and put it out into the world. I want to be in relationship with others of similar ‘vibrational frequency.’

This will require me to step way out beyond my comfort zone and zealously promote my work in the coming months. As I do so, the commitment I make is to continually reach inside me as I reach out to you, and share what I find.

As I reach out to you, I have to reach further in to me.

 

_____ _____ _____

Further reading

Ann Linnea, Deep Water Passage: A Spiritual Journey at Midlife

Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities. Click here for an overview of Chapters 4-7 (Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence).

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Correct your mistakes

 

I snapped at someone in a circle I was hosting this morning.

35 of us were gathering for an 8:30 start.  At 8:30 only about 12 were in the room. By 8:45, with about 20, we decided to start our work and began to move our chairs closer to the center of our circle.  As we did so, a fellow asked me, “Why are you excluding me?” I see now that I didn’t quite get his question and I didn’t take the time to get it either.  I responded with, “What time did you get here?” His response, “10 minutes ago.” Me again, “we’re not excluding you, we are simply moving our chairs to accommodate a smaller group and we have just moved. It’s not intentional. We’ll make room for you.”  We did, and the fellow moved his chair almost into the circle.

It turns out he was one of the people who arrived more or less on time. He stepped to the side of the room for coffee just before we started to move our chairs and since he was not in his chair, his chair did not get moved. When he came back to the circle, what he saw was the rest of us looking after ourselves. We did  not even consider his chair. His question was very fair: “Why are you excluding me?”

After our check-in and launching into small group discussion, I approached the fellow and apologized. My reaction to the situation was not appropriate. While my reaction was not about him, but my frustration with the tardiness of many other people, I took it out on him. I so appreciate that he did not brush off my apology, but simply said I was wrong. He offered to accept my apology and let it go, and we dove into our work. He was wonderfully engaging all morning and took his place on the rim before we closed.

Today’s learnings:

  1. Prepare for the work. In my case, I did not get enough sleep for several nights and this is a contributing factor to my having a short fuse. Each day, each week, I choose how to prepare myself for the work I have to do.
  2. Notice when my frustration levels are rising, note them, ask the circle for what I need, pause, and then respond. I reacted in appropriately to my frustration without acknowledging the fellow’s take on things.  I was hosting the circle and I did not serve him, or the circle well.
  3. Apologize immediately and sincerely.  I am thankful that I noticed and apologized, but I wish I caught it sooner…
  4. Share the apology with others, as appropriate. In the moment, I see now that I should have done it in a way that everyone could hear. That way I can model the agreements AND I can convey my frustration to the circle so we can all deal with it. The tardiness will certainly repeat itself and I will have a choice to make about my response to it.
  5. When shrinking the circle, move others’ chairs first!
And as I explored this in my journal this afternoon, I noticed that the next several days of work are full of flexibility on how I will spend my time. I drew an oracle card asking where I should put my attention. My jaw dropped when I flipped it over:

Correct Your Mistakes

 

Focus, learn and choose

 

As we approach the winter solstice and the darkness increases, my energy levels are low.  It is hard to get out of bed in the morning and get the day underway. From a life cycle perspective, winter is time to rest, from the activities of the fall harvest and for spring and summer’s growth. I am torn; I feel the pull of rest I feel that there is much for me to be doing – I should be busy.

In this time of darkness I feel adrift, in the increasing gray nowhere described in John O’Donohue’s Blessing, “The Time of Necessary Decision” (yesterday’s post.) As regularly happens, quite naturally, I seem to have lost track of my destination. Without clear purpose, I waver as I decide what to do with my time and energy.

Today’s realization was that I am overthinking things and not listening to my Higher Self. Even as I wrote in my journal about it, I felt like I was overthinking, so I had a conversation with my Higher Self. Here is what transpired:

self: Have I been thinking about how to live from my spirit instead of really doing it? Being it?

SELF: Yes. Yet you’re not far.

Release.

self: Release what?

SELF: Release self.

self: That is my learning curve?

SELF: Yes.

self: A lot of self is released already.

SELF: Yes.

self: There’s more.

SELF: Of course.

self: That next bit is hard to figure out. I’m not sure where it is, where to go to release it.

SELF: Don’t look for it, just let it go. To look for where is about control.

Let it go.

self: Is that what I need to rest into? Over the next few weeks and into the darkness? Just sit with what needs to be let go and let it go? I imagine right now some grieving, but its weird not knowing what I am releasing.

SELF: Sit in the darkness.  It will start getting lighter soon. The self to release will find you.

Remember that what you are growing into will transcend and include what you are growing from. You are not jettisoning anything, so no need to fear losing anything but what is not needed anymore. It’s still around, repurposed.

It is difficult and murky territory when in transition. Focus, learn and choose are three words that stood out for you as you explored the oracle card this morning. You are facing a soul-full challenge right now. On what will you focus, learn and choose? 

self: I focus on reaching my fullest/highest evolutionary potential in my lifetime. I am learning to live from my spirit, my Self and all that I am, freely, expansively, deliberately, consciously. I choose to nourish my Being. 

SELF: Ahhhh… Your energy has shifted.

self: This is a higher order of understanding. It’s not just look after self, it’s nourish self.

Today, I latched on to the higher-order purpose of my work.  A moment to focus, to notice what I am learning, and to make a choice realigns to why I do what I do. I am more connected to my very existence. I am ready to settle into my work, both inwards and outwards, for the next two weeks until things start to get lighter. I can choose to get ‘busy’ and distract myself from the inner work at hand, or focus on it, to learn more about the choices I have.

The gray nowhere, as all seasons do, comes and goes. While it continues to get darker, while I continue to feel somewhat adrift, I feel more alive, connected to my personal journey that is necessarily part of the larger journey of humanity.

This bit that’s alive, connected to purpose, will steer me through all shades of gray of nowhere.

 

 

A retreat from the retreat

 

My intention for last week’s writing retreat was to define, describe and discern.  I just didn’t define, describe and discern what I expected.  I had to retreat from the retreat.

I had a destination in mind:  chapter 1 of Nest City would be tight and clear; my book proposal reworked; and clear sense of what a ‘Nest City Manifesto’ would look like.  I stalled out on the first. Wednesday night I made my way to Strawberry Creek Lodge, settled in, and paused to think about what I wanted to accomplish.  Thursday morning I joined my writing colleagues for breakfast, left the table as soon as I was fed and headed outside into the icy, cloudy day for some fresh air and a visit to the creek, before dropping into the task at hand.  I worked feverishly.  I recorded exact time spent sitting and writing – 10.25 hours.  By bedtime I was exhausted, but still giving myself enough time to sleep so my body would be ready for more writing on Friday.

Friday was more of the same until, after an afternoon run, I sat down with my journal because things weren’t feeling right.  I see now that the land I explored that morning at the top of the valley’s bank, really was subsiding.  I did not register that the shaky ground I saw that morning was shaking within me.

To explore the tension I decided to try something new.  I drew three oracle cards: the first to articulate the situation at hand, the second to reveal what I am missing, and a third to point to my Soul’s most pressing assignment in the moment.  The three cards: accept what is, retreat, and nurture yourself first.  The message – accept the struggle, I am missing the retreat (at the retreat!) and a pressing need to nurture myself.

Stunned. I could not wrap my head around the “what is” that needed accepting.  I could not get my head around what it could possibly mean to be missing the retreat.  I could get my head around looking after myself, and I could get my heart engaged in looking after my Self, my inner Being that needs to be well for me to be well.

So I went rogue at the writing retreat and stopped writing.

I went to meditate with trees as the sun set.

I strolled through the forest, noticing the circle of life and decay, both vibrant and full of energy.  I noticed a trail I hadn’t seen before, despite having passed it innumerable times, leading down to the creek.  After a few steps I was spooked by a structure, on the surface of the land, caved in, screaming danger.  I walked back up the hill and abandoned my quest to explore a new part of the valley.

After a few paces along the familiar trail, I realized I was unsettled, that I needed to go back to the unexplored path and investigate, peek around the corner for a look.  I steeled myself and went back for a closer look, from a distance.  As I reflect on this, I see that this was Saturday’s reminder that I was on shaky ground.  That the ground could drop out from underneath me at any moment.

I went on an analog quest: a long walk to find my road, and time with my little red notebook.

I spent time with words, contemplating the meaning of key words in my writing: habitat, nest, conglomeration, conglomerate, conglomeration, hive, conglutinate.  I played with words that connect to the writing to come: manifest, manifesto, proclaim, declare, display, exhibit, voice, perspective, whole, holon, view, role, inhabit, inhabitants.  I sketched what I saw in the forest – the habitat and its inhabitants.  At last, some insight into questions I have been sitting with for a couple years, began to emerge.

I have been pondering how my writing and my corporate, work identity intermingle.  It seems simple now.  My work out in the world takes place through POPULUS; it is a forest habitat for many nests, one of which is the Nest City Blog.  Over time, I will have Nest Publications,  articulating ways to work in the world and how I see cities working in the world.  Each of these will have their own life, first in the immediate nest habitat in the POPULUS forest, then further afield when they leave the nest.

A second, big question has been looming about my relationship with readers/followers.  I have been explicitly sharing bits of the emerging book.  I have made commitments to share what I see here, with you, without contemplating fully what I expect in return.  While I believe I receive much in giving freely, without explicitly naming what I ask for in return leaves me, with a deep and significant energy imbalance.

So here is the transaction underway.  I give content, awareness, and understanding about the relationship between cities and citizens.  I give my time where asked.  In return, I am given opportunities to work with passion.  I receive feedback about the value of what I offer, and what specifically is of value so I can, where passion aligns, provide more value.  I receive what I need for this work, in money and otherwise.  This whole dynamic allows me to see where this work wants to go, where it wants to take me, what I need to do to best support it.  I am a nest within which this work is unfolding.  I am the work’s immediate habitat, and also a creator of the habitat further afield in the forest.  If I am not well, I can not look after the work well.

So the retreat was a retreat into me, not writing.  Yet all about writing in the end, since I am the writer.

Before I left, the sun came out and I could see what was happening under the riverbank.  It was giving way to Me.

 

 

A warrior for healthy cities

 

Is everyone unhappy with how we organize our cities?  Citizens don’t like what city hall does.  Developers and builders don’t like what city hall does.  Civic advocacy groups don’t like what city hall does. I recently worked with a group of city employees who have been battered and bruised by colleagues in city hall, politicians, civil society, developers and builders, and citizens.  City hall isn’t happy either; every effort they make doesn’t seem to be right and they can’t see a way through to get it right.  They are miserable.  Everyone sounds miserable.

I am hungry for something other than fighting city hall.

I am hungry for civic practices that allow us to see what is working, so we can have more of what works.

I am hungry for civic practices that allow us to see what does not working and grapple with solutions in ways that leave everyone’s dignity in tact.

I am hungry for civil society that serves cities.

I am hungry for civic managers that serve cities.

I am hungry for civic builders and developers that serve cities

I am hungry for citizens that serve cities.

_____    _____

This is my quest: to see what it takes for a city to serve everyone and everything in and around cities well.

_____   _____

All aspects of a city need to be healthy for the city to be healthy.  We need to be healthy for our cities to be healthy.  If our cities don’t serve us well, it is up to us to make it better.  Each of us.  While some of us have more influence over others to make cities that work for us, no one has enough influence to make what they want happen.  Uncertainty is embedded in our cities.  How we react to the uncertainty is key; we can fight or we can choose to figure out how to figure it out.

The route we choose creates the conditions for more of what we put our attention: we can have more fighting, or we can figure it out.

City hall isn’t healthy when they constantly hear what’s wrong.  Developers and builders don’t build great cities when we don’t ask them to.  Civil society doesn’t succeed in keeping us honest to our ideals when we are not open to hearing them.  Citizens – at any scale – are not their best when defensively in trenches, sabotaging their best potential.

My fight is of a strange nature.  I do not ‘fight’ in a physical way, of course, but also not in mental or emotional ways.  I am a warrior of a different kind.

I create the conditions where the various perspectives of the city come out to play, integrating themselves, with give and take, for the purpose of creating a nourishing habitat for the beings that live in and around cities.  This will evoke a different sort of warrior in our cities: one who has the calm poise needed to welcome the feedback our world is giving us, who listens to it, who takes wise action.  Where cities become warriors for well-being themselves.

 

 

 

Lingering September practices

September was a busy month, full of life and excitement.  Now a week into October at a totally different speed, I notice some new practices in response to the life conditions of September that I choose to continue.

  1. I visit the river every day.  Every weekday in September we had contractors on hand to put a new roof on our home.  I work at home, and before I get to work I have a routine of some physical practice and journaling. The contractors’ noise was too much, so I walked over to the river valley for a beautiful view and a bench.  (See Writing from the red chair.)  The contractors are gone, but I still head out in the morning for some time alone with me, the river and the city.
  2. I write at night.  Every Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday in September I was working as Interviewer and Harvester at the Integral City 2.0 Conference.  We hosted 36 sessions (three each day, twelve days) and interviewed over 60 visionaries. I played the role of interviewer, and when not interviewing, supported the host and interviewer by catching audience questions and crafting questions for break-out groups’ exploration.  At the end of each day, I wrote a ‘harvest’, my meaning of the day for immediate publication on our web site.  This schedule meant for some very late nights during the week.  I am finding now that I am inclined to write for a couple of hours each evening.  I am not totally exhausted in the morning because this somehow fuels me.
  3. I stop to breathe. In the middle of September’s craziness, I took some time to pause and deepen one of the ways I gather with people: circle.  I attended Christina Baldwin and Ann Linnea’s Circle Practicum.  One of the most meaningful learnings for me from this experience is the importance of pausing for breath.  Ring the bell, take a breath, then ring the bell again.  This is useful when feeling frenetic, or when something profound has occurred, when there is a transition of some kind, etc.  We even came up with a way to articulate this by text in the digital world: *~*  I am no longer sitting in circle for several days in a row, but I circle up with myself and I choose to notice when I need to stop and breath.  Sometimes I even use a bell.
  4. I pay attention to my energy. There is a lot of synchronicity in my life right now around personal energy.  At the Circle Practicum, and several times throughout the Integral City 2.0 Conference the word ‘energy’ and practices around knowing and cultivating personal energy surfaced. I recognize that I have been intrigued by this for a while, but not yet able to explore this in my personal development.  I sense a whole new area of learning here for me.  One of the gifts of September is curiosity about where my energy is, where I choose to put it and how it moves throughout my body. I am also curious about how energy behaves between and among people.  I choose now to pay attention to the subtleties of my body and being.

Each of these new practices are in response to my life conditions of last month, yet I have chosen to stick with them even though the reasons for them are gone.  In some way, each of these are responding to today’s life conditions too.

There is a virtuous circle at work within me, allowing me to see myself well, and see when life conditions change and when I need to shift in response.  Regardless of what form my habits take, they serve what Marilyn Hamilton and I call the master rule:

  • look after self
  • look after others
  • look after this place

 

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This post forms part of Chapter 4 – An Uneasy Journey, of Nest City: The Human Drive to Thrive in Cities.

Nest City is organized into three parts, each with a collection of chapters.  Click here for an overview of the three parts of Nest City.  Click here for an overview of Part 2 – Organizing for Emergence, chapters 4-7.

Laser beam precision

I received the gift of laser beam precision last week.  I needed a clone and had to make do with just me.  So I told myself I needed laser beam precision and I gave it to myself.

Here’s what I told myself as I headed into a fury of big tasks, all of which needed my full attention:

  1. Settle into the work.
  2. Pour self into the work.
  3. Love the work.
  4. Make meaning of the work.
  5. Share what I see in the work.

I delivered.  These little thoughts helped me create a habitat for myself and the work I needed to do. Stopping regularly to write in my little red notebook added focus as well. For Integral City 2.0 eLab participants, you will find my writing about integral intelligence, cultural/storytelling intelligence and building/structural intelligence for cities on the Harvest pages. It was a great week.

And two nights I was able to get up from my desk before midnight.  That is also success.