i open my eyes into the dark - to a noise i did not recognize in a space i did not know. the bed i lie in is soft and warm. i can smell clean linens and i feel the sweat starting to prickle on my neck as i swelter underneath the down comforter.
i have no idea where i am.
this has happened before.
this has happened a lot recently. i'd forgotten this part of not having a home.
once i got my wits to me and came to a realization of where i was (thanks to the mansion folks for letting me stay!) i sunk back into the bed and proceeded to flatten my mind back out for sleep. it was then that it came to me. the answer. not some kind of intense revelation. not THE WAY or HOW or WHAT'S NEXT. just simply the answer to what had stumped me last night. i knew how to start the cover letter i was working on.
this has happened before.
sitting in the kitchen this morning i chatted a bit with my friends about that moment. not the moment last night that led me to get another job application done, but THAT MOMENT when i wake from my sleep to some kind of realization. when i open my eyes into the dark and just know.
funny thing is that i did not start the conversation. my friend jason did. he came to the kitchen with a tale of realizing in the middle of the night that he needs to spend time centering again (centering in the middle - literal metaphor). he wondered aloud what it was that led him to this late-night revelation. he told me this was not uncommon for him.
this has happened before.
i often do my best thinking when i am not thinking. i come to conclusions when i sleep, when i am focused on intense exercise, when i talk, when i have sex. in the moments when i am outside of my mind i find that it works the best. the puzzle pieces pull themselves together seemingly on their own and i suddenly...just...know.
for me i live in my head most of the time. my heart and body and spirit have to catch up on a regular basis. i wonder if that is what is happening. i step out for a bit and the rest all come home. there is a scientist who focuses his research on measuring levels of consciousness and developing a meter that can read it as easily as temperature. thinking about this article, my recent accidental foray into jungian psychology, and spending time with therapists who tap into the nether-realms i wonder if that is actually possible.
i do love those moments of realization where the things i need surface from my unconscious mind and i come back to my brain to find them there. it is a moment of intense clarity where my unconscious is tapped into my conscious mind. i think about personal integration and centering and drawing together the pieces of my being and i wonder if i could harness that mindfully.
or perhaps the unconscious is not something we can own.
Showing posts with label ny times. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ny times. Show all posts
5.10.10
7.9.10
service leadership
a while back...shoot...maybe more than a while back, i was working in the field and got a visit from my director, brad. it was february or march - cold and sunny as the desert spring always is - and we took a walk from the group to chat a while.
we talked about life, future, plans. we talked about my recent breakdown in the field which led me to panic and call to base that i had to leave. we talked about my on again off again relationship. we talked about my dog.
but that was not why he came to see me.
brad wanted to know if i was going to apply for the job opening in the field department. he knew i was getting burnt out on the work and looking for something new. he knew i had been putting in select applications to return to university life, and he knew that i had already set my end date at aspen for field work. he knew i was going to say yes when he asked me if i would apply, but he came to ask me anyhow.
in the end it was not really that question that brought brad to the wilderness to talk. that was just the ramp up. he wanted to give me some feedback that i needed to hear. need to, but would not want to. a master craftsman of difficult feedback, he laid an impeccable foundation that set me up to listen to his thoughts about my work, my growth, and my leadership.
"you do too much," he said. "people who work with you don't get a chance to grow."
when you get a mirror like that held up to you - the kind that blindsides you with truths you had no idea existed - it can be devastating. the idea that my own drive to be perfect and solid and the best at what i do was stunting others hit me hard - not unlike a mack truck taking out a deer. i went to the desert to learn about myself, but the edification process really hurt.
it's been a while - still not sure how long a while - since i got that feedback. i feel grateful that i did. though i still often fall into the pattern of doing everything myself so that i know it gets done correctly, my aim is not necessarily perfection but balance. that conversation changed how i think about leadership in many ways. it pushed me to think about leading by stepping back, by empowering, and by helping rather than by doing. leadership can be more than charging ahead. it can be more than creating vision.
leadership can be so many things.
i read an article in the NY times today that talked about arizona politicians serving corn to constituents. the woman who organizes the event said of it simply, "people want leaders who will serve them." i thought that was a beautiful way to think about leadership. if you take it on with a heart of service then there is nothing you will be unwilling to do when you lead. no person bigger than the team, everyone pitches in, no I anywhere in there etc. etc.
i make light...i think my brain is stuck in grey's anatomy voice over mode.
really though - service leadership. i really like it.
now i just have to figure out how to enact it.
we talked about life, future, plans. we talked about my recent breakdown in the field which led me to panic and call to base that i had to leave. we talked about my on again off again relationship. we talked about my dog.
but that was not why he came to see me.
brad wanted to know if i was going to apply for the job opening in the field department. he knew i was getting burnt out on the work and looking for something new. he knew i had been putting in select applications to return to university life, and he knew that i had already set my end date at aspen for field work. he knew i was going to say yes when he asked me if i would apply, but he came to ask me anyhow.
in the end it was not really that question that brought brad to the wilderness to talk. that was just the ramp up. he wanted to give me some feedback that i needed to hear. need to, but would not want to. a master craftsman of difficult feedback, he laid an impeccable foundation that set me up to listen to his thoughts about my work, my growth, and my leadership.
"you do too much," he said. "people who work with you don't get a chance to grow."
when you get a mirror like that held up to you - the kind that blindsides you with truths you had no idea existed - it can be devastating. the idea that my own drive to be perfect and solid and the best at what i do was stunting others hit me hard - not unlike a mack truck taking out a deer. i went to the desert to learn about myself, but the edification process really hurt.
it's been a while - still not sure how long a while - since i got that feedback. i feel grateful that i did. though i still often fall into the pattern of doing everything myself so that i know it gets done correctly, my aim is not necessarily perfection but balance. that conversation changed how i think about leadership in many ways. it pushed me to think about leading by stepping back, by empowering, and by helping rather than by doing. leadership can be more than charging ahead. it can be more than creating vision.
leadership can be so many things.
i read an article in the NY times today that talked about arizona politicians serving corn to constituents. the woman who organizes the event said of it simply, "people want leaders who will serve them." i thought that was a beautiful way to think about leadership. if you take it on with a heart of service then there is nothing you will be unwilling to do when you lead. no person bigger than the team, everyone pitches in, no I anywhere in there etc. etc.
i make light...i think my brain is stuck in grey's anatomy voice over mode.
really though - service leadership. i really like it.
now i just have to figure out how to enact it.
10.8.10
plagiarize this!
am thinking today about creativity per the radio west show i listened to yesterday arguing that we are, as a culture, becoming less and less creative. this came to me in combination with a ny times article about plagiarism and the internet and a recent foray into richard louv's 'last child in the woods.' what comes to me after experiencing these pieces touch upon three things 1) loss of creativity and imagination, 2) the impact of digital media on our culture, and 3) the question of how to foster important life skills while honoring technological advances.
if you are reading this you have in some way bought in to the immediate, accessible, intangible world of the internet. i know that i use the web on a daily basis to look for jobs, connect with friends, read the news, and research things. there are times when i find myself feeling a NEED for that access. instead of playing my guitar, working in my garden, walking my dog, i fold myself into this safe digital 'space' happily. i build virtual relationships (there are people 'in' my life i have not spoken to directly in years), read news as it come to me (often without depth of content), send my own thoughts into cyberspace (if you can call it a space), and even build a little frontier village complete with digital animals, crops and a family.
i can see how virtual reality cuts into my actual reality (thank you jonathan larson), and i try to be conscious of that fact. i don't think that is so much the case for the millennial generation. my younger cousins don't recall a time when mail did not come on a screen and where 'chatting' included a keyboard. if that is the way life is why would one divide their consciousness like i try to? kids don't play in the woods, learn the art of meaningful conversation, or understand how to verify facts. i can see why plagiarism has become fuzzy around the edges - our own reality has been ever so slightly drawn out of focus. if reality is not always 'real,' how can facts be?
there was a lovely editorial written about that ny times article arguing that if professors were to make paper-writing a process rather than an assignment they might have less cheating and more learning. i completely agree, and would take it farther to include the rest of life as well. there are so mant other places in life where we are no longer involved in process. food needs only a couple of buttons pressed to eat ('processed' replaces 'process'), conversations are reduced to 'gtg' or 'rofl' on keypads, and we all travel around in our cars, windows closed to the weather. if we all make a greater effort to get our hands dirty we might not see such a decline in creativity in schoolchildren.
i don't advocate the removal of digital technology from our lives. i love being able to call my friends at a moment's notice, write blog articles, read the paper without having to change the delivery address each time i move, and find recipes at the drop of a hat. however i do hope that people can come up with a way to maintain our actual reality and avoid getting lost in the virtual. the connection we can get with ourselves, others, and our planet is worth the effort!
now, if you will excuse me, i need to go back to reality.
if you are reading this you have in some way bought in to the immediate, accessible, intangible world of the internet. i know that i use the web on a daily basis to look for jobs, connect with friends, read the news, and research things. there are times when i find myself feeling a NEED for that access. instead of playing my guitar, working in my garden, walking my dog, i fold myself into this safe digital 'space' happily. i build virtual relationships (there are people 'in' my life i have not spoken to directly in years), read news as it come to me (often without depth of content), send my own thoughts into cyberspace (if you can call it a space), and even build a little frontier village complete with digital animals, crops and a family.
i can see how virtual reality cuts into my actual reality (thank you jonathan larson), and i try to be conscious of that fact. i don't think that is so much the case for the millennial generation. my younger cousins don't recall a time when mail did not come on a screen and where 'chatting' included a keyboard. if that is the way life is why would one divide their consciousness like i try to? kids don't play in the woods, learn the art of meaningful conversation, or understand how to verify facts. i can see why plagiarism has become fuzzy around the edges - our own reality has been ever so slightly drawn out of focus. if reality is not always 'real,' how can facts be?
there was a lovely editorial written about that ny times article arguing that if professors were to make paper-writing a process rather than an assignment they might have less cheating and more learning. i completely agree, and would take it farther to include the rest of life as well. there are so mant other places in life where we are no longer involved in process. food needs only a couple of buttons pressed to eat ('processed' replaces 'process'), conversations are reduced to 'gtg' or 'rofl' on keypads, and we all travel around in our cars, windows closed to the weather. if we all make a greater effort to get our hands dirty we might not see such a decline in creativity in schoolchildren.
i don't advocate the removal of digital technology from our lives. i love being able to call my friends at a moment's notice, write blog articles, read the paper without having to change the delivery address each time i move, and find recipes at the drop of a hat. however i do hope that people can come up with a way to maintain our actual reality and avoid getting lost in the virtual. the connection we can get with ourselves, others, and our planet is worth the effort!
now, if you will excuse me, i need to go back to reality.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
