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Developing Human Excellence

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

1219 Relax and Succeed - Who we are and how much we engageWe all bring different skills to our community. Some of us are more aggressive, some are more passive. Maybe some are driven and intellectually brilliant, while others are patient and compassionate. Maybe some lead, maybe some follow. Each are strengths in different situations.

There is room for us all if we consider the strength of the group to be more important than our own personal strength. No matter what our position or attitude about life is, we will all face infirmity, pain and, if we’re fortunate, the aging process. In each of these situations we will have no choice but to depend on the kindness and generosity of those around us, so it is worthwhile for us to ask ourselves what sort of kindness and generosity we have nurtured in our lifetime.

Children’s lives have become increasingly competitive. Many parents seek to raise excellent students, or above-average athletes, or popular personalities. In general, a child will be taught to have the qualities their parents feel are key for success, but all too often the ability to maintain, contribute to, and inspire those around us is a foregone presumption rather than being something that is specifically developed.

1219 Relax and Succeed - We need to care lessThis week, as you interact with children, ask yourself what goal you are pushing them toward. Promoting too much personal excellence without enough paying enough attention to their contributions to their community can leave parents with future fellow citizens and caregivers who lack a substantive capacity to balance their personal goals with their overall sense of compassion.

To raise a child well isn’t to raise a child that reflects well on you when you’re thirty-five, it’s to raise the child you want caring for you at eighty-five. Whether you have children or not, take this week to genuinely consider what type of personal impact you have on those around you. Because collectively, it is our own words or actions merge to form the society we live in, and so any complaint about that society can only truly be addressed by each of us.

Literally: Choose a specific way you’d like to see the world change and then spend the rest of today genuinely trying to maintain some consciousness about realising that change within your own life. Because there is absolutely no rule that says a smart, athletic kid can’t also be the one to show the greatest levels of compassion, and there absolutely no rule that says that we all can’t be that kid.

Make a difference. That’s how they’re made. Thank you for your participation.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.

The Enlightenment Misconception

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

My accident lead me to question reality in a very fundamental way at a very young age. Once I was old enough to embark on a serious spiritual journey, I sought out teachers who might be able to answer some of my deeper questions about reality. Unfortunately, I was inclined to do what you likely do, which is I looked for the wrong people.

With no intention of being ironic, I thought I should look for someone super peaceful, living some super peaceful and respected life. I thought I would recognise them as having achieved something grand and meaningful. But I misunderstood what grand and meaningful were, and so I rarely found them. Because most of them weren’t wearing saffron robes, they weren’t doing yoga and they their lives were surprisingly ordinary.

Part of the reason for this is that once you’ve understood what you’re trying to understand, you realise that no one can take this journey for you, and so no one needs your help. You realise that all you were supposed to do is live your life without the constant thought-based evaluation of how you’re doing in relation to some imaginary goal. Our lives would be instantly more enjoyable if only we would stop second guessing ourselves.

Rather poetically, the first time my life became truly difficult was the same time that, by most external perspectives, I would have appeared to have been failing. I surrendered a life of status and money and power–all in the highly coveted and ever-popular media world (I truly had an awesome job)–to pursue a much smaller, much more obscure life doing something that a lot of people I knew thought was crazy. (This.) But that’s the key isn’t it? They thought that.

Thanks to that accident, in the midst of what should have been a broken heart, a huge sense of betrayal and a financial disaster, I was left with the opposite question most people  would have. I couldn’t figure out why I was okay with the idea of life being so difficult. This isn’t to say I liked it; it was just more that I accepted it. Any second guessing I did in my consciousness was profoundly painful and the pain acted as a very meaningful teacher.

I could occasionally (or at times even frequently), get caught up in personal thoughts that resisted my experience. These felt like hell. I felt very singular, as though it was all happening to me in particular. The suffering helped me grasp that when I felt better, I felt less like this was my life and more like an actor in a much larger play.

When I wasn’t thinking the resistant thoughts, I was peaceful inside with the knowledge that, like all roles, once I was finished playing this character I would either assume yet another or I would die and return to my real self. I was peaceful in the knowledge that nothing in the play I was performing in would change that.

What I had before was wonderful and I am deeply grateful for the experience. Almost every role I played in this giant improv has been an enjoyable one. I got to go to amazing places and meet incredible people and work on enjoyable and meaningful work. But I realised that the reason I was doing it all was not because other people felt it was a great life, but because I did.

Just like with movies and TV, being a loving and supportive caregiver to my parents was simply what I truly felt compelled to do. The financial strains and time and energy challenges all happen in the external world, but internally more of my time than ever is spent being in and sharing love.

I love making art. I love teaching people to see their strengths and opportunities. But there is something deeply meaningful and profound in helping your beloved father as he struggles with new challenges in the bathroom. There are moments where we look into each others eyes and we feel badly for what we’re putting each other through, but we both move quickly past those to simply being grateful that we’re in it together. That vulnerability is what makes the moment so powerful and filled with love.

I fail more than I ever have before. When my expectations are too high I lose patience when it doesn’t help. When I think too much I feel tired and alone. But most of the time, when we’re just making our way through it without all the thoughts about how we wish it was, I realise that I have never loved my parents more or felt closer to them. And that is why, if you do whatever you do with a lot of inner peace, even failing is a form of success.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organizations locally and around the world.

Understanding Your Raison D’être

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

1082-relax-and-succeed-we-are-stars-wrapped-in-skinDid you find what and who haunts you yesterday? For some it was easy and for others the specifics of their central truth was difficult to clarify, but almost everyone will have mistaken their gift for a problem.

In theatresports, a form of improv comedy, there is a terrible thing the host can do to a team and it is to leave them in space, with no surfaces for them to push off of to propel themselves. You can’t just put a performer on stage and say slow-motion! or astronaut! or nighttime! because that’s akin to saying be funny.  That is too much to ask of the performer.

You’re a soul. Your identity is the performer. So your identity needs some surfaces to triangulate off of to ensure you are free to go anywhere once you have intention. When we discussed the temari yesterday, we did a meditation designed to get you to find your temari frame; otherwise known as your problem, or… the framework that you push off to get where you’re going.

1082-relax-and-succeed-people-torture-themselvesSomeone who suffers from a mental illness is missing some surfaces and so their movement is limited and they have the potential to leap completely away. And someone with too many surfaces can be spun into meaninglessness by bouncing around inside them incessantly without ever going anywhere. Regardless of how sides we have, we all need somewhere to start. Even if all we’re going to be is in opposition of it, we need something to be in opposition of.

Without comparison we don’t exist. Existence is co-dependent. We had to be someone. Even if we became enlightened and could be a profound version of nobody, the world will make us someone through comparison. That is how egos work. They compare, value and judge. A man gave up everything but love and became Gandhi, and yet he was killed because someone else thought him evil.

Today’s meditation is to meditate on the relationship between your life and your villain. You’re looking for the links. Do not stop looking until you find one that surprises you. Only then are we somewhere new in your mind. Are you like Steve and did you become someone in opposition to someone, or were you inspired by one parent to wrap while the other built your frame? Or…” These last two days are very important. Make sure you do these meditations earnestly. You’ll be the winner.

1082-relax-and-succeed-we-assume-others-show-loveHow the outside world reacts to you during your life is no good sign of whether or not you’re on the right course. If that were true there’d be no Van Gogh’s. People’s reactions come from their identities which are versions of their egos. The only really good indicator is that divine, pure intelligent part of you that is connected to everything. That’s the feeling that caused you to fall in love inexplicably–but you knew. It’s like recognising your own child the first time you see them–but you knew. Well deep deep down, you know yourself like that because deep deep down you deserve love too.

The challenges you faced when you were young are not the harsh cold edges of the bane of your existence, they are the very framework on which the vine of your brilliance can wrap itself as as it grows and expands and flowers.

The frame is the frame and everyone has one. Comparing to see whose is worse is not the point. Discussing them is not the point. Understanding them is not the point. The wrapping of our frame is the point, because once you’re done wrapping your temari, you’ll be left with something beautiful: you. And that is how  the greatest villains in our lives can secretly become our saviours.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organisations locally and around the world.

Family Ties

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

I recently took the first holiday I’ve had in many years and I spent the entire thing working on deconstructing much of my life to accommodate the care my parents now require. That is not what I would ever have hoped for in life. It’s busy and chaotic and it means my parents aren’t feeling well as I’d like, but this is just part of the deal of being human. They’re 90.

980 Relax and Succeed - Suffering is not holding youLife can hurt. It can force us into experiences we do not want. Being in love entails dealing with extra pain when a loved one is absent. Yin and yang. It’s just built into how life functions. Life is like a ball we’re balancing on top of. Our egos try to stay on the good side of the ball, but but our spiritual and psychological health are tied more to simply enjoying the process of keeping our balance on either side of it, because when we die is when we lose our ball and we have to go home.

There are no problems, we create them with our thinking. We imagine how life should be. But think about how many factors and people and decisions need to happen for that to occur! It’s like winning the lottery if it happens the way we imagine. Life is messy and getting angry or depressed that there’s not better order is to waste your life. You railing at the universe will not change its laws. Learn to surf the uncertainty.

Even as I move in a direction away from my previous goals I’m aware I’m still lucky. It’s amazing that Mom still drives to a church and teaches an exercise class three times a week. At the same time, if something falls on the floor they have to wait for someone else to show up to retrieve it. So essentially I took my holidays to organise being with them almost all of the time so they’re comfortable and safe and properly cared for. That’s most important to me, but that means sacrifices, sometimes of things that mean a great deal to me; things I put many years worth of work into. But this is life. This is where most people get stressed and it’s where I let go.

980 Relax and Succeed - Do you know what my secret is

We can all get physically stressed. We can ask our bodies to do more than is physically reasonable. But psychological stress is another thing altogether. That is something we create for ourselves by what we choose to load into our consciousness. While I am caring for my parents there is nothing stopping me from listening to enjoyable podcasts with them. I can enjoy the food I cook for them. I can enjoy recalling memories from my childhood and all the fun I had in that house with my siblings and cousins. Or I could think about all the things I’m missing out on by not getting to fulfil my original direction.

This is what detachment is: you’re going somewhere but you’re not attached to getting there. When life says, hey, go here and do this and you feel that as a thing you just know is right, then that is you feeling your truth. Others may disagree with what you do but your job is only to trust that feeling and ignore theirs. How they feel about it isn’t relevant if it’s your life.

I’ve always had a great life. I’m not thrilled by some of the parts of it I’ll have to surrender in order to live up to the person I am, but I am a person who values experiences with loved ones more than any other thing and so that makes this decision easy. And I don’t run the universe. It might tumble things toward me in a painful way but it’s also pretty generous a lot of the time so who knows, maybe I benefit a lot more from this than my parents do. Either way, if I’m keeping my eye out for good signs that’ll help a lot with noticing and appreciating positive things that will reinforce my idea that things are fine the way they are.

Have a great week everyone.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organisations locally and around the world.

Videogames and Parenting

Scott McPhersonLeave a comment

974 Relax and Succeed - And those who were seenI’ve wrote about this before but it keeps coming up. One of the most common complaints I hear from parents is that their children–particularly the boys–play video games too much, and yet when I ask the parents which games their children play I have yet to have a single parent that knows. That’s a remarkable demonstration of how a busy life lowers our awareness.

If it’s worth complaining about it’s worth knowing at least something about it, but instead every game is thrown into one pile as though they are all equal when some are mindless addictions and others require great thought. There’s strategy games, puzzle games, war-based games, society-based games, team games, solo games, and each will have its own moral angle and points system, so how can all of those be seen as one thing?

Not knowing anything about the games is like saying a kid reading a textbook is the same as a kid reading People Magazine. (Note I didn’t use comics because in my experience the smartest adults I know were often comic readers.) There are millions of games. There is a reason that their fans love them.

974 Relax and Succeed - Play is the highest form of researchAs I’ve noted before, it should come as little surprise that the very first location that took off in Second Life was a dance bar called Wheelies and it created a meeting place for users in wheelchairs. In a virtual world someone in a wheelchair is just as mobile and capable as someone out of it so you can see why they would value it. A lonely kid can value team games, a leader can like them too. An independent person can love first-person shooters that allows them to team up when they choose, or they may prefer a game that requires great patience and planning.

Video games today can encourage good behaviour. They get you to love characters before they die in real storylines, creating more empathy. Whereas they used to give you awful choices like raping prostitutes, those same game designers now have daughters of their own and now the same game makes you calmly do yoga or you can’t continue to the next level. I watched this have a real impact on a friend of mine who learned to moderate his quick temper thanks to it.

If parents added up how many hours they look at the screens on their TV’s, their computers and their phones they would realise they are screen-watching a huge amount of the day so it’s no surprise kids are comfortable sitting and looking at screen just as the children of joggers are often joggers and just as the children of big eaters are often big eaters. That’s the real parenting, not what you say; it’s what you do.

974 Relax and Succeed - Children don't need more thingsTry to get your kid to teach you some games. If you’re lucky you might even like the same type. But at least at the start they’ll get to beat you a lot and that’s good for a kid as long as they don’t try to turn it into a habit and thereby become a poor loser. Each parent has to make decisions about their situation and their kid, but it’s important to note that many children of divorce talk about how valuable it was to be able to bury their head in a game while they watched their parent’s marriage descend into bickering.

Nothing is good or bad only thinking makes it so. If everyone from military leaders to 747 pilots to astronauts can advance themselves using virtual training then there’s no reason to think that your child isn’t also developing themselves. Certainly they could just be hiding from life, but if you don’t even know the games they’re playing then you can’t hope to guess if that’s where they’re at.

Slow down. Pay attention. Trust yourself. From there the love for your child will tell you all you need to know. Kids are future adults. Whether we like it or not they will be shaped by the forces around them. Rather than try to push against them, start working with them. You might find you have more allies than you’ve realised.

peace. s

Scott McPherson is an Edmonton-based writer, public speaker, and mindfulness facilitator who works with individuals, companies and non-profit organisations locally and around the world.