April 10, 2007

On the Outside Looking In

Wondrous

O wondrous creatures,
by what strange miracle do you
so often not
smile?

by Hafiz
Translated by Daniel Ladinsky

Most of my life I have felt as if I was on the outside looking in. When I think back to my school days I never quite fit in. There were always people more popular than I, people who appeared to be happier, to have more friends, or a more interesting family. Always a problem solver, I set about trying to prove to myself that I could fit in too. In my innocence, I reasoned that all I had to do was try harder, work longer, be nicer. It is interesting to note that when I was younger everything I desired had to do with people and connections, rather than acquisitions and security.

At some point, that changed. At some level, I must have realized my strategy wasn’t working, because I shifted my focus outward, to the acquisition of things. I wanted the closet of clothes so that I’d look better, different, special…in an effort to gain attention and the illusive acceptance. I wanted toys, at least at first, as incentive to get others to play with me and to think I was cool. Somewhere acquisition fever took over and the initial impetus got lost in translation.

For the last several years I have been looking closely at my life, my hidden motivations and unconscious driving forces trying to understand and break free from that tug in my heart whenever I enter a room full of new people. Will they like me? Will I stutter and show how ill-at-ease I am? Will they see the ‘real’ me?

The trip to New York for the publicity summit was a novel growth experience. It was a great learning process. Outwardly, I appeared calm and collected and to the unpracticed eye, inwardly I was pretty cool too. I had learned enough over the years to understand that if I made the conversation about me I would die an embarrassing death. So the secret for me was to keep the focus on what I could do for each of the specific media that I was meeting. It was a bit tricky. There was still an ‘I’ there that was going to do something, so the possibility of melt-down was imminent.

When I am catching a flight in the morning I rarely sleep well that night—not sure if it is anxiety or what. It has to be fear-based—perhaps fear that the alarm clock won’t go off and I will miss the flight or maybe there is a fear of flying that is deeply hidden. I haven’t seen the bottom of this habit yet. This trip nothing was different other than I wasn’t sleeping once I got to New York either. I now know that you can function rather well without sleep.

The second night in New York I sat up in bed, deciding to meditate since I wasn’t sleeping. I thought I would ask and see if I could get an answer to my insomnia. It wasn’t long before I heard “Move outside of your self. The focus is on you: your pitch to the media, how you will look, how they will respond to you.” The solution was clear. I began to extend my energy beyond myself to my friend who was sleeping in the bed next to me, next to the sweet people I had met in the elevator, and to my fellow participants at the summit, and out and out it went until my love and energy circled the globe. The thought of Gayle was so dispersed that there was nothing solid enough to claim…and I slept.

The next morning I awoke, not quite energized, but definitely more rested. As I stood in each que awaiting my turn to speak, I continued the practice, connecting with each participant and opening my heart to embrace the larger whole. My practiced pitch was quickly thrown out and replaced with ‘in this moment’ truth. I shared my discomfort, my ‘right now’ story and how the seven fears play out in day-to-day life. It was comfortable and honest. It felt clean and aligned with my promise to God and to myself of who I choose to be.

All of a sudden I was in the middle of it rather than standing on the outside looking in. I hadn’t gotten there because of the new pair of expensive pants and shiny new shoes I was wearing or even due to the haircut and pedicure or classy leather briefcase. None of those things had mattered. I was standing in the inside looking out because I had moved beyond centering on my self to a heart-centered focus on all that was around me. I put myself in the middle by expanding the circle around me and created possibilities that were previously distant to me.

These deep insights are such a blessing—true gifts from the Divine. They show us the path Home. It is Home that we search for, for that place of connectedness and love. As we attempt to connect, whether we do that through acquisition fever or by working on ourselves to make the package more presentable, what we are really after is to move beyond the limited self into unlimited selflessness. It is by giving what we want to others that we begin to dissolve our own hard edges, the ones that keep us at a distance and make us believe that we are small. As we take the spotlight off ourselves our true magnificence shines through.

Stephen Mitchell, Tao te Ching (a new English version)
Success is as dangerous as failure. Hope is as hollow as fear. What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure? Whether you go up the ladder or down it, your position is shaky. When you stand with your two feet on the ground, you will always keep your balance. What does it mean that hope is as hollow as fear? Hope and fear are both phantoms that arise from thinking of the self. When we don't see the self as self, what do we have to fear? See the world as your self. Have faith in the way things are. Love the world as your self; then you can care for all things.