Trusting Your Nature

This week I was able to spend an afternoon hiking and wandering Tiger Mountain near Issaquah, Washington, where I took this picture. The occasion was my spouse’s 53rd birthday. I love the green of Washington State. Soft moss that grows on standing and fallen trees. Ferns that make their home everywhere. Streams that trickle through the park, as well as a few waterfalls. There is a kind of obvious abundance.

We were out for three hours. Some of that moving. Some of that talking. Some of that huffing and puffing (it’s a fair incline). And some of it just sitting. When I sit in places like that, I can often hear the voice of one of my mentors. “We are nature.” Not, “It’s good to be out in nature.” It’s not external. Rather, it is internal. We too, despite being the incredibly conceptual and cognitive beings that we are, with ability to abstract, are also a living system nested within other living systems. That changes how I pay attention and how I listen for insight and welcome it to arrive.

My friend Kinde Nebeker and I have just finished creating an invitation for another three part series we are offering on The Inner and Outer of Evolutionary Leadership. This series is called Trusting Your Nature. The middle session will be a full day up in Utah’s Wasatch Mountains. If you are reading this and within range to join us, please do.

The Effect of Stress

The video collage below is 51 minutes. It features Bruce Lipton, a cellular biologist who has taken his work to many, many layers. His style is quite intense, in part, because he knows a lot of stuff and is offering really important connecting into a story.

In this piece, he talks about the health of human body (cells) and how patterned stress (and patterns of perceived stress) can limit the function of the body. When we see a lion, our body gives preference to where reaction and power needs to be — in our arms and legs so that we can run. If we feel that threat all of the time, other systems in our body shrink, including immune systems.

It’s worth a listen. Thanks Teresa for sharing this with me — Teresa is incorporating many aspects of working with stress into her core work.

On Grief, And Tenderness

I met Marilyn Hamilton about ten years ago, I think. She came to a leadership conference that I was hosting. I think we had had contact before then also, when I worked with Margaret Wheatley. I remember Marilyn at the leadership conference — she was one of the participants that just knew what was going on and how to gracefully add to what was there. I’ve enjoyed her ever since, even though our encounters are few.

Today I ready Marilyn’s words of grief and tenderness at the passing of her life partner and husband earlier this year. I share some of that here because her words touch me. And because Marilyn, though in a grieving process, is able to name some of the dynamic, the shrinking of horizon for a moment. And because there is grief in the world for reasons ranging from personal to global.

Here’s one line that shares some of that. With encouragement to read and follow her work. She does much to grow the thoughtful connection needed to live in city and community.

“Grief has shrunk my world from horizons imagined beyond many tomorrows to the tasks of just today, and today and today.”

From the Ordinary, Extraordinary

Stuart McLean is a Canadian story teller and humorist. He is known for his books, his performances, and his CBC Radio program, The Vinyl Cafe.  When people talk about his genius, I hear him described as a good listener, as making magic and the extraordinary out of the ordinary. I hear him described as being habitually curious about human life. He loves laughter and he loves silence. I don’t know Stuart McLean, but it’s super easy for me to fall in love with those qualities. A couple of weeks ago, Stuart McLean was heard to say, “What can I say. Things don’t always go as planned.” Stuart McLean died yesterday. The cause was complications due to skin cancer, which he was diagnosed with about a year ago. His life is being celebrated. His death is being mourned.

I admire the courage it takes to give full attention to the ordinary. It’s massively satisfying and delightful to me to see in the ordinary what is extraordinary. It feels wise, right. Perceptive. Insightful. There is clearly skill in being able to see the extraordinary. But the perceptual shift that matters to me personally, and so often in my work, is that there is extraordinary if we are simply willing to be curious about it. It can be grown, I think. But it is already there. In the staff meeting. In the people at the staff meeting. In the people trying to make sense of the plans of the staff meeting. In the vast and varied life experience of the people trying to make sense of the plans of the staff meeting.

We human beings in our collective adventures must of course share important information and data together. It’s part of collaborating. And we human beings must use that data to create plans and strategies and accountabilities. That’s good too. But let’s be clear, learning to collaborate is a life-long process. And further, learning to collaborate is enhanced deeply by our ability to welcome the time for story of the ordinary. I’ve lost track of which of my friends first said it — Margaret Wheatley or Christina Baldwin — “the shortest distance between two people is a story.” And those stories, those simple ordinary stories, are what I’m often trying to evoke in people that I work with so as to create good listening and good connection. I’ve started surprising people with questions that are off topic — “What were you good at as a kid — share a story.” It’s awesome to watch people light up when given permission to be in the ordinary, that turns out to be not so ordinary.

Thanks Stuart McLean. For a life of story. And for good listening. And for curious habits that I continue to try to grow and practice in myself and with the people I care about.