Part Two: A Life of Resolve
We’ve discovered that the universe is not a place; it’s a story, a story of an irreversible sequence of emergent events. For a long time we thought that the universe was an established realm that had its major creativity happening only at the beginning of time. We now understand that the universe is an ongoing creative event. Stars came forth, galaxies came forth, planets have emerged, life burst into existence. This power of emergence could also be called ongoing creativity. In some ways, it’s the greatest discovery in the history of the human sciences—that the universe as a whole, and each being within it, is permeated with the power of emergence.
Brian Swimm, Cosmologist
We Must Make a Resolution
The warrior battle conducted by poised men and women is not a battle with our fellow humans or with any aspect of life itself. Poised warriors are at war with their weaknesses, because weaknesses restrict consciousness, block our emergence, and guarantee that many of us will live ordinary lives that are vulnerable to self-pity, victimhood, and bad explanations. To be without a resolution is either to be in a state of drift, only partially awake, a leaf at the mercy of the wind or to be prematurely self-satisfied with the life we have achieved.
It is fair to say that making a real resolution requires more awareness than anything we do. To make the right resolution, we have to know a great deal about our current state of awareness and what’s preventing us from unlocking our potential. We have to listen deeply to identify what wants to emerge.
We must know what it is that we must learn.
Once this key learning is achieved, we will emerge to the next level of our potential, no longer constrained by what we fail to know right now.
Identifying what must be learned:
Remember the example of the man in Part One? A dilettante of resolutions, he resolved to lose weight, improve his marriage and family, and become financially more secure. He will most surely fail because he hasn’t identified what is holding his life in its current state. He drifts, not sure what is wrong, but convinced that he could change if only he could marshal his discipline. Actually, in the most important aspects of his life—health, family relationships, and financial well-being—he slides toward crisis. What must he learn if he is to emerge toward his potential? Once he has that answer, he will be prepared to make the right resolution.
Here’s an example of how people are capable of avoiding what they must learn. Lance Armstrong, who dominated the sport of bicycle racing for many years, has now revealed that he used illegal doping to gain significant competitive advantage. He was accused by many in the sport, but always denied the truth, ruthlessly maintaining a narrative that described him as The Greatest Athlete on Earth, Clean-cut Citizen, and Philanthropic Hero. Even when evidence that he cheated became overwhelming, Armstrong continued to lie, maintaining that his accusers were themselves liars and hypocrites who wanted to ruin his reputation.
Armstrong led a double life for decades with his adoring public. He could not emerge into his potential as a human being because he refused to learn how to be authentic. He betrayed almost everyone in his life including, he now admits, his own children. He was not trustworthy. He was cruel and ruthless even with members of his own racing team if they threatened to reveal his falsely earned glory. His fame and financial fortune rested on a mountain of lies.
Now he is telling the world that he cheated and lied. His confession may be motivated by his awakening to himself or by the pressure of external events. No matter the cause, it may represent what wants to emerge—an honest person who can be trusted and believed. If so, Armstrong has a future worth pursing—not as an athletic champion, but as a warrior at war with his obvious weakness–his pathological need to present a false front. His potential is to become an authentic man whose true powers are at his disposal.
My resolution moves me toward what wants to emerge:
We will resolve to learn what we must know in order to emerge. So, how to tell what wants to emerge within ourselves? How can we find where our greatest potential lies?
What does my emergence look like? I would love to be poised no matter what challenges present themselves. I would love to be able to say yes to life where I currently reject it I want to be full of joy and gratitude, even in the midst of challenges. I want to live in the now. I want people to feel loved by me. I want to be creative with my talents and gifts. I want to be light-hearted every day. I want to live my life in a state of sustained poise.
It’s really pretty easy to find what is blocking emergence: go straight to the trouble, the people and situations in our life that we reject. Hopefully, the list of people and life situations that we reject is a relatively short one at this point, but we need to know what is on the list. Make the list now.
· Who disturbs you? Name the individuals or groups and describe what it is about them that you reject.
. Who haven’t you forgiven?
· What situations disturb you? List them and identify what you are rejecting in these situations.
· What are the triggers for your anger, irritation and impatience?
· What can make you unhappy? Is there anything that can throw you into a funk or even depression?
· What are you afraid of? What do you avoid, even though there is no imminent danger?
· What outside yourself would you like to eliminate from life? What about life seems imperfect to you?
· What reason do you give yourself for being stuck?
I may discover that I need to learn how to overcome my fears. Or I may see that I feel sorry for myself, so I must learn how to defeat self-pity and how to quit creating victim stories about my life. I may discover that I must learn how to forgive. Or I have to learn how to give as much as I get.
Once we resolve to learn what we must learn next, we will be ready to launch out onto the frontiers of our own emergence with the huge advantage of clarity of purpose.
Making a resolution, I live in possibility:
Resolved, I am on a loving path and intend to traverse it to the end. There is nothing more important, so nothing can distract me. Resolved, I have made a warrior’s decision, and an iron door has closed behind it. Poised, I have acquiesced to what wants to emerge.
Next: How to mobilize the energy our resolution requires.
I guess my weakness in communicating with a few people would be my tone of voice. I have learned that your vocal tone and body language contributes more to the message than the actual words that a person uses. Some research shows that 80% of communication is nonverbal and only 20% is the actual words that a person uses. So I have resolved to attempt to hold back negative tones in my voice when I communicate with people in the confrontation mode. I am attempting to not show aggravation or disdain for the other person which would tend to disrupt any solution to a problem. Since I am retired and somewhat reclusive, I have very few things or persons that actual cause me problems. In a confrontational situation a person could practice avoidance, aggressiveness or assertiveness. I try to be assertive but if you let ego rise up aggressiveness will destroy any positive problem solving. I do admit to using avoidance when it is futile to try and change a person’s view of a negative situation. Living in a world of flawed people, I slip in and out of poise but I continue to try to be a better person.
Scott, You mentioned being reclusive. I’ve been observing myself and other people who are no longer on a payroll and wondering how likely it is that people after 60, say, will continue to emerge toward their potential.
I must admit that I find it hard to find older people emerging in any intentional or conscious way. To do that, older people have to shake off fatigue and keep going with the warrior battle: the battle with our weaknesses.
Lots of seniors I know will object, pointing out that they are “life-long learners,” staying intellectually active, taking classes, reading, traveling. But those activities don’t address the deep issues of personal emergence. Personal emergence requires that we have clarity about what wants to emerge in ourselves and the learning we’ll have to do about our thinking and behavior if we are emerge. This is exciting work, but I don’t know many older people who are doing that work.
Naturally, older people–no longer engaged in the hurley-burley of the workplace–are more likely to become reclusive. This stage could be, with its abundance of uncommitted time, a great time to pursue emergence– a great time to live a Life of Resolve.