knowabundance.com

Happy Monday!

Are you living from news headline to news headline?

Waiting for someone to tell you when the economic crisis is over? Looking for the signal that you can stop worrying and trust again in the systems we have built to ensure our survival and prosperity?

Daily we are confronted with this (scary) not knowing.

We don’t know what will happen to the economy, we don’t know when things will get better and we don’t know if things will get worse. All of a sudden what we thought we could count on as a sure thing, a solid foundation – is shifting under our feet.

What do we do now? How do we live with the uncertainty of the unknown?

1) We can freeze. We can stay where we are, “hunker down” and hold on tight to whatever we have and wait until the crisis is over.

2) We can blame. We can direct our anger and frustration at everyone and everything that caused this situation.

3) We can worry. We don’t know what is going to happen but we can imagine all of the worst-case scenarios and try to prepare ourselves for them, just in case.

4) We can Trust. We already know that we have the capability to craft and build new systems. History reminds us of our common aptitude to repair, fix, heal, learn from mistakes, adapt, rebuild, improve on, discover, imagine, invent, innovate and create.

Our instinct is to panic. We like to know what is next. We want to be prepared for what might happen. But our propensity to envision (and focus all of our attention on) worst-case scenarios undermines what we are trying to accomplish.

Focused on the bad and the potential worst we become stuck in fear and stagnant in old patterns. We ignore our capacity to create positive futures.

We obsess over the thought that we might lose everything, missing the fact that our greatest loss happens the moment we abandon our ability to see and appreciate the wealth and abundance of what we do have.

Trust is our best option. We will always have the unknown. Every day we wake up, whether we have money in the bank or not, the element of unknown is there. We can’t control the weather, other people, financial markets, the passage of time or life itself.

But how do we trust when we don’t know what is going to happen? What do we hold on to when what we thought was certain has dissolved?

In situations like this I am reminded of the white-faced monkeys in Costa Rica. Early one morning I was sitting by the Montezuma River when a group of fifteen or so monkeys (including a mother with her baby on her back) appeared in the trees above me and began to cross the span of the river.

To get to the other side, the monkeys had to let go of one tree branch and leap towards another branch across the river, trusting, with each leap, that the branch they were reaching for would hold the weight of their body.

Jumping from tree branch to tree branch, there was a moment when each monkey was holding on to nothing.

I held my breath watching them. How could they do that?  Trust so completely, let go and leap?

If the white faced monkeys thought about everything that could go wrong, if they sat on the branch, looking across the river, calculating the distance and weighing their options, would they still jump?

The monkeys trusted themselves, each other, what they knew, the tree branches, their previous experience, and chance. They risked letting go to reach the other side.

Can we do that too? Trust, let go and hold on to nothing?

We can freeze, blame or worry. We can cling to our branch even as it breaks beneath our weight.

Or, we can let go, reach out and leap into the unknown.

Trust.

There will be a branch there. It won’t be the same as the one we let go of. That’s called change. Our old strategies might not work anymore. That’s ok. We can and will create new ones. Trust. We have met the unknown every single day of our lives thus far and survived. Trust.

With all of our senses wide open to the wealth and abundance within us and around us, there is nothing to lose.

Trust.

—

p.s. Thanks to Esther and Em for reminding me recently of the white faced monkey example of trust.

Substitute, “What is going to happen?” with “I love surprises.”

“ love is free, sometimes, & costly othertimes.
we may only have each other.
our true touch. we may only have. ”

Alta 7:3 (from Cries of the Spirit: A Celebration of Women’s Spirituality. Edited by Marilyn Sewell)

Happy Monday!

Today is a holiday in the U.S. Are you working? How often do you work on your holidays, your vacations, and your weekends?

Are you always working? Why? What’s so important?

We all know from experience that the to-do list never really ends: one thing is crossed off and another fills the space.

Repeat.

One thing is crossed off and another fills the space. Repeat.

So we live, day by day.

Yet, somehow, even as we replicate this pattern over and over, we believe that we will come to the end of our to-do list and then we’ll rest. Then we will have time for whatever it is we are putting off until we have time for it.

Are we there yet?

We also have the tendency to think that we are the center of the universe. Have you noticed that? How important we think we are to whatever is happening or to whatever we think needs to happen?

We can’t take a break right now because then, whatever we think needs to happen won’t happen, and it needs to happen and we need to make it happen. Suddenly everything relies on our action, on our doing. The world needs us.

So the story in our mind goes.

Our thinking can get a bit delusional at times with the sense of our own importance. Reality checks are necessary.

Take a reality check break today. You already know your list isn’t going anywhere, so Relax. Turn off your computer and go outside into the world. Look around.

See how much is happening without any effort at all on your part.

Pause. Notice something that you have never noticed before. Talk to someone you have never talked to before. Listen to what they have to say.

Watch the sunset and stare up at the night sky. See the billions of stars and galaxies stretching into the unknown. Remember how small you and your thoughts and your to-do lists are in the universe of all that is.

Laugh at the absurdity of your own sense of importance. Repeat.

Substitute, “I just need to finish one more thing…” with “Time to take a break.”

Take your pick:

“We now know that our galaxy is only one of some hundred thousand million that can be seen using modern telescopes, each galaxy itself containing some hundred thousand million stars… We live in a galaxy that is about one hundred thousand light-years across and is slowly rotating; the stars in its spiral arms orbit around its center about once every several hundred million years.”

Stephen Hawking (from a Brief History of Time)

***

“In all your life have you ever called up the dawn or shown the morning its place?

Have you taught it to grasp the fringes of the earth and shake the Dog-star from its place; to bring up the horizon in relief as clay under a seal, until all things stand out like the folds of a cloak, when the light of the Dog-star is dimmed and the stars of the Navigator’s Line go out one by one?

Have you descended to the springs of the sea or walked in the unfathomable deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you ever seen the door-keepers of the place of darkness? Have you comprehended the vast expanse of the world? Come, tell me all this, if you know.

Book of Job 38:12-18

Happy Monday!

We often live as if money is the most important thing.

We hear (and believe?) that time is money, happiness is money, success is money, power is money, freedom is money. Or the inverse: money is time, money is happiness, money is success, money is power, money is freedom.

We have created a world where we can (theoretically) buy whatever we want. Everything is for sale. We can purchase time, happiness, success, power and freedom. Money is the most important thing because money gets us what we want.

But what is money?

Money is, “a current medium of exchange.” What is necessary for exchange? Relationship. What gives a piece of paper with pictures and words on it value? Our relationship with that piece of paper – our collective, accepted belief that the piece of paper means something – is what creates the value.

Money relies on the relationship of our (shared) mental concept with the piece of paper for its existence and on the relationship of buyers and sellers, employers and employees, fundraisers and donors for the exchange.

Money is nothing without relationship.

And what about time? How do we measure time? In relationship. We observe the relationship of sun, moon and earth. We create concepts of light and dark, of more and less, and we gauge them in relation to each other. We call more light, “day” and less light, “night.” We assign numbers to our descriptions and then calculate the relationship of these numbers on our clocks to create a meaning of time.

How do we distinguish past, present and future? By their relationship to each other: Here we are in Now, and this (idea, story, memory, experience, goal) that we are thinking of is not happening Now, so it is either past (already happened) or future (hasn’t happened yet.)

Time has no meaning without relationship.

And happiness? What is happiness? Everyone has his or her own definition of happiness. How do we know whether we are happy or not? Through the relationship of our idea of happiness with what is.

We evaluate happiness by comparing what is happening (present) or what has happened (past) or what we plan to have happen (future) to our idea of what happiness is. Is our idea of happiness what is happening? Then we are happy.

Happiness is defined by relationship.

And success? How do we know what success is? We assign value to certain ideas, we create a concept of what “success is” and what “success is not” and then we determine success through the relationship of these concepts to each other.

Success is determined by relationship.

And power? What is power if there is nothing to exert power over, or power with or power to?

Power exists in relationship.

And freedom? One of our most cherished ideals. To not have freedom, something or someone has to be constricting, denying or taking away our freedom. We give up freedom for, grant freedom to, win freedom from, something or someone. Without this something or someone, all we know is freedom.

Freedom can only be restricted, granted or denied in relationship.

What do money, time, happiness, success, power and freedom all have in common? Relationship. They are defined and determined by, exist and are valued and experienced in, relationship.

Relationship is the most important thing.

So as we listen to the economic news and count the dollars in our bank account and as we look at our giving charts, segment our supporters into categories and plan strategies for meeting our fundraising goals – we can remind ourselves that money is not the most important thing – relationship is.

Loosing sight of this is easy to do because our jobs are defined by getting the money. With this pressure, money can seem like the most important thing. But relationship is what brings and keeps the money flowing to support the work. Money is just an exchange, which takes places in relationship.

The key question to ask then is, “What is the quality of our relationship with our supporters?” Do we see them as  “cash cows” or as partners in the work? Are they just a means to an end or vital players in the actualization of our mission?

As you answer these questions and work to raise money to support your cause, remember that relationship is more important than money.

Substitute, “Money” with “Relationship”

“I know we never will be perfect
Never entirely clear
We get hurt and we just panic
And we strike out
Out of fear
I fear the sentence of this solitude
200 years on hold
Oh and all we ever wanted
Was just to come in from the cold

Come in
Come in from the cold
Please come in
Come in from the cold
Come in come in
Come in from the cold.”

Joni Mitchell (from Come in from the Cold)

Happy Monday!

This is a photograph I took in Cambodia a few years ago.

These are the beds of young women who work in a garment factory in Phenom Phen. The floor space is communal; the girls sleep in shifts depending on their work hours. They make clothes for the U.S. market.

Can you see how the back wall is a flimsy board barely attached?

The entire two-story building was half constructed and seemed ready for demolition. The ground floor was dirt and muddy with puddles of water that we had to step over to reach the wobbly boards forming an uncertain staircase to the top floor.

Upstairs, where the girls slept, there were gaping holes we had to look out for to avoid falling through to the floor below. Exposed wires were everywhere. The girls told us the place had burned down a few times and been rebuilt.

For over a year after the trip, I kept this picture on my refrigerator. I wanted the daily reminder of the living conditions of the women who make the clothes we wear.

The photograph was a guilt trigger for me. I felt guilty for my living conditions, which were so vastly different. I felt guilty for being born American. I felt guilty for my desire to always buy the lowest priced goods, knowing that this consumer action perpetuates a company’s search for the cheapest labor to ensure maximum profit.

I felt guilty for my inability to change the monolithic global systems which structure reality for my life in America and reality for the life of young women in Cambodia.

The photograph was my version of penance. My ‘note to self’ that all was not right in the world.

How often do we feel guilty about a reality that we cannot altar? Or carry guilt for something beyond our control?

The amount of information we receive now on a daily basis about local and global problems is greater than at any other time in our history. The increased influx can make the problems seem larger than the solutions. It’s easy to get stuck hopelessly asking, “What can one person really do anyway?”

This is where our organizations and groups step in to motivate and encourage. We invite the community to work together to create solutions and solve problems and show how individual energy fuels the power of collective action. We offer an answer to the “What can one person do?” question by creating a place for people to share their time, passion, resources and ideas.

There is the temptation in fundraising and social change organizing to play on guilt that people feel or to create a sense of guilt and then use the emotion to motivate giving or encourage a change in action.

This is a short-sighted strategy.

The guilt approach taps into emotion that people most often describe as unpleasant or negative. People don’t particularly enjoy feeling guilt. Sadness, depression, resentment or bitterness often accompany the guilty feelings. Even if it can earn us money, are these the emotions with which we want to build an organization or movement?

At the heart of guilt is the message, “You are the problem.” Making people feel bad is a limited motivator.

“You are the solution” is a more powerful message. We witnessed just how powerful with U.S. President Obama’s “Yes We Can” campaign.

Building lasting change is possible (and more enjoyable) when people feel respected, valued, inspired and empowered.

Some people choose to feel guilty, like I did. You can’t control why people give or how people feel, but you do control the spirit of your invitation. “You are the solution” is a message to build upon.

So when faced with the decision, “To guilt or not to guilt?” think long term and skip the guilt. Energize support for your organization and forge lasting donor relationships with inspiration as your motivator. Engage the community as part of the solution and as partners in your work and the money will come.

__

P.S. If you are fundraising in America, right now is a great opportunity to organize Action Days and get people involved in actively supporting your organization. With the excitement and momentum of the recent Inauguration people are looking to participate and help “rebuild America.” Is there a hands-on way you can include supporters? Figure out what it is and open your doors.

Substitute, “I am/You are/We are the problem.” with “I am/You are/We are the solution.”

We’re all in this together.