Career confusion is one key sign that you need a true vision from your heart and soul. That means you need something more than a goal set by someone else or even a brilliant idea that you activate before you discern whether or not it matches your true needs, dreams or desires.  You need a clear, compelling vision that’s anchored in current reality and leads you to your most fulfilling future.
Over the next few weeks, we’ll feature practical tips and tools for being the visionary you were born to be, particularly around your work, money dealings, and spiritual life.  Now, here are some key signs for how all this can be useful to you.

7 Symptoms of Limited Vision

1.  When you meet a goal (or even spend a lot of time and energy on it without meeting it), you realize you really don’t like the results or what you have to do to meet that goal.

2.  You feel burnt out while following your supposed dream.  Your pain goes beyond the kind of tiredness that can be eased with rest, exercise, proper nutrition or fun with others.

3.  You’re either closed to new possibilities or always feel like you have to create something new  and different.

4.  You suffer from a dearth of ideas or feel overwhelmed by them.

5.  You have a habit of falling for (and being betrayed by) the wrong partner, employer, financial plan, etc.

6.  You tend to be so pessimistic or you are so perpetually optimistic that you fail to notice opportunities or problems in time to deal with them effectively.

7.  You can only meet your goal by significantly harming yourself, others or the earth.

7 Benefits of Being the Visionary You Were Born to Be

Each one of these benefits actually reverses the key symptoms above!

1.  The process of building a vision is in itself energizing and enlightening.  Whether you meet your original goal or you discover new ones, you grow.

2.  You meet challenges with grace and resilience.  Because your vision is purposeful and meaningful, burnout just isn’t an issue.

3.  You welcome insight from all sources (e.g., intuition, imagination or even “out of the blue”), whether they are groundbreaking or tried and true.

4.  You are always entertaining new possibilities, but you’re so clear about what you’re called to do that your mental “find” tool can quickly wade through mounds of data and find the information that’s just right for you.

5.  Your sharp discernment skills and boundaries lead you toward what’s right for you and away from what’s not.

6.  You are aware of dangers and opportunities, not stuck in fear or illusion.

7.  Integrity in all its meanings — honest, just, on true with yourself and on the level with others- – is your basic bottom line. Meeting your goals enriches the lives of yourself, other humans and creatures, and the earth.

What can you add to either list?

As always, many blessings, Pat McHenry Sullivan

Praying the News Begins by Being Fully Present To It

“Reality shows” can be watched as entertainment.  Genuine news demands that we be fully present to what is and allow it to affect us, even when there’s nothing we can do about it. That means honoring life as a mystery, not as a problem to be solved, but as a paradox where we are called to go deep into the heart of compassion without agenda or attachment to outcome.

Every faith has so much to teach us about surrendering to the wisdom and will of something greater than ourselves, whether or not we use the word God.  I have been particularly touched by the work of the late artist/peacemaker/oral surgeon Frederick Franck, who taught me the Dutch word “schouwen.”  Franck saw this as a way of seeing life in all its dimensions, so perceived separations between us and the other dissolve. This kind of practice, Franck said, opens us to inspiration.  It liberates creativity and builds respect for self and others.

For Franck, schouwen led him to humanitarian service throughout his 97 years of life, authoring The Zen on Seeing and 29 other books, and creating the beautiful trans-religious oasis, Pacem in Terris in Warwick, New York.

One Way to Pray the News

Please join me, right where you are, in praying the news.  As you do so, edit the following prayer as you see fit.

Let us now attune together, heart and soul, as we enter the mystery together.  In the silent fullness of sweet surrender to what’s most eternal and wise, let us rest for a moment and refresh our souls.

Into the heart of this quiet mystery, let us place our care and concern for whatever is happening.  Let us bless it by seeing it just as it is, right now.

Let us bless it by envisioning the best for all concerned (even if we do not yet know what is best); let us bless it again by calling forth the best.

Let us bless our own questions about the news as we reflect: how do outer events mirror our own gifts, faults, etc.?  How are we like the dazed wanderer or the tyrant or the healer we see in the news?

How are we being called to serve this particular challenge or follow this opportunity or vision?

How can we do what calls us, when so much calls?

The News Isn’t Just What’s Reported on “The News”

The real news includes the ongoing reporting of your intuition, your instincts and other elements of your natural genius that are too often quashed. When those gifts come alive, we see life more clearly.

The most dramatic experience of praying my own news happened during what is now known as the Loma Prieta quake in 1989.  Then, I felt the bristles going up and down my spine warning danger long before my mind registered “Earthquake! Big one!” and way before I felt the building sway wildly.

Hyper-alert, one part of my brain reviewed quickly a recent show on “How to Survive the Big One” on the local PBS station.  I saw this information almost as if it were an internet home page, allowing me to skim quickly the various offerings and to click for further information.

At the same time, I surveyed the room for likely dangers and my safest spot.  Almost immediately, my two bad knees (from torn tendons in separate accidents) bent easily, and I was under my desk fast.  I heard the same inner voice that has guided me to my husband, my right work and other good things in life.  “You are now going to learn the difference between fear as a fault and awareness of danger as a gift,” it said.

Under the desk, I became aware of that part of my psyche that some call the mask or persona, which was obsessed with whether or not my crystal glasses at home were safe or if colleagues who were then laughing and talking throughout the quake were going to tease me afterwards.  Underneath the mask level, in what the Pathwork www.pathwork.org calls the “lower self,” I was just furious.  How dare God put me into this situation where I could get killed?

Underneath all that, the quiet voice spoke again.  “You could always die at any moment.  The question is, how are you going to live your life in the meantime?”

In that instant, I surrendered to the choice to live fully in the present, at least for that moment. I was overcome with awe and wonder, as if I was riding the power of earth and feeling how it connected the approximately 7,000,000 of us who live in the Bay Area.

Afterwards, the awe and wonder continued,  as I became more aware of both the power of humans to build with the earth and the impossibility of taming it.  In the weeks to come, it was always amazing to watch buildings that looked irreparable to my untrained eye be made whole again, while buildings that looked safe to me bore the red tag of unsafe and had to be torn down.

Ever since that quake, I have had a clearer touchstone for what it means to see more clearly what is and to be guided by a force much greater than ego or will. This is what it is like, my personal news archive reminds me, to be engaged with life and let it teach me, let it call me to work more from that sense of connection to others and the earth. This is a reminder of how much can be learned and experienced in a short time, for the Loma Prieta quake itself lasted only 15 seconds.

What’s Your News?  How Does It Call You to Live and Act?

In the days to come, I pray for the renewed commitment to keep praying the news, to find my best service for Haiti, for my hometown, and elsewhere. Without prayer, it feels impossible to take in the news.  With prayer, I can sometimes see how the little I can do, the little I can give, can grow and be enough.

What’s your prayer?  What does your prayer guide you to do?

As always, many blessings,

Pat McHenry Sullivan

And, oh, yes, money.  That’s particularly important in developing countries where very few people have the funds to make their new homes earthquake or storm resistant, once the international recovery funds dry up.

Some good news, reports earthquake engineer and founder of Build Change,  Elisabeth Hausler, Ph.D., is that “in a place like Haiti, building a house to withstand an earthquake can also help it to withstand a hurricane, particularly by tying the roof down to prevent it from flying off in strong winds. For earthquake-resistant design, the roof is often tied to the walls to provide some kind of bracing effect for the walls.

When India was devastated by a January 26, 2001 quake that killed well over 20,000 people,  Hausler was halfway through a civil engineering Ph.D. program at UC Berkeley. At the same time, she was undergoing an existential crisis:  how could she do something truly meaningful with her training?  How she turned that question into Build Change, which helps create safer housing in developing countries, is a textbook example of how the mind of a visionary works.

Visionary Habit 1: Letting Problems Affect You

Most of us feel overwhelmed by the news; many ignore it altogether. Elizabeth Hausler watched reports of the 2001 quake and knew she wanted to do something.  At the same time, she was also increasingly clear that she did not want to work for the kind of developers who would be eager to snatch up civil engineers of her professional caliber.

As she watched news reports, Hausler reflected on what she already knew as an earthquake engineer, including the limited loss of life in earthquakes in California, where structures built to recent earthquake codes generally ride out tremors with minimal damage.  As she saw the need for skilled brickmasons to help rebuild India, she thought, “I can do this!” having been well trained by her father, a master mason.

By 2002, she was a Fulbright scholar in India, where she could roll up her sleeves and help.

Visionary Habit 2: Honor and Expand What You Already Know

As an earthquake engineer, Hausler was skilled in technology to resist earthquakes. Thus, she knew how to prevent buildings from collapsing by using such practices as tying together concrete columns and bond beams, steel reinforcement, and “toothing” the masonry to allow the structure to move better.

Working in India and later in Iran after a huge quake there, she realized she had a lot to learn about how cultural norms and challenges impact building.  For instance, people in many developing countries don’t want to build their homes from wood (the most quake-resistant material), but from brick or adobe (the most likely to fail in a quake if not handled properly). Nor do they usually like round structures, which tend to ride out earthquakes.

Everywhere she saw the need not just to rebuild quake-damaged structures, but also to prevent future problems from quakes. This, she envisioned, would require a focus on training people how to build safely, as well as a lot of education for consumers and government workers about why safe construction was both necessary and achievable.

Visionary Habit 3:  Work with Others Who are Compassionate and Skilled

Hausler learned from numerous people how to become a change agent.  One of the most important was Martin Fisher, a Ph.D. engineer who co-founded Kick Start to help people in Africa break the poverty cycle and to “create a new, successful, scalable, replicable, and sustainable solution to poverty.”

Hausler also worked with people who focused on funding the kind of work she was called to do. By 2004, she had a working board and a 501(c)(3) status for Build Change. That year, she was named one of the world’s best emerging social entrepreneurs by Echoing Green for her plan to “promote and implement affordable, disaster-resistant construction in less developed countries.”  www.echoing.green.org

Visionary Habit 4:  Adapt Your Vision as Necessary

Of course, Hausler and other members of Build Change are moved by the rescue work that’s happening now in Haiti and the re-building work that will happen later.  Tempting and necessary as this work is, Hausler found that Build Change serves best when it is true to its specific mission, which as stated on the brochure as:

Build Change is an international non-profit social enterprise that designs earthquake-resistant houses and trains builders and home-owners in developing countries to build them.

What Can Your Learn from the Story of Elisabeth Hausler and Build Change?

What challenges and opportunities in the world now call you?

What visions might emerge if you reflected on this question:  “how can my skills, interests, and passions best be used to serve others?”

As always, your comments are welcome.  Many blessings,

Pat McHenry Sullivan

Let’s be creative with the word creative. Creativity isn’t just in what we do, but in who we are.
Creativity for me is a way of expressing myself, incorporating my own ideas into what I do and how I do it, a desire to step out of the ordinary and try new things, to think “out of the box”, and to take risks. It means having a flair for beauty and color and design. It means having a zest for life and deepening my connection with my inner child. It means giving myself permission to try something new.

I can be creative in the way I dress, in how I set up my office, in how I relate with others, in how I manage other people, and in how I do my work. I can be creative in the way I write, speak, and act in everyday life.

Being creative is a way to grow, to experiment, to deepen, and to enjoy life.
I am more fully alive when I express my creativity. I love to play the piano, sing, and paint watercolors. Once in awhile I love to get creative in the kitchen and cook up something unique – without a recipe. And when people like it, I make up a title. I also love to be creative in how I dress. In the Washington, DC area where I now live, many people wear dark suits.  Dressing in a bright colored outfit accompanied by an ethnic necklace or scarf at professional events is my way of expressing myself and rebelling against the norm, I’m always amazed at how many people compliment me on my outfit.

How can you expand our creativity — even if you believe you are not creative?

1. Be aware of what your own voice wants to express, whether in words, actions, dress, cooking, writing, or otherwise. Listen to your intuition. Then, express yourself!
2. Try something new or different. I find there is nothing more stifling than doing the same thing the same way over and over. Be bold!
3. Courage. As Erich Fromm says “Creativity requires the courage to let go of certainties.” Go for it!
4. Brainstorm. See how many different ways you can come up with to tackle a problem, handle a situation, work with a colleague, etc. We often think there are only 2 ways of doing something – your way and my way, but there are always many more options than we think. Practice being non-judgmental and listing as many options as you can, despite how silly or impractical they may sound. This is how advertising agencies work.
5. Don’t limit yourself.  Don’t believe your own limiting comments such as “I’m too old to learn to paint/play music”, “I can’t do that.” Plum under the excuses, e.g., “I tried writing once but it didn’t work” ignores the fact that to get good at something we need to practice it. “I don’t have time” belies the fact that when most of us want to really do something, we want find the time. When you go beyond self-imposed limits, you just might find that your life takes on new meaning.

Creativity connects us with our soul and our innermost yearnings.

I love Alan Alda’s description of creativity: “The creative is the place where no one else has ever been. You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you’ll discover will be wonderful. What you’ll discover is yourself.”

And Albert Einstein says it well, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”

So remember your gift and explore your creativity in as many ways as you can.   At work you might consider:

1. Looking at how you decorated your office – does it express your uniqueness?
2. Examining your relationships with your boss and colleagues – could they be improved?
3. Exploring how much creativity you put into your work. Are you simply going through the motions and doing the minimum possible to get by, or are you putting yourself into your work and making it truly yours? If the work doesn’t spark you, what can you do to change it?
4. What might you suggest at work to enhance the creativity of yourself and others? Brainstorm with others and make recommendations.

Remember, we are ALL creative.

May 2010 be a creative year for you.

Blessings,

Kimberly Weichel

1) the potential to be visionary is in all of us, though visionary potentials like instincts, imagination and intuition are more likely to be quashed than developed;

2) the worlds of work and money and everything else that affects us are in sore need of real vision, not just same-old strategies or the newest shiny thing; and

3) being the visionaries we were born to be is a lot simpler than trying to live without vision.

Forget old notions that we’re not visionary unless we do something spectacular

… like finding a cure for cancer or being at least as innovative as Steven Spielberg was in his least groundbreaking film.  Forget the impossible idea that to be visionary, we’ve got to foretell the future, not just pay attention to what is and notice what’s likely to happen if we keep moving in the same direction.

Also forget the notion that being very imaginative or making lots of money or impacting many people makes you a visionary.  That definition includes the people who built up the housing bubble and the banking crisis, plus terrorists like the underpants bomber.

Consider this simple, more beneficiary definition of visionary:

We are visionary when, with the help of others, we

1) see clearly what is,

2) imagine what can be,

3) discern which possibilities have integrity in all its meanings:  honest, just, naturally ethical, on true with our deepest values, and on the level with others (including the natural world) and

4) engage in a process of turning into reality the possibilities that we have deemed to be filled with integrity.

What Could Happen By Playing with This Definition of Visionary?

If you were more visionary at life and work, would you see more clearly how you can create the career that calls you in spite of obstacles that now block you?

Would you find new ways to serve yourself and others in your current job, in your community, or through volunteer service?  Would you see better the ways you now create unrest in your relationships, then envision how to build a least a little more peace in your small corner of the world?

What about money?  Could you see more clearly your true financial needs?  Could you discern better what’s really important to you and what’s not?

An Invitation to Investigate Your Visionary Potentials

Several of the posts on this blog relate to being more visionary; some are listed at the bottom of this post.  I hope you check them out.

Several years ago, I wrote “Finding Visions for Work and Life,” which is at www.workwithmeaningandjoy.com.  I hope you check that out, and choose a small paragraph a day from the article as inspiration for your meditations.

Next week, January 20, I’ll be facilitating a webinar for my undergraduate alma mater, William & Mary ,called ” How to Know and Do What Matters Most in All Your Life and Work.”  You don’t have to be an alum to attend, and it’s free.  Please consider joining us at:  https://www.wmalumni.com/?Webinarhome.

Your comments and ideas here are welcome.  Just imagine if each of us opened up our hearts and minds just a little bit more, then shared our ideas and dreams — no matter how big and scary they seem right now.  That’s actually what happened in Williamsburg, VA (the home of William & Mary) and other colonial towns where people dared to dream that their lives could be much better, then dared to follow their dreams with effective, caring action.

As always, many blessings

Pat McHenry Sullivan

St. John of the Cross called times like this “the dark night of the soul.”  However the challenge manifests, there’s a sense that you’re at the end of your road.  Whatever spiritual practices worked in the past don’t work now.  Just when you need clear guidance, you’re more clueless than you may dare to admit.

That, as St. John wrote, is as it should be.  Sometimes, the only way to deal with pain is to stop trying to understand it, and simply experience it.  It’s as if we’ve taken all our spiritual wisdom to its edge, and the only way to find our next step is to go past all we think we know, into the darkness of unknowing.  Only then can we see the faint light in our own heart, guiding us to whatever wisdom we need next.

The Dark Night of the Soul Is Rich

Viktor Frankl, author of Man’s Search for Meaning, showed us how even in the midst of great suffering (for him, it was Auschwitz and the loss of most of his family to concentration camps), we can choose how we deal with circumstances.  By finding our own meaning, we become empowered and courageous.

Yet there is a limit to what we can individually do, no matter now courageous or inspired we are.  We don’t create all our own reality, and sometimes the most effective thing we can do is to stop trying to “reframe” what is, and simply be present to ultimate reality, to the eternal presence, to consciousness itself.

Such a stance requires humility, receptivity and letting go the ego’s focus on itself, including our particular dramas of the moment.  That’s not easy.

A Personal Experience of the Dark Night of the Soul

My life’s work coalesced in the early 1990′s, when my husband John was frequently out of work.  Just to pay the bills I took a legal secretarial job (which paid more than more interesting paralegal work) in a corporate law firm. Shortly after, the first of three relatives became mortally ill back east.  Our cat also became ill, requiring expensive veterinary care and frequent injections of fluids under his skin.

Often, I tried to give John a vision for how he could solve his vocational problems, so I wouldn’t have to do so much overtime to pay for all those trips back east. That our marriage survived is due to friends who could confront as well as support, to John’s basic goodness, and to the strength of the vows we had taken.

Finally, I began practicing what I had learned in graduate school under theologian Matthew Fox.  Matt often quoted Meister Elkhart’s statement that God is Isness.  That same statement has been used by Zen masters and others, recognizing God as ultimate reality, or constant presence.  Truly, in the vernacular, “it is what it is.”

Matt often defined the spiritual journey as a constant interplay of the wonder and joy of the Via Positiva and the need to let go and let be in the darkness, suffering and silence of the Via Negativa.  Out of this interplay of the positive and negative come the Via Creativa (self explanatory!) and the Via Transformativa, or compassion, interconnection, and justice-making.

Inspired by these and other teachings, I prayed to apply them in my job.  Over time I discovered that this huge law firm was filled with kindred spirits. I also discovered the soul of law, along with my call to serve that soul.  When John found a job as research director of a spirit and work resource guide, I was ready to see clearly my true place in life.

Much as We Try to Avoid It, We All Need to Go Through Many Dark Nights of the Soul

As a culture, we create a lot of pain by trying to avoid it.  Sometimes, painful things just have to be faced for what they are, not “reframed” into something seemingly more positive, or medicated away.  Instead of blaming ourselves or others because something we deem bad has happened, sometimes it’s more important to accept both how much and how little we can control things like the economy.

Here’s my dream:  instead of pressuring ourselves or our leaders to come up with a quick solution to problems, we support each other to be more prayerful and reflective. Instead of individually and collectively maintaining a desperation to know it all, we help each other through the humble frustration of knowing that right now, we’re not clear about the best path towards ending war, creating jobs, or anything else. Then into that field of unknowing, we plant our most powerful and true desire to see clearly what’s best.

Hopefully, this is just the beginning of a larger discussion.  I pray you join me in your own reflections about the dark night of the soul and how it applies to your life, work and financial dealings. Hopefully, we can then help each other go through those scary times when being clueless is absolutely the right way to be.  Only then can we come through to new vision.

As always, many blessings,

Pat McHenry Sullivan