During the past two decades or so, small books of daily affirmations became popular. Saturday Night Live lampooned these affirmations with the Stuart Smalley character played by Al Fraken. The term affirmation has been subjugated to the self-esteem and meditation movement for too long.
When you make a purposeful choice to follow a spiritual path, the term affirmation takes upon itself a very different meaning. Affirmation is transformed from something you tell yourself to how you live when you begin to purposely affirm your spiritual path through your actions each and every day.
While the destination you seek will be a reflection of your specific beliefs and the values you choose to affirm, your progress down the path is a direct function of daily practice.
Dr. Shinichi Suzuki, founder of the Suzuki School of Talent Education had a very simple example he used to demonstrate the value of daily practice. In his book, Nurtured by Love, he spoke of pointing out to his students that they now possessed a strong hand. (For most of us it's the right hand). Then he reminded them that on the day they were born, both of their hands had equal potential and equal ability.
He continued on, that each and every day they had paid more attention to their strong hand and practiced using it to do things requiring both skill and strength. They had developed their strong hand through simple actions and efforts on a daily basis. Today both hands still contained the same potential but the strong hand now had much greater ability as a result of thousands of days of focus and practice.
Although the American branch of Dr. Suzuki's school has focused almost exclusively upon music, the Japanese branch took upon itself a much broader curriculum including mathematics and more importantly character development. To read more about Dr. Suzuki and his philosophy, methods and accomplishments follow this link. http://suzukiassociation.org/about/suzuki/
I will use more examples from Dr. Suzuki in future blogs as I have found his compassion, wisdom and methods to be astoundingly effective in the transformation of individuals and development of true mastery.
One of the simplest decisions that I needed to make for myself was that I would not allow external circumstances or pressures to define how I express my values. Part of my spiritual path was to de-link my experience of external events from my internal sense of self. The de-linking was the hard part and it took years and it took help.
I attended a meeting a few months ago where I was subjected to the angry venting of frustration and some inappropriate statements were made by the frustrated person in front of a group of a half dozen people.
I did not react to the venting nor the inappropriateness of the comments, however I did respond by acknowledging the other person's frustration and then walking back through the process we had all followed together. I did not defend myself. I did not point out the inappropriateness of the comments. I did not allow this other person to dump their anger, frustration and inappropriateness into my soul.
If I have done my best, then I am at peace with the resulting successes or failures. I do not need to react to negative comments made by other people. If I choose to respond rather than react, then I have just a little bit of a chance of checking in to my values and affirming them. You will find no perfection with me but you will find someone committed to being at peace with myself and working on it every single day with small, medium and on rare occaision large acts of values affirmation.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The Search for Meaning and Legacy
The rapid pace of change and dissolution of traditional institutions has once again brought the question of meaning to the forefront of many individuals who want to live a life of significance. For some that significance has a spiritual texture for others it has a more commercial texture and for many the primary texture is creative. That is, to bring into being something that would not exist without my unique and individual creative efforts.
Regardless of the specifics, significant disruptive events often beget a reflective pause. Sometimes a cold slap to the face is needed to wake one from the living dream of going through the motions. I too, live a typical life. I need to pay the bills and work regularly to meet those obligations. My life flies by a week at a time.
For two decades now, I have pursued wisdom and legacy. I have done this in the face of illness, divorce, job loss as well the successes. I have drawn heavily from reading and research which I will discuss in more detail later.
Twenty years ago, I had the privilege of working as a consultant for three top executives at the sunset of their careers. As their pending retirements approached these three leaders sought to leave a legacy and reassure themselves that the fifty years of working had had meaning.
About six years later I had developed a framework for creating legacy. A brief discussion of this framework follows:
1) Vision: Actively work to clarify and then choose a creative focal point for your life.
2) Spiritual Path: Reaffirm your values in daily life.
3) Financial Independence: Develop the financial resources to fund your own life over time.
4) Appropriate use of Technology: Use technology to solve problems and connect you to others who can assist you in creating your vision.
5) Learning Skills: Develop your own learning skills so you may teach yourself things that no one can show you.
The framework above is much simpler than the work you choose take upon yourself when you choose to create a purposeful legacy.
Joseph Campbell used to point out the hero path in both its universal and unique aspects and in many ways, the legacy choice is a similar path. As Campbell pointed out; when the Holy Grail appeared to the knights of the round table, the knights collectively made a decision to take upon the Grail quest. Yet when the knights left the round table and entered the woods, they each entered at a different place as they each had to follow their own unique path to the Grail.
Regardless of the specifics, significant disruptive events often beget a reflective pause. Sometimes a cold slap to the face is needed to wake one from the living dream of going through the motions. I too, live a typical life. I need to pay the bills and work regularly to meet those obligations. My life flies by a week at a time.
For two decades now, I have pursued wisdom and legacy. I have done this in the face of illness, divorce, job loss as well the successes. I have drawn heavily from reading and research which I will discuss in more detail later.
Twenty years ago, I had the privilege of working as a consultant for three top executives at the sunset of their careers. As their pending retirements approached these three leaders sought to leave a legacy and reassure themselves that the fifty years of working had had meaning.
About six years later I had developed a framework for creating legacy. A brief discussion of this framework follows:
1) Vision: Actively work to clarify and then choose a creative focal point for your life.
2) Spiritual Path: Reaffirm your values in daily life.
3) Financial Independence: Develop the financial resources to fund your own life over time.
4) Appropriate use of Technology: Use technology to solve problems and connect you to others who can assist you in creating your vision.
5) Learning Skills: Develop your own learning skills so you may teach yourself things that no one can show you.
The framework above is much simpler than the work you choose take upon yourself when you choose to create a purposeful legacy.
Joseph Campbell used to point out the hero path in both its universal and unique aspects and in many ways, the legacy choice is a similar path. As Campbell pointed out; when the Holy Grail appeared to the knights of the round table, the knights collectively made a decision to take upon the Grail quest. Yet when the knights left the round table and entered the woods, they each entered at a different place as they each had to follow their own unique path to the Grail.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Vision: Kripalu Construction 2006-2009
Note: My Project at Kripalu was just featured in an article in the Boston Globe entitled Kripalu Center Dorm Radiates Simple Sustainability.
In 1993 during a workshop on Empowering Leadership, I was working along with my clients on developing a personal vision. There for the first time, I wrote about creating a retreat center. I had never heard of Kripalu at the time. But in 1996, three years later a former colleague from International Paper, Belinda Bothwick became the first outsider to be hired as Executive Director of Kripalu and I eventually received a phone call asking for help.
I took on Kripalu as project, so that I could learn about retreat centers and stayed 3 years, becoming the COO. I left Kripalu for five years and then returned to work upon strategic planning and development of both the operating educational and service businesses and the infrastructure of both the facilities and the technology. Although I resigned my full time position in April of 2008, I have stayed on part-time to complete the following large construction projects which I have been working on for four years. Like all personal visions that are successful, they look now in reality, as I have imagined them for years.
We needed to move a road to accommodate the Annex building and two years ago after the road was moved, I asked the civil engineer to have the building's corners staked out on the ground. After the surveyors put the stakes down, I walked to the stake marking the northeast corner of the building. I moved over a few feet to stand on the spot where one day there would be a beautiful enclosed walkway (slide 13) and above it five stories of bedrooms (slide 20). When I looked out toward the Stockbridge bowl (Lake Mahkeenac) the view was wrong from the one I had visualized from the building plans. I asked the civil engineers to check the stakes and they found out that they were off by seven feet. Only seven feet, but seven feet which blocked the view with an existing building.
This slide show presents two projects and $19 Million dollars in construction I am just completing at Kripalu Center in Stockbridge, MA. The Annex building is an exceptional green building using Integrated Design methodology.
The building has a radiant heating and cooling system for both the building as a whole and individually for each guest room. Day-lighting systems are designed into the building to allow the low winter sun into the building and to block the high summer sun and heat gain. The hallways of the building are "venturi tubes" and will provide passive cooling without wind.
All in All, the building as built uses 40% of the energy of typical new construction of this type and can accept geo-thermal in the future.
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
In 1993 during a workshop on Empowering Leadership, I was working along with my clients on developing a personal vision. There for the first time, I wrote about creating a retreat center. I had never heard of Kripalu at the time. But in 1996, three years later a former colleague from International Paper, Belinda Bothwick became the first outsider to be hired as Executive Director of Kripalu and I eventually received a phone call asking for help.
I took on Kripalu as project, so that I could learn about retreat centers and stayed 3 years, becoming the COO. I left Kripalu for five years and then returned to work upon strategic planning and development of both the operating educational and service businesses and the infrastructure of both the facilities and the technology. Although I resigned my full time position in April of 2008, I have stayed on part-time to complete the following large construction projects which I have been working on for four years. Like all personal visions that are successful, they look now in reality, as I have imagined them for years.
We needed to move a road to accommodate the Annex building and two years ago after the road was moved, I asked the civil engineer to have the building's corners staked out on the ground. After the surveyors put the stakes down, I walked to the stake marking the northeast corner of the building. I moved over a few feet to stand on the spot where one day there would be a beautiful enclosed walkway (slide 13) and above it five stories of bedrooms (slide 20). When I looked out toward the Stockbridge bowl (Lake Mahkeenac) the view was wrong from the one I had visualized from the building plans. I asked the civil engineers to check the stakes and they found out that they were off by seven feet. Only seven feet, but seven feet which blocked the view with an existing building.
This slide show presents two projects and $19 Million dollars in construction I am just completing at Kripalu Center in Stockbridge, MA. The Annex building is an exceptional green building using Integrated Design methodology.
The building has a radiant heating and cooling system for both the building as a whole and individually for each guest room. Day-lighting systems are designed into the building to allow the low winter sun into the building and to block the high summer sun and heat gain. The hallways of the building are "venturi tubes" and will provide passive cooling without wind.
All in All, the building as built uses 40% of the energy of typical new construction of this type and can accept geo-thermal in the future.
Check out this SlideShare Presentation:
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