Embracing Our Mortality

No one can say confidently that he will still be living tomorrow. --Euripides 

I have faced “certain death” on three occasions. Each time I was “dramatically changed” … until the drama of the event started receding into the past. Check that: it didn’t “recede,” as this would imply I was a passive bystander in the process. No, I consciously repressed it, buried it, and then hypnotized myself into a state of forgetfulness as to where it was buried. I preferred being cocooned and protected from the terror to being drastically changed in heart and mind.

It was an all too easy process for me: I can’t function normally if I am constantly facing and embracing death. Note the rationalization, “I have children to rear, bills to pay,” and the depersonalization, “death,” rather than “my death.”

When these events refuse to stay buried and erupt into consciousness, I remove the “sting of death” by solely focusing on the fact that I walked away. Focus on the escape, Wilson, the “mercy of God,” the fact that I am still breathing:  anything but the reality of impending and inevitable death that I experienced.

The human condition is weird like this. We are born with survival instincts that presuppose there is always the possibility that we may not survive; yet we create avoidance-mechanisms so as to evade facing the fact that, at any moment, our life could be taken from us.

Most of us live as if we were immortals (which is a form of narcissism, by the way). Sure, we pay lip service to the fact that we will die “one day” but this is a mere intellectualization. Consequently, in our normal day-to-day living, we repress the awareness of constantly living on the razor’s edge of life and death.

If I do not face the reality of “my” death, however, I will live as if I had all the time in the world to—

Demonstrate and communicate the love I have for God and others

Become the person I intend to be

Discover who and what are actually important to me: who and what are worth living and dying for, to me.

Realize my vision

Create a legacy

When we face our mortality we are forced to answer the question of the meaning of life. Don Quixote tells us as much when in speaking to Sancho about the questioning look he saw in the eyes of the dying soldiers he had held in his arms:

Sancho Panza: Was it the question, “Why am I dying?”

Don Quixote: No, it was the question, “Why was I living?”

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2012 

Legendary Leaders: Haunted by Death

Part of what makes up the mindset of a Legendary Leader is the commitment to leaving a legacy: an opus that says, “This is who I was; this is who and what was important to me.” Of course, to think this way means that they have come to grips with the reality of their mortality. 

The topic of death is pretty much non-existent, today. At best, we may speak of it conceptually but it is quite rare for individuals to fully face the reality that they are going to die. In fact, many of us do everything in our power to avoid thinking about it. Some of us throw ourselves into our work, giving no thought to “for tomorrow you may die.” Some of us eat and drink our selves into oblivion. Some of us check out, living life on autopilot. Some of us adopt health fads, not so much as to be healthy but as a way of cheating death. Or so we hope. Our more spiritual brethren often create religious escape routes: “Live in the moment, giving no thought of tomorrow … and to the reality that I will die one day,” “I will not die: Jesus is coming back!” In doing any of this, however, we cut our selves off from living life to its fullest, to making every moment count, and to answering the question, “And what of my legacy?”

My Terrors

When I was a boy the prospect of death terrified me. Whether it was the friend of my sister's losing the horizon at night and flying his plane into the ocean, my Uncle dying from a heart attack, or a friend and schoolmate robbed and clubbed to death, each experience left me paralyzed with a fear that would leave me numb for weeks.

             I intuited that I needed to come to grips with death but whenever I thought about it my brain locked up.

             Being raised in a Christian home (my dad was a minister) I heard plenty of sermons about “waking to be with the Lord,” but these didn’t do a lot for me. In fact, I was horrified by funerals where it seemed to me people were celebrating the fact that the dead individual was gone! Yes, yes, I know in the Christian religion the belief is that this person is now with his God. But even St Paul said we were not to grieve as those who have no faith, which presupposes there is still grief. Anyway—

While I did my best to avoid thinking about death, off-and-on death would creep up on me, unexpectedly. I remembered while in my twenties actually praying that my grandfather (Monte Sr.) would never die. The thought of being in a world without him terrified me, as did all funerals, graveyards, and obituary columns.

My drug of choice for years was my religion. It wasn’t so much that what I believed wasn’t the Truth, but the fact that I got there on the cheap. I adopted my beliefs, not in faith, but in fear. I didn’t discover the Truth so much as glob on to a convenient belief that would help me avoid and pretend.

             When this belief stopped working for me, I adopted the “live in the moment” approach to life. Ultimately, I discovered that this too (for me) was a cop out: a kind of psychological ADD where I didn’t think about future consequences and realities: “All there is, is NOW!” But death was always close at hand, sometimes whispering, sometimes yelling at me.

Then there is the nihilistic mindset where life has no objective meaning, so all is vanity: Eat drink and be merry for tomorrow you die. In these people’s minds their epitaph will read, “Whatever.” But this copout never appealed to me. Why? Because somewhere inside me I knew that life mattered, that there was a reason for my existence. And I discovered that this was one of the reasons why I could never trivialize our marginalize death: why it was such a huge deal to me.

Coming next: Embracing Your Mortality

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2012

Reframing the Past: The Barriers of Fear and Delusion

The instinct for fear can be healthy, as it is warning us that we might need to take flight or to fight so as to survive. Fear keeps us from jumping off of tall buildings, walking into oncoming traffic, and saying something stupid that will get us fired from our jobs! The challenge is in discerning exactly what is a legitimate fear and what is not: when we need to “run away” and when we need to deal with a state of mind that is going to rob us of our personal power and keep us from the life we wish to create.

Fears being FEARS, we often hesitate to face them, preferring to dance around them or to flat out deny them. Here, self-delusion is thought to be a far safer place to live than reality.  Of course, we call our delusions “reality” and expend all our energies in warring against that still, small voice echoing in the recesses of our hearts: “Liiiiiiaaaaaar.”

If I face my fears…

Then I will see that I fear being myself

Then I will have to admit to myself what I really know and what I really feel

I will discover that they are baseless: and then what do I do?

I will have to own up to my failures

I will discover that there are things I can do/change and will no longer have excuses for my present behaviors and attitudes.

            The real fear here is of reality and that, once it is faced, I will have to make choices and then be responsible for those choices. The fact is, however, reality is where I will discover my true power. Seeing my past for what it was and seeing myself for who and what I am in this moment is my base of power: it is from this base that I will create the future I want.

People who prefer delusion to reality get stuck in loops where they keep reliving the same day or experience over and over again: different players, different time, but same story. Because they choose to not press through their fears and the illusions they adopted so as to protect themselves from reality, they never seem to learn anything new, anything that will help them create a better life for themselves. Instead, their delusions keep them stuck in the past … where it is safe and comfortable; where I am “right” and they are “wrong”; where I get to call death, “peace.”

            Fear warps and clouds the mind, focusing upon the perceived threat, rather than upon possibilities for action. Fear causes us to react irrationally, rather than proactively. Fear paralyzes us. Therefore, other than those times when we truly need to fight or take flight, fear is an enemy that must be defeated.

           Digging deeper into the fear, I believe that one of the things we discover is the fear of condemnation and judgment.

I failed, ergo I am a bad/evil person

My past failures are so great that they will always define me

So as to feel better about myself, I have lied about many of the details of my past: admitting this, I will hate myself, as will others.

I choose a path that will keep my loved ones and me condemned/broken. I can’t face that.  

            Before making value judgments or holding forth on the “immorality” of this or that behavior, it is critical for you to step back and remove all emotion and ego. All you are looking at are behaviors, events, and situations. What did you do or not do? What did he/she/they do or not do?            

When I bring my ego to the table, I am either too hard on myself or justify and defend myself. I must first see and acknowledge the facts on the ground. What. Actually. Happened. No projections, no redactions, and no equivocations: just the facts.

            Look at these “facts” from as many vantage points as possible. If a Martian was looking at what happened, what would she have seen? What would a man/woman/boy/girl have seen? How did those who were actually there see this event? If your minister/priest/rabbi/coach were there, what would she or he have seen? What would an individual who has no vested interest in any of the players involved have witnessed?

            Now, ask yourself: Up until this moment, what are the actual consequences of this event(s) in your present behaviors and attitudes? Are these behaviors and attitudes working in your best long-term self-interest? What were the decisions you made, where are these decisions leading you, and is it in the direction of the future you want for yourself?

            It was what it was; it is what it is. Now what? You cannot change the reality of your past but you can learn from it. You cannot change what happened but you can grow because of it. You cannot change what happened but you can change your relationship to it. (Powerful “Reframes.”) However, you can’t do any of this if, out of fear, you choose denial and delusion over reality.

Reality is Power

People fear reality when they should be fearful of delusion. Reality may “bite,” but delusion kills.

            Maslow says that the greatest need for us humans is survival. I think for many people, the greatest need is to maintain their comfort zones, and they will seek to do so even if it costs them their families and friends, their health, their money or even their lives.  For these people, delusions are more important than truly living, and pretending to be powerful more important than actually being powerful.

Some of you need to flip your mindset from fearing reality to being desperate for it. You can’t get to Dallas from DC if you are pretending you are in San Francisco. You can’t make wise decisions that increase your possibilities for success if your decisions are based on a lie. This is true for your personal life, as well as for your business or career.

Reframing my past in a way that supports the future I want to create begins with facing the realities of my past.  “That is who I was/am at the time. That is what I did or didn’t do. This is actually what happened/is happening. This is how I got ‘here.’ I own this, that, and the other.” This is a mind that is unclouded by make-believe and ready to make wise and responsible decisions for the future. This is the mindset that makes me responsible for my life, which is where true power resides. 

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2012            

Reframing the Past: The Barriers of Guilt and Fear

For over 20 years, I have worked with orphanages in Africa. One of the things I am constantly amazed by is how so many of these children are filled with a sense of belonging to a family. Rather than constantly being in fear that they will be abandoned again sometime in the future, they have chosen to embrace the gift of familial love with the other children and caretakers with whom they are now living. Choosing to focus on the love and care that they are receiving, past traumas are placed in a different frame. It is not that they will ever forget what happened to them, but how they are now focusing on all the good that has come their way because of or in spite of their past.

Two women, both had cancer: one of them chooses to live in fear, the other grabs each breath and squeezes out of it every bit of life and joy possible.

Two men, both had businesses that went bankrupt: one experiences the failure as commentary by God on his worth, the other embraces the failure, mining for wisdom, so as to be successful the next time he rolls the dice.

You were betrayed by a loved one or a business partner: What do you do?

a Never trust anyone again

      b Choose to learn to live and love with knowledge and discernment

      c Pretend it never happened

In dealing with past traumas and failures, many people choose c: Pretend it never happened. Maybe they live in all-out denial or refer to their past selves in second person -- “she” was so abused, “he” was such an idiot. Some people re-write the facts of their past, so as to protect themselves from guilt or fear. Whatever the ruse we choose to use, the past remains what it was. Yes, I can evade reality: I simply cannot evade the consequences of evading reality. (Ayn Rand)

The first step to future freedom, health and success is to embrace reality: you blew it, he failed you, she stole from you, or they abandoned you. Reality can be harsh: evasion is deadly. Your personal power  is going to come through grasping reality, not through pretending it wasn’t what it was or isn’t what it is.

Reframing our pasts isn’t the same as lying to our selves about the facts of our pasts. Reframing our pasts so that it empowers us for our future requires that we first deal with the facts. Caca happened, and try as you might to pretend it didn’t, that doesn’t stop the stench that is possibly presently emanating from your life.

Guilt and Fear

In my 40-years of experience as a counselor and coach, I have discovered that the two reasons that most often keep people from facing reality is Guilt and Fear.

If I face the facts of my past …

I will see that I was guilty

I will see that I didn’t do what I promised to

I will see that I could have done better, behaved with more integrity

I will see that I lied/cheated/betrayed

I will see that I was foolish

            Please note that each of these responses is an interpretation of the facts, not the fact itself. The Facts of an event are not synonymous with the Truth of the event. Yes, you may discover all these “failures” are an accurate interpretation: The Truth of what happened. Or you may not.

“Guilt” is an objective reality -- or so I believe. You broke the law or you didn’t. You broke one of the Ten Commandments or you didn’t. You failed to keep your Code of Honor. You broke the laws of love or you didn’t. Just because someone’s feelings were hurt, doesn’t mean you failed. After all, “feelings” are not the standard of morality!

            In evaluating the facts, if you see that, yes, you failed to keep your word, tell the truth, respect the dignity of others, or whatever: Own It. Reframing lies are of no use to people who wish to own their power. Calling my caca “manna from heaven” doesn’t fool anyone and only serves to create the possibility of producing more caca in your future.

Guilt is debilitating, leaving us with little faith and hope for our future.

Guilt over the past creates a lens through which we look at and evaluate our present and future.

Guilty people are easily manipulated. Governments have known this for a long time: make the citizens feel guilty for x and they will gladly accept higher taxes to pay for their “sins.” Children have also been known to master this same tactic!

            By the way, I strongly recommend that, when looking at the facts of your past, that you share your story with respected and trusted friends. Seeing your story through the eyes of another person can bring immense wisdom and insight. Just tell the story, the entire story: don’t interpret and judge as you share your experience. And then listen to your friend’s take on what happened.

            If you do discover guilt, own it and ask forgiveness: if it all possible face-to-face. If you can’t do this, call him or her on the phone. Writing emails or letters and asking forgiveness are dicey propositions, as they are so easily misinterpreted. When you ask forgiveness, be sure to not add any you-a-culpas. Keep to mea culpas. Casting blame on others – I know I failed, but you set me up by doing what you did – is an equivocation that communicates self-justification. “I wouldn’t have failed had you not failed.” Also, no buts: “I did this and ask your forgiveness but …” Whenever you use the word “but” it negates everything that went before that word. Finally (for now!), ask forgiveness to the depth of the actual failure, being specific about your failures: “I did this, that, and the other.” Generalities are equivocations.

Once you ask forgiveness, let it go. Even if the individual chooses to not forgive, that is his issue. Do not allow the lack of forgiveness of others to leverage your health and happiness. If you need to and can make amends or restitution, of course you should. However, do this out of love not a drive to make up for your failures. After all, you can’t “make up” for failures, you can only be forgiven. (For a more extensive take on moral failures I highly recommend you read “The Ill-Made Knight,” a chapter in that now classic book, Legendary Leadership.)

            The other major barrier to dealing with the facts of our past is Fear. I will write about this in my next blog.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2012

Zigginess

Have you ever heard the saying, “The past does not equal the future”? The idea is that, whatever the past was, whatever your present reality is, it does not have to dictate what unfolds in the future. Like most bumper-sticker philosophies, there is a degree of truth here … but only enough to confuse you!

My past happened. I made choices and took paths that led to my present reality, and this I cannot change. In the past, I planted seeds that are, for good or ill, going to produce fruit: sometimes, for years to come, if not for the rest of my days. So, in this way, the past is going to dictate my future reality.  

It was what it was, so it now is what it is. (Should I patent this and put it on a bumper sticker?) I zigged when I should have zagged and the consequences are all this zigginess. And no, this is not where we cue Will Smith and start dancing. The zigginess I am referring to goes better with music by ... hmmm: Richard Wagner. 

I had these failures in that relationship

I chose a career path that was not wise

I chose to be a victim here and there, and, by doing so, allowed others to dictate my behaviors, personality traits and life-choices

I ignored my own legitimate needs and so am now spiritually and psychologically suffering

The good news is that today you can make different and wiser choices, and by doing so create a future filled with possibilities for joy and meaningfulness. In this way, the future does not have to equal the past. Yes, there will still be some zigginess here and there. This can serve to remind you of the consequences of poor choices or simply be seen and experienced as an aspect of the human condition. However, over time, your world will increasingly be filled with far more good fruit and far less zigginess.

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2012

Heart and Soul at Work

Have you ever worked along side an individual who was constantly angry or hurt or jealous, or demanded special treatment: someone who is the star in their very own soap opera? Well that is not what this article is about.  I want us to consider the human need for expressing our heart and soul in our work, not human emoticons.

           

As a professional coach and mentor, I have worked with so many people who were merely looking for the Right Job: the job that matched their skills and paid the most money. While a healthy dose of pragmatism is necessary, if my quest is not grounded in the intent to express who I am (or as much as my Self as presently possible), then I will ultimately find myself in a job where I experience frustration and constant disappointment ... or worse: depression.

How many people do you know who truly love their work, who love what they are doing? How many people do you know who find a deep sense of fulfillment in what they are accomplishing and achieving? My experience is, not so many.

Some of the reasons for this are:

Thinking solely about money and never giving “calling” or “vocation” a single thought.

Allowing personal history or tradition to be the final arbiter of what we are to do with our futures.

A mindless, go-with-the-flow mindset where circumstance are driving our car, while we sit in the backseat.

Submitting to Authorities, assuming that they know more than we do about exactly what will lead to our true happiness.

            When any of the above is the North Star of my decision making, I end up working at jobs rather than fulfilling my calling. How do I express my heart and soul in my work if they were left out of the decision-making process? The work I am performing needs to have a vital link to who I am — to my heart and soul -- if I am ever going to experience any sense of satisfaction and meaningfulness with my work. Or so I believe …

           

 Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2012

Your Legacy

I recently read an article about how the Paleolithic artists produced the Spotted Horses on cave walls that can be seen in places such as Lascaux and Chauvet in France. What intrigues me is how, from the very beginning of history, people have been inspired to produce something of value that will out live them.

On some primal level of human nature, we are driven to communicate not just our individuality but also our worth.

I was here, and I made/drew/painted/sculpted this.

I planted the tree whose shade you are enjoying.

Because of my life, that young man is now a doctor who is saving lives.

I helped support a charity whose work rescued and helped restore the lives of hundreds of women caught up in the sex trade.

While here, I mattered.

This is my legend, here is my legacy.

Of course there have always been those twisted souls who decide that it is easier to say, “I destroy, therefore I am,” as well as those who choose to sleepwalk through life. You, however, know you have worth, as you were created by God. You know there is a reason for your existence, a purpose for being here. Somehow and somewhere you are supposed to make your mark on your world.

What are you doing that will continue on after you die? Where and how are you going to leave your mark? What and who has changed for the better because of your life and work? What legend are you creating that people will be inspired by, once you leave this world?

Copyright, Monte E Wilson, 2012