affirmation

i am inspired this morning. not by a sunrise or a sonnet but by a public display of grounded humility and grace.

for 15 years ann curry has risen from bed at 3:30 a.m. to go to work at the today show. this past week rumors leaked that she would be asked to leave the show after serving only 1/3 of her 3 year contract as anchor. wether you love or dislike her, there is no way that you can look at how she has handled this week and not respect her. she has neither lashed out at her employers nor spoken ill of them. she hasn’t gushed about being treated unfairly or engaged the media histrionically. 

instead, yesterday morning, years before she ever hoped to leave her “dream post,” with no special send off as other anchors have received, she announced her departure. she neither withered nor defended. she graciously expressed her love for her on camera, studio, and audience “families.” she was appropriately poised and shockingly non-reactive. she expressed sadness with a firm dose of steadiness and grace mixed in.

then, a most amazing thing happened. her on-air cohorts affirmed her. genuinely. they spoke to her about what they appreciated about her and she was gutsy enough to receive it. she didn’t slough it off or “oh, you guys... ‘ it away. she simply received it with millions of us looking on. this may sound like small beans but it is not.

we are a people, i have noticed, who are deeply uncomfortable with affirmation. we off-put compliments and even more frequently completely squirm at affirmation. it feels so vulnerable, it seems, to see or be seen in honest and caring ways. we know not how to give nor receive affirmation, it seems.

a few weeks ago i had the privilege of speaking at a yoga conference. everything about the environment was nourishing. yoga mats replaced the chairs that normally fill the types of banquet halls that i speak in. everyone was wearing spandex clothing and smiled as they stretched their way through my talk. at the end i began packing up, ready to slink off stage when a most uncomfortable thing happened. the sponsor of the conference came to the front and asked if the assembled group could share with me some affirmations regarding my presentation. i froze. i am not, at all, comfortable in these kind of situations. while i hadn’t been self conscious for the length of my talk, things changed drastically when i was asked to receive. i was so uncomfortable that i have no idea what was offered me. this makes me sad.

years ago my family adopted a tradition begun by my dear friend judi. whenever we celebrate someone’s birthday with them (which is frequent) we “honor” them. this includes each of us looking into the eyes of the special guest and telling them a thing or two that we appreciate about them. we’ve all become so practiced at it that it’s relatively easy to think of very specific things we enjoy and value in people. it’s always interesting, however, to see how people respond to this gift. some squirm and giggle and look at the ground. others cry. a few have become so uncomfortable that they’ve asked us to stop. i can relate to that last bunch.

i wish, however, for a world where we all were practiced in the art of giving and receiving affirmation. not easy, unconsidered affirmation like “you look great,” “good job,” or “way to go.” i wish for a world where we offered specific and vulnerable affirmations to each other. “you are a truly gifted baker. the bread you craft is a gift of love and i feel honored to partake of it.” “you matter immensely to me. i am so grateful for all the ways in which you invest in my life.” “the way in which you just interacted with your child was amazing. truly!” “you have such a sense of style. i love how you express yourself. it’s a gift to this world.” “the way you told that story/sang that song/wrote that paper/ran that race showed such passion. you inspire me.”

then i wish we would become equally comfortable receiving the kind of affirmations we give. that we could look into the eyes of the person trying to actively care about us and say “thank you.” not “i don’t know about that” or “it was nothing” or “you’re crazy.” instead, embracing our own discomfort and simply opening ourselves up to being seen...and lingering there.

vulnerability and risk live on both sides of this equation. to give or receive the gift of being recognized we must have a strong and sturdy sense of self. we must be willing to take a leap of faith that we do, in fact, matter. whether we live our lives on camera, on a mat, or eating birthday cake, that our lives count, our efforts are of consequence, and our ability to connect comes with responsibilities both to give and to receive.

to see ann curry’s statement and receipt of affirmation, go to:

http://allday.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/28/12455567-ann-curry-announces-new-role-at-nbc-news?lite&ocid=todmsnbc11

training

i have a friend who is participating in her first ironman competition on sunday. she has trained and consulted and trained some more. she wears a high tech contraption around her wrist that tells her things like her heart rate, her speed and distance, and, i imagine, other things like when the sun sets and rises. she has eaten correctly and minded her schedule. i admire her dedication to this task immensely. 

when i asked her her start time for race day she told me it was 7 a.m. “the course closes at midnight so, if i’m not done by then, i’ll have to stop.” i laughed. i thought she was joking. i had never really counted up the time it would take to swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run a full marathon (26.2 miles). in case you haven’t either, let me tell you now...it takes a ridiculously long time. in my case, an impossibly long time. i could never do it and i’ll tell you why.

i don’t want to.

this forces me to confront an all too true reality for me. there are alot of things i simply don’t want to do. i don’t think i’m alone in this. neither do i believe that i should want to do all things. the tricky thing for me, however, is that there are things i’d really like to do that are difficult but don’t register as “wants” and would require training. the kind of training that my friend has done only in a completely different way.

when she and i meet up at the end of a day and i’m sweating from my five mile walk only to find she’s just swam a mile (or biked 100) it’s easy for me to diminish my exercise and feel silly about my davidian efforts compared to her goliath ones. this belittling never comes from her. it’s all from me and it reminds me how comfortable it is to put myself down, feel badly, then do whatever i can to distract myself so i don’t have to invest in making things different. there’s something missed in this process of avoidance, however, and it is this: there are pursuits that i see as noble and that i could train for every single day. perhaps not with the same dogged determination and spelled-out time frame but i could train. if we’re all really honest, i imagine we all could.

we all have some amazing gift to bring to the world. we also have unbelievable pleasures to receive in proportion to the effort we invest in life. when my friend trains with deliberateness, when she sacrifices for her goal, when she reaches a new insight or level of accomplishment she receives the deep satisfaction of feeling her strength as well as inspiring those of us near her to consider the ways in which we are strong (or not). this is important work. it is the work of listening to the deep longings of the soul and taking them seriously. of dedicating oneself to a journey and taking the first and second and third and forth and fifth steps of that journey and then taking more. and more. it is the task of committing to that which one feels called to. or led to. or desirous of. it is the work of discipline and self control and also of celebrating.

training works on the concept of overlearning. by beginning with achievable goals and succeeding at successively larger and more demanding tasks, the trainee develops not only actual acquired skills but also an incrementally larger sense of confidence. when one has trained well, the body, mind, and emotions work together and each knows what to do to compensate for and compliment the other. when the body tires or emotions threaten to shortchange our efforts, the mind can kick in and vice versa. practicing this kind of integration past the point of mere acquisition leads to mastery and a “cellular memory” of sorts where the mind, body, and emotions work together with seemingly little effort. good training takes time and must be done long before the actual skill is needed. determination, sacrifice, and overcoming indifference and disappointment are required over extended periods of time for training to be effective.

in the west we tend to speak of training only in the contexts of athletic or physical feats or vocational tasks. in religious traditions around the globe, however, we hear of training the mind and heart through prayer and contemplation, the body through a variety of practices, and the emotions via submission to a higher power. what might it look like for us to expand our notion of training to include this broader view? if i applied the concepts of overlearning, discipline, and incrementally expanding practice i could achieve all kinds of health and healing. i could practice five minutes of mindfulness or contemplative prayer until it became and hour and then a day. i could withhold passing judgement and extending greater empathy in individual encounters and expand this way of being into my for months at a time. i could learn to play an instrument or eat differently or write more.  i could, if i chose to, compete in an ironman.

if i ever participate in an ironman, however, it will most likely be as a support person. i’d be happy to hand out water, keep people on course, or cheer. i’m capable of registering participants, holding signs, and possibly even performing basic first aid. but none of this would be a stretch for me. it wouldn’t require training. i’ve trained in the way of supporting and it’s now easy for me. i can finish that by midnight with very little effort.

my task, then, if i want to move toward growth and maturity, is to listen to the stirrings of my soul about areas i feel would deepen me, and, therefore, my presence in this world. to wonder about wanting to train for things that would be hard for me. that i might “fail” at. that might make me stronger in all kinds of ways. like, perhaps, a 7 a.m. to midnight period of time free from worry or 17 hours wherein i actually rest when i’m tired or eat when i’m hungry. my training might include a completely different set of disciplines and have radically different results than reducing the time in which i run a mile and yet the payoff could include results i long for. more groundedness. more connectedness with both myself and others. more determination, grit, and reason to believe in myself.

so while my friend swims, bikes, and runs her way to the finish line i am committing to try something hard for me for the 15 plus hours she’s at it. at the end i will celebrate her accomplishment loudly. at the same time i’ll quietly recognize the importance of my own day of training and use her success to inspire my efforts, reminding myself that each day of training is significant...especially when i don’t want to.

the beautiful game

i am not what could be considered a “sports person.” while i can appreciate the enjoyment that comes from experiencing a game with a community of fans and the charged and stimulating atmosphere that a sporting event creates, i am especially disinterested in watching mainstream, american sports on television. i don’t watch the super bowl and my family watches it only for the commercials. i don’t know what march madness really is and have no idea how drafts work. i am offended by beer commercials. 

i love, however, to watch soccer games. alot. in my house. in friends’ homes. in pubs, in the wee hours of the morning because they are taking place on the other side of the world. with strangers. or friends. or alone.

here is what i notice about watching soccer. to truly experience a soccer game one has to sit still and pay attention. there aren’t commercial breaks. there aren’t time outs. subbing happens rarely and usually only toward the very end of play. for 45 minutes there are sustained shots of a field with players peppering it and working together. there are typically very few goals made which requires observers to delay gratification and wait. everyone truly watching a game in proximity of eachother is assured of 90 minutes together focusing on the same thing. the game.

where else does this happen? 

the commercialization of sport has meant that television breaks are often and long so that advertisers can eek every second out of the ad time they pay for. entire seasons are worked out around prime viewerships. the athletes are paid salaries so large and so detached from effort that it’s often difficult to find “heart” in their play. half time shows engage performers of other genres to pull in new fans. and everything is sponsored. everything. the stadiums. the half time shows. the little boxes that the stats are shown in.

it seems to me that so little of what we expose ourselves to anymore requires us to sit still or tolerate boredom. rarely do we force ourselves to share space with others where there is sustained focus yet an opportunity for interaction. when our surroundings stop being “exciting” we lose interest and go out for a smoke, or check our phones, or find a new source of stimulation. we move on.

opposing rugby teams, after matches, sit down for a meal together. regardless of how tough the competition has been or how far they have to travel home, they sit their muddy selves down across a table and eat. i’m sure that at least one team, at the end of each match, would much rather move on than sit and interact. civility and community and tradition and an ability to do the thing which is difficult force a different end, however. 

what if we, like rugby players, forced ourselves to sit still and enter in. to pay attention even when the action is waning and we’re bored out of our minds. to commit to 90 minutes of something, anything, that requires civility, community, tradition, or an ability to do something difficult. to experience something as it’s really happening, where ever it’s happening, rather than ti-vo’ing it until a more convenient time frame presents itself. i’m thinking that this kind of living just might make life, like soccer, a beautiful game.

dressing the part

wisdom is everywhere.

i am reminded of this daily.

a few months ago i accompanied my daughter on the first of her college visits and had the opportunity to reconnect with a part of my past. having begun my undergraduate studies as a psychology/musical theater double major i spent alot of time in the drama department. the souls i encountered there were insightful and psychologically sophisticated. they saw - no - experienced the world with a keen awareness of the motivations and feelings of others. they seemed to be able to “get underneath” surface behaviors or occurrences to the complexities that initiated them. 

being back in the halls of a theater department got me thinking in ways i haven’t for a while. early in the day we had the amazing opportunity to observe a talented director walk a student through a monologue to better understand the deeply entrenched motivators of her character. when the words of the text suggested the character’s tendency to feel “hemmed in and held back” in her ability to express her deepest truths, the director helped the actor communicate this by having a classmate literally hold her back and hem her in while she recited her piece. using concrete, physical experience to enhance insight regarding the inner workings of the character’s unconscious motivations made her monologue compelling. later, hearing students speak of using theater to change the world, to illuminate the injustices being perpetuated around the globe, and to help people live richer lives inspired me.

midway through our day we had the distinct privilege of meeting with a distinguished faculty member. dynamic, articulate, and wickedly smart, she made a statement that has been rolling around in my mind ever since. “theater is all around us from how we ‘act’ to how we costume ourselves...” as she said this, her chin jutted down, her eyes looked up at us, and her hands pulled at the shirt she was wearing. her message stuck. we costume ourselves. every day. as actors on a stage dress the part, so do we. in large ways and small this is profound.

if you’ve known me for more than a minute you likely know that over-attendance to physical appearance is a pet peeve of mine. at one point in my journey, when braces had drastically changed the way i looked, i had a t-shirt made that said, “did i ASK you how i look?” and wore it religiously in response to the frustration and dismay i experienced at having my appearance be the first thing everyone commented upon. even still, i know that i, too, am prone to base far too much of my life on externals. we all are.

so, today, i am challenging myself to consider what parts i am dressing for? in what ways do i chose my clothing and my status updates and everything else that has to do with the “external me” to cast an image of doreen to the world? in what ways do i respond to the externals of others without doing the due diligence of weighing the insides as heavily? if i’m busy responding to the externals you wear or embody, what gets missed in our encounter? if clothing and status updates and the cars we drive and the houses we keep and the titles we maintain “make the man/woman/person,” how deep and/or based in reality is our experience of the others in our lives?

may we all be mindful, today, of the deeper substance that supports the externals of our lives and those of others. instead of greeting someone with the cursory and frustratingly easy “you look great!” may we be willing to greet someone with words that reflect who we truly see them as being. may we encounter others as who we truly are rather than dressing a part in order to distract from that which we fear or loathe or want to hide. in so doing we risk authenticity which brings about relatedness that is much more than dramatic...it is compelling.