Offerings, Gifts & Invitations
On Finding Answers
It was when I stopped reaching that the answer came.
I was out for a walk and the sun was shining.
For the past few days, I’d felt like I had been backed into a corner. Up against the walls of what felt possible, I was unclear how to move.
I’d gone for a walk because I was tired of feeling stuck. Movement was the most immediate solution to the tension I felt in my body and in my mind.
I stepped out the door, made my way across the wooden deck, down some stairs, and onto the pavement. Once I reached the road I found my stride.
As I walked, I let my attention wander. Rather than thinking about the issue at hand I thought about other things.
I gazed up at the telephone polls above me and beyond into the depths of the blue sky above me.
For a moment I felt the sky was reaching down toward me. What was far above suddenly felt closer.
I kept walking down the road. It was then that clarity came.
It wasn’t quite an answer, more of an understanding that gradually moved into my awareness.
Like the sun shining through a fog, it permeated my mind, pushing the swirl of thoughts out of sight.
I took a few more steps. As I did this clarity took on form and direction: Keep focusing on this project now, you will inevitably learn things you cannot predict, and opportunities will open that you can’t imagine from where you stand right now.
Looking back, this is how I describe the gist of it. At first the understanding arose without any words. It was as though another part of me was speaking in a different language based on feeling, light and imagery. It offered me insight into a question I’d been carrying for days.
I translated what arose through me into words to grasp this as an answer.
Walking with a question can lead to answers I’d never expect, this happens when I can make enough space for the fullness of my being to listen and stop trying to figure things out.
Answers can arise of their own accord, or we can reach out and grab them.
I thought back to last week when I joined a class with my supervisor at the University where I am working on my PhD. It was an MBA course, and the class focused on attention.
As part of the session, we were divided into groups to come up with a presentation to a prompt. Our prompt was: What are the benefits and risks of the attention economy? The teacher asked us to put away our phones and computers and think about the prompt. Within moments of being handed the prompt, a few students in my group reached for their phones, and more specifically, ChatGPT.
Their hands moved so quickly their reaching looked like an automatic reflex.
At first, I thought about how this response was against what we’d been told to do. As a teacher myself, I wanted to honour the rules of the activity we were given.
Then I thought about the appeal of having infinite knowledge at rapid speeds only a hand distance away. Why wouldn’t they reach for an answer?
There are various ways we can know something and different processes to arrive at a sense of understanding.
I keep walking. I have just walked a loop through the neighbourhood we are visiting. Walking back toward the porch, I hear the coo of a mourning dove. I look up, and in that moment, another wave of understanding moves through me.
We can walk until we find clarity, wrestle with a question until we arrive at an answer, or reach for information that can answer our question in a matter of seconds.
Each has its own pace and duration, and each shapes us as the questioner in a different way.
What I’m Listening to:
The podcast has come up repeatedly in conversations over the past few months. Each episode explores people with abilities that challenge norms and dominant assumptions rooted in a reductionist paradigm.
Ky Dickens has done a remarkable job pulling together research and creating a compelling argument that pokes holes in many dominant narratives about consciousness, normality, and perception. I highly recommend giving this podcast a listen!
Tim Ferris and L.A. Paul - On Becoming a Vampire and Whether or Not to Have Kids
L.A. Paul is a philosopher whose work focused transformative experiences. These are experiences that fundamentally change who we are and how we relate to the world. One example of a transformative experience is becoming a parent, another is receiving a terminal diagnosis.
I find Paul’s work exciting because it has applications to any form of transformative work including psychotherapy, systems change and work with psychedelics. It is also inspirational to hear her story as a mother and one of few successful female philosophers in the USA.
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What I’m Reading:
I have been in the thick of writing up my Phd so most of what I’ve been reading has been on the academic side! Here is one chapter I read that was dense but interesting:
Autonomy, Authenticity, and the Self, By Mark A. Wrathall. In: Heidegger, Authenticity and the Self
Wrathall explores Heidegger's notion of the self. Rather than being the facets that we experience as parts, he proposes that our true authentic self is the ground from which all other elements of our experience arise. I found his argument compelling since other modalities like IFS focus on different parts of the personality.
Pattern Literacy - Group Supervision
March 12th (PST) 3:00-5:00 pm
March 13th (AEDT) 9:00-11:00 am
This is a 2-hour session focused on exploring the patterns and process structure within client cases and our questions as practitioners. In the session we explore up to five cases to draw out patterns, discuss themes and discover opportunities for engagement.
I love these sessions because they provide an opportunity to alongside other practitioners, and feel supported in a community of practice. Learn more and register here