Success

Nearly a year ago in preparation for a workshop, I was asked to write several stream-of-consciousness paragraphs about a topic I found compelling. I wrote about success. When I re-read what I wrote, I see seeds of learning that have since germinated. Growth is occuring.

Here is what I wrote last July:

"Society values success. We all want to be successful, but do we know what it is? For many years, I thought I would be successful if I climbed the corporate ladder. I didn’t want to be President of a large company; Executive or Senior Vice-President would be fine. I now believe that if I had gotten that role, it would be at a large personal cost. I would probably be working too much, skipping meals and eating too much at night, and not enjoying life. Externally successful; internally anguished.

A Canadian Olympic swimmer who I worked with once confided that he hated swimming, that his father drove him to it, and that when his swimming career was over, he was happy for the first time. Is coming in fourth success?? Is success being thin? Is success living in a nice house or driving a nice car? Is success having successful children (whatever that means)?

Success sometimes seems to be black and white – either you are or you are not successful. Success seems externally driven, based on other’s perceptions. You seldom know how that person you perceive as successful perceives himself.

I believe that success is not black and white. There can be a single moment or outcome that is “success” but success is accompanied by other moments. I successfully completed an axel (but how many times did I fall in trying). I successfully sold my car (but what the heck does that mean except that I sold it). I succeeded in raising $2000 for charity (but was that success? What if my target was $20,000?)

When I was in a group therapy session with other women, I commented that I thought they should give medals for overcoming challenges like abuse, alcoholism, addiction. So the next Christmas, one of the group members gave each of us one of her synchronized skating medals. The group fell apart shortly after and I haven’t seen that woman since the day she gave me my medal. I hope that she now views herself as successful. That’s all that matters.

Success is individual and ephemeral. When an individual truly has an internal picture of success, success builds on success. Ideally, success is learning, success is achieving an outcome and then moving on to the next desired outcome and trying and getting it or not, and then trying again. The most successful people wear their medals on the inside. "

The seeds that have flourished are these:

• Externally successful; internally anguished. Here I am beginning to separate my achievements and my situation from me.
• There can be a single moment or outcome that is success but "success" is accompanied by other moments. My view is evolving on this....I am realizing that success IS the moment, not the moment before and not the moment after. Success is not an outcome. Success is being in the moment. This is an area of continuous attention for me. I am able to be in the moment, but I still have many moments when I am not present and I still have some moments where I am far far away.
• Success builds on success. Being in the moment does build on itself. I know this. Ease follows.
• Success is individual and ephemereal. How can it be otherwise?

I also wonder whether this is a case of the etymology of language influencing perception, expectations and action. The word from latin succedere - roots "sub" meaning "go under" and "cedere" go along. The word's early meaning is : to follow, to inherit, especially to inherit the monarchy. The association of success with money and status is rooted in the word's history. Success has indeed built on success. Eckhart Tolle imagined the earth without the word "work " in The Power of Now . I feel the same way about the word "try". I'm adding "success" to that list of words. As our society grows, so will our ability to express true meaning.

Spring's waves

For the past five years, the end of April has marked a transition for me. During winter, I go full tilt (maybe at windmills, maybe not) and then halt screechingly once the ski season and the university term end in late April. I was particularly busy this winter with teaching at the university, teaching skiing, consulting, writing, and driving to the mountains most weekends to train.

I expected this April to be different. I had a contract for a three year consulting project and was looking forward to the continuity and activity of the project once teaching was done. I worked many hours this winter, often over 60 hours per week, and the thought of a single project was appealing. This is not to be.

The project is on hold, with a new proposal forthcoming within a few weeks. I now have plenty of time to write, to go to yoga, to read, to rock climb and see friends, to walk my dog. I am grateful for this period. Just two days into the slower pace, and I feel more like myself. It feels good.
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For many years, my metaphor for life was climbing mountains. Strength, resilience, tenacity were all attributes I desired. My metaphor is changing and has been changing for some time. I had one dream several years ago that sustains me when I feel lost and afraid. I am in a small sailing dinghy and a large wave looms ready to crash down and crush. I turn to face the wave and my boat and I dive under the crest and come out to stillness. Face your fears and be still. Let the hard become easy.

In another dream, I picture the trail map of a ski mountain. There are white snowy paths lined with trees and rock. Coming down the trails, in reverse of salmon spawning, are humpback whales crowded together. The whales flow down much the way water flows in a river. A bringing together of nature's extremes - mountain and water, hard and soft. No resistence, just flow. Power and grace, a whale and a mountain singing together.
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So this is me, now. I am at home, facing the wave of spring change. It need not be hard. It will be easy.

Namaste,

Ginny

A week later...

Since I posted a week ago, lots has happened but nothing really. I drove to Jasper, and then from Jasper to Lake Louise and then from Lake Louise to Edmonton. During that week, I was in some of my favourite places but, with the exception of a few minutes during my drive along the Icefields parkway, I was not present in those places.

I have been in my mind way too much this past week. I was trying not to but that is what happened. I tried. I tried and I tried, and then when things weren't working out, I tried to fix them by thinking. As I did at Christmas, I felt tension arising from within me and rather than allowing myself to feel and observe, the tension triggered old coping mechanisms. Toward the end of the week, I recognized the old patterns. I felt particularly tense, squinty-eyed, and low one morning. I recognized that I needed to alter my energy and decided to do yoga. The only private (?) place was a public washroom so that's where I went. I felt much more at peace but within ten minutes, I was flooded with anxiety again as I received a well-intentioned comment and started thinking about it.

That said, I am not bringing out my figurative baseball bat to whack myself into my senses. I have moments where I think about what happened this week and tell myself stories, but then I notice my thoughts and feel better again. A friend of mine once said that she felt like she had remedial karma when she left one coporate behemoth and joined another only to find the same patterns repeating. I suspect I will see these old patterns emerge in my life many more times. The key is to see them and not fall into them.

Life gave me other lessons this week. They are not clear to me but I am gaining insight into my journey from anxiety into consciousness. I received kindness and empathy from people I don't know and that is a real gift. I also realized this morning that as much as I love skiing, I may have focused too much on it over the past weeks, leaving me out of balance. I knew I missed yoga. I knew I missed cooking good meals. I knew I missed the companionship of friends. I was so focused that my sight narrowed, leaving a breadth of opportunity unseen.

The tension that I felt over the past weeks is dissipating. My lower back no longer hurts. I still feel tense in pockets throughout my body but the clenching is relaxing and I am allowing spring to come (even though Edmonton is still covered in deep wet snow from a blizzard over the weekend and has had three days of record low temperatures).

P.S. When I was doing yoga in the washroom of a ski lodge, I really was in the moment, focusing on my breathing and asanas. When I left the washroom, though, I chuckled to think what someone else would have thought if they had walked in to see me prone stomach on the floor, ski boots on, lifting into cobra pose. Sometimes even thoughts have their moments.

Literary learnings

I've loved to read ever since I was a child. Even though books and stories have transported me to Narnia, to Winesburg Ohio, to the Alps, to New York City at the turn of the century, and many other places and eras, when I read I am usually present in who I am. I recall as a child, knowing a book's publisher by the smell of the ink and the texture of the paper. I've also known that books nourished my soul and nurtured me in ways that my own parents did not.

I have learned and continue to learn from books. Just as a tree's age can be estimated by counting the concentric circles on its trunk, my learning can be traced to beginnings in books read years ago to lessons from books I am still reading. When I read the following passage from Eckhart Tolle's "The Power of Now", I was reminded of Charles Dicken's "A Christmas Carol":

I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like...I recognized the room yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marveling at the beauty and aliveness of it all.

The similarity of Eckhart Tolle's awakening to that of Scrooge is remarkable. Scrooge also sees his familiar surroundings with new eyes and marvels at the lightness of everyday beauty.

Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make amends in! "I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this. I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees!..."I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!"

One book is fiction, written in 1843; the other is non-fiction, written in 1999. I am sure that there are many other stories written before and after that illuminate the same point. Living in the present is the key to life.

I also find parallels from Tolle's book to those in Phillip Pullman's trilogy "His Dark Materials" ( which some argue is based on John Milton's "Paradise Lost"). Tolle describes how gaps in the stream of thought occurs rarely and accidentally for most people but in these moments, there is inner stillness and a subtle but intense joy. Pullman describes the subtle knife that opens a new world from an existing one. The different world is first found with guidance from a cat. Later the world is more deliberately approached for what lays beyond.

As a reader, I have been able to immerse myself in worlds not my own and learn about my own life situation through them. There have been times, though, when I have started to read a book and not been able. At the time, I did not realize the lessons inherent in choosing a book and then being unable to stay present through it. Now, I realize that many of those books contained lessons and analogies about emotional pain which I was not yet ready or willing to work through.
For example, I began to read "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt when it was first published and kept stopping. Several years later, I read the book from start to finish. The difference is that I had done work on my own childhood shrapnel and was present in myself as I read without any over-identification with the main characters. The lesson was not implicit in the book; the lesson was related to me and my situation and the filters with which I read.

And so as I continue my journey as a reader, I strive to be present. However, each book I read, each author whose work I appreciate, has an effect on me. The works that resonate with me are personal. They are not generalizable. Our own individual experiences are why we are drawn to the books that we are, and why there are so many beautiful and meaningful stories in the world. We all have a set of stories that speak to us, and as we find them, we grow.

Pleasure and Joy

I've been thinking about the difference between pleasure and joy. This may or may not be a good thing. I was in the grocery store on Thursday and saw the "Power of Now" by Eckhart Tolle in the 40% off bin. With all the buzz about "A New Earth", I had been thinking (there's that word - thinking- again) about reading Tolle's work, but the rebel in me, slight as it is, didn't want to conform. When I saw the book in the bin, I didn't resist and I'm glad that I allowed myself to buy the book.

I like how Tolle emphasizes "watching the thinker". Becoming conscious of my thoughts is a large part of my journey from fear into fun. I haven't rushed through the book. I am still in the first chapter but I've stopped to ruminate (not think) about the difference between pleasure and joy. According to Tolle, every pleasure or emotional high contains within itself the seed of pain. I liken it to yin/yang, dark and light - without one we can't have the other. Tolle also says that "pleasure is derived from something outside of you, whereas joy arises within." I get this in terms of food. The sensations and taste of chocolate, and the resulting pleasure, is from outside of me. The feel of silk against my cheek is externally derived. Pleasure seems to come from our senses, which translate the external into internal reactions.

Where the distinction falls apart for me, is when I ski. I've written much about how I feel when I ski. There were times and still are, where I don't enjoy skiing. Often when I am not enjoying skiing, it's because I am not in the moment, I am not in the "now". Earlier in my journey from feeling frozen to feeling free, I realized that skiing was one of the few times in my life when I felt mind/body integration. I've now incorporated other activities into my life that result in the same feelings...yoga, rock climbing, gardening. Activity is the easiest way from me to get out of my mind and into my body.

I know this isn't true for all. For some, skiing or rock climbing or kayaking gives little pleasure and much muscle pain. But for me, who lived in my head for so many years, the pleasure of intense sport quiets my inner voices and sets the stage for me to allow joy to bubble up from within. My inner voice is still active but my skill in choosing when to listen and when to observe is developing. I have many more moments of being fully present, and it's wonderful.

Light and dark

I was driving home from the mountains on Sunday and the sky cast shadows and light, changing the landscape from familiar postcards to dramatic and meaningful photographs. Storms hovered on the horizon as I passed through the valley between the mountains. As I looked to the south, the peaks were covered in white, etched lower down in shades of grey and white. There was no colour. It was as if Ansel Adams were taking still shot after still shot. While the peaks and cirques were snow-covered, the limestone ridges, cracks and features were dusted with rectangles of snow. Instead of pointillism, I saw hatching but no person had painted the picture. It was nature's alone.

To the north, there was colour, not a lot, just the dark sage of evergreens clustered and silhoutted against the muted mountainside. The valley itself was straw-coloured, but every now and then, a beam of light would center on a peak, a gap, or a tree, and the contrast made me gasp. Nature's spotlight.

Miles later, when I was driving north along flat prairie, the road curved upwards for a moment. There were mountains where there should have been none, but these mountains were not remnants of glacial movement. They were cloud. A stormfront was ahead but instead of ominous grey sky, cumulonimbus clouds reached down to the earth. Above this layer, were altostratus clouds, then blue blue sky. Far above still was a layer of cirrus clouds. It was like a mirage of mountains and I was awestruck.

The drive felt almost spiritual, as if I were receiving a lesson in how to observe and interpret the world, in how light and dark affect perception, and how what we think we see may not be. I am grateful.

Listening to signals

My body is sending me a chorus of signals. I was born under the astrological sign of cancer,which is a water sign. The ocean is calling.

I've written in the past about my toenails, how they get banged and bruised from skiing. In what is becoming a spring rite, I have a toenail that is about to fall off. The fact that it is just one toenail is good. For the past four seasons, I've lost both my big toenails. The timing is ironic in that the bruising happens in early winter and the loosening of the injured toenail occurs in early spring. It's almost like I am shedding my winter's shell and emerging raw and vulnerable to spring's growth.

I've also been feeling dehydrated this past week, so I drank more water, more gatorade, and ate salty foods. What's ironic about this timing is that I was less active last week than I have been in four months. The ski hill where I taught on weekdays is closed so my only skiing was on the weekend. I would have thought that I would feel thirst earlier in the season, not last week. Most likely, though, I was thirsty and dehydrated previously. I just didn't give myself the time to notice. Last week I had more time and I noticed. Today's lunch shows that I hunger for spring. I was drawn to spinach, avocados, blueberries, strawberries, and cashews. I dressed the salad in raspberry walnut vinaigrette. I had an orange for dessert so I got almost all my fruit and veggie colours. The natural fruit and vegetables satisfied my craving more than any of the gatorade or vitamin fortified water out there.

It's not just my toe and thirst that are signalling me. I have a sore lower back. I know this is a common ailment but it is new to me. I feel fine when I look straight ahead. Twisting and turning is what causes discomfort. So for now, I am not twisting and turning. I need to stay on my current straight path. I also suspect that my sore back relates to the anniversary of my mother's death. My back feels better and worse when I suck my core in. I am still holding something in. The release is imminent.

Treating my toe, my thirst, and sore back reminds me of a quote from Isak Dinesen. "Do you know a cure for me? Why yes, he said, I know a cure for everything. Salt water. Salt water? I asked him. Yes, he said, in one form or another, sweat, tears or the salt sea". My mother lived near the ocean during all of her adult life. After her funeral, my brothers and I dove into the cleansing crashing waves of the Atlantic and body surfed. We had not played, the three of us together, in the ocean like that since we were kids. The healing comes from the salt, tides, sand, and all the other magical properties of the sea.

I am thousands of miles from the ocean. I know when I next visit it, the smells will bring tears to my eyes and salt will bring clarity to my vision. In the meantime, I hearken to the signals my body is sending me by soaking in epsom salts, to soften my toenail, to soothe my back, to relieve my thirst. I will visit the ocean soon but I know my mother, brothers and I were all blessed to live near it. As Rachel Carson said: "Those who dwell, as scientists or laymen, among the beauties and mysteries of the earth are never alone or weary of life. "

A poem (about my dog and me)

My puppy is a bent star,
his edges curl over as if he has been dented
by life.
He was.
Stoned and abandoned,
he foraged for food
and found his way to a school
peopled by humans, some kind
some otherwise
All hurt or bent themselves
Their souls struggling to be
free, open, alive.
He was saved
and brought to me.
I struggle between companionship and freedom
He offers one but denies the other,
What if I saw them as the same?
Then bent edges would unfurl
His and mine
and we'd shine and refract the light
still slightly bent but
Bright.