THE HEART IS OUR COMPASS!

 In my early years of deer hunting in Montana I got lost deep in the woods. I was totally unprepared. I had not brought food or water with me and a snowstorm had settled in. My tracks were quickly covered up. In the canopy of a dense forest I could find no landmarks and the sun was blotted out by the snow clouds.

 Luckily, I bumped into another hunter who carried a map and a compass who pointed the way out of my problem. After that experience I never again went into the forest without a compass and an initial reading. The challenge with being inside of a problem is having a compass to walk your way out. Once inside a problem, finding direction becomes crucial to a positive outcome.

One of my favorite stories was shared with me by a son who was in training with Special Operations for the Marines. His training started with 70 men and three months later only 28 were left standing. While the physical demand was grueling, yet it was the mental demand that nearly washed him out. It happened like this.

Part of his training was learning to use a compass and navigate in the dark of night while crossing through a swamp. Without moon and stars, total reliance on a compass was essential. His training in navigation had been excellent and his confidence was high. It was important that he achieved an 80 percentile if he was to remain in the program. This was his final night of training and he was anxious to get into the field. As he left the building and descended to the bottom step, he realized that he had not signed in on the board. As he returned to the board, his sergeant caught him and told him he would not be allowed to sign in and that he had already failed by not signing in when he first left the building. But he was encouraged to complete the field test anyway.

Fear and anger raced through his mind as he left the building. As he trudged his way through the swamp, his thoughts raced in a dozen different directions. Should he give up? Should he complete the course? Should he protest his treatment by the sergeant? What do I do now?  Why am I even here?  As he stood at the first station, all alone, in the middle of the night, things became incredibly quiet. He found himself standing there in the swamp for a very long time.  Soon, all he could hear was the quiet croaking of tree frogs. 

As he continued to listen to the frogs’ serenade, he found himself less caught up with “being in the problem” and more with the moment he was experiencing. In that quiet silence and with the mind quiet, he soon realized that moving forward and completing the course would be the wisest choice. The mind has a tendency to fight and struggle to wrestle and overcome the problem from the inside out. The heart would have us do otherwise.

A couple hours later, as he returned to at least turn in his stamped card, the sergeant accepted his completion and he was able to remain in the program. Of all the challenges that he faced during the three months of training, the time he spent in that swamp that night with waters up to his knees at the first station was the most difficult challenge of all.  

His future had seemed as dark as the night itself. And it really had nothing to do with physical stamina or intellectual abilities to complete a task. Yet it came down to allowing the heart to direct the mind in the direction that it must go. And that made all the difference!

“We must remember that the head cannot eliminate the darkness. Likewise, our belief in life cannot eliminate our suffering; only find its way to feed our heart.” – – Mark Nepo

LESSONS FROM AFAR!

Early this morning I had the opportunity to visit with a son via Skype who is stationed in Kuwait . He is a helicopter pilot in the National Guard. He shared a highlight from his service this past year when he landed his helicopter on an aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea. 

He was a bit anxious about the landing since the sea was quite choppy and the ship was rising up and down. The concern was his landing down as the ship was rising up. A collision is what he wanted to avoid.

However, he found that if he hovered long enough to be in sync with the ship and its natural movements, it was a very easy and smooth transition. His second landing was even better!

I think there is a lesson in that experience for us all. We may come into contact with another person and find ourselves not in sync with them. Hovering means being quiet long enough to allow our breath to take us to this moment in time. Just as this pilot was able to observe the aircraft carrier while hovering over the ship, he was able to sense how the ship breathes in and out, up and down, and he finds harmony and avoids any unneeded collisions and confrontations.

Observing our breath at the tip of our nose allows us to get out of our mind and not listen to the stories that our mind is constantly fabricating. Fear has a way of putting us into confrontations where love brings harmony. When we sense the fear, this is a good time to return to observing our breathing in and out. After we have done this a few times, we can count on more happy landings. It is now easy to see how a helicopter can land on a ship even in stormy weather.

BECOMING BROKEN!

Humpty Dumpty sat on the wall

Humpty Dumpty had a great fall

And all the King’s horses and all the King’s men

Couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again!

I first heard the term “being broken” from Mark Nepo in an interview he did with Oprah.  He explained that in his struggles with cancer he had become “broken”. As he shared his life experience, I realized that he had come up against something that was greater than him. He realized that he was powerless to overcome his difficulties with the resources at his disposal. Admitting one is powerless over their problems can be a real wake-up call. And this wake-up call is happening all around us.

Admitting our powerlessness changes everything. The roadmap we have been using to run our daily life is no longer relevant. The skills and tools we have previously developed are admittedly not enough. And the things we used before to solve our problems now falls short. For some, this realization can come slowly. For others, this admission takes place in an instant like walking through a door into a different room or picking up the phone and receiving news we were not prepared to hear.

It can come to us in a 1000 different ways and often more than once in our lives. However it happens, this I am convinced of, it happens to all of us. We all become broken. When that awareness finally dawns on us, Mark’s the next observation becomes a powerful insight. That is, “just because one is broken is no reason to see the world as broken.”

So, where does that lead us? I guess we could cling to our old beliefs in choosing to be resilient and say to ourselves “I was handed a lemon therefore I will make lemonade!” Or “Humpty Dumpty is broken therefore I will make an omelet!” I am not convinced that that is an admission of our powerlessness and trusting that there is a force at work in our lives that we can rely on that is beyond our understanding. This is where grace and hope and faith appear and lead us on a new adventure of compassion for everyone we meet today and gratitude for everything that we see all around us.

But I think there is a different direction that leads to a new awakening. By acknowledging our ego and mind cannot overcome our difficulties, we can become “broken open” and allow our heart to lead and direct. The heart becomes our compass and points in what direction we would walk. And the mind then takes its lead from the heart and maps out how we can achieve what the heart can see.

And with the heart listening, we are touched by the songs we hear. And with the heart watching, we see beauty all around us. And with the heart alive, we wake up today realizing that “this” is one incredible moment!

Fighting The Instrument

Often the instruments of change
are not kind or just
and the hardest openness
of all might be
to embrace the change

while not wasting your heart
fighting the instrument.

The storm is not as important
as the path it opens.

The mistreatment in one life
never as crucial as the clearing
it makes in your heart.

This is very difficult to accept.
The hammer or cruel one
is always short-lived
compared to the jewel
in the center of the stone.

By Mark Nepo