Get Back on the Playground!

Copyright 2006 Mike Pniewski

Did you ever wonder how you went from the kid who couldn't sit still, to the adult who can't get moving?

I asked myself this recently when I took my 3-year-old daughter to the playground at a fast food restaurant. She loves playgrounds and so do I. At an almost frantic pace, she began to scale every inch of the equipment, and I surveyed the scene around me. What I saw were kids playing and parents either trying to wrangle their kids off the playground, or get their little ones to sit still and finish their food before they hit the playground. None of the children were sitting in a chair watching the action. They were either taking part in it or itching to. Some kids are shy and timid, of course, but the overwhelming instinct of children is to jump in and participate in any way possible, even at the expense of fueling their bodies. They seem to have no fear of looking weird or not fitting in, especially the youngest of them.

So what happened to us adults? When did we become afraid? When did we shut off the kid in us and start to think too much? When did we decide we had to grow up?

One of my favorite professors in college taught directing. An actor himself, he remarked one day that he hoped he'd never grow up, because your childlike instincts are what keep the joy and wonder in your work. That sense of play and make-believe is natural to any good actor and we'd better not lose it, he said. For actors, childishness is a best friend. Growing up is dangerous. It robs us of our freedom and the determination not to miss anything. It makes us fearful and doubtful and insecure. It makes us see new people as strangers instead of potential friends. Most importantly, it keeps us from living to our full potential.

So what happened to us? I believe it was something called expectations -- more specifically, other people's expectations of us. When we're little, from birth to 3 or 4-years old, our only care in life is to have fun. Our only job is to be lovable and to love. Everything else is just play. What could be better? But then, as we get older, we start to have expectations put on us. We have to make our bed, we have to go to school, we have to finish our homework, wash the car, get a job, etc., etc. Then we get older and have our own families, career, responsibilities and debts. Not to mention the peer pressures that drive us to have the house or the car or the gadgets that make the best impression. Pretty soon our own sense of daring and wonder is lost in what we're "supposed to be."

Worrying about what we're supposed to be suppresses the child in us, who has no doubt that his or her purpose on the planet is to have fun. Who said you couldn't live your entire life with that beautiful energy of daring and joy? Growing up shouldn't mean giving up our purest spirit. We shouldn't allow ourselves to be controlled by our fear of not living up to other people's expectations.

Of course this doesn't mean you should ditch your commitments and responsibilities in favor of doing whatever feels good in the moment. What I'm encouraging you to do instead is to make choices that bring you joy and fulfillment. Choose a career that fills your soul as well as your wallet. Love your family and those around you and cherish all the relationships in your life. And remember to live life on your own terms. Live your own truth. When other people's expectations become the master of the choices you make, you give away the power to determine your own happiness.

A fellow named Gil Bailie once said, "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and go do that because what the world needs is people who have come alive."

Make it your mission in life to fully come alive. You and the world will be better for it.

Make it New, Now

Copyright 2006 Marshall House

In my view, each day is an opportunity to make life anew. I often help people to create something new when I hear a story repeated again and again.

Even if I am hearing a story for the first time, I can feel the resonance of an oft-repeated saga. I start to yawn as I hear or see the needle move along the groove. Truthfully, whether this is a wonderful story or a not-wonderful story, I can feel or hear or see the pattern. My awareness is heightened when the oft-repeated story recounts a situation the person does not wish to recreate.

Now, let me quickly say that I have experienced some incredibly engaging story tellers who do not bore me with their repeated stories. When the story teller is engaged with the creation of the story and sees it as new, the listener is more easily engaged. The master story teller lives a story as if it is being told for the very first time, created right now in this moment. Sometimes the master story teller plays with the listener or listeners in a magical in-the-moment way. So, there is story telling and there is story telling.

Perhaps it is risky to go on record saying that I am bored by the repetition of a story. Clients who work with me in one-on-one sessions know that I do not encourage their telling disempowering stories. Sometimes they just need to tell it one more time to someone who is able to listen deeply.

When a caring person listens deeply to a disempowering story, the pain can dissipate for the speaker. When I say "listens deeply" I refer to a skill that is rarely practiced. I mean that the listener is truly with the speaker, not sympathizing and not being reminded of another, similar situation. And certainly not giving advice or telling his or her own story! I mean the deep listener listens attentively in as many ways as possible, fully present, fully in the moment.

When the deep listener gets sucked into the drama, listening is no longer happening. The listener now colludes in creating more of the same rather than in helping the person to accept that life is created anew in each moment. The future is created by the present.

Whatever you give your attention to expands. Your focus of attention is your key to happiness. You may forget this dynamic from time to time. That is one of the values of having a listener who cares enough to interrupt a destructive pattern. You argue for limitations when you try to prove how "bad it is" by retelling a disempowering story. It is a pattern worthy of interrupting.

It is the rut-producing story-telling which creates more unwanted situations that inspires me to say: "Stop! Make it new!" Or, "Can you say that in a way you have not said that before?"

Every single moment of your life represents an opportunity for a new beginning. Every in-breath begins life anew; every out-breath releases the past. Every minute you are different from the minute before, with new cells, new energy, new life. Future experiences are not created by past experience, but by your current thoughts and feelings about those experiences.

Transformation Old to New or New to Old

Copyright 2006 Marshall House

I like to think of transformation as a big word for big change. Of course, everything in life is always changing, always transforming. Without change, there is no life. Even if something seems stationary or stuck, it is still moving or evolving. Sometimes you are an instrument of the change, sometimes you are a witness of the change. Change happens in you, around you, through you, and as you.

In my view, the transformation that happens in small increments is far more deep and lasting than the transformation that happens in quantum leaps. Quantum leaps may seem dramatic and powerful, and can certainly get your attention. However, I find that those events that are called "quantum leaps" are either the culmination of a lot of little changes or the beginning step in a series of steps that can facilitate deep and lasting change.

I think sometimes people get confused about what is old and what is new. I know sometimes I do. Here is one view I hold about oldness and newness: I often label something new which is, in truth, very old or original or foundational. For example, the new paradigm of business is the application of what I consider to be old values that have been lost in the maze of competition, greed, pressures, and false beliefs. Allowing spiritual principles to be expressed more openly is new for many groups of persons, yet is an ancient idea.

In putting together this article, I considered a number of dichotomies besides new/old that might convey what I want to say; for example, I considered, familiar/unfamiliar, obsolete/recent, outgoing/incoming, preferred/not-preferred, old (or current) paradigm/new paradigm, and it/not it. I chose new/old because that dichotomy conveys a sense of movement through time. The change from old to new (or new to old) is usually not so much a matter of age, but a matter of movement or transformation. The key is a change in form. Energy moves from one form through or to another (trans ' form ' action).

No matter what dichotomy you might choose, I strongly recommend that you not make one polarity right and other wrong, nor one bad and the other good. Right/wrong and good/bad dichotomies are filled with human judgments that tend to keep you stuck in false beliefs, re-creating dynamics you do not like or prefer. Instead of rejecting either the new or the old, honor each so that its energy (current) can be available for your present experiences. Transformation requires movement.

If I were a bird

What if I were a bird? I would need no tickets to fly. Just fly whenever I want. I would save a lot on air tickets! Jokes apart, what does a bird see from the sky? What does it feel? What opinions does it form and how does it look at human beings?

Let us first talk about birds. Have we ever thought that a small bird that comes out of the egg, flies without any help from any aircraft companies? It needs no design and no development of latest alloys or other light-weight materials to fly. It flies itself without any help from mankind. It can swoop down or rise fast, sit or simply glide in the air. It does all this effortlessly without any chance of failure!

Now, let me become a bird and start my daily journey. I will not reveal about the part of the world I live in. What is the first thing I see? I watch the sun rising in the east. What a glorious sight is this! Sun, the great star, because of whom, we are all alive. As the day begins, I watch people moving around in the streets. I fly higher in the sky. Figures start looking very small on the ground. These people who look so small from the height, think that they own the world. When I watch their expressions of worry and anxiety, I wonder. I want them to come with me and watch themselves from the height. As they
will rise higher, they will realize that they are small, very small. And they will stop worrying.

How can you think of yourself as insignificant in the universe and still worry so much? This is the only cure for the worried people. Don't think that the world will come down if you don't worry about your problems. Carry on and let the problems not bother you so much that you stop living.

What beautifuls thought of a bird!

What Is the Leonardo Trait? Creativity in Action

I recently began thinking about why I'm like this. Trust me, if you know me, you'd understand what I mean, and you'd probably agree that just knowing my family isn't enough.

I have two speeds. One is stop, one is go.

I can't work on one project, I have to have five.

Of the twelve projects I have open, I'll only finish seven.

I don't know which seven it will be, so I have to work on all twelve until I figure it out.

I can't settle on one thing I want to do. Right now I'm learning to podcast, walking in charity walks, and setting up teleseminars, while writing a book.

My favorite person in history, after Amelia Earheart, is Leonardo da Vinci. Amelia Earheart is my favorite only because I was a little girl in the 1970s and female role models were rare; I'm not giving up my first idol.

I like to think that if Leonardo were alive today, people would be calling him "weird," encouraging him to "finish what you start," and--my favorite--referring to him as "jack of all trades and master of none." Then I like to think of those people suddenly realizing who they've been criticizing.

You know? Wouldn't that be fun?

Well, of course it's not going to happen, but what can happen is that you and I can recognize the Leonardo Trait in ourselves and each other and let up on ourselves. No one else is going to do it for us.

Give yourself a break, Leonardo.

Creativity And The Jack Of All Trades

You may be familiar with the saying, "Jack of all trades and master of none."

Well, I say, "Hooey." That's right. In fact, let me say it again. "Hooey."

It is perfectly possible to be a multipassionate person and do several things well. Many, even. I'm a writer, a mother, a photographer, a friend, an entrepreneur. Sometimes not all at the same time, but I do them all, and do them all well.

But I think one reason many people can't do many things well, or think other people can't, is a lack of creativity.

It takes a lot of gumption to juggle two small kids, a deadline on an article, a pan of spaghetti, and a friend who wants to talk about a problem at work.

It takes even more gumption, and creativity, to juggle five projects, and those same two kids and that same friend.

Sometimes the creativity is required to figure out how you can manage one thing later. "Jack, I know you want to show your new game to me right now, but actually, I've been asleep for about an hour. Could we do it in the morning?"

Sometimes the creativity is figuring out how to handle two projects at once. "Hmmm. If I write an article on creativity AND writing, I could use it in my writing ezine AND my creativity ezine.

Sometimes the creativity is in finding a sensitive way to say, "I can't right now." "Samantha, I know you want to play badminton. I have an abscessed tooth and can't move my head. How about Old Maid on the bed instead?"

And sometimes the creativity is just in remembering that these are people, things and situations you love and want to enjoy, and then going and enjoying them.

Can't Find Your One True Path?

So you're trying to figure out what you're going to be when you grow up. The problem is you're 38, have two grown children and a husband, not to mention two cats and a dog named Sirius Black Dixon. Oh, wait, sorry, I guess I got distracted and thought we were talking about me.

Back to you. You're physically "grown," but you haven't found your "one true path." You don’t know yet what you’re going to do with your life, and you’re feeling lost, confused, and worried.

Okay, let's start with the brutal truth here. If you have spent a lot of time, effort and creative energy looking for your one true path, I have bad news.

You probably don't have one.

You see, people who have one true paths know they do and they know what they are. This is not always true. Nothing is always true. But in general, people who “home in” on one career do it early and stick with it, or if they change careers, they do it in a reasoned, considered way.

People like us, who stumble and bumble and jumble from one thing to another to another to another, we don't have one true path. We have something. It’s just not one true path.

That's the good news. Because what we have, boy is it better.

We have multiple paths. They fit our multiple passions and our multiple talents and our multitasking personalities.

You and I? We can be whatever we want. For as long as we want. And then go do something else. We can be writers, and while we’re being writers, or when we’re done being writers, we can be teachers, or driving instructors. Now, admittedly, we’re not going to be astrophysicists or CEOs of major companies. But most of us don’t want that. What we can be is just about anything we want to be – and just about everything.

Don't you feel liberated?