#86: Building Muscle.

Building muscle. Like learning how to use chopsticks.

There is the pain from activation of hand muscles that we never knew we had.

There is the awkwardness of learning how to place the fingers effectively—trial and error galore.

There is the repeated failure; so much food escaping our lips.

There is the study and advice of those who use them with ease.

Then there is the day that we eventually get it. Triumph!

Consider all the aspects of our lives that this sequence applies to. The pattern is instructive.

#85: Walking With Intention.

Walking with intention. There are times in our lives when we must become a thing on the inside before it becomes real on the outside.

These are quiet, bold decisions. Powerful decisions because they change our chemistry and our thoughts and our swagger over time.

Then we begin to do things differently. Sowing seeds.

In this phase, we can’t yet see the results of our shift but coincidences start to happen and old thinking patterns no longer make any sense—breadcrumbs that build confidence amidst the fog on our new paths.

It makes sense that we have to choose expansion first. How else would we be able to contain the harvest?
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#84: Agency.

Agency. Even when working within someone else’s construct, we have control over the level of generosity in our interactions.

The store manager who hides behind policy when it is possible to delight the customer fairly.

The corporate manager who interprets the constraints of inside politics as a barrier to contributing with heart in other ways before the time comes to part ways.

Being jaded for a time may be part of the journey to realizing that all our situations are ours to wield.

#83: Quicksand.

Quicksand. The more quickly you move, the more quickly you sink. A lesson in counterintuition.

A remedy to hyperventilation is to force slow, deep breaths. Permission—no, instruction to look for sources of ease when under pressure.

Navy SEALS work by the mantra, “slow is smooth and smooth is fast.” An approach to see clearly, achieve more, and do better by refusing to rush.

We all remember the tortoise and the hare and steadiness.

Embracing the way things really are is to accept an invitation to longevity and depth.

#82: Vision.

Vision. A spoken imagining of the future grounded in cause and connection. A North Star.

If believed, speaking a vision gives the people confidence that the stated North Star will guide leaders as they face challenges and make decisions out of sight. If believed, having vision engenders trust.

And without it, people will fill the void with worried imaginings and all manner of disturbances. Static is what we call the noise created by disturbances. Static also means we aren’t going anywhere.

Bonus: communicating a clear vision allows those who aren’t onboard to self-select out before situations arise that expose the rift.

#81: Still Not a Duck.

Still not a duck. Sometimes even if it walks and talks like one.

Life partners who have built a family and all its trappings yet balk at the commitment of marriage.

Professionals who have spent years becoming proficient in a career that rarely allows them expression of their natural-born archetype.

Children who act out in displays of rage and defiance when they are actually scared.

Those of us on the outside looking in see a duck but this is where matters of the heart reveal the truth.

#80: Calculated Risks.

Calculated risks. A simple rubric for deciding whether to take a risk is to evoke the feelings of a future without the gain that the risk seeks. Really imagine it.

Can you stomach that future even knowing what could go wrong?

Are there enough resources in your favor (seeds of confidence?) to reassure you that you have what it takes to tread through the uncertainty one wave at a time?

Sometimes, a sincere internal check-in is calculation enough.

#79: Archetypes.

Archetypes. We develop some patterns of behavior over time like a well-worn path and others are inherent to our being. The thing is, we may not recognize them if they are obscured by the way things are in the world.

For example, there are archetypes for the way we best use our energy throughout the day. Some people generate energy for optimal work and creative production for only two to three hours a day. Others' energy archetypes allow them to go with gusto for an extended period in order to use up that day's lot.

The way most work is set up in modern society means that the former archetype will struggle to flow with ease throughout the day and have no idea why. Truly square pegs in round holes.

The first step towards flow is to know. Then make adjustments from there.

#78: Cartwheels.

Cartwheels. At once a milestone and stepping stone.

They emerge from steady placement of hands and feet in a way that propels us forward and upside down. Upper body strength and the capacity to move through a disorienting plane is what we gain. Prep for advancement.

Where in our lives can we recognize and celebrate all the cartwheeling we’ve achieved while leaning into all that it has prepared us for?

#77: Sleep Walking.

Sleep walking. The absence of attunement that makes someone completely indifferent to that which otherwise might evoke wonder and awe.

Today presented a chance for many to look into the sky and experience an awesome phenomenon of Earth's cycle. Some take it a step further and believe that onlookers were charged with power to spur transformation and new beginnings.

Setting aside the mystic, walking about with no interest in or care for the goings on of the entities that provide warmth, light, and rhythms of life was a wasted opportunity.

It was an opportunity to remember that all we do and see exists within a larger cycle to which we are usually oblivious. These rare glimpses of that reality are amazing.

#76: Controlled Landings.

Controlled landings. These are the instructions for clipping birds' wings found on a veterinarian's website:

"When birds have their wings clipped, it should be done just to the amount required to prevent them from flying upwards out of reach and yet still allow controlled, soft landings. A good rule of thumb is that they are able to flutter down to the floor from shoulder height over a distance of less than 10-15 feet."

An inquiry into the method of captivity for some zoo water birds produced a resounding parallel to the constraints that are often put on people in so many facets of society.

The message is clear:
Never soar out of reach and be sure to land within a defined span of control.

In this case, the landings may not be so soft.

#75: Time Quandry.

Time quandry. These vignettes on time are all over the place and make us question what is real.

Time flies when you're having fun and drags on when you're not.
Time in space is faster than time on earth--the atomic clock says so.
There's never enough time.
The clock is running out.
There's always enough time to do what's most important.
The only time we have is now.

These ideas are all true depending on your posture.

The last one is the most profound.

#74: More on Currents.

More on currents. Are we aware of the currents that run through us?

When they are excessive in force, we are. Various rushes of emotion, heat, electricity, chemistry.

Someone recently told me of a time when he got so carried away by the rushes of freedom, speed, sensation, exhilaration he experienced while jetskiing that the excitement made him jump off into the water almost involuntarily. Then he was struck by the sudden rush of fear of what might be looming in the water below--hungry.

High of highs.

Then there are the subtle but powerful currents that drive our daily lives. The currents we follow that form our lives.

They animate our personalities to produce the emotions we feel, the states of our minds, the conditions of our bodies, and, thus, the things we do.

If we're fighting currents that produce maladies in our lives it means we've chosen to follow them in the first place.

Instead of fighting the currents that harm, let us jump off of them in full consciousness and create enough awareness to bravely choose the subtle currents that generate the light we seek.

#73: Expansion First.

Expansion first. The endeavor to receive answers to big questions, deep questions requires the capacity to hold them.

Where external things are concerned, there is an infinite continuum of physical matter with atoms pointing in one direction and outer space pointing in another. Human beings lie somewhere on that continuum and are only able to naturally perceive an extremely limited portion of it. Yet, we come to understand more and more about the inhabitants of the continuum over time by expanding our toolset (the evolving disciplines of art and science).

Let us reach for, search for, or develop tools that allow us to see that which escaped our perception before. By using those tools we have expanded already.

Old information then has new meaning and new information has a place to land.

Through this process we find the answers that we seek.

#72: Living Rhythm.

Living Rhythm. That is, rhythm as life instruction.

Some rhythms are inherent to life (body, mind, business, nature, social) and best observed watchfully. Others are created and best informed by observations of the inherent ones.

Paying attention opens a gateway to see the cycles that nourish, strengthen, energize, deplete, wax, wane.

We can then use that information to create rhythms within rhythms that help us ride the current. Currents are a powerful earth form and best not fought.

But there is freedom in the form.

#71: Creative Dissonance.

Creative dissonance. What riches to be so full of creative expression--so many forms. All kinds of designers, architects, healers, engineers, teachers, developers. The list goes on. Like a bird ready to fly the nest, that expression begins to feel confined at the tail end of tutelage and needs to experience the vastness of space in order to grow.

Eager to branch out, maybe anxious too, you take the leap.

As you learn to fly, the dissonance begins.

Your primary dimension--creating--feeds you while the demands and dynamics of running a business feel depleting.

Perhaps, there is a new dimension within you that can be strengthened by the fruits of the first one. A way to see the business itself as a creative project. Then approach that creation in a way that reflects the practice you've developed over time.

Business as creative expression.

You have more than one dimension.

#70: Metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis. It takes time and the process is tiring for adults. Babies and children do it masterfully—as a matter of survival.

Adults resist to their detriment.

#69: Ruminating No More.

Ruminating No More. Spring reminds us of cycles and renewal. The seemlingly dead awakened--thriving. In full alignment with source.

The sapling pushing through the earth to sprout may seem like it is fighting to break through when, in truth, it is in full surrender to that which it is called to do. No fighting. It is just being a sapling and doing what saplings are made to do.

Ruminating is obsessive and imbalanced. The opposite of aligned.

Let us go forward with the energy of spring, thriving in the acceptance and enjoyment of what we are here to do in this moment.

#69: Self-Obsession.

Self-obsession. How surprising to learn that the root of all unhappiness is an incessant obsession with self.

Let us move into gentle observation

#68: Pruning and Sprouting.

Pruning and sprouting. Unlearning and learning.

We can undo long established patterns of thought and deny the emotional equivalents that no longer serve the future we envision for ourselves.

Cut them off to make room for a new path emerge.

Let us redirect that energy to embody a new state of being right now and often, and experience the feeling of the future we want as if it has already happened.

Deja vu, anyone?