GENERATION Y-NOT

I am part of an awesome non-profit called FeelGood. We partner with college students—members of the infamous Millennial generation….also known as Generation Y—and together we have created a movement to end global hunger that is simple, systemic, and powerful.

I invite you to watch this TEDx talk by FeelGood’s two founders, Kristin Walter and Talis Apud Hendricks.

You’ll see that Generation Y is asking the big questions. Why are more than half the world’s people living below the poverty line? Why do one billion of us never have enough eat? And why do 25,000 people needlessly die, every day, from hunger?

But more than asking questions, they are coming up with answers. In the best spirit of the 60s, they not only look at the world and ask “why?” They also envision what could be, and ask, “why not?”

Check it out. And if you know any college students who might be interested in the program be sure to share this link: http://www.feelgood.org/start/

Better Together

All of the problems humanity faces—fiscal, political, environmental, social—point us in a marvelous direction. They offer us the opportunity to solve the one problem that underlies them all: how to work together.

And what makes working together so difficult that we need the impending collapse of civilization—not to mention multiple threats of extinction—to give ourselves the needed motivation? Here are three good possibilities:

1. Insufficient perspective
2. Lack of self knowledge
3. Ignorance of the relevance of numbers 1 and 2.

1. Insufficient Perspective

An adequate understanding of the scope of our problems is essential if we are to put our ego-driven self in its proper place, which is subordinate to the challenges at hand. Only then will we be willing to make what we usually think of as self-sacrifice, but which in reality is self-realization. Giving ourselves over to a great and worthy cause has been found again and again to be the key to living a meaningful life. We have lots of worthy causes, so let’s open our eyes and get engaged.

2. Lack of Self Knowledge

We all have issues: insecurities, sensitivities, and neurosis of every kind. That’s the human condition. But with a little self-knowledge we have the power to grant these issues temporary status, not permanent residence, in our psyche.

Rather than acting out and making life miserable for everyone around us when we are angry, offended or hurt, we can recognize these feelings for what they are: remnants of an earlier time when our identify was still forming and we were vulnerable to experiences that told us we were not loved or valued. As adults, we have the power to “shine the light of awareness” on this earlier programming, loosening its hold and opening ourselves to an update the universe is eager to install: A secure identity rooted in love, self-acceptance and approval.

3. Ignorance of the relevance of numbers 1 and 2

“Where there is no vision, the people perish.” So says the proverb. But the vision we need is not of a better world so much as a better self. If we don’t recognize our limits as human beings and monitor with self-awareness our own biases and filters, there is little hope that we can adapt to and thrive in the new world that already exists beneath our feet. The attribute we need more than any other is humility; the most needed skill, listening.

We can do it.  We just have to want to.

MY HOUSE, MY SELF: A SYMBOLIC VIEW OF THE HOUSING CRISIS

Source: http://www.worldculturepictorial.com

In Jungian dream analysis, a house often symbolizes one’s psyche or self—its layout or state of repair an analogue for the condition of one’s identity. For example, items in the basement may represent aspects of our personality that lie hidden in our deep unconscious and that need to be examined; or a house with many rooms may tell us our life has become fractured and compartmentalized, and in need of integration.

Such symbols are helpful in “waking us up” to issues that have not yet penetrated our every day awareness. We may have been conscious of a symptom—depression, anxiety, unease or discontent—but the dream points us to the source: Look at this, it says. Look at what is hidden. And by looking a process of healing is begun.

My House, My Country?

The mythologist Joseph Campbell has observed that dreams are personal myths, and their symbols often have counterparts in the cultural mythos at large, which we ignore, he says, at our peril. Take again the symbol of a house, so long associated with the ideal of the American Dream. We speak these days of a housing crisis, and if we seek to understand this crisis only in political and economic terms, and not symbolic ones, we will miss valuable insights into the state of our national psyche—insights that could launch us into a lasting healing process.

The symbolism of a housing bubble

Somewhere along the line, housing prices became disconnected from any meaningful relationship to reality.  As a result, values became excessively inflated. As a people we too have become disconnected from reality. We too operate as if we are in a bubble—separate from and independent of everyone and everything else. This has created an inflated sense of our value, and the consequences are everywhere.

We see them in our recent attempts to make the world over in our image, and the cost in bloodshed, money and prestige has brought us to our knees.

We see them in our national politics, as each party seems increasingly certain that they have all the right answers and have no need of the other. It’s as if we severed our national corpus callosum—the nerve bundle running down the middle of our brain that connects the left and right hemispheres—rendering us unable to connect, to dialogue, and to achieve a holistic synthesis.

We see them in our response to illegal immigration and the presence of undocumented workers. We call them aliens—literally, “not us”—and yet they are here, living inside the national membrane, making them “us” in every sense save our attitude toward them. The separation lives in the mind, but has no representation on the ground—another split that leaves us immobilized and without creative recourse.

And finally, we see them in our willfully ignorant overconsumption of the world’s resources, a major reason that more than half the human population lives in abject poverty (and why so many are compelled to immigrate!).

This, then, is one interpretation of the symbolism of a housing crisis. Like our houses we have inflated our value. We have made ourselves above other human beings—whether they are democrats, republicans, undocumented workers, or the starving billions. And like our houses, we have crashed, and we now struggle to garner the creative, compassionate and strategic resources we need to think and act anew.

This is what is waiting to be revealed. This is what is waiting to be seen so that the healing may begin. We are called to pop the bubble of our arrogance and ignorance, and to expand our sense of self, our circle of concern. We are called to approach each other and our world with compassion, humility, and a profound ability to listen and to learn.

This is one lesson of the housing crises when looked at symbolically. How interesting that we look to our dreams to wake us up.

“No one is listening to you.”

Abigail Borah is a 21-year-old student from Middlebury College and member of the youth climate delegation. This video is of her speaking out at a plenary session of the Climate Talks in Durban, Sourth Africa, just as US climate envoy Todd Stern is about to address the assembled environmental ministers.

Her message:

“I am speaking on behalf of the United States of America because my negotiators cannot. The obstructionist Congress has shackled justice and delayed action for far too long. I am scared for my future. 2020 is too late to wait. We need an urgent path to a fair, ambitious and legally binding treaty. We need leaders who will commit to real change, not empty rhetoric. Keep your promises. Keep our hope alive.”

As she was speaking, a moderator declared, “No one is listening to you.”

That is exactly the problem. Join us in listening to her now:

The Theory of Natural Connection

It’s time to update Darwin’s theory of Natural Selection with the far better theory of Natural Connection. Natural Selection, and its corollary, Survival of the Fittest, has too long been used to rationalize selfish behavior. We need a new theoretical lens.

The theory of Natural Connection posits that the engine of evolution is not the selfish drive to survive, but rather the innate impulse to connect— the impulse to be part of something bigger than ourselves. It’s a far better explanation for evolution since everything that exists must figure out how to stay in balanced relationship with the greater whole of which it is a part.

It also has a couple of interesting implications.

• First, it explains why our greatest fear is not the loss of life, but the loss of meaning, which is a loss of connection. If loss of life were fear #1, we would not have suicides.
• Second, it allows us to at least entertain the idea that survival is not a basic human drive—there are just too many examples of people giving up their lives for a perceived greater good. Rather, survival may be better understood as an emergent property of the species, the result of our collective impulse to connect (just as water is an emergent property of hydrogen and oxygen, and not found in either element alone.)
• Third, it transcends the perceived “natural” tension between the interests of the individual and the interests of the community. Under the theory of Natural Connection, they are one and the same—one single web. Which means that any perceived self-interest I may have that is counter to the interests of the community is simply a misperception of what my self-interest really is. Likewise, anything regarded as “good” for the community that is not good for the individual is similarly off base.
• Finally, and most importantly, while “survival” as a concept can be used to justify violence. the drive to “connect” cannot.

All of these implications point us toward a very different course of action when conflict occurs. It says, do not withdraw from the relationship and prepare for battle, but enter further into relationship, and discover how to deepen and expand our sense of connection to the point where our interests align and the conflict is resolved.

It is a course of action now more urgent than ever.

THE VALUES-SHAPED RECOVERY

Source: http://www.hemscott.com

The following was originally posted on July 20, 2010. Given the Occupy ______ movement, it seems more relevant than ever….

In “economist-speak,” a V-shaped recovery refers to a market’s rapid rise following an equally rapid decline. Clearly not the kind of economic recovery we’re experiencing today.

But I do think we’re experiencing another kind of V-shaped recovery…where V stands for Values. It’s a fundamental shift in our culture that mainstream economists and pundits are missing entirely.

The most important part of this values-shift is a rejection of consumerism as life’s lodestar. After many decades of zombie-like devotion to the rabid accumulation of wealth and goods, of living under the spell of Madison Avenue mavens who so cleverly turned our ignorance and insecurities into the jet-propelled engines of economic growth, we are now just beginning to wake up.

It’s a process that may seem at present to be imperceptible, but it is happening: a slow stirring just below the surface of our collective mind. And soon it will be unmistakable—heralded not by the meager market-correcting pop of an economic bubble, but by the epoch-shifting burst of an economic illusion: The illusion that material wealth, beyond a surprisingly low set-point, brings greater happiness and a more secure and serene sense of self. Millions of therapy sessions, pills and carbon emissions later, we know that is not true.

This is why the current attempts to resuscitate the economy are all failing. Why, after billions of dollars of stimulus, we’re still stagnant. At some very profound level that we do not really understand, and that for many of us remains unconscious, we have simply opted out of the madness of endless materialism. In its place seems to be an emergent reverence for relationships—with each other and with the natural world—and a dawning sense of responsibility toward the future generations of all life.

In other words, it seems we are beginning to mature. It had to happen eventually, but the implications are huge: Nothing less than a complete rethinking of the purpose and function of every cultural institution we’ve created.

It’s going be a wild ride…one that just may resemble the shape of a V.

Vision, Commitment and Action: A Process for Leading a Spiritual Life

In our work at FeelGood we often use a simple model for creating change that’s adopted from another non-profit, The Hunger Project. The model has three steps—Vision, Commitment and Action—and I’ve been thinking about how it can be applied as a spiritual discipline.

Vision
As you would expect, the first step, Vision, is about establishing an inspiring and motivating outcome.

An often-articulated Vision for a person interested in the spiritual life is to be a fully loving and present human being, always able to respond constructively, creatively and compassionately to the needs of the moment. In this envisioned state, there is no resistance to what is, and no attention or energy is given to one’s insecurities, anxieties, compulsions, resentments, or regrets. Instead we lose ourselves into each moment, and in losing ourselves discover our inescapable connection to all that is.

Commitment
Commitments are the decisions we make in advance that we know are essential to fulfill our Vision. In the spiritual life, the commitment is to address whatever it is that keeps us from being in a loving, responsive state. That means we do not give ourselves the option of staying hurt, angry, resentful, or in any other emotional condition that clouds our perception and keeps us out of relationship with reality.

Action
Finally, the Actions are the specific steps we take to fulfill our commitments. If our commitment is to address any and all obstacles to being a loving human being, the actions are how we do so. In the spiritual discipline, the action always comes down to detachment: detachment from our expectations of our self, of others, of reality. It’s possible to make it more complicated than that, but when you get down to the fundamentals, some form of detachment is always what’s required.

Non-Action
It is in the Action step where the spiritual manifestation of this model veers into unique and most likely counter-intuitive territory.

Normally, we want to take action to fix a problem or correct a mistake. In the spiritual implementation of the Vision, Commitment and Action process, however, the action is to not to correct or change. The action is to accept…to surrender to the reality of our condition… to not resist even our resistance.

There is a reason for this, and it gets down to the essence of the spiritual process. It is only in complete acceptance of reality and our humanity—only in a total lack of desire to change even the things about the world or ourselves that we find the most abhorrent—that we discover what has been called our “ground of being”—the place where our actions are, finally, no longer motivated by egocentricity.

Having confronted and accepted our worst fears about the world and ourselves—and come out of it whole—we find that we no longer feel the need to act out of a sense of self-preservation, and instead act out of an intuitive awareness of being cradled in an unconditionally loving universe.

9-11: Awakening to an Inner Journey

Source: http://obit-mag.com/

Most Americans, it seems, were shocked and angered by the events of September 11, 2001. But between shock and anger is the often un-seized opportunity for reflection, and in the case of 9-11 that missing step has caused tremendous harm.

Ponder it long enough, and it becomes clear that anger is activated when deeper and more raw emotions are aroused. Chase it down and we discover that beneath anger are feelings of being disrespected, unappreciated, unacknowledged. Chase those emotions down and we see that underlying them is hurt—hurt that someone would mistreat us. Chase hurt down further and what we come to is the primal fear of being unloved, because without love there is no meaning, and without meaning we cannot survive.

That’s a lot to take in, and usually we choose not to. Instead, we let our defenses spring up, and we use anger as a tool to push the threatening emotions away, to locate their cause outside ourselves so that we can take action to alleviate the pain.

But what if we do not push those threatening emotions away? What if we do not try and make others responsible for their existence? What if we own the emotions and the fear, and regard the external event as a blessed alarm to awaken us to an inner journey of discovery?

Then, we have a response that looks very different from going to war and blowing each other up. Then our response is to dive down through those layers of emotion to discover who we really are, individually and collectively—to gain the knowledge that what drives all of us is the desire to be loved, and that ultimately we need not fear the absence of love because at our ground of being we are actually made of love.

Once we know these things, and see that they are true not just for ourself but for everyone, then we will be able to respond with wisdom, creatively, and compassion to the even more tragic events that are sure to come. But without that knowledge, we are as a people without light, walking into a minefield.

THE NEW ECONOMY

There’s a recent report on the PBS NEWSHOUR about the soaring valuations of social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, despite their relatively meager corporate earnings.

Take LinkedIn: At the time it went public, it was valued at $9 billion. Its last reported profit: $12 million for the year.

Read the interview with Josh Bernoff of Forrester Research and Jessi Hempel of Fortune magazine, and it’s clear that even the “experts” have no idea what’s going on.

Fortunately, I do.

First of all, it seems clear that traditional economic models are not up to the task of valuing these new corporate properties. The answers they yield are just too funky. It’s like using a ruler to measure emotion. You may get a number, but it won’t make sense.

Which brings me to my next thought: We are treating Facebook, Linkedin and other social media companies as if they were traditional corporations. In fact, what they more closely resemble are new economic systems disguised as corporations.

Think about it: the whole purpose of money is to facilitate connectivity and the building of relationships to enable the efficient exchange of goods and services that in turn enable companies to grow.

Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and the rest also facilitate connectivity and the building of relationships—not primarily to facilitate the exchange of goods and services to fuel corporate growth, but rather to facilitate the exchange of thoughts and ideas to fuel the efficient emergence of community. (Not that the creators of these technologies necessarily know or think that that is what they are doing.)

So what, then, are the implications of an entirely new economic system, one that traffics more in the realm of spirit (community) than in the realm of material goods (consumption)?

It seems we may be unconsciously building a structure designed for a level of consciousness we have not actually achieved, but which in fact may be helping us get there. We don’t know exactly how it will all unfold or what it will look like, but one thing is clear:

We won’t be using money as the measure of its value.

WORDS FOR OBAMA

Sometimes I just wish I could sit down with President Obama and give him some advice. Here’s what I’d say about two of his major policy initiatives:

Education: It’s fine to stress math, science and engineering, but for too long we’ve paid insufficient attention to what is being called emotional intelligence: The ability to work together, collaboratively and synergistically, so that we are actually able to let the group be smarter (and wiser) than the sum of its parts.

I was at the Clinton Global Initiative University conference in early April, and President Clinton was singing the same math-science-engineering song. But the young person up on stage with him, whom he was celebrating for her brilliant social enterprise—soccer balls that when kicked, store energy to power lights and other electric devices—turned out to be a psychology major. What she had going for her was the ability to see a need, envision a creative and appropriate solution, and then assemble, motivate, inspire and support the right team to turn her idea into reality.

We need a lot more people like her, too. After all, it’s the scientists, technologists and engineers—absent sufficient foresight and wisdom—who have created a lot of the problems we’re now trying to solve. So this time, let’s go for a more balanced approach.

Conflict: Okay, Mr. President, so you found a slightly different way to go to war, this time in Libya…a way that somehow you feel good about, that seems measured, appropriate, and sufficiently supported by the global community. So, it seems fair to ask, how’s it working? You’re a busy guy, so let me answer: Not well.

It’s amazing that we still believe that the very best way to stop people from killing other people is to kill them first. After all, it’s been so effective in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

“So what’s the alternative?” you may ask. Well, the alternative is to start seriously looking for alternatives, which we will never do until we abandon our faith in violence and start developing our faith in process.

Which means, we need to start taking advantage of what people are learning about systems thinking, a tool that can reveal small yet powerful leverage points for change.

There’s a great video that illustrates the power of this approach, but let me give you my unconventional example first. Imagine you know nothing about how a human being is created, and you want to build one from scratch. It turns out to be so complex that you hardly know where to begin, and soon you want to give up entirely.

But then—perhaps thanks to some clever social scientist with a high degree of emotional intelligence—you’re told there is actually a pretty simple way to do it. It’s fun. It does not necessarily require a lot of effort, and once your done, you can sit back, relax, and watch the magical process take off.

So, what’s the point?  The point is that you discovered a powerful cause-effect relationship that, with minimal input, has a pretty darn amazing output.

We need to start finding more cause-effect relationships like that, not in the domain of pro-creation, but in the domain of co-creation. What new systems can we unleash— through relatively small and simple acts—that over time can neutralize even destructive ignorance in compassionate, creative, strategic and non-violent ways?

Don’t say it can’t be done. There are too many examples all around us of small inputs resulting in miraculous outputs to doubt it. In fact, I bet a lot of those non-techy types with high emotional intelligence already have a lot to teach us about how to proceed.

Hopefully we are not so absorbed by math, science and engineering that we’re not listening.

WE ARE NOT SAFER

Obama says the world is safer with the death of Osama bin Laden and I’d like to say why, in fact, it is less safe.

Ignorance and hatred do not live and die with any one person. They are not qualities you can kill. They are only qualities you can transform.

How do we transform ignorance and hatred? By facing those qualities within ourselves; by confronting the very hard truth that what drove bIn Laden to kill is the same as what drives us to kill: retaliation and retribution for perceived injustices.

Until we all face our culpability in the world we have created, hatred and ignorance will not only remain, they will become more powerful.

Watch what happens next, as the death of bin Laden helps ignorance and hatred to grow, not diminish.

We are in for very hard times.

SOUL-JOURN

Here is another way to think about evolving a global mind.

It is a model you may find helpful.

The defining attribute: A sense of oneness

At the center of the model is what we’ll call our essential Self: Who we really are— the dimensions we’re conscious of, and the dimensions wrapped in seemingly impenetrable mystery. We can also call this our Soul. Its defining attribute: a sense of oneness with all life.

The human journey is one of becoming conscious of our Soul, or true Self. Everything else in life is second to that one, overriding purpose.

At the first stage of our journey, we assign to our essential Self a conditioned identity. We can think of this as a kind of insulating layer wrapped around our Soul. It is an attempt to define it, to give it borders, resulting in (we hope!) a satisfying sense of “I-ness.” Our personal and cultural environment largely determines this conditioned identity.

Our personal and cultural environment largely determines our conditioned identity.

The Soul, however, cannot be contained by such a limited sense of self. It longs to expand and reconnect, to regain its former dimensions, to once again experience the oneness of all that is.

The Soul’s impulse to expand puts pressure on our conditioned sense of self. When we talk about feeling “bent out of shape,” that is exactly what is happening: The soul—operating through our experience of the world—is attempting to push us beyond our “self-defined” borders by making our current identity uncomfortable and, more importantly, inadequate to the needs of the current moment.

The Soul yearns to expand.

The trigger for our discomfort is usually an idea or action that threatens the conditioned self’s understanding of the way the world is or should be. And because we confuse our conditioned self with our essential Self, the threat triggers our survival drive, and we attempt to fight off or condemn the idea or action, generating emotions such as hurt, anger, fear and defensiveness.

The Soul, however, has no such reaction. The Soul’s yearning is not to reject but to embrace what is, because what is, is part of the oneness. What is, is home. What is, is Self.

If you think about it, such an orientation is deeply wise. It is very difficult, if not impossible, to take creative action from a place of resistance, fear, anger, or hurt. But when we operate from a place of acceptance, then defensive energy becomes creative energy, and we are able to see new possibilities.

So what the Soul needs, then, is for the conditioned self to act against its own “self interest” and step out of the way—to let the idea or action in, undefended and unencumbered.

What is interesting, and paradoxical, is that by stepping out of the way, the conditioned self experiences a kind of diminishment or death; while the Soul experiences an expansion, a fulfillment, life.

Conversely, by refusing to step out of the way, the conditioned—yet impermanent—self feels safe, while the Soul lies stillborn.

Hence the penetrating insight of Jesus of Nazareth’s Great Paradox: He who seeks to save his life shall lose it, but he who seeks to lose his life shall save it.

The Soul is nourished by the experiences of the conditioned self made conscious..

One last thought:

It is important to not view the conditioned self and the Soul as adversaries. Rather, the conditioned self is food for the Soul.

As the conditioned self becomes transparent to the Soul—as we become conscious of our conditioning—energy is released, nourishing the Soul. In other words, for the Soul to embark upon its journey of conscious expansion, it needs not to shed the conditioned self, but to consume it. To internalize it. To learn from it. To gain the wisdom of its experience.

In this way, the two dance.

Global MindShift Gymnasium: Part 5

A multi-part series on developing a global mind
Part 5: No Pain, No Gain

In a healthy individual and society, worldviews are not final and static, but evolve in response to changes in our environment.  In this sense, worldviews are closer to being hypotheses; assumptions about how the world works that we validate or disprove through experience.

Being able to continually test and update our worldview is an indispensable evolutionary skill. An incomplete or out of date worldview is like having an incomplete or out of date map. It is very difficult if not impossible to get to where we want to go, and most likely we’ll end up someplace we do not wish to be.

How do we know when our worldview needs updating? One indication is when we encounter mounting problems that seem unsolvable. Scientists know this dynamic well. A theory elegantly explaining observed data finds acceptance until enough new data accumulates which the theory fails to explain. Once a critical threshold of unexplainable data is gathered, a new theory emerges that incorporates it.

Another, more personal indication that our worldview is incomplete and needs updating is when we encounter a worldview we find threatening.

Let’s go back to the diagram of our “worldview box” inside the larger context of Reality. Only now, rather just our own worldview, we see that that there are multiple worldviews. In reality, there is one worldview for each person on the planet. That would make about 7 billion in total!

What’s essential to understand is that all of these worldviews are “valid” in that they exist within the larger context of Reality; each is a logical outcome of a person’s experience of the world.

Because we all have different experiences, our worldviews frequently do not agree or see things the same way. You probably know someone who has a very different way of looking at the world than you do. Often times we appreciate that diversity. Other times, we are threatened by it or simply reject it as “wrong.”

When we encounter a worldview that we find threatening, we have two choices: we can reject it, and thereby lose an opportunity to expand our own worldview; or we can engage with it and seek to understand the experiences that produced it; thereby expanding our worldview and, consequently, our circle of compassion.

When we seek to understand another’s worldview, they become our workout partner. It’s a workout because we typically identify with our worldview—when it is threatened, we feel threatened. Challenge my worldview, and you challenge my very sense of self.

The shift in thinking that is required is to understand that while we each have a worldview, we are not ourselves the specifics of that worldview. Rather, we are defined by an apparently unique capacity to consciously adapt and expand our worldview as the evidence requires.

In other words, what makes us most human is not our certainty, but our conscious adaptability.

Here’s a fun, short ideo that speaks to what we are talking about:

Exercise

Seek out someone whom you know has a worldview different from your own. You might have different ideas about politics, religion, education, etc. Enter into a conversation with the goal of getting your head outside of your box and into their box. Afterward, write down the experience and how you felt about it. Was it uncomfortable? Why? Was the person difficult to listen to? Why? What did you need to do internally to be able to listen? Did the experience change you? How?

Global MindShift Gymnasium: Part 4

A multi-part series on developing a global mind
Part 4: Personal Assessment—The Power of Filters

“What we see depends in large part on what we are trained to look for.”
Mark Gerzon, American Citizen, Global Citizen

In the earlier posts, we asked that you draw a box and write inside it the values, attitudes and beliefs—personal and cultural—that help make up your worldview.

As you may have guessed, your worldview is inside a box for a reason: All worldviews are limited. That’s because all worldviews exist within an infinitely larger context, which we are going to call Reality. By Reality we mean everything we know and don’t know about the world/universe in which we live.

No single worldview can reflect all of Reality. Problems arise when we do not make this distinction—when we confuse our worldview with Reality itself. When that happens, our worldview can “box us in,” and prevent us from seeing the larger context within which we exist. That’s a crucial problem because our worldview can filter out the very information we need to solve our challenges creatively, and for the good of all.

 

All worldviews are limited, and exist within an infinitely larger, and ever-expanding, context.

Thought Exercise:

To help drive this point home, consider this simple thought experiment:

Imagine your worldview is like a colored filter that covers your eyes, and of which you are completely unaware. Let’s say it is a yellow filter. When you look at the world, everything that is yellow is filtered out, hidden from your view. It’s not that you think something is “missing.” You simply have no clue as to its existence!

Then imagine becoming aware of your filter. For the first time you see it, dangling over your eyes. You remove it, and suddenly the world looks completely different. There’s a new reality there before you: the color yellow.

When we remove our filters, or at least diminish their strength, we see things we were not able to see before. And often, that is the key to “dis-covering” creative new options.

Becoming conscious of the filters that keep us inside our own “box,” as well as understanding the imperative to see beyond those filters, is the beginning of wisdom, and the beginning of building global community.

Next week’s post in the Global MindShift Gymnasium: No Pain, No Gain—Moving Beyond Our Filters

GLOBAL MINDSHIFT GYMNASIUM: PART 3

A multi-part series on developing a global mind
Part 3: Personal Assessment—The Impact of Personal Experiences

“To learn about the world we must unlearn our distortions of it.”
Mark Gerzon, American Citizen, Global Citizen

Last week we looked at the power of culture in creating our worldview. But that is not the whole story. Our personal experiences also play a major role in the formation of our worldview.

Take some time to think about the significant personal experiences of your life, and how they have shaped your values, attitudes and beliefs. Consider the influence of your parents, siblings, and close friends; consider also major life events, like traveling or living overseas, or suffering a significant illness or loss. Many things, major and minor, traumatic and triumphant, contribute to our personal worldview.

Then, using the same drawing from Exercise 1 from last week’s post, write these personal values and beliefs, and the experiences that helped shape them, inside in the smaller box surrounding your “head.” This symbolizes  your personal worldview.

Then, just as you did last week, take time to reflect on how these experiences, values and beliefs influence how you live your life. Consider meditating on this, and writing. Try to really get in touch with how they influence the way you see and relate to the world.

One method that can help you in this process is to explore how you would answer life’s “Big Questions,” such as the ones below. As you ponder these questions, think about how your worldview may be shaping your response:

• Is the world fundamentally dangerous, or friendly; loving or indifferent?
• Is there meaning and purpose to life?
• Is there meaning and purpose to MY life?
• Does what I do matter?

Feel free to ask and respond to any other “big questions” that occur to you. Again, the point is to try and make conscious some of our deeper assumptions about the nature of the world and our relationship to it, as influenced by our personal experiences. The next step is to explore a process for how old assumptions can be the soil out of which grows an expanded worldview, and a richer and more vibrant life.

Next week’s post in the Global MindShift Gymnasium: The Power of Filters

THE GLOBAL MINDSHIFT GYMNASIUM: PART 2

A multi-part series on developing a global mind
Part 2: Personal Assessment—The Impact of Culture

The real voyage of discovery consists not of seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes…
~Marcel Proust

Each of us has a worldview: A set of attitudes, values and beliefs that determine how we understand ourselves, and our relationship to other people and the world. Our sense of identity, who we mean when we say “I,” comes from the worldview we hold.

Despite its central role in determining who we think we are, we’d probably all have trouble describing our worldview. That’s because most of it is deeply buried, below our conscious awareness. Aspects of our worldview are “hard-wired” into our genes, but much of it is “soft-wired” by our culture and our individual experiences.  Because our worldview is so central to how we see and respond to the world, the first step in emerging the new worldview—in becoming wise—is making a commitment to become conscious of the worldview we already have.

The following exercise can help you get in touch with the impact of your culture on your current worldview. You might consider doing this exercise with a small group.

Exercise: The Impact of Culture

Becoming conscious of our worldview is a lifetime workout. To begin the process, let’s first take a look at the larger culture that surrounds us. Draw a box, with a smaller, dotted-line box in the middle. Then, inside the smaller box, draw the figure of a head, as shown below.

Inside the outer box, list the dominant values that you see expressed in your culture as a whole. Include as part of your cultural picture any religious training you may have received, and, if appropriate, the influence of your ethnic community.

Now, in the same box, ponder and write what you think are the beliefs that underlie these values. For example, if you wrote that money is a value, the underlying belief might be, “money is a measure of self worth.” This is not an easy assignment, so take time to consider, reflect, and discuss with others.

Can you see how these values and beliefs influence and perhaps even control certain aspects of your life? Consider meditating on this, and writing. Try to really get in touch with your enculturation. Then ask yourself if and how the values and beliefs you have adopted still serve you, and the rest of the global community.

As you go through this exercise, keep in mind that we are all enculturated. It happens automatically as part of the process of growing up. But now that we are adults, it is necessary to become aware of our enculturation, and to make a conscious decision to either keep, or to loosen, the power it has over us.

NOTE: Keep your drawing. You’ll need it again next week!

Next Post: Personal Assessment—the Impact of Personal Experiences

THE GLOBAL MINDSHIFT GYMNASIUM: PART 1

A multi-part series on developing a global mind
Part 1: The Orientation

Some time ago, we created something we called the Global MindShift Gymnasium…a place to exercise the “muscles” – mental, emotional and spiritual – that we will need individually and collectively to help emerge the age of global community. While in a typical gymnasium the objective is physical health, in the MindShift gymnasium the objective is wisdom.

The idea was to make this gymnasium a self-guided process online. We were unable to complete the online version—lack of funds—but thought it might be worthwhile to offer it here, as a series of blog posts.

We’ll post a section of this series once each week, starting, like any good gymnasium, with an orientation–where it is, why it’s important to go, and what you’ll do there.

The Global MindShift Gymnasium: An Orientation

Where is the gymnasium?
The Global Mindshift Gymnasium is in your head and in your heart – it’s the ideas, thoughts, feelings, interactions and perceptions you have every day. It’s what you know and what you have to learn; it’s the world you live in and the world you help create.

Why should I go there?
We are living in an unprecedented moment of human history – one that requires extraordinary wisdom if our species is to continue being part of this magnificent evolutionary story.  Regular exercise in the MindShift Gymnasium will help each of us see and develop the wisdom that is required to emerge a positive and compelling vision of the future, aligned with the fundamental reality that all space, all time and all life is one, interconnected whole.

What will I do there?
You’ll exercise your ability to see and respond, which is the essence of wisdom.  You’ll start with a personal assessment: a chance to reflect on how you (and all the rest of us) live inside a particular worldview, and how that limits your ability to see and respond. Then you’ll embark upon a training program to expand your worldview. You’ll learn how to undergo a mindshift that enables you to see in an entirely new and more holistic way – one that recognizes and embraces our common humanity while acknowledging and celebrating our diversity. In other words, you will become more wise.

Do I get a trainer?
You’ll have several: The people in your life that you know well, and the total strangers that you encounter every day. Perhaps most important is your personal trainer — the person or guide deep inside you that you may have yet to meet.

What do I need to bring?
Interest, the motivation to see, and an open mind and an open heart.

Next Post: Personal Assessment

FIVE LESSONS FROM MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.

Check out this great perspective from Drew Dellinger in Tikun: Five Lessons from Marting Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement.

Drew is a speaker, poet, writer, and teacher. He is founder of Planetize the Movement and author of “Love letter to the milky way.” See drewdellinger.org.

Happy News Year

My hope for 2011 is that we can all start telling ourselves a more complete story about each other, our world and the times in which we live.

What we presently call “news” is really just stuff that scares, stuns or stimulates. It’s all just food for the limbic mind.

What we need to do is start feeding the rest of us.

So, I’d like to suggest that everyone make a point to subscribe to at least one uplifting source of news or perspectives.  This blog is one possibility. If you have not subscribed, I hope you’ll do so. The link is at the top left.

Another suggestion is The Weekly FeelGood, the newsletter of our partner organization, FeelGood. The tagline: “Updates that make you feel good about the youth and our world.”

You can register for that newsletter here. While your there, check out our program, particularly this page, on our methodology.

And if you have any comments or feedback, let us know.

May 2011 be a year of global mind shifts and stunning breakthroughs, and may we see, hear and read all about it.

Discovering Fire

“I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity,
but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.”
Oliver Wendell Holmes

There’s a wonderful—and wonderfully short—video on the power of “simplicity on the other side of complexity.” I believe it’s essential to understand. The video is embedded at the end of this post.

When confronted by so many challenges—any one of which can pluck Life’s bloom and render our world desolate—it is easy to feel overwhelmed and immobilized. How in the face of such complexity do we even begin to respond?

But the message of the video is that if we embrace this complexity, and by embracing move through it to find the simplicity on the other side, then we are rewarded with an understanding of the greatest points of leverage…and the actions that will yield the most fruitful results.

Now, my interest is always to bring such concepts down to their personal implications: given the complexity of our world, what is the simplicity on the “other side” that guides me in my daily life, that shows me how to live in creative response to this highly precarious and pressurized moment in human evolution? What can I do to make the biggest difference in this large and complex system we call Life?

Experience tells me this: it is to discover how to love. If, as many believe, love is the animating force of the universe, then by manifesting love we are automatically aligned with its direction no matter how complex it gets.

From the vantage point of “this side of complexity,” the word love may seem vague, squishy, and difficult to apply, making it of little or no practical value. But if we come to it having penetrated to the other side of complexity, then we will understand fully the words of the French philosopher and Christian mystic Pierre Teilhard de Chardin:

“Someday, after we have mastered the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love. Then, for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

The WikiLeaks Lesson

It’s interesting that the reaction to WikiLeaks’ latest release of classified information has all centered on whether or not it was the right, patriotic or even legal thing to do, and how much damage has been done to international relations as a result.

My opinion: wrong focus.

Every so often there’s an epoch-shifting event so significant that old ways of thinking—and the old conversations and concerns that go with them— simply no longer apply.

Nuclear weapons are one example.

Internet-enabled transparency is another.

“A lie has speed, but the truth has endurance.” That’s a quote on the wall of our local YMCA. But thanks to the Internet, the truth has equal doses of both. And it’s making some of us pretty uncomfortable.

It’s also creating pressure to go about things an entirely different way. And this is where the WikiLeaks phenomenon offers an opportunity we should embrace, rather than a threat we need to shut down—a chance to see what happens when we learn to trust and flow, rather than fear and control.

Some may think that’s naïve. They’d have a point had the Age of Secrecy not produced a world filled with alienated, mistrustful nations and hair-trigger nuclear response systems. But it has. And so we can safely, if not abandon the old approaches, then at least seriously consider some creative new alternatives.

What would our international relations look like if transparency and authenticity ruled the day? What if the things we’d not say to someone’s face, we simply did not say at all? What if we learned to treat each other with openness and respect?

Following the latest round of leaks, numerous pundits commented with great surprise—and admiration—that what the current U.S. administration was doing in secret actually lined up with what they said they were doing in public.

Well, there you go then. Let’s just make that more of a practice, shall we?

Empathy: The Invisible Hand

We’ve launched a new online conversation on the Global MindShift Website: Empathy—The Invisible Hand.

The conversation is structured around a brief talk—made into a very engaging video—by Jeremy Rifkin, called The Empathic Civilzation. We’ll be looking at what empathy is and its importance in building global community. We’ll also look at how we might be ‘soft-wired’ for empathy, and we’ll explore a model for tapping into our empathic capacity.

There is a $10 donation for this conversation, which you can make through our contribution form after you have registered for this conversation.

Those who complete the conversation will basically get their money returned in the form of 400 “Cheese Points” from our partner organization, FeelGood. These points can be invested in one of 24 FeelGood College Chapters around the United States, supporting students in their development as Changemakers: inspired global citizens and empowered social entrepreneurs working for a better world. More details on this will be provided within the conversation.

Please note that this conversation lasts one week, and is asynchronous. Participants are not online at the same time. Everyone is asked to log-in at least once a day, at a time convenient for them, to respond to the conversation topic and the posts of the other participants.

Interested? Sign up. Questions? Contact us.

From Shadow to Light: The Words That Set Us Free

I was thinking the other day about the power of words…specifically, the power of naming.

When we name things, we move them from the unknown to the known, from mystery to certainty. Think of a time when you heard a sudden, loud sound. Amidst the adrenaline rush, your first question was, “What was that?” You wanted to name it—because to name it is to understand it, and to understand it is to know your relationship to it, and to know your relationship to it is to know how to respond. A baby crying? Go see what it needs. A lion growling? Best head the other way.

So this ability to name things is pretty powerful stuff.

Now I know, too, that there is another side to this: That by naming things we run the risk of not just unveiling the mystery, but alienating ourselves from it…creating the destructive delusion that we live in a soulless world of knowable parts and pieces.

But, for now, I want to focus on the benefits of naming—its power to help us evolve.

This power is particularly evident when it comes to our inner life and we’re in the grips of emotional turmoil. Often our painful emotions take control of us and we react in ways counter to our own best interests and the interests of those around us.  This is what happens when the process of naming the emotion is bypassed. To react to an emotion before it has been named, before we understand it and know our relationship to it, is to act in ignorance. And we may end up running toward the lion, or away from the crying baby.

But naming painful emotions is not easy. Often they seem to exist within a dense, impenetrable haze. And to be motivated to dispel that haze can take an extraordinary act of will.

And even once the process has begun, perseverance is crucial. For what we are going for is the real name, not a derivative. To name an emotion simply as hurt or loss or disappointment is too far removed. One must ask, why is it hurtful—what exactly has been done to me and why does it hurt? Or, what is the loss, at its core, and why is it so hard for me to accept? Or, what is the expectation that lies behind my disappointment, and where did it come from?

At first the process can be frustrating, as if we’re tracing an arc of introspection that only takes us back to where we started. But if we stick with it, if we insist on getting answers, then eventually the arc straightens out, and we arrive at the root…we find the real name.

And then something truly miraculous occurs: Having named it, having moved it from the unknown to the known, from the shadows into the light, its power over us diminishes, and we are free.

Which means that the next time we hear that sudden loud sound, we’ll know exactly what it is, and we’ll have a pretty good idea of how to constructively, creatively and compassionately respond.

Falling Leaves

I don’t think we think much about the impact of our thoughts…about what they are, where they come from, where they go, or the consequences they have. But we should.

They are, after all, energy, and energy has power.

This morning I woke up with the image that all my thoughts must fall, like leaves from a tree, down around my feet. I pictured them there, thick and dense…one leaf for every thought of my entire life.  Then I reflected on the composition of those thoughts—and how some nourish my ground of being, while others contaminate it, and rob it of needed nutrients.

It’s an image that makes me more mindful of what I think.

A Nation in Decline?

A recent Wall Street Journal/CBS poll found that 65% of Americans think the U.S. is a nation “in decline.”

Is this bad news?

Not when you consider that the word “decline” comes from the Latin dēclīnāre, which means “to bend away, to turn from a direct line or course.”

Given that our present “course” is leading not only humanity but the vast majority of life straight for extinction, turning way from it seems a very good thing indeed.

So rather than being a sign of American malaise, such poll results are actually healthy indicators of a people waking up to the fact that things are not at all well with our world.

So let’s encourage this awakening, rather than fear it or anesthetize it. For only when we’re awake can we set about the exciting, creative, fulfilling work of establishing a new course for ourselves and our children—one that leads toward a better and brighter future for all life.

When Our Voices Matter

Source: http://phillips.blogs.com

A few weeks ago, Time magazine columnist Joe Klein wrote a piece called “How Can a Democracy Solve Tough Problems?” In it he offers a provocative and timely proposition:

“…what if there were a machine, a magical contraption that could take the process of making tough decisions in a democracy, shake it up, dramatize it and make it both credible and conclusive?”

There is such a contraption, of course, and Klein goes on to describe it. It’s a marriage of the ancient Athenian concept of the kleroterion—wherein citizens are randomly selected to decide matters of import —with modern communications technology.

One of the pioneers of this updated kleroterion approach is professor James Fishkin of Stanford University, who for the last 20 years has been conducting experiments in what is known as “deliberative democracy.” One of his clients—the district of Zeguo, China (population 120,000)—engaged Fishkin and his team to help them make budgetary decisions.

Klein outlines the process: “Each year, 175 people are scientifically selected to reflect the general population. They are polled once on the major decisions they’ll be facing. Then they are given a briefing on those issues, prepared by experts with conflicting views. Then they meet in small groups and come up with questions for the experts — issues they want further clarified. Then they meet together in plenary session to listen to the experts’ response and have a more general discussion. The process of small meetings and plenary is repeated once more. A final poll is taken, and the budget priorities of the assembly are made known and adopted by the local government. It takes three days to do this….By most accounts it has succeeded brilliantly, even though the participants are not very sophisticated: 60% are farmers.”

Even more impressive: the process can lead to decisions that appear counter to self-interest. In Texas, Klein writes, Fishkin “ran a deliberative-democracy process for a consortium of utilities, from 1996 to 2007, which gradually transformed the state from last to first in the use of wind power.” Klein then quotes Fishkin: “Over that time, the percentage of people — and these were stakeholders, utility customers — willing to pay more for wind went from 54% to 84%.”

“If people think their voice actually matters, they’ll do the hard work, really study their briefing books, ask the experts smart questions and then make tough decisions. When they hear the experts disagreeing, they’re forced to think for themselves. About 70% change their minds in the process.”
James Fishkin

[See also: The 51-Percent Solution]

Make Room for Ego

Source: http://2.bp.blogspot.com

I heard someone say the other day that in “our work”—the work of making the world a better, more loving place —”there’s no room for ego.”

It got me thinking.

Is it our ego that’s the problem. or is it the relationship we have with our ego? Meaning, do we see our ego as something we need to feed, protect and defend, or something we’re wise to surrender to, learn from, and transcend?

I think of my ego as my friend, my partner in evolution, the one aspect of myself that most reliably and consistently taps me on my shoulder (or sometimes hits me over the head) to let me know when my perspective is too small, my awareness too limited, my motivation too shallow.

I know it’s talking to me any time I feel defensive, anxious, angry or hurt. And when it speaks, its language is wonderfully unequivocal—never obscure, never indirect, never ambiguous. It’s motivation too is beyond reproach: Its only agenda is my total well-being. And perhaps most amazing of all, when it comes to telling me when I am off base, it is never wrong!

Wow, I wish I had more friends like that.

So from that perspective, I think we very much DO need to leave room for our ego. That is, leave room for it in our awareness—in our understanding of the loving and constructive role it can play in our lives.

Mosque: 1; Ground: 0

Source: http://www.muslimvideo.com

Chances are you know about the debate raging over the proposed mosque to be built near “Ground Zero” in New York City. Some find the idea an abomination, a betrayal of the memory of those who died in the attack on 9-11.

It’s an interesting debate, and it reminds me of an article I read recently in Time magazine about bonobos.

Bonobos, it turns out, have, for apes, an unusual capacity for language. The bonobo named Kanzi, for example, has a picture-based vocabulary of 384 words, which he can combine to form new ideas and concepts. Desiring but not having the word for honeydew, he points to pictures representing the concepts, “green, yellow and watermelon.”

Green + Yellow + Watermelon = Honeydew

Combining symbols to express new and more complex ideas is the foundation of language, and the bonobo’s skill level is both cute and endearing.

But what is not cute and endearing is when adult humans combine symbols even more simplistically than bonobos:

Ground Zero + Mosque = Abomination

Of course, it is not unusual for us to make such simple connections. We do it every time we leap to judgment. But with so much at stake in terms of the world we’ll be leaving our children, it’s imperative that we look at the symbols we put together more closely—and to deeply examine the assumptions and meaning behind their combination.

What if Ground Zero became a symbol, not of an unforgiveable atrocity, but of a wake-up call for how the US is perceived in the world? What if the proposed mosque and its proximity to Ground Zero became not a symbol for the evils of terrorism, but for the possibility of reconciliation between two worldviews?

In that case,

Ground Zero + Mosque = Opportunity

How we define our symbols, and how we put them together, is up to us. And since we know we have far greater cognitive capacity than bonobos, we need to be sure we’re using it.

An Amazing Experience

Mind shifts lead to action shifts, which lead to more mind shifts, which lead to more action shifts…and so it goes: A never-ending evolutionary spiral that generates, at every turn, greater consciousness and a greater ability to respond to the needs of our world.

Nowhere was the power of that evolutionary spiral more evident than in FeelGood’s annual summer retreat, playfully called The Big Cheese.

For four days, FeelGood students and alumni from across the U.S., (and two from China!) gathered at a beautiful retreat center among the coastal redwoods of northern California. The purpose: to deepen our connection to each other, to the entire human family, and to all life, and then to turn the power of that connection into tangible action to help end world hunger—a symptom of our species’ deep alienation, and the cause of so much pain, suffering and violence in the world.

It was, by all measures, an amazing experience… the impact, palpable.

You can see and hear that impact in our short video, “The Voices of FeelGood.” Take the time to watch it. If you need hope, it will give you hope. If you need inspiration, it will give you inspiration. If you want joy, it will give you joy.

THE BIRTHRIGHT AND THE BLESSING

I’ve heard it said that all humans have the same birthright—which is the capacity to see reality clearly, and to love unconditionally.

What varies is whether or not we are fortunate enough to receive the blessing—the knowledge that can turn this capacity into manifested reality.

Few seem to receive the blessing, and that is cause for wonder. After all, the knowledge is out there—the gift of sages both ancient and modern. And yet, not many appear to be seeking it out.

Which is amazing, when you think about it. Here we are, pushed by our own actions to the edge of extinction, and the knowledge that can save us remains widely ignored.

Why?

Perhaps it’s because we know this knowledge will exact a price, and that price is change…the kind of change that threatens to upend our every notion of who we are and what our purpose is here on earth.

No wonder then that things have to get horrific before we are ready, finally, to open up, see what’s needed, and take the risks that are being demanded.

But hasn’t it always been this way? Didn’t that primordial fish, blessed with a dual capacity to breath on land as well as in water, only fully seize that blessing when its available water dried up?

Don’t we always have to be pushed to the edge of oblivion before we change?

It’s been suggested that the answer is no…that with the gift of our pre-frontal cortex, we’re able to imagine outcomes before they happen, saving us much pain and suffering.

But something has gone wrong. We’ve become so identified with, and so well adapted to our cultural environment­ that we dare not challenge it—even as our natural environment collapses all around us.

Squeezed between two powerful forces—our fear of change and Life’s uncompromising demand for change—we are frantically immobilized.

So what can be done?

Perhaps what we need more than anything else is the courage of more examples. Maybe then the change will become less scary, less unknown, by virtue of the greater numbers who can be seen giving it life.

And it would not hurt to remember this: Those who have trod this path tell us our fear of it is unwarranted.

After all, it is called a blessing for a reason.

We Have Met BP, And They Are Us

The current context within which the mainstream media is covering the Gulf oil spill—corporate greed, government ineptitude, loss of life, destruction of the environment, and damage to the economy—is necessary but far from sufficient.

More fundamental is a conversation about why we are drilling for oil in the first place, about the unsustainable lifestyle this drilling is meant to support, and about the consequences of that lifestyle on ourselves, on our children, on the entire human family and the planet as a whole.

Even using the oil spill as leverage to pass a more sustainable energy policy misses a more profound opportunity. Obama said in his recent news conference that our oil resources are “insufficient to meet the needs of our future.”

But before we can know the needs of our future, we need to first envision what that future is, and measure it against a growing awareness that we live in a completely interconnected and interdependent world.

Because in the final analysis, any vision of the future that does not include the well-being of all life will not be sustainable, no matter how much energy we’re able to extract from the earth or siphon from the sun.

So let’s get back on point. Let’s start talking about what’s really important:

Who are we, where are we, and where are we headed.

For an adequate context, those are still the three best questions of all time.

Learning to Drive: Why We Need a Relationship with “Something Infinite”

“The decisive question for man is: Is he related to something infinite or not? That is the telling question of his life.”  ~ Carl Jung

For some reason that quote reminds me of one of my early driving lessons. I had been advised by my instructor to fix my eyes on a point mid-distance ahead of me, because that would help me navigate the road’s twists and turns more smoothly and with greater skill. Narrowing my awareness to the ten feet directly in front of me would only result in constant and exhausting micro-corrections of the wheel, while making me oblivious to, and therefore at the mercy of, important events unfolding further down the road.

It was good advice for driving; even better advice for life as a whole. It’s part of what I think Jung was getting at.

Having a relationship with “something infinite”—call it God, a Power Greater, Ultimate Mystery, or whatever—is to fix our gaze ahead…to see the path of our personal journey within the context of life’s larger purpose and meaning.

And what purpose and meaning is that? It depends on what we understand the nature of the “something infinite” to be. Is it angry and vengeful? Indifferent and uncaring? Compassionate and loving?

Which of these (or other) conceptions of “the infinite” we choose ultimately determines how we experience our journey as it unfolds.  For myself, I see ample evidence that “the infinite” is indeed compassionate and loving, and I see the journey I am on as one designed to teach me to reflect those same qualities of being.

And while this chosen perspective does not take away life’s bumps, twists and turns, it does make them less disruptive and traumatic. They become less the defining feature of the journey, and more what they really are: Lessons along the way that teach me to engage with life more creatively, compassionately, intelligently and joyfully.

And at this point in our collective evolution—when we’re poised to drive off any number of cliffs—such qualities are increasingly in our interest.

So, are you related to something infinite, or not? Careful how you answer. Given our species’ predicaments and powers, it is more than just the telling question of your life.

It could be the telling question of all life.

4 Relationships: An Exploration

4 Primary Relationships

As the week unfolds, you’ll find here a series of posts that parallels a week-long, on-line workshop we’re having on the Global MindShift website, called Unleashing Your Potential. In the workshop, we’re exploring what we propose are four primary relationships that need to be mastered in order to realize our full potential and to survive and thrive as a human community: The relationship with a power greater, with our self, with others, and with our “enemy.”

While our online workshop on the Global MindShift site is full, following along with these posts and making your comments right here is another way you can participate. As the online workshop proceeds, we’ll also update these posts with comments made by workshop participants so you can see what others are saying.

To make sure you get these updates, you might want to subscribe to this blog–see “Email Subscription” over on the left hand column.

To Be Is To See

Source: http://photoshopcontest.com

“You can do all the consciousness-raising you want. But at some point you have to act.”

The person who made that comment was sitting on a panel addressing a class of college students about what it takes to build a better world. It followed another panelist’s presentation that focused on…raising our consciousness.

I find the comment baffling. Is the assumption that somehow our level of consciousness and our capacity for effective action move along disconnected tracks?

If that were true, then why expect different behavior from an adult than a toddler? Isn’t the fundamental difference one of consciousness, a difference revealed through action?

Consciousness is not separate from action. Action is consciousness manifested. They are, to use a well-worn phrase, inextricably intertwined.

Perhaps the assumption is that most of us are as conscious as we need to be. If so, the supporting evidence would be a preponderance of actions appropriate to the times.

Few would claim that is the case in today’s world. Even though the call to action is loud and clear—change our way of life or perish—it seems we lack the awareness and skill—the consciousness—to respond.

Maybe the source of this person’s frustration—and others like him—is that he already sees our predicament so clearly.  When you know the house is on fire (literally!) there’s no question that what’s needed is to put the fire out, not sit around and talk about it.

But if others do not see the fire, the first step is to help them open their eyes.

Even then the job of consciousness-raising is not done. There are different strategies for how to douse a fire—some far better than others. Choosing the best option takes knowledge and awareness—or more consciousness.

One final thought: Can we really do all the consciousness raising we want? I doubt it. Most likely all we can ever do is just enough….just the amount that the pressures of our environment, our circumstances, demand.

Clearly the demand for consciousness right now is far outstripping supply.

We’d better get to work.

Einstein, Jung, War and Peace

I was thinking about the concept of peace when for some reason Einstein’s famous equation, E=MC^2*, popped into my head.

Energy and mass, the equation states, are different forms of the same thing—another validation of what has become nearly indisputable: Everything in the universe is connected to everything else in the universe.

But what had never occurred to me before is another implication of Einstein’s equation: Matter is just energy that has been slowed way, way down (M=E/C²).

Which led me to wonder, why would the universe want to slow energy down? What function or purpose would that serve? (Yes, I subscribe to the theory that ours is an intelligent and intentional universe.)

Well, what happens when we slow down? For one thing, we tend to become more reflective… to assess, to ask questions, and to ponder and think more deeply.

Then it occurred to me that perhaps that is exactly what the universe intended. The universe slowed down energy so that it could develop for itself the capacity for reflective thought, a capacity that is of course the defining attribute of the human species. We are not only conscious, we are conscious that we are conscious. We know that we know.

Outside-In

Now, for most of human history we have turned our universe-given capacity for reflective thought outward. We have used it to investigate, understand and manipulate our physical world, resulting in creations both wondrous and frightening—including the ability to annihilate ourselves in the blink of an eye.

For anyone truly interested in human survival, our task now must be to turn our reflective capacity inward—to better understand the mind and psyche of a species willing to bring itself to the edge of extinction, yet also capable of choosing a much different path, one leading to a more just and sustainable world for all.

Which brings me, briefly, to the famous Swiss psychiatrist and mystic, Carl Jung.

One of Jung’s great contributions was to make explicit the connection between our inner state and our outer world…to show that being split and at war on the outside, is a manifestation of being split and at war on the inside.

The role of the peacemaker—what I would prefer to call the new warrior—is to heal the split within. And it requires as much energy, courage, commitment and sacrifice as that old kind of warrior of whom we have seen and know too much.

In wars between peoples, we break things down so that, hopefully, we may build them up again anew. We tear down barriers, annihilate resistance and, in the words of one veteran of the Vietnam War, “destroy villages to save them.”

The war within has a similar energy (just as Einstein’s equation says it must!). But the barriers we are breaking down are the mental barriers we place between ourselves and another. The resistance we are annihilating is our own resistance to the reality of the world before us. And the village we are destroying is that of an obsolete and limited identity, so that a new, more expanded identity may arise, one that is more inclusive of those with whom we share a common home.

None of these thoughts are new. For ages the wisest among us have called humankind to this inner adventure, so that we may birth a more mature, more loving human species.

But even today, too few are heeding the call. We need to make the call louder, so that those with ears to hear, may hear.

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PHOTO COURTESY OF PHOTOGRAPHER PAUL REMMELTS

*Where E = Energy, M = Mass, and C = The Speed of Light

Banking on Happiness

Source: http://cre8ive-technol0gies.com

In an Op-Ed piece for the New York Times, columnist David Brooks reports on the latest findings about what makes us truly happy. (Hint: It’s not more money.)

“Over the past few decades, teams of researchers have been studying happiness….and one of the key findings is that, just as the old sages predicted, worldly success has shallow roots while interpersonal bonds permeate through and through.

“According to one study, joining a group that meets even just once a month produces the same happiness gain as doubling your income. According to another, being married produces a psychic gain equivalent to more than $100,000 a year.”

“Turning the Other Cheek” and Other Power Plays

Source: http://www.noorculturalcentre.ca

But the mosque members and leaders did the unexpected: They postponed their building plans, and called for a community-wide dialogue. According to the Times article: “They will spend the rest of the year reaching out to the non-Muslim community, opening their doors to promote understanding before moving ahead.” (Italics mine.)

Wow. Stop with me for a second, and think about this. How often do you read a story like that? Isn’t the far more typical scenario to “insist” on one’s “rights” and push on with the project regardless of consequences? To do otherwise, the thinking goes, would be to signal “weakness” and invite further abuse.

Instead, the members of this mosque put relationship first, as any religion worth its salt would teach.

The results so far? “The pending furor fizzled out,” reports the Times, and the community is in dialogue.

Does that mean they’re all one big happy family? No, not yet. But they are now on a path where such an outcome is far more likely then had the situation gone its more familiar route.

To me, the episode is a great example of what I think of as the true meaning of “turn the other cheek.” It’s not about being passive—it’s about doing the unexpected, breaking out of old patterns, and opening the door to a more creative, positive and hopeful outcome. In other words, it’s about exercising the best kind of power there is.

Hooray for these fine people. We need many more like them.

If you’re interested, here’s the whole article: “In Germany, Xenophobia Diverted by Open Doors.“

Generation Next

By NANCY GIBBS
Thursday, Mar. 11, 2010

Come back with me 40 years to the rabid spring of 1970. President Nixon announced the invasion of Cambodia, and campuses exploded. Kids who had never picked up a rock in their lives were occupying the classrooms they used to study in. When National Guardsmen shot four unarmed students at Kent State, virtually the entire system of higher education shuddered and stopped. The fabric of the country seemed to be tearing; everything about the older generation was contaminated, corrupt. Asked in a Gallup poll if there was a generation gap, 74% of the young people of that era said yes.

And now? Today’s kids aren’t taking up arms against their parents; they’re too busy texting them. The members of the millennial generation, ages 18 to 29, are so close to their parents that college students typically check in about 10 times a week, and they are all Facebook friends. Kids and parents dress alike, listen to the same music and fight less than previous generations, and millennials assert that older people’s moral values are generally superior to their own.

Yet even more young people perceive a gap. According to a recently released Pew Research Center report, 79% of millennials say there is a major difference in the point of view of younger and older people today. Young Americans are now more educated, more diverse, more optimistic and less likely to have a job than previous generations. But it is in their use of technology that millennials see the greatest difference, starting perhaps with the fact that 83% of them sleep with their cell phones. Change now comes so strong and fast that it pulls apart even those who wish to hang together–and the future belongs to the strong of thumb.

But we miss the point, warns social historian Neil Howe, if we weigh only how technology shapes a generation and not the other way around. The millennials were raised in a cocoon, their anxious parents afraid to let them go out in the park to play. So should we be surprised that they learned to leverage technology to build community, tweeting and texting and friending while their elders were still dialing long-distance? They are the most likely of any generation to think technology unites people rather than isolates them, that it is primarily a means of connection, not competition.

‘Youth is easily deceived,’ Aristotle said, ‘because it is quick to hope.’ But I’d rather think that the millennials know something we don’t about the inventions that will emerge from their networked brains, the solutions that might arise from a generation so determined to bridge gaps and work as a team.

That hunger for community further distinguishes them from the radical individualists of the baby-boom years. In fact, in some respects the millennials emerge as radically conventional. Asked about their life goals, 52% say being a good parent is most important to them, followed by having a successful marriage; 59% think that the trend of more single women having children is bad for society. While more tolerant than older generations, they are still more likely to disapprove of than support the trend of unmarried couples living together. While they’re more politically progressive than their elders, you could argue that their strong support for gay marriage and interracial marriage reflects their desire to extend traditional institutions as widely as possible. If boomers were always looking to shock, millennials are eager to share.

But they are also unconventionally conventional. They are, for example, the least officially religious of any modern generation, and fully 1 in 4 has no religious affiliation at all. On the other hand, they are just as spiritual, just as likely to believe in miracles and hell and angels as earlier generations were. They pray about as much as their elders did when they were young–all of which suggests that they have not lost faith in God, only in the institutions that claim to speak for him.

The greatest divide of all has to do with hope and heart. In any age, young folk tend to be more cheerful than old folk, but the hope gap has never been greater than it is now. Despite two wars and a nasty recession that has hit young people hardest, the Pew survey found that 41% of millennials are satisfied with how things are going, compared with 26% of older people. Less than a third of those with jobs earn enough to lead the kind of life they want–but 88% are confident that they will one day.

“Youth is easily deceived,” Aristotle said, “because it is quick to hope.” But I’d rather think that the millennials know something we don’t about the inventions that will emerge from their networked brains, the solutions that might arise from a generation so determined to bridge gaps and work as a team. In that event, their vision would be vindicated, not only for themselves but for those of us who will one day follow their lead.

Talk Deeply, Be Happy?

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FROM THE NEW YORK TIMES
March 17, 2010, 2:34 pm
By RONI CARYN RABIN

Would you be happier if you spent more time discussing the state of the world and the meaning of life — and less time talking about the weather?

It may sound counterintuitive, but people who spend more of their day having deep discussions and less time engaging in small talk seem to be happier, said Matthias Mehl, a psychologist at the University of Arizona who published a study on the subject.

“We found this so interesting, because it could have gone the other way — it could have been, ‘Don’t worry, be happy’ — as long as you surf on the shallow level of life you’re happy, and if you go into the existential depths you’ll be unhappy,” Dr. Mehl said.

But, he proposed, substantive conversation seemed to hold the key to happiness for two main reasons: both because human beings are driven to find and create meaning in their lives, and because we are social animals who want and need to connect with other people.

“By engaging in meaningful conversations, we manage to impose meaning on an otherwise pretty chaotic world,” Dr. Mehl said. “And interpersonally, as you find this meaning, you bond with your interactive partner, and we know that interpersonal connection and integration is a core fundamental foundation of happiness.”

“…substantive conversation seemed to hold the key to happiness for two main reasons: both because human beings are driven to find and create meaning in their lives, and because we are social animals who want and need to connect with other people.”

Dr. Mehl’s study was small and doesn’t prove a cause-and-effect relationship between the kind of conversations one has and one’s happiness. But that’s the planned next step, when he will ask people to increase the number of substantive conversations they have each day and cut back on small talk, and vice versa.

The study, published in the journal Psychological Science, involved 79 college students — 32 men and 47 women — who agreed to wear an electronically activated recorder with a microphone on their lapel that recorded 30-second snippets of conversation every 12.5 minutes for four days, creating what Dr. Mehl called “an acoustic diary of their day.”

Researchers then went through the tapes and classified the conversation snippets as either small talk about the weather or having watched a TV show, and more substantive talk about current affairs, philosophy, the difference between Baptists and Catholics or the role of education. A conversation about a TV show wasn’t always considered small talk; it could be categorized as substantive if the speakers analyzed the characters and their motivations, for example.

Many conversations were more practical and did not fit in either category, including questions about homework or who was taking out the trash, for example, Dr. Mehl said. Over all, about a third of all conversation was ranked as substantive, and about a fifth consisted of small talk.

But the happiest person in the study, based on self-reports about satisfaction with life and other happiness measures as well as reports from people who knew the subject, had twice as many substantive conversations, and only one-third of the amount of small talk as the unhappiest, Dr. Mehl said. Almost every other conversation the happiest person had — 45.9 percent of the day’s conversations — were substantive, while only 21.8 percent of the unhappiest person’s conversations were substantive.

Small talk made up only 10 percent of the happiest person’s conversations, while it made up almost three times as much –- or 28.3 percent –- of the unhappiest person’s conversations.

Next, Dr. Mehl wants to see if people can actually make themselves happier by having more substantive conversations.

“It’s not that easy, like taking a pill once a day,” Dr. Mehl said. “But this has always intrigued me. Can we make people happier by asking them, for the next five days, to have one extra substantive conversation every day?”

An Entertaining Take on Leadership

Okay, here’s something pretty unusual: a video on Leadership that is both entertaining AND mind-shifting. Enjoy!

Perspective, Perception & Response: Thoughts on Evolving a Global Mind

Source: http://thm-a02.yimg.com

Here’s a thought: Behind every response is a perception, and behind every perception is a perspective.

That may seem a benign observation, but what’s worrisome is that we so frequently act without ever questioning the perception and perspective out of which our actions arise. Instead, we voluntarily live in the operant world of Pavlov’s Dogs, where a stimulus evokes a response without ever passing through the reflective filter of our conscious mind.

Sometimes, of course, that’s a good thing. The stimulus of “child in street with cars coming” needs to be followed by action, not debate.

But many—perhaps most—situations are not so straightforward. “Terrorists attacking World Trade Center,” for example, does not necessarily require the invasion of Iraq.

Now, to be fair, many of us do consider the importance of perception. We want to know if we have our facts right, if our sources are reliable, or if we are falling victim to group-think.

And while that’s a move in the right direction, it’s also not nearly enough. We need to look beyond the accuracy of our perceptions to the adequacy of the perspective out of which our perceptions arise.

I’m using the word perspective here the way others might use worldview or paradigm: it refers to our fundamental (and usually hidden) assumptions about the nature of reality.

But perspective, to me, is easier to get hold of than paradigm or worldview. We’ve all had the experience of shifting our perspective physically… of seeing how differently things can look from atop a mountain versus down in a valley, for example…or from a car versus an airplane.

We’ve probably also all experienced internal shifts in perspective as well: A change in our understanding of a person or situation that put everything in a new light.

Here’s the thing, though: seeing the need to shift or expand our perspective—especially in the moment of conflict—requires quite a bit of self-knowledge. How do we get it?

It has to start, it seems, by acknowledging that we have a perspective, that it is always limited, and that it can always be expanded.

And next, perhaps, is an acknowledgment that conflicts and disputes always arise from conflicting perspectives…different assumptions about, and ways of seeing, the world.

From there, our task is to consciously open ourselves up to the new perspective in front of us—even if uncomfortable or threatening—and let it expand our own.

And how do we know when we’ve expanded our perspective enough? Here’s one possible test: when we are able to respond to the situation at hand constructively, creatively, and with compassion.