Rare gift on a delayed timer

All during this week I've had the most wonderful gifts shared with me, on a 2 - 3 year delayed basis, in the form of people's unsolicited messages of appreciation for words and stories I might have shared with them long ago that are just now manifesting themselves in their day-to-day lives. What a wonderful exchange process to be a part of. It made me think about a story I heard from a friend and colleague about 6 years ago, his story about his days in the Marines, and one particular foggy dawn before a battle in Vietnam in which he "knew" he and his men were going to die, and how that morning was the most profound experience in his life of being fully alive, and that he had experienced nothing that came even close, either before or since. Do you remember that exchange, B.?
Well, anyway, I have now come to experience what that story taught me, and it is manifesting itself in my life every day. Your story taught me that when you lay down your weapons (your defensive ego, offensive intellect, and their "high and mighty" words) and embrace death (the death of your lofty self-image, born out of your fear of your own inadequacy), you are left with an appreciation of life and other human beings, a calm and peaceful bliss that is beyond description. And that the fear of our own humanity that we can face and share releases us, while those things about us that we deny and hold inside imprison us. Thanks again, dear friend. Your story is so powerful, and its lessons continue to serve me so well after all these years.

Losing and reclaiming our integrity

Integrity has a direct impact on how things work in our lives. I am not speaking from a moralistic viewpoint here, as in, "You must be good (i.e.; in integrity), or you'll be punished (by someone or something else)." I'm referring more to how natural law works in the universe and how that law drives our daily lives from within. In this context, integrity refers to how consistent things are, how they line up, fit together, and are whole - with everything in its place. In our personal lives, this means that all of the pieces of our lives fit together and work, according to our stated design - including our personal well-being (physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual), our primary relationship, family relationships, friendships, community participation, work life, financial matters, etc. In business, this refers to how all of the pieces of the business model fit together, according to the business' vision/mission/strategy - including its structure, culture, how it interacts with customers, employees, shareholders, how it serves its markets and the world.

As busy human beings, we often lose sight of the fact that integrity in the universe naturally seeks and continuously reproduces itself, in perfect order. It requires no human intervention to be orderly. Out of our own arrogance and ignorance of the majesty and perfection of God's grand design, we often seduce ourselves into thinking that it's our job to create integrity in the world or, at the very least, in our own spheres of influence. We make up that life would work better if we produced some powerful result that would give the appearance to the world that total integrity is present, like eliminating or controlling a competing country, religious doctrine, or political system, or improving a company's quarterly performance metrics to drive stock market price, or winning a gigantic deal, or securing a big promotion. We understand the concept, integrity, and believe in its power and effect, and we think we know what it looks like, but we often find ourselves abandoning it in attempting to produce what we naively imagine are its physical outcomes. How do we stay true to ourselves in the midst of such powerful forces - such a strong need to "look like" we are living what we believe and espouse at so many levels? How do we return to "being ourselves" and simply savoring the experience of noticing integrity and celebrating its flow when it's present (see yesterday's quote on the power of our spirit ...), and allowing its natural regeneration when it's not?

A place to start this exploration is with the mystical internal mechanism that goes off when our spirit catches our physical being's living out of integrity, or our actions being inconsistent with our words. A form of self-sabotage takes place where we begin to produce our own life's unraveling. The pain we feel while doing this to ourselves is merely our resistance to the forces that would have integrity reproduce itself in our lives. The first step is to surrender our insistence that we have integrity when our actions reveal otherwise. I once had an Integrity Coach say to me, "The only sentence in the English language that has any integrity in it is, 'I have no integrity.'" This is a fascinating paradox worth deep exploration. It's really a perfect first step to find our way back to our natural state, if we're able to listen for and obey natural law. It's a first step to claiming our humanity - so perfect in its imperfection.

A simple example of this phenomenon are situations where our personal integrity with our spouse or child goes way out of whack (say, from being habitually late, or not delivering on a few big commitments, or witholding ourselves on a very important matter, etc.) and then strangely we find that our business and work life become increasingly stressed out and unworkable, keeping us further away from the heart of the matter, causing us to further spiral. Or how many times have you brought your resistance to an unresolved conflict with your boss into your most important personal relationship, screwing it up in creative and dramatic ways in the process? How do we identify, understand, and shift these situations before they wreak havoc in our lives? We can follow one important rule that always works: When our integrity is out, we always feel bad; so, when we feel bad we can look inside first, instead of lashing out and making things worse in our relationships with others. When we surrender our need to be right and claim our own breach of personal integrity, we are instantly free to reclaim it.

The power of Spirit in shared conversation

Yesterday was one of those really interesting days when the power of our nonverbal, shared "conversation" in the world showed up in a magical display of spiritual connectedness. I spent quite a bit of time early yesterday thinking about a particular group of wonderful people who I met almost 3 years ago through their company (which is headquartered in Denver), and now know and love (wherever they might currently be employed or living). Some are still with this company, others have moved on, but all still share an interest in creating the most effective, self-responsible lives possible for themselves and their families. In the midst of those musings (all very appreciative, respectful, and warm), and after a period of fairly prolonged (to varying degrees) lack of contact with any of them, 5 of them showed up all at once in very active and lively communication - one from Chicago, two from Denver, one from India, and one from New Jersey. Coincidentally (I've been challenged on that word), the one from Chicago had just returned from visiting the one in India, who was now visiting Denver, and passing the one I was in the middle of a Yahoo Messenger chat with in the hallway, and was also about to have dinner that evening with the other one in Denver who was reaching out to me after a recent vacation, while the one from New Jersey was reaching out to set up a baseball outing with our boys together during my next trip East. It was all so fascinating, and it left each of us breathless in trying to track and understand the mystery of it all. It was like watching a surprise meteor shower flash across the sky, making us feel part of something so much bigger than ourselves. The nicest part was that everyone was feeling good - good about themselves and their lives, good about our shared association and the commitments we share, and good about the circumstances (then and now) that brought us together. It was pure magic. How do you explain it? You don't; you just celebrate it.

Re-parenting

On numerous occasions recently, while working with multiple generations of a family, I have suggested that the coaching relationship is an optional and supporting part of a necessary "re-parenting" process in our lives, and I truly believe this to be so. However, that comment can often be misconstrued. This does not imply that coaching is "targeted" at "victims" of "poor parenting." In fact, it is referring to a universal process we all go through in one form or another as we mature, whether our parents were "good parents" or not, whether we were "good children" or not, and whether we hire a coach or mentor for support or not. It is about shifting our ability to love ourselves, and then other people, unconditionally. It is a delicate and emotional topic, so much so that it is intentionally avoided by many of us. Even speaking about it is difficult, because there is so much cynicism and jadedness surrounding the subject for so many people. Often when we become busy adults in the prime of our lives, we forget the importance of our relationships with our parents, whether they're alive or have passed away. We lose sight of how much our children have watched and are still watching those relationships, regardless of our ages or our physical proximity, and how defining (or limiting) their observations can be in their own lives. I think I found something that does the topic of truly "growing up" (in more than the physical sense) justice and honors all of us, without insulting anyone's parenting intent or performance. See what you think.

"You have learned conditional love from people whose love for you was compromised by their own guilt and fear. These have been your role models. You need not be ashamed of this, nor should they, for they did their best. You need only be aware of it as a fact, and it's a fact for all of us, including our own children.

From the time you were an infant, you were conditioned to value yourself only when people responded positively to you. You learned that your self-worth was established externally. That was a fundamental error, which has been perpetuated throughout your life.

Your parents experience was no different from yours, nor will your children's be. All of you need to heal from the same wounds. All trespasses/violations can be made conscious and the emotions attached to them can be released. This is the way that all human beings move from the experience of conditional love to the experience of love without conditions.

In the process of healing, you learn to give yourself the unconditional love you never received from your biological parents. And in that process, you are 'born again,' and 're-parented,' not by other 'more capable' authority figures (they don't exist), but by the Source of Love inside yourself. ... No one else can do this for you, ever. Other people (including your biological parents and/or coaches or mentors) can assist and encourage you, but no one can teach you how to love yourself. That is the work of each individual soul.

... One who loves without conditions places no limits on his freedom nor on anyone else's. He does not try to keep love, for to strive to keep it is to lose it. Love is a gift that must constantly be given away as it is asked for in each situation. And the giver always knows when and to whom the gift is to be given. ... Love can only exist between equals. Love can only exist between beings who have learned to love and value themselves internally. Love takes no hostages. It makes no bargains. It is not compromised by fear. Indeed, where love is present, fear with all its myriad conditions cannot be."

-- Paul Ferrini, Love Without Conditions