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.

humanity on the kitchen counter

to be honest, i feel as though i write about the same four or five topics over and over and over again here. slowing down, living with intention, grace, and empathy, and embracing counter cultural life styles are my “issues du jour,” it seems. 

this post is no different. i’ve likely written many others with the same exact message. same. exact. and yet, i need to write it. again.

it never ceases to amaze me, the burdens that people shoulder. the checker at the market, the fedex driver, the pediatrician, the salesperson who calls on your office. the student who sits in your classroom and the cop who pulls you over for speeding. the security worker who goes through your bag at a sporting event and the drummer from your favorite band. everyone carries burdens. shoulders stuff. pushes through.

what’s amazing to me is not that we all suffer and struggle and strive. what’s amazing is that we seem to know so little about the struggles of those around us. how can it be, in today’s “over sharing” and self promoting culture, that we continue to feel afraid of both being truly exposed and of sitting with others in their most vulnerable spaces?

a song lyric laments, “we’re all one phone call from our knees.” isn’t this the truth? a phone call, a disclosure, a realization, an honest conversation with ourself or with another. any of these can lay us low in an instant.

and this is not a bad thing.

pain and suffering are real. they are part of the human experience. so much of the time, however, we love to perpetuate the falsity that we are above the struggle. assuming that our vulnerabilities, fears, inadequacies, or failures make us unlovable and unworthy we hide them away, like stashing our dirty dishes in the bathtub when company’s coming and we don’t have time to wash them. 

the reality is, however, that our company has likely seen dirty dishes before. in fact, they may have some on the counter in their own house. what a relief it would be to see that your dishes get dirty too. that you don’t always have everything tidy and put away. that you eat. and make messes. and don’t clean them up immediately. that you are a person. real. human.

as we move through our days might we ask ourselves where we can afford to take new relational risks, living honestly and inviting others to do so as well. nothing is more compelling than honesty and nothing is freer either. my flawed humanity invites yours which in turn invites mine and so on. perhaps, if i leave the dishes out, we can do them together...

busy vs. full

fewer comments can irritate me more quickly than “i know you’re busy.” to me, “busy,” implies frenetic. it speaks of stuffing in, past capacity, as much as possible. it infers mindlessness and racing and a certain rushing from thing to thing. 

i know this kind of living.

sadly, at times, my schedule reflects all of these traits and i bounce, somewhat like a ping pong ball, from one task to the next. there have been long periods of time in my life where this kind of bouncing was the norm. not wanting to miss an opportunity for a new experience or disappoint someone who might want or need me, i would pack my calendar until the day’s seams burst and responsibilities leaked from one 24 hour period into the next as an overstuffed pillow leaks batting from its stitches.

during these periods, being busy offered me the opportunity to look important and feel the same. with no time to stop, reflect, or be quiet, i never faced into, let alone confronted, the unhealthy motivations behind my frantic pace. my busy schedule fed on itself and begat more busy-ness and less thoughtfulness about how i invested my minutes. the more time i busied away the less time and energy i left for being intentional about the way i lived. days sped into weeks into months into years in a busy blur of doing.

at this point in my life, however, i chose to have a full life rather than a busy one. the distinction may seem minor but it is important to me at my core. for me fullness has much to do with being. fullness nods toward richness, potential, pregnancy (in a descriptive and not literal way), and order. there is a difference between a busy drawer and a full one and a balloon, while empty of see-able matter, is full.

most of us have heard the object lesson that contains a jar, river rocks, and pebbles. the jar represents the capacity of our available resources, such as our time or energy. the larger river rocks represent the priorities in our lives (important people, valued roles we serve, and values we live out actively such as faith or love) and the pebbles represent the many small tasks that our humanity requires and offers (brushing our teeth, grocery shopping, and watching youtube videos). if you start the task of filling the jar by pouring in the pebbles, you can rarely fit the river rocks in. try the task the other way around and the river rocks and pebbles fit much more smoothly. 

for life to be meaningful we must begin the process of living it by filling our time and spending our energy on the things most important to us first. order, structure, planning and discipline are all required to live a full life. why is this so difficult?

constant distractions (in our pockets, on our desks, on the back of the seat in front of us) offer constant recreation, information, and connection. we are entertained more than any other generation and yet we are bored. we are flooded with information, opportunities, and choices and use these “gifts” to fill up our time rather than help us save some.

at what cost?

fill a balloon with the pebbles from our object lesson and there is no room for it to float. stuff a drawer with as much as it can hold, shove it closed, and hope you can find what you need amongst the eruption that occurs when you next attempt to open it.

this is how we live our busy lives.

living a full life rather than a busy one is no easy task. it is counter cultural and risky and involves the very un-sexy habit of planning. it’s uncomfortable to wait in line without looking at one’s phone, to check voice mail only twice a day, to go several hours without attending to facebook or twitter or cnn. it involves risk to rely on the rhythm of your own soul in determining the look of your calendar, the capacity of your schedule, and the rocks you’ll put in the jar first.

the following questions, when truly considered, might cost us: what would be lost in trading our busy-ness for fullness? to consider which investments of our time and energy are healthy and life giving (for ourselves and the important others in our life) and which are motivated by desires for power, position, image, and attempts to hide? how might it feel to impregnate moments with spaciousness, room for thought and feeling, time for intimate connectedness with ones self? with others? with tasks, hobbies, and pursuits we’re curious about but unfamiliar with? might we accomplish fewer tasks and yet be a healthier self? might we experience less “success” and more “growth?” would we miss the constant news feeds, updates, and information overload if we felt more grounded within our own hearts and minds?

i have to believe that this kind of sturdy, knowing my insides and aligning my outsides accordingly, risky, rich, complex kind of full living is worth it. because what might look like busy to me may be intentional fullness to you and none of us can name that for the other. 

noticing what is right

i’ve been stopped several times for things having to do with my appearance. once, while living in southern california, i stopped at a shop to look for an outfit in which i could defend my dissertation. i was hoping for something to make me look smart and feel confident. between my car and the door, a brilliantly handsome man stopped me and introduced himself as a talent scout. “you really need to do something about those eyebrows,” he said. “if you did them right you could be beautiful!”

as a blonde by genetics my eyebrows are light. crazily so. having never considered this as an unsightly problem, i immediately felt ridiculous. “of course my eyebrows make me hideous!” i thought and added light eyebrows to the list of things that made me unattractive. the other stories are similar: the scar on my nose left from constant sunburns attained while on swim team as a fair skinned finn in outdoor pools in central california, the large jagged scar on my shoulder left from the removal of precancerous cells, my posture...all have been commented upon in less than glorious manners. usually loudly and in public. the eyebrow incident, however, stuck unlike others. 

and so, at times, i find myself overly aware of eyebrows. mine. and those of others. understandably so. of the myriad of things that the world would see as “wrong” with me, it’s one of the only things i can actually affect. i can’t make myself inherently smarter. my height isn’t alterable. it’s near impossible to adjust my sense of humor. my general “shape” is unlikely to change. my eyebrows, however, are within my control and so i walk around wondering how everyone else has such seemingly perfect ones and what i might try to alter my own.

it seems that i am not alone.

research published this week found that we compare ourselves to others when we view the photos and status updates of our friends on facebook. in fact, just over half of the study’s 600 participants reported that looking at facebook photos increased their body consciousness. while these findings aren’t exactly shocking it’s helpful to have science formally acknowledge a trend i’ve been speculating about (out loud and in public) for the past several years. it may just be scientifically sound to say that time spent observing one dimensional, self selected clips from the lives of others might contribute to our own sense of discontentment.

in the same week that this research hit the main stream press, the american society of plastic surgeons reported that chin implant procedures are up 71% in the last 12 months. surveys of physicians and patients suggest that seeing onesself from the perspective of a webcam frequently spurs the recognition of a “weak” jawline, motivating surgical means of enhancement. in reading the research i can’t help but wonder if another factor might be the simple fact that we are all flooded with images of ourselves in ways we never have been in the past. cameras are everywhere and photos are posted instantly. there is no shortage of opportunity to notice our flaws. as well as those of others.

which brings me to my point. we are so adept at noticing that which is wrong. once noticed, we seem driven to respond. with our own flaws, we work to fix, change, resolve, or distract attention away from. with others, too often, we work to expose, capitalize upon, exploit, or use them to feel better about ourselves. in so doing, what are we missing?

i wonder what life might be like if we gave up this immediate awareness of what is wrong in deference to a commitment to noticing that which is right. what might change? how might our self talk become grace filled and our interactions with others reflect that change? if i rocked my light eyebrows i could simply thank the talent scout for his input and then genuinely wish him well rather than giving him power to name me unattractive and giving my own day over to resentment, embarrassment, and the establishment of a whole new way of seeing myself as ugly/unworthy.

and so i ask you, what is right?

about your insides and your outsides?

how can you gently begin to shift your attention from that which is wrong to that which is truly good and beautiful?

how about with those you encounter and those to whom you are connected? what about them is deeply right?

it just might be, that in shifting our focus’ to the inside and away from the outside, to our souls and away from our facebook timelines, to the meaningful and real and genuine and beautiful flawedness of ourselves and others, that we get it most fully right.

where we are planted

i grew up a california “city” kid in farm country. every morning i’d leave my small town and drive 10 miles up the freeway to an even smaller town for school where a majority of my classmates lived on almond ranches or dairies. they had gotten up even earlier than i had in order to milk the cows, move the cows, or tend to irrigation systems. they didn’t work retail because they worked at home, learning farming, feeding, and business skills primarily from their parents. 

i, too, worked for my parents. i, however, sat at a desk and reported for work immediately after school. typing, filing, answering phones, and interacting with clients felt so different from the work that most of my friends did. our whole lives seemed different. where i rose early to run before school, my farming friends simply did their chores and got a work out in to boot. while my dress code required professional attire, they wore jeans to work and got dirty. where my schedule was predictable and set, theirs was often dependent upon weather, seasons, daylight, and crop conditions. so much about how they lived seemed somehow wonderful and compelling. the task i romanticized most was irrigating.

i don’t remember exactly when i became so enthralled with the irrigation process but i do remember how fully it captured my imagination. in the central valley of california water was a precious resource. in the 1980’s lists of farms were kept within each community and dictated who would receive water and when it would arrive. each farmer got the flow for a certain number of hours in a rotating fashion. when it was your turn, you had to make the most of it. never being able to fully determine when each farm’s pipes would need to be set and ready, there were frequently mad dashes home to help with getting everything set to maximize the water to be gotten in the time frame it was available. often, this happened in the middle of the night.

sometime during the summer before heading off to college i received a gift when my friend keith invited me to help him with his irrigation duties. late into the evening we donned tall rubber boots and traipsed through acre after acre of almond trees making sure pipes were set. once the water was released to keith’s family’s property our follow up work began. as each area was well watered we’d prepare the next section of the orchard to greet the water as it was diverted to new pipes. it was exhausting and yet magical to be working so diligently and to be so wide awake when the rest of the world was asleep. in the middle-of-the-night-so-late-it’s-morning-hours i walked straight into a tree limb, scratching my eye lid and drawing blood. even later i tripped and landed, spread eagle, in the freshly made mud. nothing in my life felt as fun as this was to me. to stay up all night. to do something worthy. to get dirty and scratched up and be sore from lifting and walking and walking and walking. to keith, however, this was old news. everything but magical. hard work.

as i reflect on this i think about the fact that there are many ways to water plants. one is to pipe water in to where the plants are, demanding an exacting and exhausting investment of time and resource up front. bringing water to places it doesn’t naturally live is expensive in many ways. a second is to plant next to a water source where the soil is more naturally ready and hydrated. this optimizes the chances of seeds taking root, of roots being nourished, and of plants growing well.

a disclaimer is necessary here. i am not so naive as to believe that all orchards, farms, gardens, and the like should/could be planted next to natural water sources. this is an impossibility on too many fronts to count. the opportunity for analogy, however, to the way in which we nourish our own lives is too rich to pass up.

the point is this: we are impacted by where we plant ourselves. 

today we plant ourselves in front of screens. in front of large ones that connect us to “clans” in our massive multiplayer online games and enable us to watch the latest movies without leaving our homes to rent them. in front of small ones that provide us with youtube videos to watch while we wait in line at the store. we plant ourselves in front of facebook for an average of 24 hours a month even though research tells us it lowers our grades, leads us to feel bad about ourselves, and is correlated with distortions in our images of our bodies. we plant ourselves near our phones that tell us the time, that control our thermostats and home stereos, and deliver texts and tweets to keep us hyper-connected. we are “followed” and we “follow.” we are “liked” and we “like.” we are “friended” and we “friend.” we plant ourselves in the soil of technology and we think we’ve watered our relational selves. 

but have we? 

when orchards are planted in dry, water-limited valleys, the farmer tending the trees must plan ahead for how she will water them. if she does not, they will either die or fail to produce. they may have all the sun and heat they need. they may be perfectly pruned and manicured. they might even get some water for the surface from the bit of rain that naturally occurs. in a drought, however, or in conditions where heat evaporates rain water, irrigation must be planned for and executed for the plants to thrive. water needs to seep down deep to feed an almond tree well.

and so it is with us. if our investment in the watering of our selves and of our relationships has happened via screens we are likely found lacking when conditions become less than ideal. when we face deep disappointment, loss, fantastic news, or need help do the number of friends we have really reflect the depth of the connection we hope for? we may have a multitude of onscreen connections that comment, but is commenting all we really need? pouring a bucket of water at the base of a tree makes things look watered. dig an inch or two down, however, and the dirt is dry. so a hearty comment string looks good but does it feel good...down deep?

social networks, be they facebook or linked in or mmog-based or okcupid, have their place. they allow for maintenance of relationships otherwise lost, provide fun and helpful outlets for casual connection and play, offer ways of intersecting with people unreachable or unknowable in any other way, and make communication easy. they are like sprinklers attached to hoses that can be placed and used to water certain places and certain times.

in complex farming situations as in life, however, sprinklers may not be enough. plans need to be in place and investments made to have what is required to water deeply, to anticipate needs over a lifetime. plans must be made ahead of time and kept to.

farmers learn to do hard work. even when it doesn’t seem like they need to. even when they don’t want to. and so must we. if we are to have what we long for relationally we must tend the soil of our interpersonal lives with intention and care. at times substituting texts with phone calls, facebook updates with in-person conversations, and the like. we must be willing to get dirty. to stay up all night if necessary. to do the work of irrigation when it is needed and to ask others to help and to know us in ways that reach deeper than the surface and down to the roots.

it may not be magical to do so. we will have less control of how others see us when we reach beyond facebook photo galleries into real life. we may experience awkward silences when we attempt in-person conversation since we’ve grown unaccustomed to waiting until the perfect comment comes to us to post. our in-person relational efforts may leave us feeling more exposed than in the past simply because we’ve become so adept at conducting our social selves on screens outside of ourselves. and yet it’s important to try. we may return bruised and sore but we will be watered and the landscape more prepared for the next time we need water.