What CEO expects to stand before her or his Maker someday and talk about shareholder value? It may sound like C-suite heresy but in 1994, when I was at the top of my game as CEO of a global, $1 billion company, I had an epiphany that changed how I saw the world and how my company — and I — would leave it, and it left me cold.

For now, let’s call it a nagging sense of legacy, the thing that must have been in the back of my mind back in 1994 when I read Paul Hawken’s book, The Ecology of Commerce, seeking inspiration for a speech to a task force that was organizing to answer customer concerns about what our carpet company was doing for the environment. Hawken’s central point was that the very institutions that are degrading our environment — business and industry — are also the only ones powerful and pervasive enough to right the damage. That Hawken was right — and that I and my company were among the guilty — hit me like a spear in the chest.

That realization led me down a road I never imagined for myself or my petroleum-intensive company.  Distancing ourselves from the wellhead requires that we re-imagine our antiquated, linear, take-make-waste industrial enterprise to instead be a part of a thoughtful, cooperative, cyclical system that mimics nature in the way that we source, design, manufacture, sell, install and eventually — reclaim — our products. It requires new technology, new inputs, new thinking. It is intensely complicated, and at the same time, completely liberating, to think outside the box and beyond the traditional confines of design and manufacturing. And somewhere along the way, the idea that what we are doing is so right — so right, and so smart — emerges to propel us forward. It is working — our products are better than ever, our employees are more engaged than before, customers are extraordinarily loyal and importantly — costs are down, not up, dispelling the myth that sustainability is expensive.

So what about that nagging sense that must have been at the back of my mind back in 1994? Ego says it was legacy, but let’s assume that it was actually conscience — the thing that inherently knows right from wrong. Right now we humans are burning up something like a cubic mile of oil each year, as well as mountains of coal, to power our homes, our cars, our offices, and our factories, fuels that took millions upon millions of years to create — and only a few hundred to exhaust.  Inherently, we must know that this is wrong — and stupid. A wise farmer would shake his head and say we were eating our own seed corn. A capitalist would say we can’t afford to do it differently.

But what if that capitalist took into account the value of the services that nature provides? What if the balance sheet required that we account for air; water purification and distribution (the hydrologic cycle); soil creation and maintenance, thus food; energy; raw materials; climate regulation; pollination; seed dispersal; nutrient cycling; an ultraviolet radiation shield; flood and insect control; and net primary production, the product of photosynthesis? Surely, the capitalist will know that without any of these, there would be no economy.

At Interface, the pursuit of sustainability has opened our eyes, not only to the enormous opportunity that new thinking provides, but also to how wrong we had it before.

If we intend to go on, if we aspire to thrive in a carbon-constrained world, and to put down multiple threats — global climate disruption, species extinction, resource depletion, and environmental degradation — we need a new way, a better way. Wrong thinking got us in to this mess. Eating our own seed corn, as it were, is unsustainable.

The capitalist would say, “Business can’t afford to have a conscience.”  But I am here to tell you, the farmer was right, and business can’t afford not to have a conscience.

Ray C. Anderson was founder and chairman of Atlanta-based, Interface, Inc., author of Business Lessons from a Radical Industrialist, and has chaired both the President’s Council of Sustainable Development (under President Clinton) and the Presidential Climate Action Plan. He passed away on August 8, 2011. For more on Ray’s epiphany, watch this YouTube video, an excerpt from the movie, The Corporation. 

It’s not an illusion. Something is still eluding us. It is the experience of oneness, the experience of thriving in a thriving world, the experience of going beyond our own narrow self-concerns and living from a place of inspiration and connection, from the place of safety that can come only from knowing that others, too, are seeking the highest good of all, including us.

As humans, we long for this experience, but the only way we will get it is if we change and so does our world. We can do it. We can change ourselves. But how? By going beyond the domination of the ego: the instinct that causes us to protect ourselves, promote ourselves and pit ourselves against others; the instinct that causes us to feel shame, isolation, competition and alienation; the instinct that causes those around us to do the same, which only gives us even more reason to protect “ourselves” against “them.”

Can we overcome the domination of the ego? Yes, we can. But first, let me address the issue of disappointment. Whether through direct political action or through charitable work or volunteering, we may have given our all and still experienced disillusionment — not only about the results of all that work, but about the timidity or narrow self-interests that blocked the bold changes required. On a personal level, too, we may have experienced disappointment. We may have committed to sobriety from one addiction, yet find ourselves consumed by another. We may have reaped the rewards of exercise or meditation, yet continue to be anxious or irritable in daily life. We may have understood certain of our dynamics, yet still feel baffled about our underlying sense of dissatisfaction about ourselves, our relationships and our lives. We may have taken many chances on love, yet are left feeling resentful or resigned.

All right. So we have been disappointed. We’ve been disappointed by ourselves, by others, by movements, even by spirituality. The question is: What have we done with these disappointments? Have they discouraged us? Have we kept using the same tactics despite encountering the same results? Or have we utilized the gains that we have already achieved and been motivated to dig deeper, to look for the underlying cause of our alienation from ourselves, alienation from others, alienation from faith?

Those of us dedicated to digging into the underlying cause of our political, social and personal pain have frequently come to the same conclusion: It’s the domination of the ego, the me-based perspective that keeps us in shame, fear and alienation. Now what can we do about that?

A lot. We can retrain ourselves and our egos, and we can open ourselves up to a better way of being, a way that allows us to see our interests as connected, rather than opposing; a way that opens us to the flood of divine energies that help us feel better, more whole, more connected and more relaxed, the divine energies that can also inspire us to solutions that we could not see before.

In order for us to retrain our egos, to leave the “I” universe for the “we” universe, we need three elements: awareness, intention and support. Awareness: catching on to the ego’s games and acknowledging the needless pain it has caused us and others. Intention: dedicating ourselves to self-awareness and giving up all the excuses for engaging in behaviors that destroy our bodies, minds and spirits. Support: human help — a mutually supportive environment that helps us see ourselves and heal ourselves, so that we can truly transform; divine help — a steady stream of divine energies that increase our sense of well-being and open us to higher consciousness.

Overcoming the domination of the ego is not easy. It takes work and dedication. It takes engagement at the level of a boot camp, a boot camp for higher consciousness. Why boot camp? Because boot camps are intensive training experiences that allow us to respond almost instinctively to the challenges that confront us. And the response they encourage is that we automatically function as part of a mutually supportive team, freed from the attachment to our individuality, so that we may achieve our goal and find ourselves in the oneness. For centuries, humans have used boot camps to prepare us for war. Why not now use boot camp to prepare us for transformation?

We need a boot camp for consciousness, a boot camp that helps us instinctively respond to life’s challenges in a way that is self-aware, mutually supportive and inspired. And for such a boot camp, we need programs that challenge and enable us: to see ourselves clearly; to disassociate from the identification between us and the ego; to understand the ego and help it evolve; and to heal from the traumas and life patterning that have kept us enslaved by the unconscious drives that cause us to hurt ourselves and one another.

Let us dedicate our lives to transforming our bodies, minds and spirits, so that, together, we may feel more whole, more happy and more able to solve our common problems. And let us turn our discouragement into inspiration.

As natural as it is to want to control life, the fantasy that we can create a perfect life only creates stress and pain. Control is not real, so it becomes an unreachable goal. It’s antithetical to reality, which is that life is a process of evolution with constant challenges. And it creates shame, because we think we should conquer life and, if we don’t, there must be something wrong with us.

Our perceived need to dominate life feeds our determination to learn and know everything, because knowledge is power, and we think we can use that power to fix everything and get what we want. And so a major block to relaxing into the process of living is the belief that we already “know” what is and what is supposed to be.

Let’s be honest about a few points:

• We are afraid to sit with the unknown and unknowable, because it feels stressful.
• To relieve that stress, we pretend we know, but are often completely or at least partially misguided. Has that resolved our stress? No. Because we still feel the need to know, know that we don’t, and yet have to pretend to ourselves and others that we do, all the while realizing that our ignorance could cause disastrous mistakes. So actually we have compounded our stress, which we try to alleviate by pretending that we know.
• Plus we frequently think we know how things should be, which creates unrealistic expectations of ourselves and others, and then we struggle to make reality fit our preconceptions, which also creates needless stress.

How can we partner with life when we’ve already decided what life should be? How can we be available to a higher consciousness, when we think we already know what is and should be? How can we relax into the process of living, when we’re trying to dominate life itself?

An Introduction to Becoming Not-Knowing
Becoming Not-Knowing is the process of releasing ourselves from the need to know or pretend we do, becoming empty of agendas and limitations, and living moment by moment in the Not-Knowing and the discovery, guided by higher consciousness.

There’s a lot to this, but let’s start with what I mean by higher consciousness. Higher consciousness is the intelligence greater than ours that runs the universe. Some call it inspiration, higher wisdom, God, The Source, divine intelligence, the Great Spirit, a higher power; there are many names that refer to the same reality. Higher consciousness is not a religious concept, although it shows up in many religions; it is an acknowledgement of a level of awareness that is greater than our own.

It comes to us in the silence when our egos are quiet. It is the inner knowing that surprises us with its wisdom. It is that sudden inspiration; it’s what tells us that we left our keys in the dryer, or it pops into our heads as a brilliant solution, when we’ve been puzzled and see no way out.

Becoming not knowing, then, is making ourselves available to higher consciousness by releasing the need to know, releasing agendas and letting go of our identification with our ordinary stream of thoughts. There are several practices that support us in releasing barriers to accessing higher consciousness and to discern if we are accessing higher consciousness or not. We’ll share those in Part 2, our next installment. In the meantime, here are some questions to consider regarding higher consciousness:

• Have you ever experienced inspiration?
• Have you ever experienced an inner voice that seems to know more than you do?
• Have you ever experienced a lightness of being, where you felt different; happy, and calm?
• Have you ever experienced an energy penetrating you or a feeling that you were vibrating or tingling, when there was no physical explanation?
• Are these experiences worth working for?

This post is an excerpt from the book, Living with Reality: A Book of Wisdom, by Beth Green, and is taken from Platform 8, Becoming Not-Knowing.

We have joined our friends at Idearella in a blog collaboration. We all agreed to write a post called “What are we fighting for?” Here’s my contribution.

When you experience conflict, what is your characteristic response? Do you fight or flee?

As early as I can remember, I ran away from conflict in order to “keep the peace.” But did I ever really find peace in that approach? No. When I ran, I ended up feeling weak, which just made things worse. I separated from the other person and then either blustered or quietly seethed, thinking that they wouldn’t notice. But of course they did! It was painful for both of us. Eventually, through lots of inner work with the help of a great counselor and consultant, I learned that this doesn’t work. So I’ve stopped running.

But is fighting any better? In and of itself, it is not the answer any more than running is. What matters is the kind of fight we engage in. Ultimately, there are two kinds of fighting: fighting for our separateness, or fighting for connection. The one we carry out depends upon the energy and intention we bring to whatever situation we are facing in the moment.

Fighting for self-interest: for short-term, me-based goals
Our ordinary way of fighting is all ego; it’s the by-product of seeing ourselves as separate, which plays out as fighting for “my” survival or advantage or that of my family, organization, race, country or any other group with which we identify. In this version of fighting, we fight to be right, while making the “other” wrong; we fight to make ourselves feel big while attempting to make others look small or stupid; we fight to protect ourselves from things we cannot control by using manipulation, coercion, domination and control. Though we have all done this and probably still do it more often than we want to admit, it is never satisfying. It leaves us feeling small, separate and alone. It drives us to prove ourselves and the proof is never enough; it causes us to contort ourselves for others’ acceptance, admiration, or deference. And it destroys others because it drives us to put others down when we don’t feel adequate; to lash out when we feel slighted, instead of seeking to understand; to exploit those weaker than us or dependent on our love or money.

Though we can’t always stop ourselves from reacting and fighting in this way, we can make amends when we do.

And, there is an alternative.

Fighting for wholeness, for connection, for unity
The second kind of fighting starts with the recognition that we are not separate, but that all of life is interconnected. With this insight and intention, when we experience conflict we fight for wholeness, for unity, for connection, for the highest good of all, including us. This is a choice I frequently face in my family – especially with our children, with whom I am most reactive. Do I dominate them with my rules and demands, or do I teach them the power of our oneness and connection?

I have two boys, ages 7 and 4 and they frequently get “into it” with one another. By “into it” I mean fighting in the manner described above: egos flaring, yelling, whining and pushing. In those moments, I want to teach them how to fight for wholeness, for connection. And yet the only way I can do that is by doing it myself.  Here’s an example of how it can happen.

One morning recently, as I was getting up, I heard my younger son, Luke, crying. Instantly I could feel myself getting angry, thinking to myself, “What is Aiden doing to him? He is going to be in ‘big trouble!’” I walked into their bedroom, and as I did, I took a deep breath to support me in being as relaxed and neutral as possible. I heard, “Just find out what happened.” So I did. I asked what happened. Aiden said that Luke came up to his bunk and sat on his head (they have bunk beds and Aiden sleeps on top) so he started yelling at him to get off and Luke started crying. Suddenly, I was faced with a teaching moment. I had to pause to discern what was really going on, but it only took a few moments to see the whole, and to intuit what was taking place.

Here’s what came to me: I know that Luke loves Aiden, looks up to him and wants to be with him. But as a four year old, he’s still learning how to express that in a healthy, constructive way. Knowing how to ask for connection and expressing deep emotions can be awkward for a four year old. I told that to Aiden and he understood. I also proposed that together we can teach Luke how to show his love and affection in a healthy way. We can teach Luke to express his desire to connect by saying, for instance, “Aiden, can I give you a hug?” or “Aiden, can I come up into your bed and lay with you?” I also explained to Aiden that if we are mean to Luke in the process of teaching him, it will be harder for him to take in what we’re saying. I clarified this by using myself as an example. When I’m trying to teach Aiden something and I am being impatient or mean instead of being firm, it makes it very difficult for him to take in what I am saying. He agreed and could see that the same thing happens with him and Luke. He reaffirmed his commitment to be firm instead of mean in his interactions with Luke.

In my subsequent conversation with Luke, I told him I wanted to connect with him and asked him to look me in the eyes. In response, he said “I’m not in my eyes!” To which I said, “Yes you are! When we look into one another’s eyes we see into each other’s souls.” Somehow, even though he may not have fully understood the words, I felt that he got it. In the end, the love and connection that all three of us naturally feel for one another was restored, and we all learned a valuable lesson: fighting for connection works. It’s not something we can force on others, but if we acknowledge our fundamental desire to simply connect, we are starting from the right place and are helping to co-create the kind of world we want to live in.

What really excites me about this is if I can find the unity in my family, where I am the most reactive and the most challenged, I can do it anywhere: with co-workers, clients, colleagues, friends — anyone.

Now that’s something worth fighting for!

“Connection and unity are essential to us, because they are essentially who we are. And yet, we’re brought up to see ourselves as separate. We learn to compete, to compare, and to contrast. Leading lives of great separation and conflict is the cause of our deepest fear and pain, which, in turns, leads to so much of our addictive behavior.” — Beth Green, co-founder, Reality for a Change

What is Co-Creation?
Co-creation is the process of seeing our relationship to one another and to life itself. How do we, differentiated individuals, relate to the collective of which we are a part, whether that collective is the people we work with, those in our family, our country or the world? How do we relate to the forces of the universe, including forces other than people? And how can we support better outcomes, which are for the highest good of all?

Whether intentional or unintentional, co-creation follows the same process, and Becoming Co-Creative is the way we adjust to the realities of that process. Here’s how it works:

We co-create reality with the universe in a subtle dance of intention and allowance. Co-creation is the way the universe operates. Outcomes are the result of the intersection of all intention, including our own. If we consciously choose co-creation, we can overcome our own limitations and experience richer lives and more fulfilling outcomes.

Co-creation is the process of intention and allowance, instead of domination and submission. Easy to say; not so easy to do. First, let’s get a better sense of each element: intention, allowance, and co-creation.

What is Intention?
Intention is the process of focusing our energy on a desired outcome or direction. It is an attempt to impact the universe in such a way as to meet our individual or collective needs for survival, self-expression and wellbeing. Individuals intend, and collectives intend. Everything intends.

What is Allowance?
Allowance is the process of relaxing around reality. It requires us to take a breath and let go of the struggle to impose our will. It facilitates us to examine how the universe has responded to our intention. It leads to new intention. It can lead to the reinforcement of our original intention or to a shift in direction. It leads to our growth. And it always begins with a pause and a willingness to see and hear.

What is Co-Creation?
What occurs in life is the result of the collective intention. Co-creation is the way the universe works. It is the result of the intersection of the intention of all involved. To practice co-creation is to be in harmony with this process. It begins with the acknowledgement that we all have intentions, and that we need to accept that everyone’s intentions will intersect. We intend and allow. Once we are impacted by the response of the universe, we intend and allow again.

Why do I use the word allowance, rather than acceptance? Acceptance can simply mean taking in. For example, I accept your invitation, your love, your donation. Allowance does not necessarily mean that I am taking something in, only that I am allowing that it is. I may not take in your criticism, but I allow it. I may not take in your anger, but I allow it. Allowance contributes to our being in a more neutral place about harmful realities. I cannot fight all the abuse on the planet, I may do my best to help change it, but I must allow it, while it exists. Otherwise I am caught in impotent rage.

How Co-Creation works
Intention, allowance, co-creation. Let’s see how this works. Here’s a simple example. My child is being failed by his teacher, and I think it’s unfair. The teacher won’t listen to me, so I go to the principal. My intention is to get the teacher to pass my child. I talk to the principal. I’m clear and impassioned. But what will be the result? My impact will depend on the intention of the principal. Is the principal willing to listen, or does she already have a fixed perception of my child and the teacher? Is she intending to be open-minded, or is she being impacted by insecurity about her job and an unwillingness to conflict with the staff? Isn’t the outcome also impacted by the totality of my intention? Am I there only to talk and argue my point, because my ego is at stake, or do I want to help my child? If I want to help my child, do I intend to listen in order to discover if there’s something I can learn from the principal? And what of the intention of the child? Does his performance demonstrate an intention to work hard or to slough off? Does my child’s intention bolster my argument with the teacher or undermine it? We can see that the results will depend on the interweaving of the intentions of the child, the principal, and me.

The teacher will factor in as well. If the principal sides with me, she may talk to the teacher. If the teacher’s intention is to be open to whatever is right, the teacher may see my point of view and pass my child, or fail my child but give her more attention. Or, if the teacher feels the need to give in, she may pass my child but be even more resentful or negative toward her. All of the intentions of the rest of us can be blocked or deflected by that of the teacher.

How do I know what will transpire? How do I know what the result of my intention will be? How do I know what will be the result of the intersection of all our intentions? When I connect to any part of the collective, I am exercising my will. I am intending. But I am not determining the outcome. That depends on many other factors. And that’s where allowance comes in.

Co-creation is bringing what I have to the table with whatever intention I have and working with, or allowing, the result, which is dependent on the intention of others. Co-creation teaches me that everything is impacted in the process. When I connect to the collective, my views may change or be reinforced. When I connect to the collective, my direction may be shifted. When I connect to the collective, my goals may be reshaped. When I connect to the collective, it might shift as well.

Learning to Become Co-Creative requires an incredible degree of humility and self-discipline. To keep expressing our intentions, to keep working toward goals and at the same time, to keep learning from others and the universe requires us to understand and accept our connection to the ALL. It requires the humility of being teachable. And it challenges us daily to remember that those who thwart us are “us” as well, because we are an aspect of the collective that defeated “us.”

How Do We Become Co-Creative?
Now that we have briefly described the way people and the universe co-create, how do we become more conscious co-creators with the universe? How do we become more intentional about being co-creative?

1. Embrace the experience of intention and allowance.
2. Confront our ego’s need for credit and reward.
3. Acknowledge that life’s problems are greater than our limited consciousness.
4. Realize the value of what others bring.
5. Join with others to accomplish that which I cannot achieve myself.

Practicing Becoming Co-Creative brings many gifts. It allows us to look forward to defeats almost as much as victories, because of the lessons we may learn. It allows us to hold on to our faith in the face of adversity. Faith in what? Faith that I may not create my life exactly as I intend, but that with a mature adaptation to life’s curveballs, I can be a student of life until the day I die. I can learn. I can grow. I can evolve.

Practicing Becoming Co-Creative brings us other benefits, as well. It brings us the realization that failure to realize our intention is not a statement of our weakness; it is part of the process of life. It relieves us of the need to prove our power or our rightness, because we aren’t that powerful, and we’re certainly not “right.” It releases our energy, because we’re not constantly butting up against the universe in a futile effort to get our way. It relieves us of the shame of not getting our way and relieves us of the fear of failure. And relieved of that burden, we experience less pain when our hearts’ desires are thwarted.

Sometimes I see the wisdom of the collective, the wisdom of the universe, and I feel at peace about the process of intention and allowance. I realize that by bringing my own views and intentions into play, we as a collective are able to create a fuller and more productive movement of energy. In those moments, I’m glad that I am not the emperor of the universe. Sometimes I do not see the wisdom of the collective, the wisdom of the universe. I believe we are being self-destructive, and I see needless suffering. In those cases, I feel grief. Whichever I feel, however, I know that intention and allowance is how I relate to the universe. I can’t change it, and I’d better make the best of it!

This post is an excerpt from the book, Living with Reality: A Book of Wisdom, by Beth Green, and is taken from Platform 3, Becoming Co-Creative.

- Sell you their product or design programs based on your needs?

- Support the status quo in your business or help you identify your problems and confront them?

- Make good decisions for you or help you strengthen yourself so that you make better decisions yourself?

If you chose the latter option in every case, try Reality for a Change.

If you have the guts for self-honesty and the hunger to reach your potential, try Reality for a Change. We have an effective team offering:

• Extraordinary levels of awareness, shaking up what needs shaking
• Powerful tools and programs that can transform not only you, but your entire team
• Years of experience helping individuals and groups make real and permanent change
• An unflagging dedication to you realizing your potential

An Integrative Business Consulting Firm

Reality for a Change works. Whether you are a small business owner, a corporate executive, an artist, doctor, salesperson or engineer, you are facing the same challenges: the strengths and weaknesses of you and your people; the strengths and weaknesses of their relationships. Working with people and relationships is our specialty. Whether you are stuck in individual habitual reactions and responses or you have unsupportive relationships within your team or with clients or partners, we can help you ferret out what’s getting in your way. Our team offers:

• Individual coaching, counseling and consulting services designed especially for you
• Workshops and seminars tailored to meet the needs of those who attend
• Short-term programs to bring you insight into your weaknesses
• Processes to transform those weaknesses at the core
• Long-term programs and support to empower your continuous growth and transformation

We have a mission. We know that healthy people are more productive and make better decisions, and healthy businesses create value for our world. If we can help you, we are helping everyone. Let us help you fulfill your potential, and we all thrive. Learn about our services.

Since we’re sentient beings, we frequently notice these subtle discrepancies in ourselves and others, but we rarely do anything about it. We just let it slide by.

Not Beth Green.

Beth Green has always had a deep rooted commitment to follow her convictions. She’s fearless. She’s bold. And she is a passionate advocate for your potential. Learn more about Beth Green.

Sometimes new opportunities or relationships can cheer us and give us hope for the future. But how quickly do our own ugly patterns recur and bring with them the pall of past failures that dampen the promise. If we are not new ourselves, the opportunities are lost, and our future begins to look sadly like our past.

This year, we are committed once again to renewal. And what makes the new year new is us: our growing ability to be fresh in our responses to old challenges and innovative in our response to new ones.

How do we do that? To begin with, we can start by asking new questions. When a familiar situation arises, a situation that we have encountered before and which we find discouraging, we can ask: Is this situation actually the same? Or does it just look similar? Is this similarity real, or am I interpreting it as such?

Supposing after inquiry, we determine that the challenge is the same, then we can still ask new questions: Are all the players really identical to those from the past? Is this current person really the same as my former partner? Perhaps not at all. But even if he or she has similarities to people from the past, am I putting them in a box, or am I giving them space to find and draw on other strengths in themselves? Am I giving them the chance to respond in unexpected ways, or am I reacting to them as though they had already proved their inability to be different?

And what about me? Let’s say that I have given in before, or I’ve tried to overpower and control my partner in the past; let’s say I see myself doing it again.  But am I the same? Am I not able to shift to a different behavior, once I really see my patterns dominating? Haven’t I grown?

The fundamental question is: Am I locked in the past? Have I been looking at the elephant in the livingroom for so long, that I am blinded by the image? Is my memory overlaying current reality, so that I cannot see what is actually there?

Let’s take a moment to inventory ourselves. In the past year, how have I changed? What new responses have I been developing, if even at a minimal level? What insights have I achieved? What potentials have I been unleashing?

Can’t I have faith in myself? Faith in my ability to grow? Faith in my ability to change? Faith in my ability to listen where I have been deaf before? Faith in my ability to see where I have been blind?  Can’t I have faith in you – whether or not you are a new partner, friend, employer or boss, or you are someone I have known for years? Can’t I believe in the miracle of growth?

When we see the plants sprouting from the ground, we are not surprised, and yet their emergence from the soil is miraculous. If we did not know that the seeds were there, we would not expect them to sprout. And even when those seeds have been planted by the human hand, we cannot know if they will take root and emerge

Seeds have been planted in us, the seeds of change. And it is no more or less miraculous when those seeds take root and burst forth with the youth and vitality of new life. Sometimes these seeds have been consciously planted by us through our participation in programs of growth or through other therapeutic processes. Sometimes these seeds have been planted through the natural course of our lives and the observations and experiences we have had.

No matter how the seeds were planted, let us nurture them. And for that, we need to recognize they are there and take the time and effort to bring them the resources they need to flourish.

Being different can be challenging and requires time, effort and a lot of consciousness. This is equally true for us and for the people around us. We need faith in ourselves to inspire us to provide the nurturance we need to grow, and we need faith in them to offer the crucial ingredients of support that allow a spindly young sprout to truly thrive.

This year, let us have faith in ourselves and one another, faith in our ability to change. Let us recognize our old patterns and believe it possible to be different. Let us see one another’s potential and keep reminding ourselves that our potential is no less real than our patterns. And let us, together, have the courage to risk it all, to throw the dice of life, betting on our capacity to thrive.

Happy New Year!

How many times have we really wanted something, only to realize later that it wasn’t for our highest good? The guy who didn’t get the girl, the drug addict who couldn’t get the fix, the applicant who didn’t get the job. Only in retrospect can the guy see that the girl was wrong for him and that he was blinded by her charm or appearance. Or that she rejected him because he was behaving like a jerk, and her rejection was a wake-up call. Only with sobriety can the drug addict realize that he needed to be blocked from the fix, so that he could wake up to his addiction and go for help, which saved his life. Only with deep humility can we acknowledge that we were not the best candidate for a job, even though we wanted it, or that we should feel grateful for the rejection, because our destiny lay in another direction.

There are always boulders we think we need to push uphill: obstacles to our wants, desires and intentions. I want the girl, the fix, the job, and I’ll do anything to get it. But isn’t there another boulder: the boulder of our immature ego, demanding outcomes that are selfish, self-destructive or blind? Isn’t that the boulder we should be pushing out of the way instead?

Every day I am confronted with occurrences large and small that do not go according to my plans. And I can get very mad. Yet how often do I remember to look within and ask: What is the message in the defeat? Is this obstacle showing me that I should try harder? Or is it telling me to surrender my agenda?

One great reason to surrender an agenda is that the motive stinks. Here are some examples

1. I am struggling for something that my ego wants but I don’t really need. Such as, when I try to catch a guy with money and prestige, but whose self-centered behavior would drive me up a wall. Or when I push to get the bank to lend me money on a house I can’t afford, even though it would cause me to overwork and stress out.
2. I am pretending to do something that looks noble but is a cover for my ego. Such as when I compete for a top position in a group, claiming to care about the project, while my real intention is to impress myself or others. Or when I strive for a higher-paying job, claiming to want to be a better parent, while I’m really trying to get a more demanding job, so that I have the perfect excuse not to be at home being a parent at all!
3. I am trying to get someone to change his or her behavior, in order to avoid having to make a change myself. Such as when I want my husband to become different, so that I don’t have to leave him and face life on my own.

What do I do if I look within, and my motives are clean? I am encouraging my husband to be different, because his behavior is hurting HIM. I want to become a leader in this group, because many people need help and the old leadership is lax and uncaring. I see the destructiveness of a society dominated by greed or self-centeredness, and I want to do something about it. Then what?

Here are some thoughts:

1. I check my motives before I do anything. Is there anything about myself that I need to confront? Am I masquerading my ego with good intentions?
2. If my motives feel clean, I approach the people involved and speak with openness, candor and a willingness to hear a different perspective.
3. If the result still seems negative to me, I connect to the depth of my being. Should I continue this fight? If I did, would I be following some inner voice or divine guidance, or would I be pushing my agenda because I don’t like to be thwarted? If the latter, I drop it.
4. If I have done my all and still cannot change history, I surrender to the mystery.

So, yes, we are back to living in the mystery. There are occurrences in life that are so harmful, it’s hard to see any benefit in them at all. But with time, we can often comprehend what we could not perceive in the anguish of the moment, that what looked like the worst was actually a gift and that destiny has brought us to a higher outcome. We or others may have become stronger and more empowered, or we have been blessed in ways we could not have imagined, or humanity wakes up to the pain of our collective unconsciousness.

And that is often the case. We still seem to need painful outcomes to become conscious. The holocaust is still a reminder of the consequences of racism. The painful impact of obesity is changing our eating habits. And the devastated life of one child can be an example for another child at risk.

Until humanity becomes more self-aware, we will still be stuck with the need for bad outcomes to help us learn and grow. Our unconsciousness is the boulder we all have to push uphill. You would think by this time that we would have grown more in awareness, but we still struggle. And that’s the real mystery, isn’t it?