Why I Hate Being Uncomfortable, and Why It’s So Important
In this issue:
· Insights Into Practices
· A Poem, Maybe You Are King?
· One Half-day Retreat
· Books For Doing Impossible Things
Insights Into Practices: Thinking And Doing Impossible Things
I often think about the time I arrived at an improv for beginner’s class and the teacher announced, “Today we are going to be doing improvised Shakespeare.”
My heart sank. My stomach clenched. I wanted to bolt. I quickly and nervously approached the teacher and said, “I never really studied much Shakespeare…”
Immediately, before I could express my doubts and concerns she looked at me with a big grin and excitedly responded, “Great!”
It turned out to be a lot of fun and lots of learning, right within the discomfort, fear, and thinking “impossible!”
The reason I took improv classes was to face my fears, especially my fears around public speaking. At that time, I couldn’t imagine being in front of a group without a fully written script of what I would be saying. I used to make several copies, for back-ups and put them in several of my pockets, just in case.
It makes me smile to look back at things I used to think were impossible. I now appreciate teaching and public speaking. Working with groups of leaders and with companies is one of my favorite things in the world to do. I savor being able to help create a safe space and engage in ways to integrate work, leadership, and mindfulness practices. And, I still feel nervous, sometimes fear, and usually some discomfort.
These days I think that doing the things we might label as impossible may be important, perhaps essential, for our own well being and in making a positive difference:
· Living a fully integrated life where your work, family, friends, and spiritual practice are healthy and seamless. This often feels impossible and aspirational. Especially when children are involved, transitions, unsatisfying work, health challenges, and on and on…
· Building a caring, and effective work culture. Cynicism is easy. Struggle and disconnect at work are easy. Building a culture that is loving and vibrant often seems impossible.
· Starting or being part of a meaningful and successful business: taking an idea and making it useful, serving others, and effective. Is this really possible?
· Keeping your heart open while the world is at war, while our politics is insane and depressing, and there are unspeakable divisions and violence. Impossible, and yet…what is the alternative?
· How do we practice and live our daily lives, knowing that we will say goodbye to everyone and everything we love? Impossible. And yet…
My daily meditation practice these days feels like an exercise in doing the impossible and becoming more comfortable with discomfort — aspiring to let go of my usual judgments, and instead focusing on being curious, kind, and loving. My mind continues to spin and the various voices in me rarely fall silent. And yet, this feels like an important practice for me, staying with it, every morning, in supporting all of my daily impossible tasks.
(Playing with a wild bear in Mill Valley, California.)
I’ve come to believe that we are impossible beings who live in impossible times.
I believe it is important to train ourselves to enter challenges and difficulties that help us to act, to try things, to keep our hearts open, even and especially when it looks challenging, difficult, or impossible.
A Poem: Maybe You Are King?
This poem called A Story That Could Be True, by William Stafford, poses these questions: “Who are you really, wanderer?” and a possible response “Maybe I’m A King?”
If you were exchanged in the cradle and
your real mother died
without ever telling the story
then no one knows your name,
and somewhere in the world
your father is lost and needs you
but you are far away.
He can never find
how true you are, how ready.
When the great wind comes
and the robberies of the rain
you stand on the corner shivering.
The people who go by—
you wonder at their calm.
They miss the whisper that runs
any day in your mind,
“Who are you really, wanderer?”—
and the answer you have to give
no matter how dark and cold
the world around you is:
“Maybe I’m a king.”
Half Day Retreat, In-person and Online, Sunday April 7th
9:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., in Mill Valley, CA
In our world of busyness, of more/faster/better, this half-day retreat offers time to stop, reflect, and renew. We will explore the practices of effort and effortless as a path to well-being and “stepping into your life.”
Together we’ll follow a gentle schedule of sitting and walking meditation, a talk, and some discussion. Anyone looking to begin or deepen a meditation and mindfulness practice is invited to attend.
What is meditation? I like a definition proposed by Zen teacher Dogen, the 13th century founder of Zen in Japan: “The practice I speak of is not meditation. It is simply the dharma gate of repose and bliss…It is the manifestation of ultimate reality…Once its heart is grasped, you are like a dragon when he gains the water, like a tiger when she enters the mountains.”
Some Books About Doing Impossible Things
The Wright Brothers, by David McCullough. Orville and Wilbur Wright set off on a mission to find a way for humans to fly. Impossible!
Zen And the Art of Saving The Planet, by Thich Nhat Hanh. Zen, reversing climate change? Really?
Zen Mind Beginner’s Mind, by Shunryu Suzuki. Transform yourself into a spiritual, trustworthy, and effective person. Who would ever take this on?
The Art of The Impossible, by Steven Kotler. The title says it all…
Love In The Time of Cholera, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Beautiful novel of love and extreme, impossible challenges.