When I was in my midtwenties and living at the Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm, I had a teacher and mentor named Harry Roberts. Harry was trained by the Yurok Indians to be a shaman. He was also an agronomist, cowboy, and Irish curmudgeon. I was one of a group of students who helped take care of him during a phase of his life when he was aging and his health was failing. He taught me the proper way to cook chard (steamed with lots of butter) and how to drive his truck (using the brakes only when necessary in order to preserve them). He also taught me a good deal about confidence, about asking important questions, and about life. One day Harry said, “Being a human being is easy. You just need to ask and answer three questions. One, what do you want? Two, what do you have to do to get it? And three, can you pay the price?” A coy smile appeared on his face, followed by a loud belly laugh. “Real simple,” he howled. “Very few people bother asking the first question!”
As you read this book and work with the material, notice any questions that arise for you. Ponder these questions, but don’t be too quick to answer them. When a topic speaks to you, sit with it and explore it. For instance, this chapter instructs you to know yourself and to forget yourself. What does that mean to you? Is it liberating and deeply resonating or is it merely confusing? To which aspects of your life does it seem to apply? Do you struggle with either one?
I find that each of the central insights of part 2 contains a host of powerful questions, questions that open, provoke, and connect. These questions can sometimes have clear answers, but they are often multidimensional, paradoxical, contradictory, and changeable. How they land in you today may be quite different from how you worked with them previously. I’m surprised how often we don’t ask the most basic questions — what do we want, what do we have to do to get it, and can we pay the price — in marriages, families, and the workplace. Of course, as I say this, I know why we don’t just by looking inside myself: These questions can be tough to contemplate. We can resist them, and we may resist the difficult answers we find. Then we may struggle to apply these answers to ourselves, our relationships, and our work. As Harry said, real simple.
To me, knowing yourself means many things. It means understanding your personal likes and dislikes, your desires and fears, your skills, competencies, and learning styles. It includes knowing what you don’t know, your blind spots, knowledge gaps, limits, and potentialities. In part, knowing yourself is intimately intertwined with your web of relationships; it’s awareness of what others think of you and of your impact on others. Knowing yourself is being able to distinguish your story from reality, and it’s knowing that you are the creator of your story. It is also, quite simply, your level of attention. How aware are you, in this moment, of everything going on inside of you and outside of you?
Forgetting yourself also means many things. It means the ability to be open to ideas and emotions outside of your own. It means being able to loosen and soften the particular ways you filter the world, which includes your understandings of yourself. It means seeing others free of your personal bias and helping others free of personal gain. It means feeling safe and comfortable enough to move into the unknown. It means the willingness to rewrite your story when necessary so that it better supports your success and effectiveness and the mutual satisfactions in your relationships.
For instance, a coaching client, Thomas, told me this story about a recent challenging situation he experienced with his wife of more than twenty years, Karen. After many years of avoidance and denial, they decided it was time to look carefully at their financial situation and to project as carefully as they could what their income and revenue sources might be as well as what their expenses and other possible expenditures might look like. I have sometimes heard therapists say that the two most difficult things for married couples to speak about openly are sex and money, with the difficulty being in that order.
Thomas and Karen had a frank discussion about getting older, health care, and retirement. They talked about the kind of work they imagined themselves transitioning into as they neared retirement. As they looked ahead, they noticed that Thomas was generally more optimistic; he tended to see possibilities and opportunities. Karen was more cautious; she was quick to point out the risks and pitfalls. Significantly, they had a wealth of detailed information in front of them: the kitchen table was littered with spreadsheets and graphs of their current financial situation along with a number of future projections based on a variety of assumptions regarding different levels of income, expenses, and economic forecasts.
After several hours of examination, discussion, and debate, they came to a clear conclusion. Whatever happened in their old age, Thomas was going to be wealthy and happy. Karen was going to be poor and unhappy.
I couldn’t help but laugh when I heard this story. It so vividly portrays the difficulty and barriers to relationships, to human communication. How is it that the same information can lead to such opposite reactions or conclusions? Little wonder that so many couples avoid discussing money (and sex), and why these most basic discussions of our mutual visions are avoided in the workplace. To talk about these issues so, we risk conflict that goes to the heart of who we think we are, how we see the world, and what we want. To even entertain the opposing viewpoint can seem to risk our own version of reality, our very self. This is no different in the political spectrum, where each side defines and defends its viewpoints in part by tearing down the other side, with little to no real engagement, listening, or meeting. How might things be different if we more skillfully asked the questions of what it means to know yourself and forget yourself? I believe it would make all the difference. These questions hold the keys to solving these types of problems and conflicts. Embracing, grappling with, and entering this paradox in each particular situation is how we achieve real meeting, real engagement, and real solutions.
I sometimes tell my coaching clients and workshop participants that we are so unique in how we think, process, and communicate it is as though we each live on our own planet. The mistake we make, the place where we get disappointed and experience lack of connection, is assuming that everyone lives on our planet. Then we try to convince others that, not only is our planet the best, but it is the only planet (even if we are not always so happy on this planet). Knowing yourself means knowing the ways in which we are all the same and the ways in which we are each unique, and using this to create open and productive relationships.
As you’ve probably noticed, we are much more inclined to perceive, feel, and cling to negative stories than to positive stories. Studies have demonstrated that negative events have significantly more impact on us than positive events. People will do more to avoid a loss than to acquire a comparable gain. Bad information carries more weight than good information. In relationships it takes about three positive interactions to overcome the effects of one negative interaction. In marriages, it typically takes five positive interactions to overcome the effects of a single negative interaction.
And from one perspective, this is all story. What you think about yourself, others, and the world is a story. Your views of success, of gaps, of how and why you need to change, all story. The changes you want to make in others — also story. The paradox? Story is important and real, and it is relative, multidimensional, and incomplete.
One of my guides and spiritual teachers often told me, in relation to working out disagreements, disappointments, and anything else that was bothering me about my relationships with my coworkers, friends, children, and wife: “Drop the story!” She would say, “As long as you stay with your story, which is always one-sided, the outcome is clear and predictable. And it’s not pretty. Drop your story, and many possibilities arise.” She was adamant that there was no other way. I needed to take responsibility for the stories I told about myself and others. Similarly, to create a satisfying, happy life together in old age, Thomas and Karen will need to recognize and revise their financial stories. This won’t happen if each insists on being right while convincing the other that he or she is wrong.
Know yourself, forget yourself, write your story.
Knowing yourself (and forgetting yourself) is about paying attention. This chapter contains a host of varied practices for doing so in a number of different but important ways. Variety is good, as is persistence. Some are useful daily habits; some are yearly reviews. Try them all at least once.
1. Ask yourself, at least once a week: What do I want? What do I have to do to get it? Can I pay the price? (page 64)
2. Practice attention training (page 72) daily for fifteen to thirty minutes. Possible times: upon waking, commuting to/from work, at lunch, going to/from meetings, after each phone call, before going to sleep.
3. Keep an attention ledger (page 78) once a week or month.
4. Journal as desired on directed topics (page 78). As a writing exercise, play the Game of Self (page 27) by answering your own question; or, do this exercise with a partner.
5. For serious conflicts, do the “opposite perspectives” exercise (page 80).
6. Conduct a personal audit (page 83) once or twice a year.
7. Practice letting go of a fixed identity (page 90) by dropping the story, stepping out of character, releasing anxiety, listening with empathy, and recognizing interdependence.
8. Use the hero’s journey (page 96) to approach problem solving and conceive life goals. Journal regularly to monitor progress and write your story.
9. Take a moment, by creating monthly or yearly routines, to celebrate the return “home” (page 102) by acknowledging completed tasks and areas of growth.
One of the most famous dialogues from the Zen tradition is between Bodhidharma, a wandering monk from India, and Emperor Wu, the emperor of all of China. Bodhidharma is a mythological figure who is often portrayed as a fierce, disheveled, wild character with bushy eyebrows and a scraggly beard. He is thought to be the founder of the Zen school during the sixth century, the first person to merge the mystical practice of India with the more nature-, harmony-, and farming-oriented Taoist tradition of China.
Apparently, Emperor Wu had heard great things about this wandering Zen monk, and a meeting was arranged. Upon meeting Bodhidharma, Emperor Wu asked him, “What is the highest meaning of the Holy Truths?” He wanted to know, right away, about the essence of Zen. Did it teach the secret of birth and death, of finding true composure?
Bodhidharma confidently answered, “Empty. Without holiness.”
The emperor was stunned. He looked Bodhidharma in the eyes and asked, “Who is it that is facing me?”
Without hesitation, and perhaps with a bit of bravado, Bo- dhidharma responded, “I don’t know.” Bodhidharma then left immediately. When the emperor tried to get him to return, his assistants told him that this would not be possible.
This story is often used to describe the distinct flavor and attitude of Zen. First, there is the contrast between the wild and unvarnished monk Bodhidharma and the refined, wealthy, and powerful emperor. The story demonstrates the power of two worlds colliding and the Zen spirit of freedom and nonconformity. This conversation also contains an essential teaching of Zen philosophy. Though the emperor may have perceived that Bodhidharma was refusing to answer his question or to teach him anything, Bodhidarma’s response was his teaching: Forget about holiness, just be yourself. Empty yourself of yourself, and pay attention to what is right in front of you. Stop seeing anything special. Find real freedom by being fully present in this moment.
Whether confused by or angry at this teaching, the emperor demands to know who Bodhidharma is. Perhaps his question is really, Who are you to imply that the emperor’s status is meaningless? The monk then does something truly shocking. He continues his mode of teaching at the risk of his own reputation. He claims not to know himself and leaves. By his words and actions, Bodhidharma implies the meaning of the Holy Truths: that humans have no inherent, knowable self, and that you find real freedom by losing your fear of this unknown. Drop your ideas of looking good or looking bad, of right or wrong. Drop your story. Forget yourself.
In your own life, when the emperor asks, “Who are you?” what will you say? Knowing yourself is the practice of developing self-awareness, as well as the practice of mindfulness. Knowing yourself is having a good relationship with yourself, so you know your own emotions, fears, motivations, doubts, and aspirations. It also means knowing that we are always creating the story of who we are and recognizing the impermanent and ephemeral nature of this story. In this way, we become less identified with our ego, with our inner judge and our inner critic. We become less focused on, and less enamored of, the individual planet we’ve built for ourselves, and we become more fully alive, more fully present to everyone and everything that happens in each moment.
Dogen, the founder of Zen Buddhism in Japan during the thirteenth century, once said famously, “To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be verified by all things.” In the original Japanese, the word study actually means something closer to “to get accustomed with” or “to become intimate with.” So what Dogen means is that as we become accustomed to the self, we see how changeable and ephemeral it really is, and we learn to forget it so that we might bring awareness and intimacy to all things — which includes ourselves, others, and all life. In other words, we move beyond the idea of subject and object, of self and other. In this context, Bodhidharma’s response “I don’t know” is not an expression of doubt, but a statement of fact. Bodhidharma could have described himself any number of ways, but these labels would have been nothing more than story. To get beyond story, you need to forget your story and practice mindfulness of the present moment.
“Let’s do some attention training.” I enjoy this portion of my workshops and seminars in the corporate world. Recently, when standing in front of fifteen CEOs of small and midsized companies, I began our session with these words. I continued, “I think you all understand the importance of attention. Your ability to focus in the midst of change. Your ability to bring your awareness to a variety of important business situations. And the importance of the quality of your attention, whether meeting with one person or your management team or standing in front of a room filled with employees and other stakeholders.”
I could see that I had their attention!
The word mindfulness comes from the Pali word sati. Though sati is usually translated as “mindfulness,” it also means “awareness or attention.” A more literal translation of the word is “to remember.” This primary concept in early Buddhist teachings is also becoming a primary concept in the practice of modern psychology. Mindfulness practice is currently being used successfully to treat anxiety in children and adults. It is even being used in the military to help soldiers to relax, to develop more confidence and flexibility, and to reduce the likelihood of post-traumatic stress syndrome, for it provides tools to deal with the unbelievable adversities of war.
Mindfulness practice, as defined by teacher and writer Jon Kabat-Zinn, is “paying attention, in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, nonjudgmentally.” The psychologist Daniel Goleman says that self-awareness is the foundational skill of emotional intelligence, which he defines as “knowing one’s internal states, preferences, resources, and intuitions.” In essence, they are each talking about the same thing — attention, and the practice of developing our ability to focus and expand our awareness.
What is your relationship with yourself like? How do you relate to your feelings and emotions, to your inner voice of worry and fear, of love and aspiration? Is that a strange question — to ask about the quality of your relationship with yourself? Yet that relationship is critically important to how we relate to others, in the choices we make, and in how effective we are in the world. Attention training is mindfulness practice; it’s a way of becoming more aware of your subtle and profound relationship with yourself. For the CEOs in my workshops, attention training promises the skill of getting out of your own way so that you can focus on the needs of the present moment. It’s knowing yourself well enough that you can forget yourself when you need to.
Attention training is more than this, however. It involves a subtle yet profound shift in perspective, from self and the world of me to presence, to others, and to life. It is a shift from anxiety and ego-driven awareness to a wider, more inclusive, heart-and life-centered perspective. It is a shift from the thinking mind, the judging mind, and the scarcity- and fear-driven mind to just being aware, just being present. This shift brings greater freedom, flexibility, choice, and ultimately more effectiveness. Attention training fosters both a clearer and a kinder relationship with our thoughts, our emotions, and our selves, which is crucial in our ability to be present. Attention training brings more focus and greater appreciation — appreciation for life and for being alive. It brings greater depth, the depth that we discover our hearts have always been seeking. Developing this relationship allows us to increase our capacity for embracing paradox and opposing viewpoints. It is as though we have been seeing only in black-and-white and now we can see in color.
Attention training has four steps: setting intention, focusing attention, noticing distraction, and gaining insight.
There are many reasons to practice meditation, and in my workshops I often ask everyone to describe their intention to themselves. In general, I identify four large categories of intentions: well-being, stress relief, emotional intelligence, and expressing your true nature.
The intention of well-being is simply wanting to be healthier, more vibrant. You want to feel better, have more energy, be happier. You want to appreciate yourself, others, and your life. Those who are prone to stress describe an opposite but complementary reason: wanting to develop a strategy and practice for relieving and reducing stress in their life. They want to be calmer and more composed in the midst of demanding and difficult work and home lives. They may also want and need to sleep more and to improve the quality of their sleep.
Stable attention is the basis for developing emotional intelligence. Emotional intelligence is how we relate to ourselves and others. It is often defined as five broad areas: self-awareness, self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skills. The starting point for developing these attributes is attention training.
Beyond all these is a more mystical or spiritual intention for meditation and attention training. It is a belief that our true nature is kind, composed, and compassionate, and that we have inadvertently trained ourselves to be fearful, self-critical, and self-protective. If, through mindfulness and attention training, we can reduce or undo these limiting habits, then we can learn to express our true nature. Though avowedly spiritual, this expresses itself in quite practical ways. Just the act of stopping, of sitting without trying to get anything or change anything, can be seen as expressing your true nature. In this book’s terms, it’s the art and practice of knowing yourself and forgetting yourself, of being fully present, alert, and aware without being self-conscious.
Next, we begin the process of focusing our attention — on the breath and on the body, while noticing our thoughts and feelings, paying attention to all our sensations. I usually suggest using the breath as a focus point. I ask participants to shift their positions — however you are seated, change, even slightly, the way you are sitting. This is a way of bringing greater awareness to your body, and it signals that you are changing modes, shifting your attention.
In training ourselves to focus, we first bring our attention to our breath. Begin by just noticing that breathing is happening. There is an inhalation and an exhalation. If you want, you may count your breaths; counting exhales from one to ten, then counting inhales, is a useful way to bring some structure to the simple, and not-so-simple, practice of bringing attention to the breath. Or simply notice the sensation of the breath touching your nostrils, or the sensation of your chest and abdomen moving with each inhale and exhale. At the same time, start opening or expanding your awareness. This may seem like the opposite of focus, but it is just a different kind of focusing. Continue to keep your attention on the breath, and on the body, as you notice whatever arises — thoughts, sounds, tastes, sensations. Simply notice whatever arises, being curious and open, without becoming lost in these thoughts. The goal is not unlike that of the tightrope walker, balancing inner and outer awareness, becoming both performer and audience, neither predominating.
However, you will be distracted. Thoughts or feelings will flood your consciousness; you will become lost in these thoughts and forget about your breath. When you notice that this has happened, simply bring your attention back to your breath. But be curious and notice: How easily do thoughts take over, so your attention wavers? How often does it happen, and how hard is it for you to return to awareness? Notice your emotional responses to these interruptions, these lapses. Are you critical and judging? Are you frustrated or angry? Or are you open and accepting? Can you practice “grandmother mind,” the loving and caring attitude that accepts everything?
Oddly enough, distractions are essential to attention training. The idea is not to stop thinking, but to train your mind to control itself. By noticing your thoughts and bringing your attention back to your breath and body, you learn how to improve and increase your focus, and you learn how to expand your awareness beyond your thoughts. Through this process, you experience that your thoughts don’t define you. Thoughts happen, breathing happens, sensations occur, and you observe them all simultaneously, aware and present, in the midst of constant change.
How amazing that this practice of attention training, just sitting, bringing your awareness to your breath and body, noticing distractions again and again, changes you, changes your ability to respond emotionally, even changes your brain. One study, done with workers in technology companies, demonstrated that practicing attention training for twenty minutes a day over an eight-week period leads to reduced stress, greater happiness (as measured in the brain), and greater resistance to the flu.
Several types of insights may occur during the practice of attention training. However, these insights may not concern the content of your thoughts or the way you think. One of the most important insights is that you are not your thoughts. You also may discover how busy your mind is. Through this practice, you learn how to bring attention to your breath and body so that there is less busyness in your thinking.
With attention training, you do not seek insight, and yet with the process of meditation you are changed. How is your thinking influenced? How is your body shaped? How do you bring this beingness, this nonjudgmental spirit, into your relationships, work, and daily life? Can you remember to pause during the day, particularly when faced with a difficult situation, and observe the state of your mind? Where is your attention? Are you lost in your thoughts, emotions, and reactions? Or are you calm, settled, curious?
In addition to using the breath and body as a focal point for your awareness during attention training, you may also experiment with bringing your attention to a phrase or question. Many of the Zen stories cited throughout this book can be used in this way. Phrases such as “Just don’t know” and “Wash your bowl” are examples. Or there may be phrases or questions from your life that you can focus on, such as “What is my power?” or “What do I want?” The goal is neither to seek answers nor to look for anything. Bring your attention to the question or phrase in your mind; just stay with the question, pay attention to your breath, and see what arises. The paradox of insight is that there is nothing to search for. Just let go — of your story and the thoughts and habits that limit you.
The simple act of bringing attention to your level of attention is one way to improve your attention. In addition to mindfulness meditation, another way to do this is to periodically dedicate a day to keeping track of (by writing down) how well you’re paying attention. On these days, keep a journal with you, and at least two times during the day, take a moment to evaluate and jot down your level of attention for each interaction or activity you’ve engaged in since the last time you wrote. Were you focused, present, clear? What were you doing, and what threw you off? These are meant to be quick assessments; just note the context and an evaluation of your focus. Then at the end of the day, spend some time reviewing what you wrote and reflecting on your day. Are there any patterns? Where do you need to pay more attention?
The main point is to build self-awareness, so that in the moment you remember to put your attention training into practice. Also, if you can identify situations that are particularly difficult for you, you can learn to anticipate and be ready for them.
However, for those who feel comfortable with it, regular journal writing is a very useful practice. Recent studies have shown that writing regularly leads to greater self-understanding and increased confidence. Experiment with more directed writing prompts, such as:
• What surprises me about my life right now is. . .
• What inspires me is. . .
• I feel most happy when. . .
• I feel least in balance when. . .
• What supports my well-being is. . .
• My deepest power comes from my belief that I . . .
• What I really want is. . .
The directive to know yourself is itself a paradox. As Bodhidharma implies, it’s impossible. At least, impossible to know oneself fully, with 100 percent certainty. Humans are not made of stone; they change over time. Their perspective is also limited. We all have blind spots, and we will always have blind spots, even if their nature and size change as a result of our attention training.
So, to know yourself, pay a good deal of attention to your blind spots. Realize that things are occurring outside the range of your vision or senses or understanding. Continually try to see what you don’t see. We instinctively know we need to do this, to uncover and understand our blind spots. We don’t like blind spots. Eradicating literal blind spots has been instrumental in keeping us, our ancestors, and the human species alive. Not accounting for our blind spots leads to trouble — accidents happen when we don’t see another car in our blind spot. Leaders are overthrown when they become blind to the negative effects of their rule. In the United States, the recent financial meltdown reflected a kind of societal blind spot. Climate change is a blind spot for much of the world. On a personal level, blind spots can lead to emotional meltdowns or surprising, often harmful actions.
Of course, blind spots encompass more than our limited perspective. Sometimes we choose not to see things. We avoid seeing the full (usually negative) impacts of our actions. We avoid acknowledging others who disagree with us; we overestimate or underestimate our abilities; and we fail to fully recognize our biases and habits — how we relate to stress, how we relate to the people and situations that trigger our emotions. This type of blind spot is often called our shadow, the negative aspect to an otherwise positive attribute or view of ourself. In this way, we write blind spots into the stories we tell about ourselves. We get married pledging to be faithful and abiding, knowing that most marriages end in divorce, and then find we avoid or censure any doubt, any difficulty, regarding the marriage we are in. As a spouse, we take pride in our good intentions, yet these blind us to how we might be self-defeatingly bringing to pass the very thing we would avoid. To the best of our ability, we must continually work to increase our awareness — to search out blind spots and look into the shadows — in order to increase our ability to create healthy, sustainable relationships.
In workshops, one way I demonstrate the power and limitations of story is with the following exercise, which helps to loosen and broaden our perspective and give us a glimpse of our blind spots. If you’re alone, do this by writing. In workshops, I pair people up; if you want, find a willing friend or colleague. Decide who will go first (person A or person B). Person A begins by describing a real situation in his or her life that involves a significant difficulty or conflict; it should be a situation that is alive for the person now or from the recent past that still has emotional impact. Then tell the story to person B from two perspectives. First, describe the situation as if whatever went wrong was all the other person’s fault (or the fault of various other people). It was all them, 100 percent. Of course, you know this isn’t true, but enter this feeling and attitude completely. Have fun with it; get into the role as much as possible. Then describe the same situation from the opposite perspective: the conflict was all your fault, 100 percent your doing. After playing both roles, what do you notice? Usually it is easy and freeing to ascribe fault and responsibility completely to another or to others. Taking full responsibility can be much more difficult, but trying this out can also be freeing — freeing of the burden of blame and of sticking to what is usually a partial and one-sided story.
The last part of this exercise is to describe the event a third time, this time from the perspective of wisdom: What would an outside person, someone who was totally uninvolved, have to say? How would a stranger describe this same event?
Literally speaking, seeing what we don’t see is impossible. This is why I believe that knowing yourself is more an art than a science, and perhaps beyond both art and science. It is more of an intention, an attitude, and a way of being rather than a collection of facts, a personality profile we can complete, or a subject we can master. It is more like exploring the oceans or the cosmos than like getting your PhD degree. You never finish. The oceans and the cosmos are constantly changing and evolving. Just as you are constantly changing and evolving, the people around you are changing and evolving, and the circumstances you find yourself in are shifting even now.
In certain religious and spiritual communities, and in the self-help world in general, there is sometimes an outbreak of what I call PME syndrome — premature enlightenment syndrome. After a time of intensive self-study, we tend to reach a conclusion that our work is done, complete. You know yourself. You can now kick back and relax. You’ve worked hard and seen some good results. Sometimes, on what used to be bad days, you notice that you are happy and less stressed. You feel a sense of accomplishment, even maturity.
However, humans are complicated. We can often be too quick to declare victory (in order to avoid the really hard work that awaits) or our small gains may themselves be a red flag. Are you happy and free from stress because your new-and-improved strategies for keeping stress at bay are well honed and well oiled? Or have you just become better at compartmentalizing? Are you simply more adept at keeping anxiety and difficulty in a little hidden box, while spending more time in a separate little box called “I’m feeling okay”?
For many years, particularly when I was young (though I still have to watch for this tendency), I sometimes used meditation and spiritual practice as a kind of safety net. I used them to avoid my own anger, and the depth of my own fear and self-doubt, rather than to see and solve them. One antidote for me, one way I upset and undid this self-defeating strategy, was to leave the Zen Center and go to business school in New York City. Starting and running my own business was a terrific wake-up call. If that wasn’t enough to shake me from my habits of clinging to comfort and avoiding difficulty, I got married and had children.
Today, in addition to being an entrepreneur, I am also a Zen teacher, and I often remind my Zen students that the way we follow our spiritual practice today is perhaps more challenging and complex than what the historical Buddha attempted. He left his wife and children. He left the world of work and money. He taught that in order to walk the spiritual path, these were prerequisites. Yet we attempt to work, save money, own property, and have relationships, children, and families. The degree of difficulty for businesspeople exploring mindfulness practices — in order to live a more balanced life, one steeped in knowing ourselves and forgetting ourselves — is even more challenging. How foolish and how wonderful. Foolish because it is so difficult. And wonderful because of the courage it takes and the rewards that await those who persevere.
You may want to conduct a personal audit, particularly when you want to bring more awareness to this work. I do this at least once a year and am often surprised by the results. Typically, it confirms changes I can be proud of while showing me other areas that still need focus, attention, and work. It is an excellent assessment when considering the self-care advice in the “Benefit Yourself” section of chapter 8 (page 242). It is a snapshot of your personal reality and health, blind spots and all.
A personal audit is easy to do. It takes less than ten minutes a day for ten days. Take a piece of paper, or create a form on your computer, laptop, or other recently invented electronic device. Write down these categories, and leave room for writing beneath each category.
• How much sleep did I get, and what was the quality of my sleep?
• How much exercise?
• How healthy was the food I ate?
• How much did I accomplish?
• What was the quality of my work?
• How many meaningful conversations did I have?
• What was my spiritual practice for the day?
• What was my general mood during the day?
Make ten copies of the form. Each day, answer as many questions as you can in the middle of the day, and finish filling out the form at the end of the day. At the end of ten days, take at least twenty to thirty minutes to look over your audit. What do you notice? Any patterns that surprise you? What did you learn? What could you do to improve the quality of your life?
Write down these impressions. If you wish, translate them into a series of goals for the next six months or year. Then, when you do your next personal audit, refer to them. This is, after all, how we track and confirm the progress of our business and financial health, and it works just as well for our personal well-being. It helps answer the dual question, Who are you, and how are you doing?
When I was twenty-six years old and living at the Zen Center’s Green Gulch Farm, I received a phone call one day from my mother announcing that my father had been diagnosed with life-threatening cancer. The next day my girlfriend (who later became my wife) and I flew home to New Jersey to be with my father. When we arrived at the hospital, we discovered that no one had communicated to my father what was happening. We found him literally tied to his bed and highly drugged. My father had become so confused and disoriented from being in the hospital that he was wandering around the hospital halls at night. Drugs given by the doctor to sedate him seemed to have the opposite effect; they were agitating and confusing him further.
Fortunately, I had an excellent support system of colleagues back at the Zen Center, people who had a good deal of experience understanding how to work effectively with doctors and hospitals. My friends reminded me that I was in charge, that the doctors worked for me. They suggested that I have my father untied and stop all medications. They said I should stay with my father and communicate to him the truth of his condition.
After the drugs were stopped, it didn’t take long for my father to return to close to normal consciousness. I had not been back to New Jersey in nearly a year, and for the past five years, since leaving home for the Zen Center, I had not spent much time with my father. I knew that my father was angry and disappointed that I had left college and was living at the Zen Center. I held my father’s hand and we connected deeply. I told him what was happening, that he had cancer and the doctors did not believe it was treatable. His prognosis was that he might have weeks or months to live. I also told him that he should not give up hope. Nothing was certain. We cried together. He looked at me and told me that he was proud of me. He said that, though he had not been happy with my choices, he had now changed his mind. He was surprised and pleased with how I was now, in that moment. He said that he didn’t understand what I was doing at the Zen Center, but whatever it was, the results pleased and impressed him. This may have been the most intimate meeting I had with my father during my lifetime.
My father asked me to hand him the telephone. He wanted to call his family and friends to express his love and to say good-bye. This came as quite a surprise to me. My father was extremely shy. For most of his adult life, he expressed little emotion. He had been battling a manic-depressive condition and perhaps post-traumatic stress syndrome from his experiences in action during World War II. He generally repressed his emotions, including expressions of gratitude. Suddenly this changed dramatically.
A few days later, I suggested that we bring my father home to die. My mother was quite shocked. She had initially agreed that I should speak directly with my father about his condition, but she was in fact terrified by death. To her, the thought of his coming home was challenging. Still, she wanted him to be comfortable, and I committed to staying home and arranging hospice care for support. We brought my father home, and less than three months later, he died in my mother’s arms in bed one evening. A few weeks later my girlfriend and I returned to the Zen Center.
It is sometimes said in the Zen tradition that practicing — studying yourself and forgetting yourself — is like walking in a gentle mist. If you just keep at it, you find, much to your surprise, that you are wet. I was not aware of changes in myself after five years of meditation, mindfulness, and devoting my life to studying myself. What a gift to meet my father in this way. And also, strange to say, what a gift his impending death turned out to be: through it, my father woke up to himself, to appreciating himself and his life and his entire family, and it unblocked the flow of love within him that had been blocked for so long.
Knowing yourself and forgetting yourself are like two sides of a coin, as the saying goes. Perhaps more like two sides of your hand. You can look at the front of your hand and the back of your hand, and not only is it one hand, but where does the front end and the back begin?
Forgetting yourself would seem to be the opposite of knowing yourself, but it is really just another aspect of true insight, of real and effective knowing. However, since many people interpret “forgetting” in negative ways, it’s useful to first define what forgetting yourself is not.
First of all, forgetting yourself is not unconsciousness in any form. When I first found my father in the hospital, he was so drugged he was unconscious to himself and his circumstances. He was not at peace; he was not effective. We are not meant to become numb to ourselves or to life. When Bodhidharma said that the Holy Truth was empty, he wasn’t espousing nihilism. He wasn’t saying everything is meaninglessness and there’s no reason to try or care.
On the contrary, when my father emerged from his drug-induced confusion and found out the truth of his situation, he also emerged from a more insidious unconsciousness or forgetting: of trying to shut down his own pain, fear, and difficult emotions. Forgetting is not ignoring or closing off parts of ourselves we don’t like or have trouble handling. This is only another form of unconsciousness. Instead, my father shed his negative ways of forgetting and embraced the most positive form. He put his impending death and his old self aside in order to express his love and gratitude for all the important people in his life. Facing death, he turned to soothe others.
In a similar, positive form of forgetting, my mother contained her own fears of death in order to make the end of her husband’s life more comfortable. In the end, she accomplished this so well that she literally embraced death.
In more everyday terms, forgetting yourself is not dismissing yourself or undervaluing yourself in any way. It is not avoiding, denying, or suppressing. It is not about being forgotten, belittled, made small, insecure, or expendable. It’s not about pissing away your power. Quite the opposite. When knowing ourselves and forgetting ourselves are in balance, we can act in service of others without ignoring our own needs. We can express gratitude for and value others without denigrating our own contributions. We are secure enough to see that we have an important role to play among many and that we can choose to play various roles.
In our daily experience, the idea and perception of me, I, and self is built into nearly everything we think, say, and do. It is built into our language — “I want a glass of water.” Having a clear sense of self is crucial to our well-being, to our confidence and our relationships, and for nearly everything we do in this conventional world. And at the same time, it is useful and truthful to realize and understand that this idea we have about self is a convention; a useful, powerful, and compelling convention. Albert Einstein once said that past, present, and future are compelling conventions. As with time, so with self. As Buddha and many other wise people have understood, it is important to loosen and let go of the usual relationship and attachment we have to this idea of self.
Doing this requires a meta-cognition, an ability to step outside ourselves. This act alone requires a bit of not knowing. What is this awareness that can exist outside ourselves and allows us to see ourselves? Then, the more comfortable you become seeing yourself in this way, the safer you feel loosening your patterns and assumptions, changing your habits to fix your blind spots, and letting go of whatever doesn’t serve you in this moment. All the aspects of yourself become less solidified, more malleable and flexible. Your sense of self becomes more like an improvisation, less like a statue.
Here are five ways in which forgetting yourself, relaxing your usual attachment to your sense of a fixed self, can be practiced and transformed into insight.
• We experience and embody the impermanence of life.
• We play with and explore our own patterns and stories.
• We let go of stress and anxiety and the identity that gets in the way of our effectiveness.
• We see from a variety of perspectives and listen with empathy and accuracy.
• We shift our perception from the world of me to the world of all of us.
As I’ve said, life is changing in every moment. We see this emphatically as children grow and develop, and when we stop to look in the mirror, we know it in ourselves as well. Yet we act as though beneath our skin is an operator who stays the same. Buddhism and science are clear that this is not the case, but all the same, we cultivate and protect this person, this identity or personality. We can learn to let this go.
By embodying impermanence, we give ourselves a gift of freedom. We recognize that who we are contains the element of choice, and in every moment, we can choose differently. Whatever we have done in the past does not preclude us from doing something different right now.
In some way our life resembles a river. Each moment the water is flowing, constantly changing. Some parts of the river are wide and move slowly. Other parts of the river are narrow and flow swiftly. The river bends and turns and changes, responding to the terrain and weather patterns. Yet it is one river. Seeing, feeling, and embodying this reality of change and impermanence in our own lives may be the most direct and powerful way to practice forgetting yourself. It is this type of forgetting that opens the door to our essential connection to people and to life itself, without boundaries, filled with possibilities.
When my spiritual teacher once told me to “drop the story,” this is what she meant: When you are caught in a story or a strong emotion, when you feel yourself tightening or your heart closing, just drop it. When a story or identity is causing conflict and pain, let it go as much as possible. It is not always easy. Letting go takes practice, so practice. Experiment with dropping the story. Drop it when breathing out. When driving, smile. When speaking in front of people, be a tightrope walker: present, alert, and relaxed.
If called to take center stage, do so to the best of your abilities; don’t say, “No, I can’t. I’m inherently shy and don’t speak well in groups.” If you habitually voice your opinion on every matter (no matter what conflicts this causes), or you habitually refrain from giving your opinion (perhaps to avoid all conflict), choose differently; step outside of your patterns and habits and find ways to skillfully participate as needed, meeting conflict or facilitating consensus as necessary. In my coaching practice I sometimes call this “stepping out of character.” This is an important and practical skill.
If we are not too attached to our idea of a fixed self, then we have no fixed story: thus, as we evolve and change, so do our stories, particularly those about our past that “explain” who we are or why we are. This is another gift of freedom. Sometimes we get trapped by the stories we tell about ourselves, or by our interpretations of what past events mean. These stories create a ripple effect; if we believe them to be true, then we are influenced to live them out. But we don’t have to do that. If it’s true that we are afraid to speak in public, do we explain it by pointing to some humiliating event in childhood? Is that the story of our shyness? More to the point, do we use that story today to hold ourselves back? If so, then we need to work to rewrite this story. Nothing is set in stone. If we overcome our fear of public speaking, even a little, then the story of how we were made shy can also become the story of how we used that challenging childhood event to learn poise. What would happen if we told ourselves that story instead? One of my favorite greeting cards I published when I was CEO of Brush Dance said, “Fight for your limitations, and they are yours.”
One way to loosen the sense of having a fixed identity is through meditation and mindfulness practice. Meditation is having a regular time to stop and experience that you are not your thoughts. Mindfulness practice is a way to bring more awareness and attention to your daily activities. This can be helpful in freeing yourself, especially from the stories that you create about yourself and others.
To be clear, I’m not saying that story is a bad thing or that we can eradicate stories. We think and speak and feel in the language of stories. When I say to drop the story, I mean stop holding on to that particular story; we don’t stop being storytellers. However, we can utilize story instead of being pushed around by our stories. Stay with stories that support you and let go of stories that get in your way, especially stories that support and reinforce the idea of a fixed self.
Much of our anxiety has to do with our concern for and attachment to a primary identity, a sense of who we believe we are. The three primary qualities of self-identity are wanting to be good, wanting to be competent, and wanting to be loved. As I mentioned earlier, studies have shown that our attention is much more drawn to negative events than to positive events. As a result, our sense of identity is constantly being challenged; our efforts to be good, competent, and loved can feel like an uphill, sometimes impossible battle. This is the cause of substantial suffering and anxiety. I am quite familiar with this territory.
You can release this anxiety and loosen your sense of a fixed self by paying attention to the positive: noticing your innate goodness, and bringing attention to areas in which you are competent and where you are developing. Simultaneously, you can love yourself and also acknowledge the ways in which you don’t fully allow or let in the love of others.
Seen in a positive light, the practice of forgetting yourself becomes generosity. Any authentic act of generosity is an expression of selflessness: you put aside yourself, your self-serving needs and emotions, to give others your time, attention, kindness, and love. So, to bring this insight to life in this context, practice generosity even with yourself. When you fail in some way, become distracted, or don’t meet your standards, practice generosity rather than continuing to suffer anxiety and the judgment of your story.
We live in many worlds, and without any effort experience ourselves and our surroundings from many viewpoints. We also tend to cling to one or a few viewpoints. We identify easily with labels. We get hooked by the emotions of fear, desire, and hatred, and all the nuances of these emotions, which tighten and narrow us. Listening with empathy is a way to embrace paradox and multiple perspectives in order to see more clearly.
Empathy is the practice of feeling another person’s feelings, while at the same time discerning that they are not our feelings. Thus, empathy is an active way we demonstrate both knowing ourselves and forgetting ourselves. We do this without any effort, yet we can also develop this as a practice. One simple, powerful method is to see all the ways you are the same as other people. Your desire to be good, competent, and loving is something you have in common with every other person. Your suffering, pain, and longing — these, too, are experienced by everyone. First, see how this is so for all those you know and love, and then extend this understanding to all the people in the world. Even those you may not like or are in conflict with suffer and want to be loved.
Taking on the practice of knowing yourself and forgetting yourself is a subtle and powerful shift in how you approach your life. So often I see people searching for a calling, meaning, some direction in life that matters. I would suggest that this is it — the practice of knowing yourself and forgetting yourself. This is where meaning, where happiness, where waking up to what is right in front of you lies.
In practice, recognizing interdependence is what leads to our ethical code of conduct, or the rules and guidelines we use to determine the good and right thing to do. All societies and religions provide us with ethical guidelines. The three precepts of Zen Buddhism — do good, avoid harm, and help others — are simple, direct, and flexible. What actions we take to live up to them will differ in any particular situation, but as guidelines for our relationships and our work, they remind us to stay focused on how we impact others and the world of all of us. They require that we let go of our hardened and sometimes selfish views about ourselves, and they help us to open our hearts.
The path toward productivity, happiness, and effectiveness requires that we let go of our usual habits, patterns, and assumptions, that is, our fixed story. We make choices in each moment, either to trust ourselves to explore and to experiment, to change and to grow — or to stay with what is safe and predictable. Which we choose often depends on how comfortable we feel with the unknown.
It’s easy enough to say, “Drop the story,” but then what? Most of us have developed strategies for coping that work at least well enough to live the life we are living now. But to engage the central practice of knowing yourself and forgetting yourself — accepting and embodying that we have no fixed self — requires us to leave the comfort of our “home,” the hard-won sense of self we have carefully tended up to now. Does that make you anxious? Rest assured, it doesn’t happen in one great leap, like tossing your “self” off a cliff. In fact, it must take place in small ways, in our moment-to-moment choices, if it is to happen at all. Naturally and eventually, this comes to encompass a wider perspective and flexibility that guides the trajectory of our lives. We become more flexible: having insights about our past and present and using these to reshape our choices and direction as we move forward, in this and the next moment, and on through all the days and years of our lives.
But let’s not kid ourselves: sitting with the unknown is never easy. We have committed ourselves to not knowing what will happen. We’re improvising, risking, changing. Anxiety is inevitable, though it isn’t unmanageable. That is one purpose of attention training: we learn to recognize anxiety and let it go before it drives us into the safety of our habitual self. We can, with practice, become so skillful at this that it becomes almost a reflex. Anxiety arises, we notice, and we let it go. And yet, even anxiety can serve a purpose: as performers will tell you, it sharpens your focus, gives you an edge, puts your senses on alert. Walk onto the wire or the stage without any nerves at all, and your performance is almost bound to flop.
To help us explore the unknown, and to take up residence there, if only briefly, we need a container for the experience. It’s another paradox. This is, indeed, one very practical, effective offering of all the world’s religions. They help teach us how to approach and enter the unknown and come back safely. This is certainly the purpose of the Eight-Fold Path of Buddhism, but it applies to Christianity, Judaism, Islam, and so on. I know I stand on the shoulders (and sit at the feet) of many thinkers from spiritual traditions, as well as from philosophy, psychology, and art, as I engage this topic.
However, in my executive counseling work, one container I’ve found particularly useful and effective is the hero’s journey. This mythic archetype was made famous by mythologist Joseph Campbell in The Hero with a Thousand Faces, first published in 1949.
The “hero’s journey” was Campbell’s label for an archetypal, mythic pattern that he found emerged consistently throughout time and throughout the world’s diverse cultures. This enduring human narrative provides a way for us to make sense and meaning out of the seemingly disconnected events of our life. In a way, it is almost like saying humans don’t create their own stories; we all share the same story. Most significantly, Campbell saw the hero’s journey as an explanation of how humans bring inner, spiritual truths into the everyday world. Like the Buddhist path, it describes a practical approach for creating an effective, balanced life.
Campbell identified seventeen phases or steps to the classic hero’s journey, but the essential arc can be summarized as three stages.
1. Leaving the known and comfortable (often described as “home”).
2. Entering the unknown and being tested or challenged.
3. Returning to the known (or home) transformed.
We are all heroes in our own journey, whether applying for a job; learning to play an instrument or to swim or to drive; embarking on a relationship; enduring periods of grief, or of physical or psychic pain; or experiencing times of accomplishment, celebration, and joy. The lens of the hero’s journey can help us make sense of our lives, its critical moments, transitions, and overall arc, from birth to the approach of death. Ironically, paradoxically, using the hero’s journey to successfully feel at home in our life’s unknowns brings us full circle. It redeems that inescapable human impulse: to understand ourselves and the world, to find our place, to write our story.
What is your hero’s journey? How might you frame and describe your life in the terms of the hero’s journey? Looking back, how might you describe your entire history from this perspective? Going forward, what journey lies before you? How might you describe your current work or personal situation, whatever you are setting out to do today or even in the next hour, as a hero’s journey?
When I work with clients to consciously enter into the hero’s journey, I typically emphasize seven steps or stages of the process. These aspects have the greatest resonance for me, and they seem most relevant to the issues in my clients’ day-to-day lives. By engaging in this process, you can put the anxiety and challenge of the unknown, of knowing yourself and forgetting yourself, into a useful context and feel more expanded and effective in your life. You can feel clearer about each day’s mission and your life’s mission.
The seven stages are
The hero doesn’t leave home for no reason. He or she is called to do something: to seek someone or something that is missing, perhaps, or because a person or event entices the protagonist away. This intention or calling is key: it sets in motion the particular challenges the hero will face.
What are you called to do? What project have you been putting off, waiting for the right moment to begin to think about it? What external problem or internal blockade is calling you to confront it, with courage and clarity? Bringing the question to a cosmic level, what is it you are called to do on this planet? What is your noble calling, at home, at work, in relationships, on your spiritual path? If you don’t know, then how might you recognize or name the purpose of the work you are already doing? The nature of our purpose may reveal the nature of any difficulties we are facing. In addition, is there a personal quality you’d like to improve? Do you wish you could be more. . . loving, patient, artistic, organized, ambitious, attentive, generous, focused, serious, relaxed, happy-go-lucky, articulate?
Write down these callings. Craft simple statements of purpose or goals. You can have one or many, but each should be succinct, such as, “I want to be a more proactive leader,” or “I want to start my own company,” or “I’m called to change careers to become a teacher.” Goals can be diffuse or concrete: to speak up more often at meetings, to be more emotionally open with family members, to improve your diet or exercise program. Whether you are already following this calling or just embarking, contemplate each statement like your own personal koan. Within each statement live questions, paradoxes, trials, and a journey.
Since what gets measured gets done, create your own journal for your particular journey. Use this during all the stages that follow. Make notes of progress and setbacks every day. Spend some time just reflecting on what the day has brought you in terms of your aspirations, and what your intention(s) may be for tomorrow. In real life, we don’t always experience the stages of the hero’s journey in linear order. As things happen, identify what stage they may belong to. Have you encountered a guide, received a trial? If it’s not your style to write these things down, before going to sleep at night, think about these things. Do a mental assessment “balance” sheet.
Typically, the hero at first hesitates or refuses to leave on the journey. What are your fears and insecurities, your feelings of inadequacy? What reasons prevent you from setting forth? Or what is so attractive about home that you don’t want to leave it, or are afraid you might lose it? I have had clients say things like “I don’t have the time and energy to learn new leadership skills” or “I’m not happy in my current role, but it’s a job.” The most obvious and powerful reasons for refusing the call have to do with fear — fear of change and fear of the unknown. It can be difficult to let go of what is known and comfortable, even when we know we have outgrown our current situation. I can remember walking into the Brush Dance office one day, after being CEO for more than thirteen years, and thinking to myself, “My heart isn’t here. This is no longer the place I belong.” I was terrified. At first, I refused to hear this voice, this calling, that it was time for a change. In fact, I moved so slowly to pursue this calling that I was eventually kicked out before I could leave on my own terms.
Note that in the mythic stories not going is ultimately not an option. At some point, the hero must accept the call or else something of great value is jeopardized, often the hero’s “home” itself.
The hero never succeeds alone. Finding friends, allies, and guides is an important part of the journey. These guides may point the hero in the correct direction, or pass along secret knowledge, or possess some skill the hero lacks. In your life right now, identify your guides and allies. What skills and knowledge do they possess that you need?
Significantly, the hero must ask for help. Guides typically do nothing until their aide is requested. Look at your list of people. How many have you specifically asked for help, or for help with your calling? Often, trusted friends or loved ones are eager to be asked for their opinion and expertise, but they may withhold until they are approached; perhaps they don’t realize you need or want help. Sometimes, if you need particular skills, you have to hire someone’s services; this is a form of asking. The hero sets out on the journey fully aware he or she is not adequately equipped for the task, and thus enlisting guides is critical. Examples of asking for guidance include working more closely with company supervisors or managers, finding a mentor, joining or creating a group that meets regularly (for social, community, or career reasons), or working with a coach or therapist.
In turn, you may be asked to be the guide for someone else on his or her journey. Think back: Has this already happened in your life? If so, how did you respond? Asking for help and helping others who ask sets up a virtuous circle of helpfulness and a mutual sharing of skills and encouragement. In truth, we are all guides for one another.
Once on the path, we encounter many difficulties, internal and external. We may uncover our own blind spots, limiting habits, expectations, and illusions. We may face difficult external circumstances, such as natural disasters, bad bosses, an unfriendly economy, other people’s ambitions, and conflicts with those whose own goals and means for happiness obstruct our path. We may encounter issues with our own mental and physical health.
These can be real barriers and trials, but often they are more temporary than we assume.
Through struggling with the trials, or some other key event, the hero’s power is revealed. In Campbell’s writing, this is sometimes depicted as a meeting being initiated by our father or mother: initiated into the world of adulthood, where we are able to receive the gifts and wisdom of our parents and simultaneously discover the wisdom and gifts that reside within us. Or, due to another event, such as a significant loss, change, or insight, we find ourselves coming into connection with divine wisdom and power.
In the business world I see many executives who find their own power in the midst of challenging situations. I believe this is one of the least understood and acknowledged gifts of the work world — the chance to move beyond what you thought was possible through working with seemingly impossible demands or seemingly impossible people.
Often one of the most creative ways to find your power is to identify how you give away your power. Explore this by writing (or by speaking with a trusted friend): “I give away my power when I . . . [say yes when I mean no; remain silent when I fear disagreement; and so on].” Then, explore the flip side. Write, “I find my power when I . . . [write without concern whether the writing is good or bad; speak clearly and gently when my feelings have been hurt; and so on].”
Sometimes finding your power can seem straightforward: facing difficulty rather than avoiding it, or using clear, direct, transparent language when stating what you want. Discovering your power is also a lifelong journey. Events continually challenge us, testing the core of our being. The time when I visited my father while he was dying was an enormous test and opportunity. I could have refused the call and not returned home, or I could have regressed into old familiar patterns in relation to my father. I felt misunderstood and not seen by him. Instead, by just being present with him, by meeting him fully where he was, my own power emerged, much to my surprise. Even more, my father saw and recognized this power, which I believe helped him to tap into his own power. In this moment, we helped each other and experienced a great gift.
Before returning home, the hero must develop ways to integrate the newly found wisdom and power into the ordinary world of work, family, and friends. You fully embrace the subjective nature of your experience and are aware and open to the experience of others. This can be accomplished through simple compassionate behavior, through stopping and really listening (often a surprising pleasure!), or through becoming a teacher or guide.
This can at times be more difficult than it sounds. I’ve seen business leaders make small and large changes in their ability to listen and be open, and yet these changes can be met with mistrust or suspicion from those around them. Integration can require skill, patience, and perseverance.
In the archetypal hero’s journey, the hero is meant to return home, bringing back new, essential skills the community needs — such as improving our emotional intelligence or the ability to respond wisely and appropriately to challenging situations. We arrive “home” when we integrate and act upon what we have learned by following the initial, germinating “call” that beckoned us to leave home in the first place. In real life, completing a journey may take a few days or many, many years, and arriving home is more an acknowledgment of success rather than a physical return. We allow ourselves to feel proud, even as we continue to monitor and reflect on our journey. Ultimately, the hero’s journey never ends, for we always need to grow as well as to guard against slipping back into ineffective ways of thinking and acting.
Life seems to move at such a quick pace these days that arriving home can easily go unnoticed. We fail to acknowledge growth and celebrate personal and professional development and success, while overfocusing on mistakes, letdowns, and all that remains undone. I find it useful, when working with coaching clients, to have a six-month development program, to set clear and measurable goals, and to acknowledge when these are achieved. You can do this yourself, creating your own program or enlisting the help of a coach or mentor (for more on this, see chapter 6).
At other times, change and growth can’t be so easily measured or analyzed. If we pass a few trials, are we home or only partway on our journey? Unlike in the stories, satisfying endings can be hard to define. It takes time and attention, and sometimes quiet meditative space, to notice. Part of my returning home is to do a five-day or seven-day meditation retreat each year. This provides the time and the container to reflect, to notice, and to celebrate change, growth, and development, some of which I can name and some of which is more like a deep, unnameable stream within me. Do this for yourself at least once a year: take a day, or more, to return home and celebrate what you’ve accomplished. Contemplate and name your hero’s journey. This is similar to the personal audit and yet significantly different: you are not just evaluating your health but writing and taking charge of your story, giving it meaning and shape.
I also find it helpful to use annual holidays and other community rituals to mark points of return and passages of time — for instance, each year I meet with eight men friends to connect, cook together, play, and help one another navigate our lives. Weddings and funerals make for powerful reminders about my own homecomings. And, of course, nothing marks our time more relentlessly than our birthdays (though some prefer to ignore these). For me, the process of writing is enormously helpful at any time to unearth the ways I am growing and finding my home. If you need a writing prompt, list the ways you’ve grown during this past year or the things you are most proud of. If you were hosting an event to celebrate your life during the past year, what would the theme be? In all these ways, and at all these times, ask: What does returning home look like in your life, from the perspective of your work, your family life, and your important relationships? What is your hero’s journey, your home that you return to? How do you practice knowing yourself and forgetting yourself?