understanding patterns; connecting dots

OK, so this is personal. I had to think twice before writing about it on here … but I guess I’m either doing this transparency thing or I’m not. If I was writing in my hard copy journal, this is what I would be writing about … so here we go. A little background / caveat: Over the years I’ve dug deep to try to understand my insecurities, the illusions I have of myself, my hopes of how others will perceive me and the games I play in relation to these. I have no expectations, and in fact it would be wrong to assume, that anyone else shares these same idiosyncratic psychological pathologies. These wrestlings are mine. Maybe they trigger some things for you … but that is your business not mine. This morning I got an email in my inbox that triggered a train of thoughts that took me down a painful rabbit hole. It wasn’t about the email per se, it was because of who it came from. Let’s call him David. I’m on a list that means I get emails from him every week. They are some of the best emails I...

  I’m writing this on Wednesday. It was 12 months ago on this day that I recovered consciousness in an ambulance with defibrillator paddles hovering over my chest after 10 seconds of flatlining. Maria spent the best part of 30 minutes in an emergency department waiting room not knowing if I was alive or dead. A few days prior to that, my worklife had been violently and unexpectedly upended by completely unrelated incidents. Our lives would be catapulted in a direction we had no inclination of a week before. And we are not alone, in fact unexpected life-changing trauma is common. Economic and social privilege does not insure or protect us. A few months prior to that fateful week 12 months ago, my mate Muz and I collided in the surf and for a terrifying ½ hour there were five of us lying and kneeling on a cold morning beach with the waves lapping us, not knowing if he would ever have use of his limbs again. He has recovered almost completely, but it could have been different. Life is...

As I sit down to think into words this week, I’m reminding myself that this is not for you :-). It can be tempting to write for you, my audience. But this practice is about transparency, about making some of my musings available to others who identify with my efforts to live with integrity. So as much as I love that you’re on this journey with me, please remember that this conversation is primary with myself. I have three things on my mind as I sit at the start of another week. Being of service is costly. A disturbance in my soul is still my best invitation to do inner work. My ‘experimentation’ with being present is more transformational than I had imagined. Being of service is costly In my morning practice and routine, I remind myself of my commitments in this season of uncertainty. One of the six is to be of service: Every morning I ask myself, ‘What is mine to do today? For whom and what?’ It’s romantic until it’s not. It’s attractive until it costs. I’ve got two commitments over t...

On a memorable late Thursday afternoon about 18 months ago, I was sitting around a table with a group of wonderful people sharing food and drinks as we pondered a tricky question: “In what way are you part of the problems in the world?”. As the conversations bounced around and things got increasingly personal, as they do in these Table discussions, my friend Annie made one of those contributions that invokes involuntary expressions of affirmation. She said something like, “I think most, if not all that’s wrong with the world, can be traced back to the fact that we think we can live as if we are disconnected from each other and the planet.” I’ve thought a lot about that since. I think she was right. And if she was, that most of our social problems can be traced back to the belief or mindset that we can live as if we are independent, then it follows that we need to reboot our worldview and install a new mindset that understands the connectedness of life, that, as our popular anthem says,...