Flute practice? Only kinda…actually so much more

November 3rd, 2011

I woke up (again) to the awareness that it was actually life practice…not sure he will play the flute in the future, but sure he will play life.

I feel lucky that in the last couple days, I have had some really fun and yummy experiences as a dad.

The one yesterday happened as my son was practicing his flute. He started playing, so I brought my snack in and sat with him.

He started a new song. And it was painful. Lots of random notes. No cohesion. Phew. I knew it and then he said it, “wow, this is hard.”

And he put his flute down and started to walk away…he might have been walking to get a pencil to write notes down or he might have been bailing out.

Too hard.

20 minutes later I was standing in the kitchen as he plugged away at making that song recognizable, which he was successful at.

But, as he danced with the difficulty and frustration of this not being easy, here is what I was thinking.

I don’t know if he will ever play the flute in his life, but that isn’t the point. It actually isn’t important.

What is important is what is happening right now in our living room. He is learning how to struggle, deal with frustration, not have things come easy to him.

And I am so amazed that there was a moment where he almost bailed on his practice because “it was too hard”.

Like many people, we run our kids around (although we’re doing pretty well with it not being too, too much). They play soccer, they do ballet, they hang with friends.

Maybe this is obvious, but I realized as I was finally able to sing “and I just can’t wait to be king” (from the Lion King), that it’s not that they’re training to be soccer players, musicians, ballerinas; that isn’t the point.

The point is that these activities are another opportunity for them to learn how to learn.

It is such a good reminder for me. It’s not about training my future soccer goalie or gymnast, it’s about inviting new experiences and the struggle, the difficulty, and the challenges that come along with them.

Being the parent I want to be is about helping my kids persevere, be courageous, and learn to go right into the frustration of that moment where they face “this is too hard”.

And on to the other side where they are fist pumping the accomplishment of doing something they didn’t think they could do.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Happy, Healthy, Motivated, Learning, Parenting, Play Huge! | No Comments »

reflections on why we lose our way…

October 27th, 2011

Why is my house not like I wanted it to be? How did I get caught up in all the stuff I don’t even like or believe in?  I feel like got lost somewhere, but I don’t even know where or how.

I imaged being a parent and not pressuring my kids, not nagging them about HW, being open to their curiosity, and all that. But, that is not what is happening in my house.

What happened?  How did you get off track?

It is so easy.
School.
Homework.
Cell phones.
Technology.

The whole message from our world of advertising: what you have isn’t enough, if you have this stuff over here, then you will really be happy.

The claim is that you get access to the stuff that you really want but didn’t know you wanted. It makes it easier and easier to think that you Need x, y, and z product.

Big you and little you

On a call last night I was sharing about the Big you and the little you. The big part is that voice deep inside that knows what you really want. The little part of you is the lazy voice that wants ease and convenience.

All that “what you really want” stuff is the lazy you, the one that wants to hang on the couch, not do work, have things be easy.

But that is all surface level crap, and we fall into the trance.  More stuff. Better grades. Do you homework. My phone is more important than the person sitting across the table from me.

The culture pulls us towards the little parts of our Self

But the real rewards are known only by the big part of us.

Pulled by desperation and lonliness

And this dependence on stuff, the little stuff is born out of desperation and loneliness.

When the big part of us speaks up and asserts itself, too often there is no one there to hear it, understand it, see it.  So we start to doubt it, think that it is just jibberish, irrelevant, something crazy inside us.

Being alone is definitely NOT part of the big plan that lives inside us. So, it is easy to bury that voice, that deep knowing.

We’ve made it really hard to connect with the things that bring us the most meaning – probably because they aren’t about money.  And so we live in a compromised state…a trance that keeps us off the path of what we truly want.

I like the question: what will it take for us to wake up and have the courage to demand our dignity, our lives back? That is why I am so touched by the work that happens at the initiation events I’ve been to recently.

That is the Real You.

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Heart connection, Parenting, Trouble, Trust Yourself | No Comments »

These 5 Actions will help your teenager!

October 25th, 2011

I spent last weekend with 45 young men from the tough barrios of LA.

I stood up on Sunday and through the kind of tears that come from deep in the gut, uncontrollable, almost sobbing, shared how inspired I felt.

“The world is really messed up. Messed up all over the place. Messed up in big and ugly ways.

“The work that you are doing here is damn courageous. By looking at all the crap in your life and shining light into the dark, ugly corners that aren’t easy to face, you are standing up for your own life and the lives of all the young men in this room.”

“The amount of commitment and love you bring to the world is absolutely inspiring.”

More tears a decent amount of snot…

And then…

“If everyone in the world had the courage and heart that you are bringing to this room, the world would be a lot different. What you are doing here is Peace. It is the solution to all those f–ked up things happening in the world.”

We sat in the room for 4 hours on this morning listening, crying, cheering, as young person after young person spoke into the room.

The stories were about being abandoned, suffering loss, being addicted, pain, deep pain, regret, feeling lonely, wanting to be better than you are, being stuck in a gang, being gay in a very hostile environment, absent/addictive/abusive parents, doing lots and lots of drugs, and so much more…

And we listened.

The room listened and held the space.

We had done a lot to get to this point, a ropes course, mask making, story telling, football games, campfires, all night hikes, and an initiation ritual.

Now that we arrived, no one wanted to stop. Every time we tried to close the room, someone else would stand up, trying to hang on to the love, the support…that feeling of being seen, hoping that this room could last forever. Not wanting it to go away.

It felt like home. That safe home we dreamed about. The community we always wanted, and hoped actually existed.

Here it was.

The plea was silent, but clear: Please keep this going…please! Even though I really have to take a piss, I don’t want this to end.

This is my lifeline.

What was happening in that room was incredibly hard work; and so much better than life back down the mountain.

But it’s work almost everyone avoids, and is the secret to the Aliveness we crave.

The lessons to take away are coming, but first… 

a question a parent asked me while I was sharing about my experiece:

Can I have my kid do that?

Probably.  If you are interested in one of these events, please be in touch and we can figure out how to make it happen.

Now on to the Lessons to take away

There are 2 things that I hope you can take from this story

The first is the inspiration of 45 young men doing the courageous work necessary to make their lives all they can be.

The second is an awareness of the deep integrity that lives inside you and inside your teenagers. This deep integrity knows there is work to do; and that the only way to feel the satisfaction with life that we crave is to dive right into those places that aren’t so comfortable.

Parents…here is the place to pay attention…listen (er, read) carefully

My role on the mountain, along with the other mentors, was to hold the young men to their word.

Integrity.

They came to the mountain with a purpose. In their gut, they wanted more from life – their deep integrity knew there was healing to do.

But, when they arrived the reality of facing the tough stuff arrived with them. So, as mentors we had to look past the posturing, the efforts to distract our attention, the attempts to escape, the threats, the apathy, and the attitudes.

We had to stay connected to what they really wanted and the reason they came. We had to stay connected to the biggest, deepest part of their spirit. They came to do serious work. To get the medicine that lives on that mountain.

But, they were scared and uncertain, so they acted out.

We had to create a container strong enough to help them feel safe enough to step into their vulnerability. And share. And listen.

That’s like parenting a teenager.

Trusting that inside them lives the biggest part of them that wants a Huge life…but is scared to come out. And doesn’t know how to do it. Creating a space that is safe enough for them to step into that vulnerability (despite all the attempts to throw you off the trail). Listening to what is really going on inside them. Admiring the courage it takes to live in their shoes.

Getting Naked

The joke about a men’s retreat is that you get naked and run around in the woods.

And it is true.

But it’s a different kind of naked.

Strip down the bravado. The need to be cool. The disrespect. Our masks. Our assumptions about each other. Move beyond the daily compromises. The obligations of a day, and you end up naked. Exposed.

And when you are exposed, you are vulnerable.

Vulnerable enough to be real and deal with all the crap that you create in the world.

And to be that vulnerable takes trust. The openness only comes when you can trust that the container will hold you. The fear is that in that openness you are open to an attack.

You have to trust that the container is strong enough to not crack, and handle what you are about to bring.

In the container we are seen, understood, loved. Safe. Just as we are. With all our pain, passion, regret, mistakes, and ugly.

That is it. Peace. Aliveness. Our true self.

It is incredibly powerful.

5 Action steps for parents

That is where our young people want to go. But, they need our help. They need us to create the container for them.

One way to do it is to make home that safe place. Home is the place where they recover, recuperate, and rejuvenate for their next venture into that “down the mountain” world that is scary, confusing, and aggressive.

To be “nobody-but-yourself” in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”

e.e. cummings

As mentors, and these efforts are the action steps for your parenting, we worked hard to hold accountability, be authentic, provide guidance, be solid and grounded, and be clear in our role as elder.

When our young people have that container and can allow their deep self to show up, what they bring is amazing.

Creating that safe place and being open to the biggest part of our young people is one way to honor Gandhi’s famous quote, “be the change you want to see in the world.” It’s what I got to experience in the mountains last weekend.

And it’s a feeling I highly recommend.

Ready? 1-2-3 Lets play!

Please share what this awakens in you and make a comment!

Playing Huge
Morgan

There is still opportunity to contribute to the amazing work that Youth Mentoring Connections is doing with the young men and women from LA (and the guy from Portland, they call “Hands”).

You can read a poem from one of the young men here (and, wow, is it moving)

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Alternatives to school, Heart connection, Know Yourself, Learning, Parenting, Trust Yourself | No Comments »

Calling all elders

October 24th, 2011

Here is a question from a young friend of mine:

Do you ever feel like you’re being your own mentor?  Sometimes I feel like that.  Realizing I have to keep recognizing my own gifts cause no one else is gonna do it for me.  Or I can’t assume anyone else will do that, instead its a great surprise when people do genuinely see something in me.  I noticed too that my young friends (friends my age and younger) are doing that for each other.  Is that just a natural thing that youth do? Or are they doing it because no one else is? Taking up the societal slack?

Here is my response:

Interesting question you ask about mentoring ourselves…last week I got pissed off again at “my elders”…where are they?  I’ve found that people aren’t great at keeping in touch.

I try hard to be in touch with the young people that I know.  Even if it’s just a how are you doing?  I think that it’s fucked up.  I think that our elders are failing us, all the way up the ladder.  It makes the work that we’re doing harder because the acknowledgement of being a caring, passionate person (who is part of the solution to the f–ked up world) is sorely lacking.  So we have to fight like hell to feel like we aren’t alone or crazy.

Now, there is an aspect of it that is important, the experience of being down and finding your way, the vision quest when you are alone, the transition between Plotkin’s stages.  Struggle is important, but I think we’ve blown far past the point of healthy struggle and are near abandonment.

Everyone is so “busy” and it becomes an excuse.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Heart connection, Know Yourself, Learning, Trouble, Trust Yourself | No Comments »

Call me “hands”

October 24th, 2011

What a weekend.  I gotta say, I love hanging out with young people.  And I am really, really good at it.  I just have an ability to get rapport and gain respect…it’s sort of wild how natural I feel in these kinds of environments.

So here are 2 fun moments from the weekend.

1.  First night.  I’m still nervous and uncertain how this is going to go.  And I’m tired.  I go into the bathroom and there are 5 black guys in there. One of them has a lighter and some what I assume is rolling paper.  They get a bit nervous…one asks “you down with this?”  Now, I wasn’t really sure what “this” was, having no experience with rolling anything one might smoke.  So I make some noise sort of like “sure”.  And then I leave.

Of course, they were rolling a joint, er “fatty”, which I pretty quickly realized.  But, I wasn’t aware of any rule that said they couldn’t get high – the only rule that we talked about was no physical violence.  I probably would have done it differently had I known they had signed something saying they wouldn’t use drugs up there. but I didn’t.

I can just imagine the conversation after I left, starting with something like “what a fool…”.

The best part of the story for me is my ignorance.  Then comes my embarrassment and subsequent quietness and escape.

Then the next day I went up to a couple of them and told them the story, shared my ignorance and we had a good laugh.

2.  We get a pick-up football game going.  They start to pick sides.  Guess who is the last gut picked?  Yup.  The old white guy.

First drive, QB, whose name is “Glasses” throws a wobbler to the back corner of the end zone.  I reach up snatch it out of the air, keep my feet “in”, avoid all the rocks, and dance around the big tree in my way.  There is a moment of stunned silence.  Oh, these are many of the same guys who were in the bathroom.

I walk back and say “the white boy has some hands”.

The second TD catch I make elicits many hoots and “Damn!” comments.  Then they start paying attention to me, having their best guy cover me.  ”I got Morgan” he says.

One more TD catch later and I become “Hands”.

But, I gotta say this was a perfect metaphor for my presence at the weekend.  No one expected anything from me – last guy picked – then I show up, do my thing quietly and humbly, and make a big, big impact.

What a weekend!  I love those guys.  And as I told them through my tears, their courage and their heart, and their care is Peace.  If everyone in the world showed up in the ways they did this weekend, the world would be a very, very different place

Tags: , ,
Posted in Alternatives to school, Learning, Play Huge!, Trouble | No Comments »

Awakening the lost spirit of our young people

September 30th, 2011

Here is what the young people say:

I lost myself, it is better not said.
I will never regret.
I will never forget.
I will live my life.

What follows all the moments that I find massively compelling in this video, because I can feel what our young people are connecting with…the energy, the hope.

The connection with their spirit…that is lost. That they can’t find.  That lives inside them, somewhere.

The music speaks to that buried spirit.

The passion.  The is intensity.  The aliveness.  The expression from the edge.

And that is real to them. It wakes up their spirit.

It provides an outlet for the feelings that live inside them. These performers have found a way that helps the young people unleash and realize what lives inside them.  These performers have given words and feelings that match what the intensity of feeling that happens when you lose yourself.

So they thrash.  The bang into each other.  They dance.  They turn up the volume.  They try to get as much of that aliveness as they can possibly absorb.

Because they want to be seen.  They want those feelings to be known…to themselves.

And to us.

Ready to feel it?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLqHDhF-O28&feature=relmfu

It is a video of a band called 30 Seconds to Mars and their song Closer to the Edge

It starts here:

:47-50 seconds in.  The full out physicality of Jared

:55 – Tomo jump.  100% energy.  100% going for it.

1:26 – the swirl in the crowd.  Then the air punch…again.  Full tilt.  All our energy.  It’s captivating.

The thrashing.  The spinning.  It’s like the feeling is so big.  So intense that when it comes out it creates this HUGE energy & expression.   All that has been bottled up, stuffed down. Here it is.

It captures a feeling inside and expresses it.

1:33/34 – “One day” Jared sings and that movement towards the crown. Then his leaning in, like the message is pouring out of him.  It’s almost like he there is such strength in the feeling that it is throwing him forward.

Passion.  Intensity.  Strength.  Depth.

When something that has been stuffed down for so long comes out, it comes out with force.  And looks like this.

1:36 – the force and intention of that pump.

1:41 – No with such a clear expression.  I am absolutely done being held down.  Here I am.  And I’m coming strong.

1:42 Funny moment.  When I first listened to this I swear the girl with the blue paint under her eye was saying “I just wish there could be a world where there was no FARTING.”

And I thought, oh, that might be hard.  How about no gas.  Gas without farting could be rough.

But a world with out FIGHTING.  That’s beautiful.  And that’s the energy coming from our young people.  That is what all this energetic expression is about.

They get it.  They see it.  They aren’t dumb.

But they are insulted by our efforts to contain them.  And they are mad.

2:07  the audience.  Look at them jumping.  They are so working so hard to get the feeling both in them (the support, the expression) so they can get what lives inside them out!

2:20 – the guy standing.  Here I am.  Being held, supported by people who see me.  Here I am!

2:22 – 2:29 I just love the intensity of expression.  The coordination of movement.  The athletic beautiful dancing.

The hoping around feels like the moment in Dance With Wolves when Kevin Costner is dancing around the fire he built.  Completely free expression, fully engaged.

3:03  – 3:30 – “no, no, no, no.  I will never forget.  I will never regret.  I will live my life.”  The energy.  The hope.  The strength.

That lives in our young people every day.  But how often do we see it?

Never.  The reason they escape to video games is because that feeling is so strong, they have to disassociate because there is no where else to go with that strength of feeling.

There is not a container that can hold them with that intensity.

3:23 – Do you think those 2 guys are joking around?  Is this just a song?  A fun thing to do on a Saturday night?  No, it’s their life.

3:28 – screaming.  Again, it’s like vomiting. Geez. Can you feel the commitment?  Do you get that this isn’t a game?

3:30-3:46 – Strong feeling being very clearly expressed.  What do you can that level of intensity?  That level of energy?  That all out, going for it, hold nothing back expression?

4:02 I love that clean, crisp, arm going backwards movement.

4:21 – Here I come.  Who is ready to catch me?

Phew.  That is alive.

Welcome to the intensity that lives inside our young people…I love it.  It’s something that makes me want to go stage dive.

Feel it?

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in Know Yourself, Learning, Parenting, Play Huge!, Trouble | No Comments »

Music giving voice to teenage anger

September 28th, 2011

I want to string together a couple thoughts here.

We aren’t good at helping young people feel their feelings, so they don’t adequately develop the skills of expression.

Young people are made to feel insecure about themselves, doubt their feelings and their words.

They have lots of feelings – sadness, anger, frustration, disbelief – and lots of questions.

Questions that go unanswered.

Because of the self-doubt, they can’t express what is happening inside them.

A poets job is to speak the truth.

The poets young people connect to today are music artists.

The music gives them the words that they doubt inside themselves.  The music gives them the expression that lives inside them.

See, they have all this bottled up energy inside.

Some know it’s there.  Some don’t.  Some are just frustrated.  Some sad.  Some lost in the world of video games.  Some caught up in social media.

Then they hear the music.  And it wakes up that feeling.  Because the way the expression comes (especially today with music videos) they are drawn to it.

It feels like an on target expression of what lives inside them.  It is massively affirming.

So they turn it up, loud. Because it resonates with their spirit.

“Music makes the world go around.  And for me, if music wasn’t around right now, then I wouldn’t be around right now.
Music is eve-ry-thing to me.  That’s all I can say.”

“Some people believe in god.  I believe in music.  Some people pray.  I turn up the radio.”

They turn it up and thrash around to it because it is such a visceral expression.  An expression that comes from deep down inside them.

Listen to this song.  Watch the video.

If you are a parent or adult the first thing you might notice are: pink Mohawk!? Mosh pit?  Harsh music!?  Stage jumping?!

But, then maybe you can see beyond that

There is passion.  There is intensity.  There is aliveness.  There is expression from the edge.

And that is real to them.

It provides an outlet for those feelings. Someone has found a way that helps them get out what they want to get out.  Someone has given words and feelings that match what lives inside them.

So they thrash.  The bang into each other.  They dance.  They turn up the volume.  They try to get as much of that aliveness as they can possibly absorb.

Because they want to be seen.  They want those feelings to be known…to themselves.

And to us.

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Know Yourself, Learning, Parenting, Trouble | No Comments »

Notice how easily and subtly our dignity (and young people’s dignity) is compromised?

September 27th, 2011

The art and practice of preserving the dignity and humanity of our young people!

Dear Morgan,

My high school junior is taking the SAT soon and I saw that this week all the national school ratings came out. Scores are lower than ever before. Any thoughts about what I can understand this? – Jean

All right. You ready? It might be shocking, but I do have some thoughts about this.

I have to start with what might seem like a slight diversion, but isn’t.

I am fired up. I just got an automated call. I asked, “Are you a real person?” It said “do I sound that bad?” I said “yes”. And an automated voice started in “I’m calling about…”

For those of you keeping score at home (FYI, this is a baseball reference) here is what we have:

An automated call pretending not to be an automated call then being an automated call.

When I stood up for my dignity and asked, “Are you real?” it made it seem like I was the problem.

It tried to make me feel bad about asking “are you real”. In that moment when it asked “do I sound that bad”, I questioned my judgment. I doubted myself. I was put into a defensive mode.

It felt like: “How dare you ask. Of course I am real.”

And then it wasn’t.

I was hopping mad. Really angry. And I figure out why. This is what happened to me as a teenager. And it is what happens to our teenagers today.

The only words that come to mind are: humanity and dignity (oh, and a few swear words)

How can we be so far away, missing these key ingredients to becoming human beings.

A quick example: student

Here it is in action. A HS junior who really doesn’t like or do well in school is going on a trip to Africa to help give shots to people with polio. It’s something her family set up. She is really excited.

And the school is concerned that she is going to miss doing her homework and her classes. So, her teachers are giving her a hard time about her trip.

Wrong response.

But, a) doing home work is more important than helping people with a disease and giving them hope?? b) the kid will learn more in school than traveling and helping people in Africa?

Right Response.

Because it’s the response that respects the dignity and inner experience of this young woman (and her family): Excitement. Curiosity. Being thrilled for her. Trying to work her trip into the curriculum. Asking her to present about her trip when she gets back.

Now, back to the SAT (less interesting, but more common than a trip to Africa…unfortunately)

Our young people know (in their heart) that standardized tests are meaningless.

Their heart is standing up and asking us, “Are you real?”

Then the answer shows up on the front pages of newspapers across the nation. “SAT scores at an all time low.” “Local district reading scores down, again.” And the answer comes when we sign them up for another class or another tutor as the colleges tell us how important the scores are.

I have a request for you this week. Please, please take some moments to sit with your inner knowing about the relevance of SAT scores.

It is absolutely tragic that we use this as a measure of anything relevant and put as much time, energy, and money towards it.

Take back your dignity. Feel strong about your intuition about the importance of standardized tests. You know in your heart that they say nothing about our kids.

  • They don’t measure the goodness of a person.
  • They don’t measure how ethical a person is.
  • They don’t measure whether people will be successful in the future.
  • They don’t measure how loving a person is.
  • They don’t measure if someone will find love in their life.
  • They don’t measure how creative a person is.
  • They don’t measure the depth of friendships.
  • They don’t measure the abilities of our kids.
  • They don’t measure how lonely our kids feel.
  • They don’t measure what kind of person your kid is.

They have NOTHING to do with becoming a Human Being.

Theoretically they measure how well someone is equipped to handle college. But guess what…

They don’t measure whether someone will be able to handle college.

The only thing that they measure is whether someone is good at taking an SAT test…and in many cases it doesn’t even do that well, because all the tutoring and classes and money thrown at them bias even that.

The worst part #1 of the whole deal is that these tests are used to marginalize people.

The worst part #2 of the whole deal is that, just like me on that automated phone call, when our young people assert their dignity, their inner knowing, and ask “are you real?” the response they are getting over and over again makes them doubt themselves. Make them feel stupid for asking. Make them question their judgment.

They doubt their heart.

They question their own humanity.

That is a tough hole to climb out of.

You know all this. But when it’s on the front page of all the papers, on the talk shows (I’m guessing…I don’t spend time there), used by the colleges, and used as a measure of how our schools are doing, it’s easy to get swept up in it.

Our young people desperately want to be understood. They want to be seen. They are crying out for help. Every moment we distract our selves with thinking that test scores matter, we are driving them further away from what they need, and what they are asking: are you real?

So, here is the challenge: Take back your dignity. Feel strong about your intuition about the importance of standardized tests. You know in your heart that they say nothing about our kids, but in the process of saying nothing, they are doing a lot of damage.

When they ask “Are you real?” the answer is “Yes. And so are you. Thank you for your heart and your inner knowing.”

I’m glad you asked Jean. I guess I do have a few feelings about this.

Playing Huge
Morgan

Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Know Yourself, Parenting, Play Huge!, Trouble, Trust Yourself | No Comments »

Challenged by the young people

September 27th, 2011

Young people today are really mad.

I got yelled at recently by a young person, or maybe a better way to say it is that I got challenged by a young person.  The gist of what he said was this:  will you please figure it out faster!  (that is the PG version).

He was yelling. This is all him:

“Wake up. Wake up!”

“You are older than me.  I need your help.  I don’t have any idea what I am doing, or who I am, or what I should do!   And I need your help.

“But when you are being so lame and uninspiring, it destroys all my hope and I don’t want your help.“

“Why in the world would I?”

Young people today are mad.  Really mad.  I took out about 15 swear words from the above expression.

They desperately want help.  They have all these feeling inside.  They see all the messes.  They want to do something about it.

They need mentors to show them the way.

But, then they see us watching TV, overeating, smoking, drinking, wasting resources, creating an economic disaster, causing climate change, making a mess of relationships, pissing a lot of people off (both here and around the world), disassociating…all in the name of success and happiness.

But we aren’t happy.  We’re depressed.  We’re unhealthy.  We’re lost.

It doesn’t inspire much confidence or provide much to look forward to for our young people.

So, yes. They are mad.

And if you look around closely enough you can see the anger, the frustration, the sadness, the hope…and the depth of all these feelings.

They feel it.

And I can see it in them.  It wakes up that feeling in me.

It leaves me with the question, “what can we do to respond to the challenge that young man gave me?”

Tags: , , , ,
Posted in Parenting, Play Huge!, Trouble | No Comments »

Expectant Curiosity…a drug bust

October 6th, 2010

I am playing this adventure game with my friend and colleague Leif Hansen.  He has created this brilliant and fun game that he is beta-testing with a group of us. It’s like a real life role playing game.

Here is one of the first assignments:

Sometime before our next call, talk a short walk (at least 15-30 mins) and put your mind in a state of curious expectancy …looking for, open to, expecting that SOMETHING is going to happen…the Universe is going to bring you a gift…perhaps some display of beauty, a connection, an insight, a treasure on the ground…who knows.  You may want to write down the experience in your journal….a good habit to get into.

Fun.

Challenge #1 – I love this kind of thing, but have never felt successful at it.  I have long been searching for, asking for, and wanting guidance and insight from “the universe” and don’t feel like I have gotten it.

Maybe I haven’t been open to it.
Maybe it hasn’t come.

Who knows.  But I am willing to give it another try.

So off I wander last night (to play the tooth fairy for my daughter), but to go be expectantly curious first.

I walk out, there is an airplane circling around.  It makes me look up.  The stars.

When I follow the plane, I turn around and see flashing lights in the distance.  For some reason, I feel drawn to them.  So I turn around an start walking.

The whole while the plane is circling.  I can hear it the whole time.  It seems strange, but it keeps me looking up…and I have been thinking lots about looking up, so maybe that is the message.

As I get closer to the flashing light, I realize that it’s a police car, actually 4 police cars.  Lots of light.  Disorienting.  They have pulled over a car with 4 young-ish black people in it.  As I walk by one of the officers shines a light in the face  of a young man in the back seat, who looks at me.  We make eye contact.

Why am I drawn to this?

Maybe I am not. I keep walking, but it doesn’t feel right.  So I go back and stand across the street.

They arrest one guy.  Get the 2 women out and have them stand on the sidewalk.  Then get the other guy out and have him in handcuffs.

As they are searching the car, the guy I had looked at starts throwing up.  Gross.

Now there are 5 officers around him, causally standing as he throws up.  Then they all go, “Ahhh!”.  I can’t really see but apparently he throws up a plastic bag full of  drugs.

Crap.

Expectant Curiosity…put your mind in a state of curious expectancy …looking for, open to, expecting that SOMETHING is going to happen…the Universe is going to bring you a gift…perhaps some display of beauty, a connection, an insight, a treasure on the ground…who knows.

The universe brought me a drug bust.  It brought me the sick feeling of watching a group of young people who are clearly hurting get themselves in deeper trouble.

I have no idea what was really happening, who these people were.  But I wish it weren’t happening.

It made me think of all the people who are having so much trouble that they are turning to drugs, alcohol, and destructive lifestyles to try to escape their difficulties.  It made me think that this is what happens when people are suffering and feeling like they have no hope.

It makes me sad.  Watching this young man wretch up a bag of drugs, imagining what lies ahead for him.

It makes me sad.  Knowing that he is not alone.  Knowing that there are many people who are hurting.

And wondering what can be done about it…

Tags: ,
Posted in Trouble | No Comments »

« Older Entries
©2012 Play Huge Coaching: Morgan Rich, lifecoach Portland, OR 97214 (503) 234-4843 contact
Play Huge blog is proudly powered by WordPress
Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS).