Empty Your Cup

During the most recent altMBA meet-up, Mark Guay and I met at Trilogy Sanctuary - a beautifully vibrant locale.  Mark brought two books to give to me based on his inspiration after reading my blog (this blog) and having visited Chicano Park.  I am touched.  So thoughtful and heartfelt.

Once we got into the meat of the meeting, as I was sipping a cup of cold brew coffee after weeks without coffee, I found myself feeling a bit unhinged, excited, talking and talking, organizing my thoughts as I explained my feelings of being overwhelmed, of feeling like a hamster running in a wheel.  Mark jotted notes on sticky notes as I spoke.  He interjected, even interrupted me at one point, and I am glad that he did.  I had started my spiel with the premise that I felt unorganized.

"It's not that you are unorganized," he told me, "you seem very organized, using two digital calendars and a self-made journal organizer.  You aren't prioritizing effectively."  He asked a few key questions, like, "How many people do you have that you can delegate to?"  I have at least four that I can consistently delegate to, and with some of my plans for added staff roles, even more.  Am I effectively delegating though.  Not yet.  Mark brought up mindfulness, and I explained that I practice various forms of mindfulness on a regular basis.

And then the it hit him.  "Do you journal?  Not like this bullet journal, but write, just to get thoughts out and onto the page?" he asked.  "Not recently, no."  "Try five minute brain dumps every morning, or at night," he suggested, "write whatever comes to mind. It will help clear your mind." It didn't strike me at first as potentially the key to my de-stressing, the throwing off of the hamster wheel blanket; until we went downstairs and while heading to our cars Mark mentioned one of his favorite Buddhist Koans (and one of my favorites as well):

Nan-in, a Japanese master during the Meiji era, received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. 

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor’s cup full, and then kept on pouring. 

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. “It is overfull. No more will go in!” 

“Like this cup,” Nan-in said, “you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?”

How can I possibly focus on any one thing when my cup is overflowing?  I must first empty my cup.

Bullet journaling is key and I have noticed benefits to clarity and focus when I commit the time to fully engage and work on my journal daily - at least 15 minutes every day to clear my cache, check on upcoming tasks and events, and set my intentions for the day.  What I have not been engaging in is brain dump journaling, stream of consciousness writing for the sake of writing and clearing my mind.  I used to write in a journal everyday in my youth.  Maybe the hamster wheel of achievement and career accomplishment, of family obligations and commitments, got in the way?  No matter what the reason was that I stopped - I will start a daily writing journal today.  (And I look forward to the mental health benefits of my writing).

I will empty my cup, and when I pour too much in, I will empty it again.

Let it go

When someone is hurt by my actions or when my actions cause a loss of opportunity for myself or others, I dwell on my mistakes. I wallow in my guilt and shame. I get stuck in the past. Sometimes this lasts days and it stops me from being productive, from being able to be my full self and from having my full capabilities.

Two monks were walking together when they came upon a river. At the river’s edge was a woman, two small to cross the roaring river on her own. The monks had vowed never to touch a woman again. One monk began to cross the river, leaving his companion and the woman on the bank. The other monk approached the woman and motioned for her to climb onto his back. She did, and he helped her across the river. After they crossed, she got down and they parted ways. The two monks walked together again, away from the river for some time before either of them spoke. The monk who first crossed the river spoke, “Brother, you broke your vow. In order to help that woman you touched her.” The second monk responded, “Yes, I did. But I put her down at the edge of the other bank, and you, you are still carrying her after all this time.”

Learning to let go will help me stay in the present moment. And what about worry?

My therapist asked me a question years ago, when I was worrying and asking what if this happens, or that happens. He asked me, “Where did you just go now?” I was dumbfounded for a second, “huh?” He repeated himself, “Where did you go while you were worrying, contemplating all of the negative what ifs?” And it struck me. I was going into the future. Just as with the dwelling on mistakes takes me to the past, worry and anxiety take me into the future. One that I cannot predict.

Mindfulness is a practice that can help us stay in the present moment.  Not caught dwelling on the past nor worrying about an unpredictable future.  The Buddhist koan I relayed above speaks to this mindfulness, to staying in the present moment.  I still struggle with what this present mindedness means for planning, and in the case of the koan and my first mention of mistakes and errors, what that means for broken commitments and damage done.

My papi was not a fan of religion.  He quoted Karl Marx's "Religion is the opiate of the masses" on various occasions to me.  My father was a materialist and did not believe in anything science couldn't prove.

Let's look at Marx's whole quote though, as the one above is taken slightly out of context.  "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."  Here we can see that although the basic element is still in place at the end of these phrases, Marx does acknowledge the soulful and heartfelt role that religion plays in people's lives.

I am not a Buddhist but I have found that I can learn a great deal from all religions, from any and all cultures.  At the base of most religions are very simple values: love, selflessness, service.  And in this case, mindfulness, another form of selflessness.

In the thralls of mindfulness one can part from their body and see the present situation almost as if from third person.  One can detach from the need to be right, or to feel wrong.  One can release the need to take the situation personal, and can breath and be present in the cortex before reacting; when mindful we can make decisions rather than react.

When I am effectively mindful I still feel emotions, I still have thoughts, but I do not get as caught up in them as when I am not mindful.  I can accept that they exist and I can let them be without having to identify myself with each thought and emotion.  I do not have to act until I am ready.  I can simply be.

Yelling, yelling, yelling - the middle way

We yell a lot in our family.  My papi yelled a lot.  I learned it from him.  To bottle my rage.  And mijos, you learn it from me.  Last week, while your mother was away, I had to apologize to you boys for my yelling, for my rage spilling over, for my low threshold and tolerance of your exuberance and silly playfulness.

I have been struggling with setting boundaries, with where to be firm, and where to be soft, and where to be permissive.  I need to stop yelling, to listen to each of you and your voice.  And most times your silly mode is acceptable.  But sometimes it is not.

To be silly and light hearted.  (I have written about this before, and pretty sure I will again).  I know that I will live a much more rewarding and longer life by softening my heart by embracing silly playfulness.

Keep in mind the middle way.  Let's consider the guitar and its strings as an example.  If I tighten the strings too tight, they will give off shrill sounds when played.  They will not last; they will be too brittle when plucked and eventually snap before their time.  If I loosen the strings too much, they will not produce a lasting sound at all and what they do produce will be low and garbled, clanging haphazardly against the body and neck of the guitar.  When I tune the guitar strings just right, in the middle, not loose and not tight, that is when they produce honey sweet sounds for our hearts and ears.  Keep in mind the middle way.

Principles of the Chicano Movement

My papi, Rene Nuñez, taught me that Chicanismo arose out the need for Mexican-Americans to carve their own space into the political landscape of the 60s and 70s, with roots reaching back through tens of thousands of years of existence in the Americas, with the survival of European conquest and colonization sparking the mestizaje that defines so much our identity today, through the Mexican-American war, the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, up to the Lemon Grove Incident, through to the Zoot Suit Riots, and blowouts in East LA, right up to el Plan Espiritual de Aztlán y el Plan de Santa Bárbara - And he taught me that ultimately Chicanismo was not an ethnicity, or even an ethnic identity, but instead a state of mind,a perspective, a world view, and that this state of mind could be adopted by any human being.

The three main principles my papi taught me about the Chicano Movement are: 1) Self-Determination; 2) Higher Education; 3) Community Empowerment and Involvement.

Self-Determination: Every person has a right to define themselves, to define their identity, find their history and their roots.  From my experience with self-determination, I believe that every person knows who they are and what their purpose is.  Sometimes it takes some deep work, to look inside and connect with roots and community in order for people to figure this out for themselves.  No one has the right to tell me, or anyone else, who they are, how to identify themselves, or to limit their potential or purpose in our world.  We have a right to determine this for ourselves.

Higher Education: Critical thinking, reading the world as Paulo Freire would put it, is another human right, and a skill that every person deserves the opportunity to develop.  It is critical that we gain access to the intellectual, political, and social resources provided to us through higher education. High education is another right of every human being in my interpretation of Chicanismo.  It is important that through our involvement in higher education we are able to take part in the creation of our story, of the history of our people, and of the world.

Community Empowerment and Involvement: The most critical element of Chicanismo, according to my father, is giving back to our community - taking on the role of an organic intellectual, who harnesses the resources gained through higher education and brings access to these resources back to his or her community in order to empower our communities to determine their own identities and have the opportunity to gain ever increasing access to educational and political resources.

René defined them in more depth, and in slightly different terms, as you can see in this excerpt:

...principles of the Chicano Movement: 1) The need for Chicanos to recover their history distorted by biased observations of the Chicano reality - that portrayed Mexicans as apolitical, apathetic and amoral; 2) The need for Chicanos to become trained to challenge the negative views that are that are part of that biased history. To provide them with the tools to become critical thinkers who can deconstruct the negative portrayals of the Chicano reality and in the process produce their own history; 3) To train Chicanos to give back to their communities.  To help them understand that as university students they are the leading intellectuals of their communities - the writers, the artists, the doctors, the engineers, the teachers, the politicians, the community activists, and so forth; and 4) To help the students see that they have a choice of two roads to travel as intellectuals. The first is an intellectual in the service of the political/cultural system that produces the biased views of people of color and gender... the second is an 'Organic Intellectual' in the service of his or her community - an intellectual that dedicates him or herself to work with and through their communities to help those communities resolve their problems.

A Few Principles of Emotional Health and Wellness

All of us are a little bit crazy.  We grew up in an imperfect world, with imperfect parents, who hopefully did the best that they could. We have all experienced some form of trauma.

All emotions are good and necessary.  If we limit one emotion, then we limit our capacity for all emotion.

Emotional health is being able to experience our emotions freely and at times extremely; not limiting our ability to experience any of our emotions in their entirety, while also not getting stuck for too long in one extreme or another.  Emotional health is also the ability to keep our experiencing of extreme emotion from harming others.  Ultimately, the ability to fluidly experience the entire range of our emotions while not allowing them to consume us and our actions is a sign of emotional health.

When two people act out of their craziness together, that is when people get hurt.  If one person can stay calm, can keep their craziness out of the interaction, while the first person is acting out, there is a much better chance that no one will be hurt.

We can only go as deeply with someone as we have gone with ourselves.  Without doing work to shed light into our own deepest darkest places, we will run from and help others avoid their dark places.

Be a soft place to land. Allow yourself to land softly.

Lean into your discomfort.  Do the emotional labor.  Dance with fear, and pain, and anger, and hatred, and happiness, and sadness, and love.

In all relationships, whether through intensity and/or duration, we experience all aspects of each person in the relationship; there is no hiding.

Thought without emotion is endless possibilities with no ability to choose or decide.

We have all been traumatized in some way.  We have all developed coping strategies, mechanism, dynamics, and patterns.  If there are any behaviors that you hope to change you must ask yourself, what do I get out of this behavior?  How does this behavior, this belief, this strategy, serve me now?  Am I willing to change this behavior if it no longer is serving my current needs?  With what new behavior can I replace this old strategy?  What new plan can I develop, experiment with, and embrace to serve my current needs?

Self-Defense and Self-Preservation

Rene Nuñez - Front Kick - circa 1972

My papi used to tell me, "Pull your toes back.  Point your foot, now pull your toes back," while demonstrating how to make that happen.  I tried and I tried, I practiced and I practiced, and I can remember when I got it, when my body listened to my mind and I could pull my toes back while extending my foot.  The proper form of the foot during a front kick, putting the ball of the foot in front as the furthest point from the body.

On July 22nd I had the pleasure of assisting master Marcellus Walker in the facilitation of a self-defense workshop.  Marcellus is openly compassionate, notably calm, yet direct and unflinching in addressing the uncomfortable reality of self-defense.  I appreciate his openness to help others develop their martial arts abilities, to face the ugly reality of personal combat and physically defending oneself, while simultaneously emphasizing the beauty and creativity of the art.

The most important aspect of self-defense is psychological; the mental willpower to physically control a situation, and if need be inflict physical harm on another human, in order to preserve one's life.  As Marcellus puts it, "We have a right and responsibility to return home each day to the people who love us, who expect to see us and talk to us later that day."

One of the first steps in self-defense is the ki'hap (or kiai in Japanese pronunciation) - to yell with great energy or "ki".  The ki'hap has both mental and physical implications.  Physically the ki'hap is a forceful breath, invigorating the body and mind during a time of potential stress and rigidity.  Mentally the ki'hap can help the practitioner gather courage and express their intention to engage in a psychical confrontation, whether in practice, competition, or a real life self-defense situation.  Our voice is our first defense, our first expression of self-preservation.

My father was a practiced martial artist.  He studied Tang Soo Do earning a red belt, one below black, before, as he described it, he attempted a jumping side kick over a chair and blew out his knee on a botched landing.  My father also studied and practiced the art of self-preservation, the preservation of our cultural identity as Chicanos, as descendants of the first people in the Americas, as humans who have a right to determine our own identities.

Papi embodied self-preservation, and he wasn't quiet about it.  He modeled it day in and day out, in all aspects of his life.  He made the determination and preservation of our culture, language, identity, and right to quality education and free speech his life's work.

At the workshop, a little over a week ago, the connection of the physical and the psychological, the martial arts of self-defense and the mental willpower of self-preservation crystallized for me.  It is imperative that we empower the voices, the willpower, of communities whose identities are marginalized within the mainstream, that we empower their voices of self-determination and self-preservation.  It is the first step in each community's ability to control their own identity and cast off limitations and barriers.  Voicing our willpower to live, to define ourselves, is the first step in self-defense.

A Puzzle of Pieces

Puzzle pieces By liza31337

A friend of mine observed that I am great at puzzles, as long as I am not one of the pieces.

I get lost all of the time.  Maybe lost is the wrong word.  I need visual reference points or very clear directions while driving, otherwise I get turned around and take the wrong turns.  My sense of direction without a clear view of visual cues that I can recognize is horrible.

Most of the time I require and desire context, I want to see the whole picture before I make decisions and choices about the details.  I have defined myself as a field dependent learner.  However, I do not really fit the traditional definition of a field dependent thinker.

According to the research, first published by Herman Witkin in 1962, and since expounded upon countless times, field dependent thinkers rely more on concrete contexts and details, they tend to be more social, and require more external feedback and stimuli.  These can all be true for me, especially the part about being sensitive to criticism.  It has taken me years to work through carrying my father's criticisms with me everywhere I go.  I have gotten a lot better at caring less about what other people think, a lot better.  I am also very social.  These generalizations fit me.

According to the research, field independent thinkers rely more on abstract concepts, tend to be less social, tend to self-structure situations, and be interested in new concepts for their own sake.  Interestingly enough, I fit many of these definitions as well.  I love analysis and abstract thought, I can definitely self-structure situations - I was an only child until I was 12 years old and spent hours on my own in imaginary play.  And, I love new concepts and ideas for the sake of the idea and concept itself.  I really don't fit neatly into either of these categories.

We rely on generalizations, on categories, to define our world, and sometimes (or many times) the people around us in our world.  Each person fits into a few of the categories we have set to define our world: women/man, black/white/Asian/Mexican/Indian, employed/unemployed, rich/middle class/poor, hard working/procrastinating, field dependent/independent.

But not one person is truly defined by any one of these generalizations.  Not one person fits neatly into any of these categories, really.  Even what may seem to be the clearest distinction between people, gender, is a complicated social marker, with varying degrees of inclusion, of mutual agreement on what makes a man, or a woman.

We are each a piece in the puzzle, and together, as we fit in, as we arrange our identities and our actions, our lives and our living spaces, to include and accommodate, to embrace and involve the people who we depend on in our lives, we form a beautiful puzzle.  Although from a far it looks like one whole image, one neat general category, in reality our puzzle is still made up of individual unique pieces, each independently unique and interconnectedly dependent on each other piece.