So, as I wrote a few weeks back, our exit from Costa Rica was a bit different than expected. I tend to be almost excessively detail oriented, and it’s a mystery to me how I went more than 60 days without checking the visa stamp in our passports.

I write about paying attention all the time, so, “OOPS!”

I had a belief that I had a 90 day Visa, and based upon that belief, I never looked. The ever-kind cosmos had actually provided us with 30 day visas — to remind me that, just because I think something, this doesn’t make it so.

Un-authenticated beliefs are deadly, you see.

There are 2 flavours of belief. In my case, my belief that I had a 90 day visa was simple to (dis)prove. Wayne, look at the Visa stamp! Such beliefs are “day-to-day” beliefs. By that, I mean that the truth or falsity of the belief is “right here, in front of your nose.”

Please, let my theory pan out.

The other flavour of belief is “theoretical belief.” I call this the “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin” exercise. The Buddha, for example, was often questioned about his belief in god. He never discussed it. He said (I’m paraphrasing), “You can’t prove god, and you can’t disprove god, so why bother, when there’s so much you can understand, right in front of you.”

Most of what I do is to persuade people to get out of their heads (away from their theoretical beliefs — dramas) to their day-to-day experience.

Most get something in their heads, and then go scurrying around, trying to find evidence to back it up. The Internet is deadly, as you can find evidence for anything there.

The other line that kills me is, “Research Shows…”

I laugh, inside, because research, 150 years ago, clearly demonstrated that people of colour were inferior to “whites,” women were incapable of anything and would never have the vote, etc. Just today I read a blog post, where the author used “studies on attachment theory” (note the last word…) which “prove” that children need one consistent care-giver for the first 2 years — without it, she proclaims breathlessly, “They won’t attach!”

Right. Like one care-giver has ever been the norm. For most of history, the “community” has raised kids… but that’s not my point. She found a study to defend her wish to stay home and raise her kids. She flaunts the study, when the day-to-day evidence of well-developed kids and a non stressed mom, for me, would be much more persuasive “evidence.”

At the end of the day, all we can do is what we do, and the wise soul isn’t looking for a study to back up a personal decision.

Balanced living is all about asking, learning, and ennacting

When the Visa drama happenind in Costa Rica, I do admit to “losing it” a bit. I got the whole, “They (the infamous ‘they’) are going to throw me in jail!” thing going. To my credit, while obsessing, I re-scheduled our flights, rearranged hotels, and got us out of Dodge. I, however, had some mini-meltdowns.

What I did do, also, was ask for advice — from people who know — expats in Costa Rica.

My chiropractor in Tilaran, Ed Yurica, is a very cool guy. He’s 1/2 Costa Rican, and left the US — he is an official Costa Rica resident. He laughed at me for getting so worked up, for leaving early, etc. (as did my other Costa Rican friends — thanks again to my buddy Carlos, who solved our rental car issues with a phone call!)

Ed gave us hints about exit fees, and I thought it wise to listen.

Rather than quote studies, it’s best to find and listen to people who actually know something.

Ed is also the author of, “Play Dumb and Hold Your Ground.” He said it, we wrote it down, and I told him I was going to write about it.

Ed was describing his approach to bumping against Costa Rican authorities (like the Traffic Police…) — he described just shaking his head, and saying “No!” In other words, no defending, no persuading, no games. Plant your feet and stop talking!

This is the grounded approach to living. Darbella is doing some new Qi Gong training, and she came home with this analogy:

• Vertical alignment is — roots in the ground, head anchored in “sky energy.” This is stability.
• Horizontal alignment, on the other hand, is rooted nowhere, and therefore you are subject to the moods and winds of those around you.

Qi Gung is all about establishing Vertical Alignment.

Play Dumb and Hold Your Ground

Wow! Are you ever silly!

As I watch clients teach me how they fight, it’s always about falling into horizontal alignment — about being blown off track. One person raises an issue, the other person sees things differently (so far, no problem.) Then, either or both get into some version of “If you love me, you’ll see it my way, and change.” (Here comes a problem.)

The problem is that this leads to a shifting away from the issue, into “If you love me…” And from there, evidence mounts, stories are told, and pretty soon, the couple is fighting about stuff that happened years ago.

Play Dumb and Hold Your Ground, on the other hand, looks like, “Hmm. I notice you’re shifting to “If you love me,” and I’m not going. Let’s stay on the topic at hand.”

It takes precisely one person to stay grounded, to stay on topic, to leave the emotional games for another time. “Let’s resolve this one, then see if the other stuff needs talking about.”

The mark of wisdom, then, is to develop roots into the bedrock of balance.

From a place of rootedness, I can ask for help ‘adjusting my posture.’ I know what I know, but have no desire to convert the masses. I seldom ask, “Why is this happening to me?”, and therefore can resolve whatever happens. I have no expectation that others are invested in either “getting me,” or “saving me.”

The Buddha put it this way:

Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.

Beginner’s mind is a mind grounded in balance, harmony, and “not knowing.” It’s about living well, not about “being right.” It’s about “my life,” not about “studies show.” It’s real, not imagined. It’s now, not past or future. It’s authentic, not contrived. It’s “neutral empathy,” (thanks for bringing this home, Dar!) not “If you love me…”

Over the next while, let’s unpack this a bit more!

Play Dumb and Hold Your Ground is a post from: The Phoenix Centre’s Blog. If you’re reading this article anywhere else on the web, let me know!

 

Related posts:

1. Figure / Ground
2. 4 Ways to Ground a Relationship

Being truly alive means shutting the inner TV off once in a while, and simply enacting our intent.

Below are several illustrations and suggestions designed to help you question your intent!

---

The Canada Update

Our new home and office

Productive week. We have a new home in Waterloo, at 544 Drummerhill Crescent, Waterloo, Ontario N2T 1G4. The house phone is: 519.954.3495, if you’d like to sat “hi” or book a session!! I’ll update the Google Map thingie on the site soon!

---

I love client stories.

One thing that’s happened on our trip to Costa Rica is that I’ve heard from a few people who were clients, saying thanks. I’m appreciative of their words, and often they remind me of some significant event from our dialogue times.

Here’s an example: It was some years ago, in December. “Sally” and I had been discussing “Intent,” as in:

“What are you intending to accomplish, and is the way you are choosing to act right now aiding or hindering your stated intent?”

Good timing, as the following happened a couple of days after our session. Sally was writing out the ubiquitous Xmas letter, and because it was some years ago, intended to mail it. So, she printed out a test version. She next decided to ask her husband to read it over before printing out enough for the teeming masses. Her husband read the letter, agreed it was OK, and even congratulated her for a job well done.

Then, the fun began.

He thought of himself as the “man of the house,” and assumed that technology was subject to his deft touch. So, off he went to the computer, where he attempted to print a bunch. The program opened, sent the letter to the printer, and then…

Nothing. Nada.

He tried to get the printer to work by repeatedly clicking “Print” on the computer screen. Nada, again.

Sally suggested that maybe the printer was out of ink.

He loudly and ‘colourfully’ assured her that she hadn’t the least clue about computers — and that she couldn’t possibly be right about what was happening. He fiddled some more. Failing, he swore and jumped up and down, blamed her for breaking the printer, wiggled some wires, failed miserably at getting the thing to print, and then, because really, what else could he do, he ended the evening by stomping off to his room.

Now you know one reason she was doing therapy

I asked her what she would have done in the past.

Sally described what her “normal” behaviour would have been, as she reacted to her husband’s behaviour — to get really small, to try to disappear, to agree that she, indeed, had broken the printer, and to do anything to get him to stop being mad at her. She added,

“That’s what I learned to do when my dad got mad.”

Well, yes. We do learn behaviours at our parents’ knees, and we learn from our tribes, and we build and build on what we learned. In a situation like this, it does feel “normal” to want to do what I’ve always done.

Until we “question our intent.”

This is the part my client really understood from the prior session. As she felt herself shrinking, she thought, “What’s my intent here?” She realized that she had two intentions, and because they were her intentions, both could be fulfilled by her, without anyone else doing anything different.

• First, she wanted to print her Xmas letter.
• Second, she was curious about her husband’s anger.

She also realized that, in the past, she would have done anything to get him to stop his behaviour — she would have followed him to his room, begged his forgiveness, endured his silence while blaming herself.

She saw that this would have been an intent to change someone else — an impossible task.

So this time, as he stomped out of the room, she wished him a “Good night,” and decided not to take his anger personally. The next morning, she went to an office supply place, bought a new ink cartridge, inserted it, and printed out her Xmas letter.

First intention met. When her husband got home, she said, “Guess what! I fixed the computer!” He asked her how that was possible. She replied, “I replaced the ink cartridge, and printed off the letter.”

Now, I know. You probably thought that she “should” have said, “See. I told you so.” But by simply stating the “I replaced the ink cartridge” part, she didn’t escalate the episode from the night before.

Without an escalation, she was able to take the opportunity to invite her husband to talk about his anger. He did, haltingly, and that began their eventual dialogue about all matters emotional. Second intention met.

It is simple to become aware of my own intent. I am also clear that, without asking, I am ignorant of the intent of others. On the other hand, I can pretend not to know my own intentions, while imagining I have others all figured out. But when I do that, I am lying to myself.

Darbella and I pull off all kinds of stuff, because of our intent to work well together. Just ahead of coming to Costa Rica, we moved all of our “stuff” into two storage lockers. (OK, we paid two guys to move the washer… we’re old, after all!) We emptied our townhouse, filled a truck, and emptied it, all in 6 hours.

As we were struggling with the small chest freezer — getting it out of the basement and into the truck — we remembered another time, and another chest freezer. We gave that one to a friend.

We moved some furniture, hauled in the freezer, and carried it down a staircase with a bend in the middle, and deposited the freezer in the basement. Our friend commented that she’d never seen two people move something like we did. No yelling, blaming, fighting. Just teamwork.

Dar said, “We’ve had a lot of practice.” Indeed, that’s true. But I also know we’ve never squabbled over moving something. I said, “Yeah, and we hang wallpaper together, too.”

The reason we do this so well is all about our intent. Our intent, always, is to communicate clearly, let the other know where we are, and to come to a place of agreed upon resolution. In this case, then, our intent was to get the freezer to the basement without hurting ourselves, the walls, or the freezer.

Our intent was not to:

• be in charge
• be right
• be short tempered
• have a fight.

It really is this simple. And we “do” life in the same way.

Prior to moving the freezer off of the porch, we walked through the house, moving things out of the way. We looked at the stairs, realized they were slippery, and therefore left our boots on. Interestingly, there was a point, trying to get the freezer around the 90 degree bend, where I rested it on the steel toe of my boot.

After picking the freezer up, Dar said, “I’m going to put both hands underneath.” She had one hand under, one hand on the back of the freezer. She let me know this so I could compensate for the weight shift when she briefly let go with one hand to move it. I had to stick my head out around the freezer, to see her hand and watch — then I could compensate precisely when she let go. I then decided to do the same with my hands, so she watched me.

As we moved the freezer, we checked with each other as to our “tiredness.” On the stairs, we got jammed up a bit on the turn. We found a way to rest the weight evenly, while having a discussion about what to do. One of us would suggest, then we’d try it to see if it worked. Three tries, and around the bend she went.

Now, we could have gone to anger or frustration or whining, but this wouldn’t have accomplished our intent — to get the freezer into the basement.

Life, as I said, is the same.

• If my intent is to deepen a relationship, then I need to evaluate my actions and choices and words on the basis of that intent.
• If my intent is to be intimate, I need to discipline myself to move closer, not back up.
• If my intent is to implement a project, then everything I “do” will lead to the completion of the project. Therefore, it is also my responsibility to translate my project into language others can understand.
• If my intent is good communication, I will be aware of what works and what doesn’t — with each person I’m trying to communicate with. I will choose to communicate, for example, in “Darbella-speak,” which means that I know which ways of saying things work with her — and which ways she chooses to annoy herself with. I need to get over myself and any thinking that she should just “put up with me” when I misspeak myself. I’m an adult, and if I’m aware of my intent, I can choose not to provoke when my goal is good communication.

Far too often, we allow the dramas in our heads, the “I know what you are intending” thoughts, to dominate. We then go off half cocked, missing clues to the contrary, digging holes for ourselves. Remember: our dramas are just that — plays we invent for our own amusement.

Being truly alive means shutting the inner TV off once in a while, and simply enacting our intent.

If you are always in your head, imagining what you don’t have and think you really want, you tend to miss what you already have. By staying present, being in the moment — I have the best chance of being real. I can celebrate this moment in my life — and why not? It’s all that exists.

What do you want for your life? In all of that wanting, what are you missing that you already have? In your wish to be right, are you living a fulfilling life? In your quest for perfection, or wisdom, or enlightenment, are you failing to notice your wholeness — the good, the bad, the indifferent? What would happen in your life if you chose wholeness, presence, and clarity as your clear intent — and lived each moment in the moment, living and breathing your intent?

Hmm. Maybe living your intent and celebrating your intent would be… enough.

At the very least, the freezer would get to the basement — and elegantly at that.

Always Question Your Intent is a post from: The Phoenix Centre’s Blog. If you’re reading this article anywhere else on the web, let me know!

 

Related posts:

1. A Question of Intent
2. A Question of Experience

---

The Kitchener Update

Flying home… from sun to snow

We’re back home in Canada, looking for a place to live, having survived both the flights. More info about when and where I’ll working next issue!

---

I’ve been thinking about all the dramas that play out in the average lifetime. I can’t seem to get away from the idea of a benevolent universe, and the abundance of learning opportunities that occur, minute by minute. Thus, each drama is a lesson in disguise.

We’re a few days back home — having flown out of the sun and warmth into an Ontario winter. We came home to snow, and today, it’s raining. Weird. Unpredictable.

And that’s the point, really.

You just don’t know, in advance, much of anything. We learn in the moment, and especially “in the midst of it” — in the middle of drama. Life lessons almost always involve adrenaline.

I just remembered a story that comes from multiple years ago — back when I had an office in the lovely beach town of Port Elgin, Ontario. Not such a lovely place for a drive in the month of January, however. I finished a long day of counselling, and it was around 8:30 pm, and I wanted to go home. I took a look out the window, and there were a few, cute flakes of snow coming down. I decided that the weather was good enough to drive.

Wrong.

I got 10 minutes outside of town, and drove into whats called, by the locals, a “streamer” — that’s a band of snow coming in off of the lake — in this case, Lake Huron. It’s like hitting a wall of snow and wind. I was engulfed, could only see 3 feet in front of me, and there was 8 inches of new snow on the ground, and a couple of tire tracks.

I proceeded, slowly.

Meeting cars going the other way was a treat. For a moment, I could see better, but then we each had to slow down to decide who got the tire tracks. This means that pretty quickly I had to find the (quite invisible) shoulder of the road. What was required: no panic, edging over gently and carefully, and no quick moves.

This seems to be, in business and in life, a good piece of advice if ever there was one.

More cars began appearing out of the glooming snow, but they were sideways, in the ditches. This, I have heard, is not good. I suspect that people get into this fix when they scare themselves. They lose sight of the little clues about where they are in relation to, well, the ditches.

What they forgot was what we just mentioned: no panic, scanning without fixating (look where you want to go, not at what you’re trying to avoid. When we fixate on where we don’t want to go, we end up hitting it) and allowing for keen observation. There’s a wealth of information floating around, if only we will get quiet and listen. (For example, mailboxes are just off of the shoulder, and before the ditch.)

Imagine. Gently scanning the path for clues as to our location, not panicking, and assuredly never aiming at what would best be avoided. I wonder why I’m writing about this?

I was beginning to question my ability to get home.

We always leave a trail

Now, there were tire tracks I could have continued to follow — indeed, trucks were heading south (toward home) and I could have followed one of them. There was just one problem with that approach. I didn’t know where they were going. What was their final destination? Why should I follow someone somewhere on faith? We could all end up in the ditch. Or in Sarnia or somewhere.

Having finally decided that carrying on would likely result in me visiting the ditch, I bailed and decided to head back to Port Elgin, via the country road I always take.

Except the country road was covered in virgin snow.

And the wind picked up. I drove very slowly, imagining the curve I’d have to navigate in order to cross the one lane bridge over the river. A farm loomed in the distance, lane-way snowed in. I stopped and thought about pulling in, turning around. I decided to press on. (Notice another pattern here?)

About a quarter mile later, I gave up. There was no way I could determine anything. I couldn’t even make out where the ditches were, and it was only luck that had kept me out of one. I needed to turn around. But how?

I rolled down the window, looked backwards at my tracks and realized I had a clear and elegant tire track path back to the highway. I could drive in reverse, and follow my own tracks back to the point where I knew there were other paths to follow.

I’m not John Wayne nor the Lone Ranger. Just because I’ve decided to try something, to head off in a certain direction, doesn’t mean I have to go full speed ahead when all I’m getting is lousy results. It’s tempting. Very tempting. I even had a little voice in my head, as I backed up, say, “What are you, a wuss?” Yet how often does disaster result from the endless repetition of what doesn’t work?

How often do we end up ass over teakettle because we refuse to stop doing what doesn’t work?

I made it back to the highway. Turned left. The snow was worse, more cars in the ditch. But I’d covered this part of the road before. Unlike the other drivers, I also knew that the tracks I could see to the left of me, in the other lane, were mine, and they led home.

An hour after I left, I got back to my office, having driven maybe 6 miles total.

I’d stopped at a Convenience Store to buy a magazine to read, as I’d be sleeping in my office. I mentioned my adventure to the nice lady behind the counter, who smiled and said, “Not from around here, are you?” I agreed that I wasn’t. She replied, “Locals call this part of town The Stupid Zone. People look outside, see clear skies and say, “I think I can drive south,” despite what they’re saying on the radio. Glad you got back safe.”

What a nice way to call me stupid! I love it! “I think … you’ve entered The Stupid Zone!”

And she, of course, was right. I knew it was snowing, and snowing bad. I decided that I wanted to be home. My desire to be home outweighed my knowledge of the conditions. (Just because you want something doesn’t mean it’s always in your best interest.) I, in other words, made a stupid choice. I didn’t listen to all of me. I only listened to the one, dumb voice that wanted to go home.

Alternatives abound!

So, lots of lessons here, most of which I’ve mentioned as I wrote.

Life is played out, for many of us, exactly the same way. We’re drawn by a silly little voice to do something (again!) that we know gets us lousy results, lost, stuck up to our bumpers in drifts, tilted over and in trouble. And like lemmings, off we go, doing it again. And again.

Yet, even though we chose to head down “the stupid path,” there are ways to turn around, to navigate safely to safe harbour (or, as Darbella puts it, “All you have to do is change your position …”)

• This requires a willingness to admit that heading down that path was dumb, just plain dumb.
• This requires focus and attention.
• This requires accepting our ‘mistaken direction,’ stopping, and finding a way to turn around. Going back has markers. Plunging ahead leads to the ditch.
• To do this elegantly requires working from a non-attached place of saying, simply, “This isn’t working.”

This is a place of non-judgement. What possible good would it have done me to beat up on myself for heading into the snow? I needed all my faculties to scan the road and find my way home.

I may talk about The Stupid Zone, but I don’t consider myself (or anyone) stupid. Stupid choices, yes. For sure and in spades. The wise soul is not the person who makes no mistakes.

The wise person recognizes the mistake and corrects. Immediately. Without whining.

From this place of non-attached observing, clues to “making it home” always appear. Markers. Hints. The signs are there, all the time, if we look. And then, we are required to act — to do something different.

One of my friends sent me an e-mail. She wrote:

“I warmed myself reading your words. My how I appreciate you and am forever grateful. Everything you said makes sense. I had an interesting experience this morning, speaking of synchronicities … I was in a meeting this morning and a co-worker and I were discussing the topic of perfectionism… and guess who knows about that! I said, “I know about that, I am a certifiable perfectionist wanna be”… and just after I ended that sentence a light plate (one of those big clear plastic covers) fell from above me and missed my head by about a foot!! My colleague had a bird and I certainly freaked myself out! I immediately thought — what is the universe telling me here? TO STOP EVEN REMOTELY SUGGESTING THAT I AM PERFECT!!! Very amusing. Did I learn my lesson yet or do I need the bloody thing to hit me on the head?”

Neat, the way the cosmos works. I often want to give people’s heads a shake, in proper Zen fashion. Nice to see the ceiling beginning to fall in on what doesn’t work.

Have a look at your life, your dramas, the things you continually set in motion. Stop whining about how hard it is to stop. Just think, Is this path safe? Clear? Helpful? Does it lead where I want to go? Am I on it out of habit? Do I have the courage to turn around?

Then, turn. Just Turn.

The Shocking Truth about The Stupid Zone is a post from: The Phoenix Centre’s Blog. If you’re reading this article anywhere else on the web, let me know!

 

Related posts:

1. Expressing your Truth
2. Finding Your Truth

---

The Costa Rica Update

What do you mean, we can’t leave until the 18th???

So, if you’re a FaceBook friend, you already know that we discovered we’d unknowingly (no excuse… I just missed it…) overstayed our visa. I got quite worried, ended up with a headache, etc. and re-booked our tickets. Now, instead of leaving Costa Rica January 26, we’re leaving the 18th. We’re glad to be getting home and working on our new, Open Palm Solutions approach to our work, but we certainly will miss Costa Rica! Thanks to my amigo Carlos for helping us with some of the exit “rough edges!”

---

Some years ago I had a second office in Port Elgin, Ontario. My drive took me north from Mennonite country, through other farming communities, to Lake Huron. It was a lovely 2-hour drive.

I remember one drive up that was certainly a treat. The farm implements were everywhere and it was clearly time to prepare the fields for next year. In other words, as in many farm communities world wide, it was time to spread it.

And spreading it they were.

So, have you ever watched a manure spreader trundling through a field, scattering manure in a 20 foot arc? Have you seen wagons filled with manure, heading for the fields, their contents to be dumped into the spreader? Or, I learned, if your manure of choice is pig manure (strong stuff!) you actually don’t spread manure — you mix it with water and spray “manure tea.”

Even the skunks pack their bags and leave town.

I’m amazed at how “put out” non small town folk can get when it’s spreadin’ time. My mom, bless her, used to get right indignant when she’d come upon the fragrance — which of course hangs in the air like brown fog, and sometimes has enough punch to clear up your sinuses from your last cold. She’d say,

I’d look at her and shake my head in wonderment.

It was clear that mom was really asking, “Why are they doing this to me? Surely they should have known I’d be driving along this road and that I would offend myself.” I’m sure, at her most self-involved, she figured it was actually a plot. “Psst. Erma’s coming. Spread it thick and pass the word.”

Well, maybe not.

As my therapist used to say, “Shit happens.” (You knew I was going to have to say that, right?)

Not much that is happening in life is aimed directly “at” me. Indeed, most of life is simply goes on without my noticing. Darbella and I took a night time nature walk a few weeks back. We’d be walking along, using flashlights, and the guide would shift his light, and poof! — an animal or a tarantula. Never noticed, even with a flashlight!

Which is another way of saying that the things that are significant in my life are the things I notice. And vice versa.

Added to that is the interpretation I put on the few things I choose to notice. Example: If I’m looking to make myself miserable, I’ll look for things I judge prove that I’m hard done by. If I’m looking for examples of poor treatment, I’ll be an expert in ignoring anything else.

I can look at the manure spreaders and see nothing but manure spreaders, (like my mom did) or I can miss them entirely. I can be like a farmer and think, “Good! The crops will grow next year!” Or I can be put out, wrinkle my nose and curse all farmers and the heavens for their inconsiderate behaviour. A lot of people pick the latter — and the manure is spread anyway.

Which is sort of like office politics games. I’m amazed at how many people think a goal in business circles is to eliminate game playing, politics and manipulating situations, because they judge that such situations “stink.”

“If things were ‘right,’ this wouldn’t be necessary” kind of thinking. Well, get over it. All of life, at some level, is political.

I write this blog to get you to look at your life and how you are playing it, and I often do that by revealing my experiences to you. I’m not doing this to amuse myself. I’m doing this to have an impact and to facilitate change. In myself, of course. But emphatically for you, too.

Is this political? Of course.

It’s political because I’m promoting an agenda, a world-view, in all that I write and all that I do. I’m also (or I would be a hypocrite) LIVING my agenda, my politics, my world-view. Ideally, I want to be connected with people who are on the same page as me. My “agenda,” such as it is, is to have other people to talk to. Now, from my perspective, I’m doing this for noble reasons. But at the end of the day, all I can say is that I am doing what I am doing solely for MY reasons.

flickr

Farmers spread manure for a political reason. They want a good crop, in order to make more money than they spend. I don’t suspect many of them are sitting out there, hour after hour, on their tractors, dragging around manure spreaders because they think this is a great way to spend a Wednesday morning. The manure, to them, is a means to an end. The “end” is measured on their bottom line. (Yes, I get the puns.)

I’m sure more than a few yahoos yell and swear at them, shoot them the bird, etc. as they drive by. They likely grin and don’t take it personally, like the yahoos do.

I doubt there are many farmer’s meetings going on, debating the relative merits of manure spreading. I mean, picture it:

“Well, Luke, what do you think? Maybe we should change our manure spreading habits. Sixty people got mad at me today.”

“Well, Rufus, I was thinking the same thing. Here we are, imposing our manure on those poor drivers and the only reason we’re doing it is to pay our mortgage. How could we be so selfish?”

“Yeah, guys,” replies Ted, a tear trickling down his cheek, “It’s my parenting. My parents were farmers and they spread their manure everywhere, and it all landed on me. I’m a helpless victim of my genes. I’m a manure spreader — I’ll always be a manure spreader. In fact, compared to you guys, you guys are saints. I’m the worst manure spreader on the planet.” (I think I actually knew this “farmer…” )

A guy I knew worked for a world-class bozo. The boss was a racist, misogynist, and a misery to be around. My buddy was head of a major department and needed stuff to do his job. He’d go and ask and his boss would yell and swear and my buddy would leave empty handed. After a month of this, my friend showed up and wanted to talk with me. After hearing the above story, we looked for a resolution.

Now, I wasn’t interested in the boss, nor in his belief system. I reasoned that if he was too offensive, the guy could leave and easily find another job. If the guy got into the “this isn’t fair, this isn’t right” stuff, nothing would change, he’d be miserable and his department would tank. So, I asked the guy, “How many times in a row will your boss say no?” This is a political question.

The guy was nonplussed. He had no idea. I suggested he go and find out, by making a list of things he needed. Now, he’d told me that the most he’d ever asked for was two things, and was refused both, and loudly. So, I suggested he put two items he actually didn’t want on the top of the list and start the real list at item three.

He did. His boss, predictably, refused the first two requests, loudly. The guy asked for item three, the first one he really wanted. He got it. Emboldened, he asked for one more. Got that one, too. This became his pattern. Ask for 2 he didn’t want, get 3 & 4. This guy actually outlasted the boss, who sold the business.

Now, was this manipulative, or political? Maybe to the first, definitely to the second.

I’m suggesting that all of us go into situations, relationships, work environments, with an agenda. Often, that agenda doesn’t match with the agendas of others. If we are unwise, we resort to moaning and complaining and sneaking around, trying to get others lined up, trying to make things happen, frustrating ourselves trying to tilt against the politics of the people who, seemingly, oppose us.

Almost always, there are two streams of interaction — 1) with those we are “simpatico” with, 2) and with those who seem to oppose us. When we act with the first group, our direction is already set, we are pulling in the same direction and have similar world — views. Communication is direct, and there is a decided lack of “one-upmanship.”

With those who seem to oppose us, we can easily get sucked into a power play. Someone, or both of us, may be trying to be proven “right.” When this happens, we have to do some real, creative thinking.

Turn your world on its head!
flickr

As you look at what is happening, we understood that the political task “task” is to creatively find ways to fulfill our mandate, despite any knee-jerk reactions from those around us. In the end, we seek a way around each obstacle. If we focus in on “spreading manure,” and get caught feeling sorry for ourselves, we get nowhere.

Our choice, like the farmer, is to accept manure spreading as a part of the environment, and to work with it

as opposed to fighting it. This is not giving in to it or swimming in it. It’s accepting it as one, and only one, feature of the situation. From this place of gentle understanding, elegant approaches emerge.

In the end, life itself is political, because we are continually required to choose. We can choose in a knee jerk way, fighting, whining, blaming, judging. Or, we can choose to gently accept the reality of each situation and find a way to accomplish our goals, while maintaining our integrity.

The Zen approach is this: when I smell manure on the breeze, I remember the corn on the cob that springs from it. Delicious!

How to Learn to Love Spreadin’ It is a post from: The Phoenix Centre’s Blog. If you’re reading this article anywhere else on the web, let me know!

 

Related posts:

1. Learn Flexibility and Flow
2. The key to love is respect and patience
3. Love: doing all in your power to encourage another to accept their wholeness.