Singapore

Off in a few hours. And I have another overseas trip lined up two weeks from now, to a favorite destination, but, unlike other "business" trips in the past, I don't feel the urge to "play" on the side. Perhaps it could be chalked up to being intentional, but I think that I've begun to actually consider these "working" trips as PLAYING trips that don't need any added extraneous activities to balance them off. Hmmm...or at least, with the company I'll be keeping, there'll be no locking myself in the hotel room with the cable TV running during the off-hours.

Off It

What would it be like if you could get off your point of view about something and totally shift your perspective, seeing what's happening with a new set of eyes?

Tonight, I got "on it" for longer than it normally takes me - making myself wrong with the whole internal "shoulda coulda woulda" conversation and mentally beating myself up for a few minutes of not doing what I knew to do. Formerly, this kind of breakdown would be something I couldn't live with; I'd always strived for a degree of excellence in everything I knew I did well, and if I knew I couldn't make the grade in any endeavor, I'd inevitably give up and turn my attention to something else I knew I could really excel at. Take sports, for instance - I knew I couldn't hit, catch, or volley a ball to save my life, so I totally gave that up and turned my attention to other things I was "better" at. Or Math, which I thought I could never figure out. And thus I did really well in English, the creative arts, History, debate, Biology, languages, extra-curriculars...everything else. Looking back, it was all a compensation - a cover-up - for the stuff I'd failed at, for everything else I wasn't good enough to do.

But that was all inside a lie I'd convinced myself to believe. I wasn't a total failure at sports - I excelled in swimming, soccer, social dance (heck, ballroom dancing is some kind of sport nowadays). And later on was at the top of my scuba diving class (psi computations and all, so I couldn't be a total numbskull at Math). Come to think of it, I had high marks in Statistics and Geometry, so I couldn't really play dumb in the mathematical arena.

So it was all really an internal conversation I had with myself about what I wasn't "good enough" at. Today was a prime conversation about the "games" I thought I'd never win. I dilly-dallied for a couple of weeks about coming up with a business plan/financial structure for the publishing arm of the media company I'm a part of. My excuse was that my experience with publishing was purely creative and editorial and I had no clue about how the business and marketing aspect of it was about. Yet, presented with a whole new "game" - creative outsourcing - a revolutionary new idea my team had been toying with the last several months, I got totally pumped up about coming up with the very same requirement of a business plan in only three days. After all, it was a game I'd never played before (no internal conversations of how "cumbersome" or unprofitable such an operation would be). And I know I can get in all on paper in a few hours . (Or request an expert to do it. Thanks, Lex!)

Those internal, invalidating, disempowering conversations can really limit possibility. After those 30 agonizing minutes of castigating and emotionally throttling myself for being "less than excellent," I got off my point of view that I was "bad and wrong" and actually got back into who I was as a possibility and what I was committed to. And a beautiful, miraculous space emerged - something I would not have been present to if I'd insistently stuck to my perspective. Results-wise, the numbers went off the charts, despite (or perhaps because of?) the breakdown.

Getting off hard-and-fast points of view can mean an alteration of the quality of one's life. Giving up the view that your mother is unsupportive and hypercritical and taking the perspective of love and concern can actually transform your listening of the seemingly hurtful "that was nothing!" to the genuine intent of "that was nothing, compared to what I know you can do!" Giving up your point of view of a loved one, who you once perceived as a loser who doesn't appreciate you, leads to the realization that he's actually hungry for your love and acts out to get your love and attention. Giving up your point of view that someone is being harsh, unreasonable and pushy in getting you to do what you ought to do, all of a sudden has you get how much they love you and how they only want the best for you, and what they really want is for you to see how much further you can expand and how much better you can be (even if you can't see it for yourself).

I've been "getting off it" lately with some amount of velocity, and I'm thankful for not having to stew and gripe for long periods of time. When I'm "off it," the world stops being about ME - and I get present to what's really possible. I get present to grace - the miracle of every moment that I am alive, and the miracle of every person around me. Who knows, I might actually volley a ball, with some success, or solve a complicated Math equation off-the-bat, any time soon!

Grace

Last Tuesday evening, the world came a little more alive.

In a space of community and possibility, 46 people became present to miracles - but not as we commonly understand miracles to be. Water was not changed into wine, no seas were parted, snow did not fall from the thunderclouds of Manila. Still, lives were altered permanently through a profound, unforgettable conversation.

We may live our entire lives without witnessing manna fall from heaven or seeing a dead person raised back to life. Then again, to my mind, that's one way to define the experience of Tuesday: the dead were in fact given life. Burdens that had been carried for decades, emotional hurts calloused over through the years, resentments, frustration, struggle - all were lifted in that one evening and continued to be released in the days that followed. Reports of miracles came back to us, left and right - and I remain in awe of what is possible when humanity is freed of the shackles it binds itself with. The dictionary defines a miracle as "such an effect or event manifesting or considered as a work of God." And yes, God was truly present as the space created by releasing months, years, lifetimes of struggle allowed the miracle of love to take place.

The heart of the conversation was the distinction GRACE - the realization that our life is, and always has been, a miracle. All the ordinary moments of it. And when we really get that, how we see and live our lives, from then on, will never be the same.

I don't believe in coincidence. Today, just before I spent a few ordinary, miraculous moments with friends, I wandered into a book sale and quickly picked up a couple of books to read over the long weekend, hardly browsing through what they were about. It was only a few minutes ago that I saw that one of the books, by Marianne Williamson, was exactly what I've just been writing about. It's about "having hope, finding forgiveness, and making miracles." The title? Everyday Grace. No coincidence indeed. :-)

God bless the miracle of your life.

Conversation

There are many things that I am passionate about: travel, law, cinema, writing, my country. But lately I've been reflecting on what it is I'm passionate about the most.

I came up with one thing: CONVERSATION. I'm most passionate when I'm IN a conversation, especially a really good one. I just got off the phone after two hours of coaching and conversation with a relatively new friend, and when he thanked me for my time, I thanked him even more.

For after every conversation, I end up so enriched and expanded that I am not the same person I was before the interaction. No wonder that the people I consider my best friends are all masters at this art: I can spend hours, until the sun rises, in conversation with them, never running out of anything to say, even if I've known some of them for decades. The men I've been most attracted to have always engaged me in great, endless conversations - and those who I thought were initially attractive eventually turned out to be huge disappointments when nothing insightful, creative, or remotely relevant came out of their mouths (what a waste of saliva). I've distinguished that I can actually generate rich conversations with the most unlikely people - strangers on the bus, train, or plane; little children; lost youth living on the street - and I've always ended up being fascinated beyond my wildest expectations.

What I most love are conversations for transformation - those which open up new possibilities and avenues for action. Which is probably why I've always preferred arbitration and compromise over hard-core litigation. Both parties always end up winners after conversations for possibility, and those are the kinds of conversations I'm committed to forward.

So talk to me. I've always got something to say, and I'm always more than ready to listen.

Permission To Be Upset

I got a big distinction today that really freed me up. I'd always related to an "upset" as something that SHOULDN'T BE - after all, I have all the distinctions and have practiced them pretty well; I'm transformed AND a leader of the work of personal transformation; people actually come to me for coaching to get them off their upsets - therefore I shouldn't be upset. Sure, I've gotten upset a few times over the last year and gotten off it with velocity, but it was a state of being I resisted like the plague.

Until last Saturday, right at the beginning of a big event, when I got upset and didn't even realize it. It wasn't a big upset, but it got uglier the more I suppressed it. First, my legs cramped up and the pain got so excruciating that I had to sit down and hand off part of the presentation to my co-lead. Then my voice went - in the middle of speaking in front of more than 50 people! Thankfully, I made it through, produced effective results, and didn't think much about what happened...until I had "what happened" and "what I made it mean" distinguished later that evening.

I unknowingly created an internal conversation that I wasn't being supported (my interpretation of a single experience that very quickly got "validated" as the afternoon went along), and as I couldn't express it while in front of the guests, it somehow manifested physiologically - both through the pain in my legs and my voice. Since I'd been perfectly fine an hour before the event, it all made sense.

I thought I was off it completely until today, in conversation with a good friend and coach, I saw that I was still really upset. My voice hadn't returned, so there still was something I wasn't communicating. And she said something that powerfully freed me up: give yourself permission to be upset.

What?! I'd thought an upset was something that I shouldn't allow to happen - I actually hadn't been giving myself permission to be upset or to even acknowledge that I was being upset. But how could I even begin to "get off" being upset if I never acknowledged it?

It made perfect sense. I'd been stifling my upsets all this time, until the BIG one last Saturday reared its ugly head without my permitting myself to be present to it. So I cleaned that up today, with someone I'd actually been upset with during the event, and, weirdly enough, for the second time in the last two days (I'd earlier expressed my withheld communication to a couple of other people) my voice actually started to come back in the course of the conversation! How freeing it was to actually say that I got pissed off by my interpretation of how he was occuring to me and to actually own and be responsible for my upset! And to finally, completely get off it, in the course of five minutes.

Now that I've given myself that grace, that permission, I can acknowledge that I AM being upset about something else: a certain expectation I've been denying (to myself) I harbored. I can now own and be fully responsible for that, now that I've seen that I'd been relating to circumstances as "this shouldn't be!" By choosing, not resisting, it, I can really "get off it." And create anew :-)

Thank God for access to that freedom, for the liberation from the crippling restraints of fallen humanity that keep us from being who He created us to be. For how can we be loosed from the chains that bind us, if we don't even acknowledge that they're there? It was no coincidence that the reading for that fateful Saturday is one of my favorite verses, from 2 Corinthians 4 (6-18):

"For God who said, 'Let light shine out of darkness,' has shone in our hearts to bring to light the knowledge of the glory of God on the face of (Jesus) Christ.

But we hold this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing power may be of God and not from us.

We are afflicted in every way, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our body.

For we who live are constantly being given up to death for the sake of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.

So death is at work in us, but life in you.

Since, then, we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written, 'I believed, therefore I spoke,' we too believe and therefore speak, knowing that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and place us with you in his presence.

Everything indeed is for you, so that the grace bestowed in abundance on more and more people may cause the thanksgiving to overflow for the glory of God.

Therefore, we are not discouraged; rather, although our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.

For this momentary light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to what is seen but to what is unseen; for what is seen is transitory, but what is unseen is eternal."

What's Your Day Like?

"So what's your day like?" asked Lex on his way out, after picking up the keys to the "new Center" (semi-long story).

My Saturday schedule was full and in existence, and did not include spending the morning cleaning up the old space and moving stuff to the new one (somehow his question got me suspicious - sorry for my interpretation, dude!). "It's my parlor day, then I'm going to dinner, then meeting Miles for drinks." (Intention thwarted, mwaha!)

I then very quickly fell out of integrity by dozing off for the rest of the morning and most of the afternoon (remnants of jet lag and the very late post-leadership program session), only to be jolted awake by the sublime possibility of a decadent day of pampering at my favorite salon with my favorite team of beauty experts. My late arrival (properly acknowledged and apologized for) didn't seem to make their familiar welcome any less warm - in fact, all of them were up-to-date with the goings-on in my life...perhaps a little too updated (responsibility goes to Johanna, dear sister-in-arms and fellow salon habitue). And so the little pleasures of spending several hours with Bambi Navarro and his staff, whom I hadn't been with since my last session in May, ensued - pleasures denied whenever I'm out of the country for extended periods of time, head-to-toe treatment for less than $50 (plus an environment effervescent with flattery and healthy gossip, hee hee), the works! Double yum.

Sufficiently made beeeeyootiful again, I was then ready to meet up with a really beautiful person whom I love dearly - my sorority sister Marivic, my Paris companion and fellow travel-holic. It was hard to imagine that it had almost been five years since we last met up in person, and yet we'd kept in communication over time and it was just a matter of catching up. The bonus is that we finally got to create travel plans we'd been talking about for years - Europe and South America (a whole new plan in itself), here we come!

To cap off the evening, my best gal pal Miles and I (Ney missing in action, par for the course) had a couple of bottles of wine at a new tapas bar she'd wanted to check out, with, as always, a side of great conversation about life, love, and men (I guess Ney's absence was propitious after all!). My friendship with Miles has spanned more than 20 years, and yet our conversations never, ever run out of steam. Just like with my salon team and Marivic, I hadn't seen Miles for some time, and yet we very easily picked up where we left off. Separation from someone you love, as I was just reading in a book about relationship, is the opportunity to pursue your individual adventures in life, such that when you're together again, the foundation of your relationship is ever more strengthened and enlivened by each other's contribution. And I was truly contributed to (and vice versa, am pretty sure of that, heh heh!). A little giddy from the wine and wonderful conversations and realizations, I went to bed extremely, profoundly grateful.

So what was my day like? Pretty darned awesome, Lex, and very much blessed. :-)

The Spaces In Between

"You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when white wings of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow." - Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

Afterglow and Fore-ward

The last few days have been an ebb and flow of riot and relaxation. I had a sense that my vacation was at its end last Sunday when I got off the plane, assaulted by the wave of heat and humdity and the throngs of joyous arrivals and greeters at the airport. I was home, back on familiar territory, back to the myriad commitments and concerns.

Not that it's an unpleasant experience - on the contrary, home was powerfully calling me back even as I stepped into the departure lobby a month ago. The cycle of completion and creation is exhilirating, as there is always something newly in place in the future that gets one going. The thrilling uncertainty of "what's next?" propels you out of bed in the morning (even while on a "break" from a familiar lifestyle), and dancing with the unknown creates enlivenment of mind and spirit.

My body clock is still shot - early to rise, early to bed, and an untimely experience of exhaustion at hours I'm usually at my peak - but I'm grateful for the slack in schedule I've enjoyed this first week back home. I've managed to put the new commitments I've taken on in place, while still taking time-off to get acclimatized to the old time zone. I'm beginning to build a schedule from scratch - getting back into the games I'd taken time off from and starting new ones - and have been pleasantly surprised to find that I have time in the next few days to spend with important people in my life, whose company I'd missed in the past several months of completing all the commitments I'd made. And I'm excited to have even more conversations that will create possibilities anew. Bring 'em on!