Off Balance
Off Balance
“Equilibrium is neither the goal nor the fate of living systems, simple because as open systems they partner with their environment…To stay viable, open systems maintain a state of non-equilibrium, keeping themselves off balance so that the system can change and grow.”
Margaret Wheatley, Leadership and The New Science
Each step you take
is a falling through space,
off balance,
in process,
moving through open air.
Yearning for equilibrium
you reach for the cup,
the coffee,
the cocoa.
The cup falls,
crashes,
a million pieces on the floor.
Venerating equilibrium,
you pick up the pieces,
vowing to reconstruct
the precious vessel
of a your life.
Hearing the wind, the stream,
the invitation to walk,
to think,
the Spring is coming,
where chaos
and the earth herself
contrive to order.
Loss of balance
looks like the prerequisite,
the step
or the misstep,
when nothing is certain
yielding the movement
that sustains your life.
Cold comes again, with rain,
freezing a moment in time
so you can think
so you can re-calibrate.
Change and growth
the result
of sitting still,
not in balance
but in breath,
in life,
a living,
breathing,
growing
alive
life.
Speaking for Suffering
It is not an easy task, speaking for suffering. No one really wants to suffer, nor do most of us really want to talk about it. Will you admit then that you suffer? Admitting that you suffer, well, it is quite the equivalent of admitting to being crazy or being an addict, it is social suicide and cultural anathema. Suffering seems to suggest that you have lost control over your situation, that you can’t stop the pain. In fact, you cannot stop the pain. I know this is, again, a very unpalatable statement, but it happens to be the one that started the whole idea of Buddhist meditation practice. Weird, right?
What happens when you stop trying to stop the pain? You suffer. So, why would you want to do that? Because trying to stop the pain is an endless, thankless, useless task. Pain is a fact in this life, right up there with change and death. Facts. Suffering is our only option! Yup, I said that. Suffering is our only option. This is, in fact, very good news. Suffering becomes something you can choose when you stop trying to resist the truth of your pain.
Why choose suffering? Two reasons; one, you might learn something valuable about yourself and your world, two, you could choose not to suffer. Yes, you could choose not to suffer. You could choose to feel pain. Pain when you choose to feel it, gives you critical information about your body, your life and your world. Pain can tell you what you need to do. This is no small thing in a world full of confusing and constant choices. And those choices are always changing. Pain might be your single most reliable index for how to respond to the ever-changing, ever-confusing, ever-expanding choices you live with each day.
Pain can be a big word, encompassing physical, emotional, mental and spiritual experiences. Pain can also be a small word, just an ouch. But either way, the pain you experience is a defining experience for you in any given moment. It can guide you through the most harrowing of circumstances unerringly. The key to using pain for yourself in this way is to stop avoiding it. Allow yourself to feel pain.
Referring to one of the four great masters of Chinese medicine, Sun Si-Miao, Ted Katpchuk says:
“He implies that pain is hurtful not only because of obstruction, but also because it is a state of conflict between a part of the body and the entire personality. Pain is never solely physical or psychic. It is not just the impediment to the flow of blood and qi, but also to the consciousness of personality objecting to that obstruction: and it is partly the clinging to the sensation of blockage. Pain is not a static or fixed thing, but is constantly amplified or dampened by the psycho-spiritual components of being.”
All of this is extremely good news. It means we have choice. It means there is room to both experience pain and to choose not to suffer at the hands of what is true. You have a body, therefore you will have pain. You have suffering and therefore you have a choice. Yay!
Change and The Power of Choice is happening this weekend! This is a day-long workshop integrating Buddhist meditations on impermanence and change with Chinese medicine wisdom. Learning to meditate in this way will support you in using all of your pain and suffering to empower your choices in ways that enliven, enrich and enhance your life! Find out more here.
More on Power With
Power With is a radical notion. It speaks to affinity, cooperation, and collaboration. In our current culture, the dominant paradigm is about who is on top, who knows the most, who is the expert. When you don’t feel like an expert, you look for one. When you feel out of the loop, you look for someone who is in the loop. This seems reasonable to us, it seems to go without saying. We revere the expert. But who is the expert on you and your health? Is the doctor the expert? Is the massage therapist the expert? Is the vitamin sales person the expert?
It stands to reason that any or each of us can become experts in many ways. But there is only one expert on you and that would be you! When you allow someone else, expert or not in your estimation, to tell you about you, there is almost a certainty that you and they have a different experience of you in the world. In the end, YOU can’t use anyone else’s experience. Sadly. The only news you can use is your own. Sadly, I say, because I know that I and probably many of you, wish you could prevent the suffering of others through sharing your experience. Have you tried that? Has it worked? Don’t you often hear yourself say that you have to see for yourself?
And quite honestly, I think you do.
But you can still choose to share what is yours. And sharing what is yours alone creates the potential for enormous power. What happens when you share what is yours alone? It is a bold step, it takes courage. When you share what is yours alone, you are stepping out to meet your world, your world that makes no guarantees, your world that is a constantly changing place. Yet, when you choose to share what is yours alone you create power with. When you begin to associate yourself through what is truly unique to you, the world becomes your place, a place lively with the gifts that only you can bring.
Paradoxically, you often feel alone in the stepping out, sharing what belongs only to you and your experience, but once power with is created through your offering, you are no longer alone in the same way. In one way, each of us will always be alone in our own knowing, this is an underlying pain in each and every one of us. In another way, you can create so much strength, support and connection through claiming what is yours in the presence of another. You can, again paradoxically, never see yourself the way another sees you. This is the crux of the gift in making the power with relationship. It is risky. It is an unknown, a tender moment when you can reach out into the space between human beings and find the energy of both connection and wisdom.
Connection and wisdom characterize power with. Connection means we have found a moment of belonging. Wisdom means we open our hearts and minds to what that moment of belonging brings to us, a fresh start, a new view, an alternate perspective, or even simply comfort. Where in your life do you find power with? Where do you step out with what is yours alone? How does that feel?