February 10, 2012

It’s Not Just a Tree

Have you ever planted a seed and watched in amazement week after week as it grows to become a plant? Did you ever wonder how such big things like plants and trees can spring from tiny seeds? When a seed is planted it becomes the “aperture” (the opening) through which a tree or  plant unfolds, said David Bohm*. It could be said that an acorn is the door through which an oak tree emerges into the world. The birth and death of the oak tree simply reflect the unfolding and folding up again of the oak pattern. Look outside at the trees and plants you see. Imagine where they come from – a small seed. It’s easy to take this fact for granted, but it’s really quite phenomenal.

If I handed you an acorn and called it a baby oak tree, you’d think I was nuts (no pun intended!). An acorn looks nothing like an oak tree – yet it contains a pattern which, when mixed with the right ingredients (earth, water, air, sunlight – the four elements), becomes a tree.

All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today. - Proverb

Today is the door you pass through to reach tomorrow. The future unfolds from the present. What happens right here, right now, informs who you are and what you will accomplish tomorrow. What seeds are you planting today?

The following parable and commentary by Anthony de Mello** beautifully challenge us to appreciate the phenomena we encounter each day. It touches what I only hinted at in yesterday’s blog. What does this parable say to you?

 

DID YOU HEAR THAT BIRD SING? 

by Anthony de Mello

Hindu India developed a magnificent image to describe God’s relationship with Creation. God ‘dances’ Creation. He is the Dancer, Creation is his Dance. The dance is different from the dancer, yet it has no existence apart from him. You cannot take it home in a box, if it pleases you. The moment the dancer stops, the dance ceases to be.

In our quest for God, we think too much, reflect too much, talk too much. Even when we look at this dance that we call creation, we are the whole time thinking, talking (to ourselves and others) reflecting, analyzing, philosophizing. Words. Noise.

Be silent and contemplate the Dance. Just look: a star, a flower, a fading leaf, a bird, a stone… any fragment of the Dance will do. Look. Listen. Smell. Touch. Taste. And, hopefully, it won’t be long before you see Him—the Dancer Himself!

The disciple was always complaining to his Master, “You are hiding the final secret of Zen from me.” And he would not accept the Master’s denials. One day they were walking in the hills when they heard a bird sing. “Did you hear that bird sing?” said the Master.

“Yes,” said the disciple.

“Well, now you know that I have hidden nothing from you.”

“Yes.”

If you really heard a bird sing, if you really saw a tree… you would know. Beyond words and concepts.

What was that you said? You have heard dozens of birds sing and seen hundreds of trees? Ah, was it the tree you saw or the label? If you look at a tree and see a tree, you have really not seen the tree. When you look at the tree and see a miracle—then, at last, you have seen! Did your heart never fill with wordless wonder when you heard a bird in song?

*David Bohm (1917-1992) was an American-born British quantum physicist who contributed to theoretical physics, philosophy,neuropsychology, and the Manhattan Project.

**Anthony de Mello (1931-1987) was a Jesuit priest and psychotherapist originally from Bombay. A prolific writer and teacher, he was director
of the Sadhana Institute of Pastoral Counseling near Poona, India. This parable is from the book of short stories and commentaries called Song of the Bird, by Anthony de Mello.

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February 9, 2012

Get a Good Vibe On

At the far western edge of Europe, in the southwestern corner of Portugal once thought by Europeans to be the edge of the known world, lies Sagres Point. A jagged, windswept headland that juts into the Atlantic, Sagres Point was known to the Romans as a promotorium sacrum, a sacred promontory where at night walked the gods. Legend has it that on the tip of this rocky shelf, where rugged land meets deep sea, Henry the Navigator (1394­‐1460), the patron prince of the Portuguese discoveries, sat in meditation communing with the sea and with God.

When was the last time you went out into nature and sat quietly, listening? Right now I’m listening the the whining of a weed-eater clearing the brush on a hillside behind my house. In our society, it’s hard for most of us to find a quiet place in nature close to home – much less to find quiet time in our daily lives for meditation or just relaxation. Even indoors we are often immersed in the hum of electronics, the buzz of an overhead light, and the whir of the heater or air conditioning. We often choose to surround ourselves with the additional chatter of TV or radio.

Take a moment right now, where ever you are, and just listen. Listen to your surroundings – what do you hear? How many sounds are you immersed in right now? Make a quick mental list, asking yourself about each sound – is this sound pleasant or unpleasant to me?

If you could step into a silent room, perfectly acoustically isolated from the outside world, what would you hear? Rather than total silence, you would suddenly hear the sound of your own heart beating, your breath, and the flow of the blood in your very own veins.

At the atomic level, everything is vibrating. We are all vibrating at different frequencies like musical instruments, as Julian Treasure in his 2010 TED Talk reminds us. He says, “You are all in fact a chord, an individual chord. One definition of health is that chord is in complete harmony.” Now imagine that chord, like a guitar string,  is being plucked by  all those sounds around you. How would you sound? Would you be in harmony? Julian goes on to say that noise, like the urban sounds of traffic that surround us all the time, is reducing the health and the quality of life of 25% of the population of Europe. He states that noise kills 200,000 people per year in Europe. That’s an astonishing number, and I doubt the numbers are much different in American cities.

Luckily, Julian offers us hope in what he calls WWB – Wind, Water, and Birds. Wind, running water, rainfall, waterfalls, ocean waves, and birdsong are all healthy sounds – good vibes that tune our chords to nature and bring us back to a state of harmony, leading to better health. Maybe someday doctors will give us a prescription to go out in nature for our daily dose of  WWB! Before that happens, try it for yourself. Experiment with a day, an hour, or even 10 minutes of silence at home or at work. You can choose to stop talking or not – the focus is simply to eliminate unhealthy noise and bad vibes for a while and then see how you feel.Then try going outside to be silent in nature, and just listen to the vibe.

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January 11, 2012

The Wheel Goes Round

Thirty spokes of a wheel all join at a common hub, yet only the hole at the center allows the wheel to spin. – Tao Te Ching

The most important part of any vessel, or container, is the holding space at its center – the hole at the hub of a wheel, the empty space in a teacup, the inside of a room, or the body of a guitar. You can’t fill a teacup that’s already full or enter a room piled high with boxes and furniture. A solid guitar doesn’t make music. Without the space at the middle, the vessel can’t perform its function.

Each of us is a vessel, a container with a space inside. And sometimes we get fed up. Saying, I’m fed up with this! means I can’t take any more; I’ve run out of patience. It also means I’m full, I have no more space inside. And without that space inside, the wheel stops turning –  life can’t move forward. We get stuck in a rut – or worse, the wheel locks and we loose control of its direction. We hydroplane or slide out of control down the road ahead, crashing into whatever happens to be there.

How do you keep the wheel turning? How do you prevent the space from filling up? Well, you can’t stop it from filling – resistance creates blockages that help the space fill up faster. To keep the wheel turning, go to the center of the wheel and do the opposite of resist – relax, surrender, let go, make space. Some call this finding peace, “There’s a peace inside us all. Let it be your friend.” 

I know from having experienced a lot of sliding and crashing that this is MUCH easier said than done. But the first step is just to let yourself imagine that it can be done. Isn’t that the first step with anything? Then use the following visualization exercise. To prepare, you may first choose to use the body presence exercise or your favorite grounding technique. Then go on with this visualization, and post what you think!

Expanding Your Center Visualization

  • Begin by lying comfortably on your back on the floor or a firm surface. Close your eyes and let your arms drop beside your body; stretch out your legs, relaxing them on the floor.
  • Take several deep breaths, mentally scanning your body for tension. Inhale your breath into those spots holding tension, then release the tension as you exhale. It might help to silently or aloud repeat the word Receiving as you inhale, and Releasing as you exhale.
  • Next focus your attention on the surface of your body. Bring to your awareness to the size of your body and the space you occupy.
  • Now imagine that you’re inside an egg-shaped sphere. Expand your sense of yourself to fill this shape around you, bringing your attention to the outer edge of the sphere as though it’s your skin. Feel what it’s like to fill this space.
  • Next bring your attention to the room you’re in, imagine yourself expanding to fill the entire room, until the outer walls of the room begin to feel like your outer skin. Sense what it’s like to fill the room.
  • Continue to repeat this pattern of attention and expansion and attention again as far out as you’re comfortable: the edges of your neighborhood, your city, your country, the continent, the earth, the solar system, the galaxy, and even the universe. Feel how big the space inside you really is.
  • Now, while maintaining the feeling of that expanded space inside you, reverse the visualization, bringing your awareness to smaller and smaller spaces until you are occupying just the space of your body again. Only now you contain much more space within.
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January 9, 2012

The Bamboo in You

In the tranquil garden of the Six Senses Spa at Penha Longa in Sintra, lies a stone labyrinth surrounded by still water. Lush bamboo grows beside this water. As I was exiting the labyrinth, the wind rustled the bamboo and I saw that it was perfectly reflected in the silent water. Which one is real, the bamboo or it’s reflection? Both seemed “real” enough to me… but then I realized that just one drop of rain will break the bamboo that lives in the reflection.

How often do we “live in the reflection” like the bamboo I saw in the water? When we live in the reflection, we are present in the world only as a reflection of the real “bamboo” that is within us. This outside reflection is easily rippled and scattered by drops of rain. A pebble disturbs it, breaks it apart, and unseats our world. If we look inside ourselves, we will find the real bamboo cannot be disturbed by a drop of rain. When the storms come, the real bamboo bends with the wind but doesn’t break. The rainy days wash the real bamboo, refreshing and renewing it. The real bamboo welcomes the wind and relishes the feeling of rustling in the wind, of being alive.

How do we begin to live from the real bamboo instead of the reflection? The real bamboo has deep roots that keep it standing strong. So start by developing deep roots:

Physically we can develop deep roots by doing something that literally roots, or grounds, our bodies to the earth.

Get Physical: Any exercise can help you get rooted if done with attention to the sensations in your body and how it feels as it moves in space, especially if it’s done outdoors. Many people feel grounded while dancing. Particularly helpful are martial arts such as tai chi or qigong (chi gong), or practices like meditative yoga, hiking yoga, walking the labyrinth, and body presence. Going out and connecting physically to nature is another great method: Walk barefoot on the grass or beach, make snow angels, work in the garden, or lean against a tree and feel it’s strength grounding you.

Mentally we can develop deep roots by focusing our attention and intention on values and thoughts that ground our thinking to the earth.

Get Focused: Identify the values or principles most important to you and focus on them as you start the day, or set an intention that keeps your thoughts focused on positive motivations. Focus your mind: Pick up a pine cone, a leaf, or a fossil and study the patterns on it, walk a labyrinth, practice contemplative prayer or mantra meditation, or use your imagination to visualize what it might feel like to be a motionless rock lying on the earth.

Emotionally we can develop deep roots by opening our hearts.

Get Laughing: Playing and laughing help us shed our seriousness and bring us down to earth in a relaxed way. Hugging is another way to open the heart and feel rooted. Spending time with pets is particularly helpful: hug or play with your pets (in our house we call this puppy therapy). Connect emotionally with nature by watching a sunrise or sunset, lie down on the ground and look up at the clouds or the stars, watch the waves at the beach or listen to recorded ocean waves, smell the flowers or listen to birds singing (or a recording) and open your heart to the wonders of nature all around you.

Do you have any suggestions for growing deep roots? Which techniques work well for you? Post a reply, I would love to hear from you!

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January 3, 2012

Toss an Anchor for New Years!

As the new year begins, a frequent question asked is, “What’s your New Year’s resolution?” It’s an ominous question for someone like me who always has big dreams that often exceed either time or budget, or both. A number of  years ago, I stopped making resolutions and started picking a New Year’s Theme. My theme is usually a one word intention – like a motto or a mantra – my guiding principle for action.

Past themes have included Simplify, Healthy, and Gratitude. My theme expresses my intention for how I want to live in the new year, and informs the actions I take. For example, in the Simplify year (2000, I believe it was), I switched over to online banking, setup auto-pay for almost all my bills, got rid of several credit cards, moved closer to work, and cleared out my storage unit with the test: “Have I used this in the last six months? Will I use it in the next six months?” If the answer to both questions was No, the item was tossed. I approached most aspects of my life from the framework of keeping things simple, and I found I had more leisure time and less worry. It was a pretty good year.

Intentions provide the motivation for your goals. In a recently published audio download called  Effective Intentions, Goals and Resolutions, José and Lena Stevens, founders of The Power Path Seminars, clarify the difference between an intention and a goal, saying that goals help us to make our intentions a reality, but intentions are more powerful because they provide the motivation behind the goals. Having specific, measurable, timely and achievable goals is important, however, I’ve also learned that when I set a goal without identifying the intention behind it, I risk missing opportunities because they don’t fit into the narrow scope of my goal. For example, my goal might be to start managing my bills online, but if I’m not clear that my intention is to simplify, then I might set it up in a way that doesn’t keep things simple.

Intentions are the anchor you toss into the future to pull your life in the direction you would like to see it go. Hans Andeweg, cofounder of The Center for Ecotherapy and author of In Resonance with Nature, describes the wheel of life as having two forces acting on it. These two forces determine the direction your life wheel rolls. One force comes from the past – it’s the force of what you have already done and what you know how to do. Most of us let this force define the direction of our wheel, but when we do that, we spend our lives looking backwards instead of looking where we’re going. The other force comes from the future – it’s the force of your intentions, the motivations for moving your wheel. When we set intentions we are looking forward and tossing an anchor into the future to move our wheel of life toward those intentions.

But be careful: The trick is that anything we focus on becomes an intention – so if I start thinking about how difficult it is to simplify my life by setting up online banking, or I begin worrying about the risks associated with the changes I’m making, then those thoughts and worries become my anchor. Instead of directing my life toward my desire to simplify, I end up directing my life toward all my worries about simplifying. So what happens? Naturally, I end up exactly where I tossed the anchor – my worries and negative thoughts become my future.

So, when the next person asks you “What’s your New Year’s Resolution?” you can instead toss an anchor into your future and say, “My New Year’s Intention is ….”. The rest is up to you.

 

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December 20, 2011

The Courage to Be a Rudolph

Holiday music fills the stores this week as Christmas nears. Here in Portugal we get a fair dose of popular American tunes such as Jingle-Bells, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, and Rudolph the Red-Nosed-Reindeer. Rudolph has always been one of my favorite Christmas heroes. An outcast because he looked different from all the others, he was teased relentlessly (so the song goes) until that fateful foggy Christmas Eve when Santa needed help guiding his sleigh. What might have felt like a curse to poor Rudolph all those years suddenly became a blessing. His formerly-not-so-cool shiny-red-nose saved Christmas.

Do you ever wonder if Rudolph really was ashamed of that bright red nose all those years? Do you think he passed his youth hiding his face and wishing to be just like everybody else? Do you imagine that he willingly accepted his victim status just as readily as he accepted his position at the front of Santa’s sleigh when the time came?  I’d rather not think that way. I like to believe that he didn’t buy into the victim game that the other reindeer were playing.

I imagine Rudolph proud of his bright red nose, inventing ways to use it, and even having fun just being himself with no pretenses. When the time came, I see him being both courageous enough and forgiving enough to be a hero for an evening. In my imagined version of the song, Rudolph is the hero not because he guided the sleigh through the fog, and not because his aberration suddenly became useful, but because he had the courage to believe deep down that he didn’t need to be like everybody else to be valued. He is the hero, too, because he had the compassion to see past the other reindeer’s teasing to understand it was just a reflection of their own fear of being worthless. He is the hero because he believed in his innate value and in the intrinsic value of his unique gift: His shiny red nose.

Like Rudolph, you have a unique gift. And like Rudolph’s nose, your gift might not seem like something useful or important to you. Maybe you compare yourself to others and feel that you come up short. But how can something unique be measured against anything else? By definition, unique means incomparable. And if you’re one of the lucky people who happen to know you have a gift, have you shared it with others? I don’t mean have you capitalized on it and gained advantage over others who don’t have your gift, but have you given your gift away, particularly to the people you care about most? It seems to me that it’s called a gift because it’s supposed to be given.

I started this blog to share my evolutionary journey with anyone who wanted to come along. I am a Rudolph-the-Red-Nosed-Reindeer. Believing in this journey, and writing or talking about it, are some of the things that make me a little different from other people I know. My passion and my faith in this path, which I’ve been journalling about for a long time, may be my unique gift – I’m not sure yet – but in this blog I finally have the courage to  share it. It’s my gift to you. Now it’s your turn – go out and be a Rudolph, too.

 

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December 19, 2011

Tune into the Flow

So many professional athletes talk about “being in the flow” when referring to that moment of performance when everything just clicks into place. Most of us are not pro-athletes, but we may have experienced one of those moments of flow either physically, mentally or emotionally. We might recognize it as the “click” of synchronous words or actions, an inner calm or peace of mind, or the flow of joy and spontaneous expression of love. So many words are used to describe this state of being in the flow, yet all are inadequate. Even so, phrases like she’s on a roll, he’s in the groove, everything just clicked into place, it’s all smooth sailing, and a state of grace help us to understand this experience of flow. Developing body presence is a way to develop this flow.

I’ve discovered one of the benefits of practicing body presence is gaining a perspective on stressful situations. This does not mean I become immune to stress, but rather I experience a sort of permeability that helps me to let the stressful energy pass through me without getting stuck. I still feel the tension, however instead of absorbing the tense energy of a stressful situation, with body presence I can choose not to fixate on it, and so it doesn’t stick with me. This is not easy for me. It takes practice being present in my body and keeping the channel open, remaining tuned in to my inner leader. When I forget to do this, stress causes my body to contract, to become rigid and inflexible. My heart then closes around my fears, leaving no room for caring or compassion. And my mind contracts as well, creating a sort of tunnel vision focused only on fleeing from or eliminating the threat posed by the stress.  I become deaf to the people around me and to my own inner wisdom.

Each one of us carries a voice of wisdom inside us, although we may not always hear it or believe it. Body presence is a practice which cultivates a sense of openness. In the absence of stress, it create a sense of calm. I’ve found that this state of openness allows me to open a channel for my inner voice. It’s like turning on the radio and tuning in to a frequency with no static. When I do this, I am on a clear channel, making space for my inner leader to speak. By keeping the channel open, I stay flexible and tense energy can also flow right on past me. I will feel the tension, the stress move through me, but I just observe it and watch it go. Body presence is a centering practice that helps me to tune in to the flow of a vast universe of energy and wisdom that exists both within me and beyond me. This wisdom is there to guide all of us in our interactions with others, helping us to create genuine relationships and generate meaningful action in the world.

I recommend practicing this body presence exercise as often as possible in order to learn to keep the channel open. Another very simple (but not easy) way to cultivate body presence is through deep breathing. Several times a day stop what you’re doing and do the following exercise.

Breathing Exercise for Body Presence

  1. Sit or stand upright, both feet flat on the floor and hands relaxed at your sides.
  2. To begin, exhale completely.
  3. Breathe in slowly, counting silently up to five as you inhale.
  4. Exhale to the same count of five.
  5. Repeat this five times.
  6. You can try this for a longer count as well, for example counting up to 8 with each inhale. Always exhale to the same count you use on the inhale.

How deep are you breathing?

To check your level of deep breathing, try this quick test:

  • Sit upright in a chair or stand up straight. Make sure your feet are flat on the floor.
  • Place your hands on your lower abdomen and take a deep breath. Breathe out all the air completely and feel your hands move inward as your lower abdomen contracts to expel the air.
  • Take another deep breath and notice how far out in front of you your stomach pushes your hands. Do your hands move more than 2 inches (5 cms)? If not, check to see if you are lifting your shoulders and chest when you breath in, rather than expanding your stomach. The more you can bring your breath into your lower abdomen, the deeper you are breathing.
  • If you’re still not sure, lie down on your back on the floor or a firm surface. Place your hands on your stomach and start breathing normally. Your abdomen will naturally lift your hands up each time you breathe in. Notice how this feels and see if you can maintain that feeling while sitting up and breathing deeply.
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December 3, 2011

The Art of Being One

There is something innately beautiful when horse and rider move together as one. Even if you’ve never ridden a horse, it’s easy to be impressed by a skilled rider demonstrating her horsemanship. Riders know that caring for their horse is a vital part of their success. Before and after every ride, my niece grooms her horse, paying particular attention to the horse’s hooves. Why is that? Well, would you want to ride a horse that isn’t sure-footed?

Similarly, if you’re a car enthusiast, you may personify your car by giving it a name and calling it her.  You recognize every hum and click of the your machine, and you make sure that she is well maintained, right down to having excellent, well-balanced tires. The greatest car in the world can’t perform if the tires don’t stay on the road.

In the symbolism of myths and dreams, the horse and his rider, or the car and her driver, are symbols of the body and the psyche respectively. When I have a dream about driving a big yellow bus, the dream could be telling me that moving around in my body feels more like being a school bus driver than a race car driver. It’s likely that I’m not really feeling connected with my body, perhaps I don’t feel sure-footed. I may not have been attending to my body  the way my niece tends to her horse.

I had reached such a high level of concentration that it was as if the car and I had become one.  - Ayrton Senna*

To be sure-footed means that as I move through my days, my body and mind move together in unison. It means my attention is on the present moment and on having body presence. It means I have well-balanced tires – my feet are staying firmly on the ground. Sure-footedness is a daily goal more than a daily reality for me. I don’t often feel at one with my body the way Ayrton Senna could feel at one with his car. But when it happens, I perform at a higher level: I am relaxed but not tired, I am joyful but not hyper, I am attentive but not stressed. I am in the flow. I can handle adverse situations more gracefully. I take things in stride.

In her TED talk A Stroke of Insight, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor refers to her body as her molecular unit. I like that description, because it reminds me that my body is my vehicle for this human journey. And a vehicle must be cared for and attended to. To be more like Ayrton and be at one with my molecular unit, I try to practice body presence at least once each day. And when I find myself in a challenging situation, I use the same technique to remain sure-footed so I can take it all in stride. Try it here and let me know what you experience!

* In case you haven’t heard of Ayrton Senna, one of the greatest race car drivers of all time,  below are a couple of links to some of his amazing feats of being one with his car. I also recommend reading the inspiring book The Art of Racing in the Rain about a dog and his owner who happen to be two of Ayrton Senna’s biggest fans.

Portugese Grand Prix, 1985, Champion

Donington Grand Prix, 1993, Ayrton goes from 5th to 1st place on the first lap

Ayrton Senna, 2010, Documentary Film Trailer

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November 29, 2011

The Best Resistance is to Make Way

A tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind.

- The Tao Te Ching

This fall we’ve had a lot of wind here in Portugal, and not long ago the force of the wind was enough to crack the limbs of a few strong old trees. Along a country road I saw a tree that had been uprooted by the wind. My first instinct was to pity the poor old tree lying upended with its gnarled roots grasping the air, but then I realized that the tree must had been very stiff and unyielding. It could no longer bend in the wind.  The tree resisted and was knocked down, destroyed. As the Tao Te Ching states, The tree that cannot bend will crack in the wind. Bending, however, does not mean backing down. It means leaving room for options other than “my way or the highway.”

In an earlier post, I wrote about how body presence helps me to notice tension caused by my false beliefs. Body presence alerts me to the possibility that I am feeling resistant. Like the stiff old tree, I may be thinking, ”I’m not going to let you break me. I’m going to stand tall and unyielding against you! I dare you to knock me down.” So often we equate being resistant with showing our strength. But it’s actually the other way around: The supple, bending tree proves it is strong enough to live another day, and it becomes stronger for having had the experience.

I believe that what we resist, we manifest. In most martial arts, the student is not taught to use stiff resistance to win a fight. Instead, she is taught to yield and step back to absorb the energy of an attack. This helps her maintain balance, stay grounded, and redirect the attacker’s energy away from herself. She will not be knocked down this way. If she were to stand stiffly to resist the attack, she would most likely be knocked down. Her resistance to being knocked off her feet would cause that exact outcome.

So what is resistance all about? I believe when I feel resistance, it’s a sign that a fear has been triggered in me. The more I resist, the more likely I am to bring about what I am resisting, what I am fearing. This is one reason it’s so important for me to practice body presence. The tension and the resistance in my body is a signal that I’m responding to the situation with fear. Only when I notice this can I choose to acknowledge that fear, question if it’s warranted, and then choose a positive response.

When has your resistance manifested something you feared? When have you successfully made way for other options instead of responding with fear and resistance?

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November 23, 2011

You Can’t Steer a Parked Car

Nothing endures but change. – Heraclitus

Learning another language requires imagination, hard work, and a lot of humility. But it’s worth the effort for many reasons, one of which is the new perspective it gives on words. In Portuguese, the word for change is mudança, pronounced approximately like moo-dance-ah. To my English-speaking ears, the first syllable sounds a lot like move or mood. The kid in me says it sounds like “You’re in the mood to dance, huh?”

Change is a bit of a harsh word in English – it feels like one of those “curve ahead” signs on the highway, which I normally respond to with hesitation, often putting on the brakes. When this word comes up in Portuguese, I get a different feeling about change. It feels like movement, or a dance. According to Wiktionary, the root of the word is from Latin: mutare – to move, to change, to diversify, etc., and so movement is at the root of change in Portuguese (and Spanish, and Catalan, and others).

Yet, how often do we find ourselves remaining motionless while we wish for something to change? We expect change to happen when we want it to, how we want it to, and with the results we want – all while we are acting like couch potatoes. It’s true that the only constant is change, but sitting around wishing for it is not likely to produce the change we want to see. So the first step is to get moving, even if we’re not sure exactly what steps to take. Put one foot in front of the other and pretty soon you’re moving somewhere – walking, perhaps even dancing.

I don’t know the name of the guy I sat next to in the airport in Newark, but I remember what he said as he was writing his goals for the next year: “You can’t steer a parked car.” And he’s right. You have to get moving first.

 

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