SIMPLICITY

http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rcs/15._Simplicity_files/simplicity.jpg

SIMPLICITY

“In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.”

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I have been reflecting on simplicity for some time. Simplicity seems to be on many people’s minds, these days especially. Life experience can become so busy that it occurs to us as complex and as needing urgency to address every issue that comes up.

In my reflections as well as my investigative readings, what keeps coming back to me is a common thread that runs through the tapestry of all the commitments I have made, and then subsequently experience as demands on my time! I have often made commitments and choices without thinking through the entire picture of the issue or the ramifications of the choice. This results in the experience of living a complex life.

If I look at de-cluttering my home as an example, I can see that when I make a new purchase, I don’t always think through how useful it will truly be, so I often add to a collection of lovely-but-not-very-useful items already existing in our home.

When I look at my schedule, I see that I sometimes say “yes” to commitments without really looking at the entire use of hours in the day, or week, or month, or even year. I don’t ask myself in the moment of the commitment, have I given myself enough resting time to experience balance in my day/week/life?!

When I look at wanting to drop a few pounds, am I consciously choosing what food to put into my system that will actually contribute to having a body weight in which I feel most comfortable, or am I choosing to eat what feels compelling at the moment but not designed to accomplish my larger goal?

What I see now is that all of the issues to deal with around simplifying my life come down to one issue: being clear and purposeful regarding what I want, and being disciplined in remembering what I want.

Ah, discipline!! Such a contaminated word! Seems like acquiescing to coercion rather than creating a desired outcome. But, what if discipline was really simply remembering what we want?

I am left with a deepening of understanding of this concept of simplicity: that simplicity is the result of consciously choosing. Being present to the implications and ramifications of a choice, I then need to deal with the resistance that arises internally when I stay true to the larger picture.

Discipline is indeed remembering what I want, and I can see the added value gained from living a life of conscious discipline, conscious choice. Consciously remembering what I want, and choosing accordingly, allows for a letting go which syncronistically unveils simplicity.

Following Greatness

FOLLOWING GREATNESS

“There is something that contains everything.
Before heaven and earth it is.
Oh, it is still, unbodied, all on its own, unchanging, all-pervading, ever-moving

So it can act as the mother of all things.

Not knowing its real name, we only call it the Way.

If it must be named, let its name be Great.

Greatness means going on, going on means going far, and going far means turning back.

So they say: “The Way is great, heaven is great, earth is great, and humankind is great;

four greatnesses in the world, and humanity is one of  them.”

People follow earth,

earth follows heaven,

heaven follows the Way,

the Way follows what is.”

~~Lao Tzu,  Tao te Ching,

Translated by Ursula K. Leguin

Last week I wrote a guest article for an organization whose purpose is to inspire and empower women entrepreneurs. I am also in the process of designing a year-long succession planning and mentoring process for a wonderful client organization. Both of these projects – the writing of the article as well as the thinking through of how to successfully generate a transfer of senior level competency to a very qualified younger group of newly-hired consultants in a very short time frame – got me thinking about “The Divine Feminine”.

Now, that can be a loaded phrase. “The Divine Feminine” sounds as though it is some kind of possibility relegated to women only, or that it is a conversation belonging more in New Age jargon than any pragmatic business dialogue.

But, here’s the thing: in my consulting and coaching work with already highly successful executives, one of the key characteristics that is missing in leadership development is a deep understanding of quieting down one’s thinking and listening for what one is missing – what one is not seeing. Listening for what’s beneath the obvious conversation, the obvious issue at hand, listening to another’s point of view with no attention paid to your own inner monologue allows for insightful solution, perfectly tailored to whatever is the problem at hand.

So, on closer examination, what is the Divine Feminine? Listening to that quietness is access to the Divine Feminine. No “woo-woo”, nothing “too soft” or “touchy-feely”, rather a very pragmatic psychological vantage point in which to stand in order to have the most innovative and brilliant response. Light-heartedness born of trusting innate wisdom and common sense is always available, affording the highest quality thinking in any circumstance, even when confronting very serious issues.

From this perspective, gender has nothing to do with the Divine Feminine. It is not a quality available to women only, but a listening for a realm that is the balance of the Divine Masculine, and so available and needed by men and women leaders alike.

Taking cues from innate wisdom which then inform choices to outer action is the expressed balance of the Divine Feminine and Masculine at work. The Divine Feminine knows that the only thing one can count on is the wisdom within, and the Divine Masculine takes this inner leadership gracefully into the world.

A Moment of Nothing

July Morning Sky

Last week was spent in New Hampshire visiting family, friends, and an inspiring artist mentor whose work I love.  On Father’s Day I began coming down with a cold, most likely due to the fast pace I had been keeping for the several weeks before the trip. By Tuesday afternoon it was clear that I had to slow down and rest and take care of myself, so I cancelled a couple of commitments and cozied down.

We own a condominium in southern New Hampshire, and early Wednesday morning I was up sitting on our small back deck which looks out over a lovely green lawn with tall woods behind it. The humidity hadn’t yet infused the air, and there was a soft breeze blowing through the trees. I sat happily on the wicker rocker in my pajamas, listening to the birds singing and being simply appreciative of this beautiful morning and my warm cup of coffee.

And then I noticed it.

I noticed that I was completely happy doing absolutely nothing, being present to what I was witnessing, a scene that was always there, always steady and reliably the same save for weather and light and sounds, but always there to listen myself into. And I noticed that I don’t allow myself very much to do absolutely nothing. And I noticed how healing it was, how rejuvenating, in the midst of feeling crummy, I felt rejuvenated by allowing myself to do nothing. It was so freeing. This is what I was working so hard to experience but I was always too busy to experience it and it was always available. It was a truly inspired moment.

The biggest awakenings happen with the least fireworks.

“If you can find a moment to sit, wherever you are, stay there and enjoy doing nothing. … Don’t allow yourself to be carried away by your thinking, worries, or projects. Just sit there and enjoy doing nothing: enjoy your breathing and the fact that you are alive and that you have 20 minutes or half an hour to enjoy doing nothing. This is very healing, transforming, and nourishing.”

~ Thich Nhat Hanh

The Character Of Thought: The Choice To Be In Process Or Flow with Laura Basha, Ph.D.

Posted on June 24, 2015 by New Dimensions in Interviews

I invite you all to tune in to an interview with me on my book, The Inward Outlook, with Justine Willis Toms of New Dimensions radio, 

Available for free until July 7th, then available for purchase through the New Dimensions archives. 

Thank you so much if you tune in, and I hope you enjoy!!

http://newdimensions.org/category/interviews/

Memory Lane

Mendocino Coastline 2015

 by 

Laura Basha

MEMORY LANE

It was a three-and-a-half-hour drive – a long drive to be sure, but the last 20 miles were surprisingly full of dense redwood forest, single lane, mottled sunlight, old wizened stunningly beautiful trees. You could feel the quietness as you wound your way through the woods.

I hadn’t been to Mendocino for 36 years. It was the site of my honeymoon with my first husband, Bert, the father of my children. I was driving up for an artist’s four day intensive painting session. Looking forward to the work, the past tugged as bittersweet memories vied for my attention. Bert made his transition almost 15 years ago. I couldn’t remember exactly what we had seen together, what had inspired us, what had made us laugh, or what had moved us to quietude all those years ago. It is interesting to have lived long enough to not remember the details of the occurrences but at the same time re-experience the feelings.

This beauty has been here every one of the days of those 36 years. Whatever has transpired in that time for me and my children and our beloveds, whatever has occurred in the world over those 432 months, this place, that ocean, those cliffs, have all maintained their timeless beauty, kept up their eternal rhythm, tide comes in and goes out 432 times … such beauty that lives outside of the constraints of time.

And it has always been there – three and a half hours away only – still holding the echoes of our young delighted footsteps all those years ago …

Where is such a place for you, your Mendocino, your timeless capsule of savored youth gone by?

I invite you to take the drive.