Dear Why Team member,
I hope this week’s message finds you well, learning and loving, growing, and giving.
This week’s message rose up out of my longest meditation ever: 53 minutes.
I find it interesting that I’ve assigned ‘time’ to what was mostly a ‘timeless’ experience. It seems the more ‘timeless’ my meditative experience, the longer the session. And the more the experience is perceived in ‘time’, the shorter the session. The more I focus on ‘doing’ a meditation, the less I am ‘being’ present in the meditation.
Today’s session, during my Spring Break, was particularly wonderful. A mantra arose during the session of ‘Ever Present Timeless Peace’. The deeper I went into the present, the less awareness I had of time - and thus the longer session.
Why meditate, why ‘be’?
Many years ago, a significant and early teacher in my life, Dr. Curt Spear would encourage me to meditate. I remember thinking it didn’t feel very productive, and maybe that’s why I needed it most. So much of my identity was in my ‘doing’. I’ve certainly done a lot in my life and have gotten many accolades for what I’ve done. I am one who has been fortunate to receive respect and admiration from peers, receiving many glass-made awards, Wholesaler of the Year, and my favorite being the Leadership Awards. But the question remains for me, where did I lead them? Did I model how to ‘do’ more or how to ‘be’ more? Hopefully, both.
We absolutely live in a ‘Do to Be’ culture. Cause and effect is so obvious, action brings results, so, it therefore must be the optimal path, right?
If there is anything I’ve learned on my 61-year journey is that the ‘opposites are more likely to be true’. In fact, a great strategy to fuel growth in our thinking, and ultimately in our being, is to try out the opposite of all that we have come to believe is true. Notice how the greatest teachers throughout history have blown our minds (minds that prefer certainty) with thoughts that oppose what we have thought for certain was true.
One of my favorites is that it’s ‘better to give than to receive’. Most people naturally feel it’s better to receive. Don’t we work incredibly hard to receive? And of course, the power of the giving depends on the ‘why’ of the giving. There are certainly those who ‘give to get’. Maybe it’s less about the giving, and more about ‘why’ the giving?
There was a time, many years ago, when l would clean the kitchen to get affirmation; DO TO BE. And I would suffer from the ‘want’ of affirmation if it were not forthcoming. What was packaged as a serving action, deep down was to get attention, recognition, gratitude.
I use this kitchen cleaning story as a metaphor that can apply to any action we take to get something we feel we lack. Fortunately, because I love asking ‘why’ questions, I gained awareness from my suffering and chose a different path, a different intent. I stopped setting myself up for disappointment, making myself dependent on another’s acknowledgment and approval.
I stopped ‘DOING TO BE’
and began ‘BEING TO DO’.
I began to ‘BE’ with the task at hand - enjoying the activity for its own sake - and to this day I love cleaning the kitchen. The cleaning became its own reward, a practice in presence, a meditation.
I baked my own cake of satisfaction. Any acknowledgment or gratitude I received was only the icing. I can live perfectly happy and at peace with, or without, the icing. To this day, cleaning the kitchen is an active meditation rather than a quiet focus on my breath, as I do in the morning. I focus fully on the task at hand - ‘being’; and it’s rewarding.
🎁 Being present, is being the present. 🎁
Maybe it all began in the kitchen for me. There is no end to the power of ‘why’ thinking. It empowers us to dig deeper and thus make more discoveries. Meditation is a doorway to greater depth of ‘being’. And today, ‘being’ informs my ‘doing’ in ways I could never have imagined.
Today, my work life has never been more enjoyable, and more productive. There is an enthusiasm I feel, a feeling often shared by others with me, an experience that comes from a full-on emersion in the present moment.
My mother told me as a young man that I had the gift of enthusiasm; that I could trust its return no matter how distracted and difficult my life may become. It was only in time that I’ve discovered what she observed in me when I was a child - my living in the present moment.
All spiritual practice is present practice.
All ritual is to bring us into the present, the now, the ‘being’.
We are human ‘beings’ first, not human ‘doings’ first. So many of us strive to ‘do’ whatever that thing we feel we must ‘do’ to arrive at ‘being’ fulfilled, worthy, and at peace.
Most marketing of anything implies that ‘we’re not enough, but we could be” -
in a new car, in a new outfit, in a new house, with a new spouse?!
The truth can be hard to find as it is often the opposite of what we have come to think. My first book is literally titled, ‘Don’t Believe Everything You Think’.
It is not hard to imagine that there are errors in our thinking. Asking ‘Why’ questions are particularly powerful for challenging our current habits of thought - to awaken us, to give us new ears to hear, and new eyes to see.
The opposite of ‘Do to Be’ is ‘Be to Do’.
It is said that there is no way to happiness, but rather that happiness IS the way. A change in perspective can change how we see everything. There are moments like this one for me, when the simple act of ‘being’ has brought forth the ‘doing’ of writing.
I’ve been speaking professionally for 19 years, add the 20 years prior speaking from stage as a salesman; the journey has been absolutely incredible - and in all those years, a significant question yet unanswered for me, until just a few years ago, was: ‘what do I do to connect to the audience?’. I was experiencing the connection but was unaware of what to ‘do’ to make it happen. I could never get my finger on it and it always created additional anxiety before every speech, ‘what if it doesn’t happen this time?’
I kept asking, ‘what do I do to be connected?’. And one day, it occurred to me, that the error was in the question.
The question itself included a presupposition; what I pre-supposed about the situation. The question I was asking revealed my assumption that I wasn’t already connected.
“The quality of our life depends upon the quality of our questions.” - Tony Robbins
When I awoke to the deeper awareness that the connection was already present, I no longer feared a lack of connection. I now ‘Be to Do’ from the moment I walk onto stage. Being present with the audience, from the get-go, only makes sense, for my message to be received.
The more present I am with the audience, the more the audience is present to receive what I am sharing. There is no more valuable a resource we give to another than our precious time. ‘Being’ with the audience IS connection with the audience - and nothing I could ‘do’ would bring the ‘being’ that was already present.
Our presence is the greatest present we can give to each other.
The gift of ‘being’ is alone worthy.
It is amazing to me, that for a guy who has believed most of his life, that he is only as good as what he does - to discover that just ‘being’ is the absolute best thing I can ‘do’ to be all the more for myself and others - is the Best insight I could have gotten. It absolutely blows my mind. And because it is the absolute opposite of what I have thought to be true most of my life - I believe it all the more to be true.
I cannot recommend enough the power of ‘being’…. Begin each day, just ‘being’.
I now no longer miss a morning without my ‘present practice’ - being present, quiet, and in silence.
I believe, and have experienced, that simply ‘being’ at the beginning of each new day, profoundly informs my ‘doing’ throughout the day.
So much so, that I believe a morning ‘present practice’ to be paramount to living an optimal life. Even if for only 5 minutes, the length of time ‘being’ is not an issue as the ‘ever present’ is outside of time. A discovery I made on these morning timeless adventures.
For anyone who would like to ‘do’ more after a lifetime of doing, doing, doing, I invite you to ‘be’ more and marvel at the doing that will naturally arise from the opposite of how you have lived most of your life. Download ‘Headspace’ for a free tutorial on meditation. It’s less about emptying your mind of thoughts, and more about observing the thoughts. Allowing thoughts to arise, being the observer of the thoughts, and then letting them go. To detach from our thoughts is the beginning of wisdom. We are not our thoughts - thoughts are clouds that have come to pass. We are the observer of the thoughts, we are the sky, not the clouds. Experience the ever-present timeless peace. When we ‘Be’ more, we can come to ‘know’ more, the truth that will set us free.
Here’s to BEING HERE NOW!
NOW is our life-time, the only time we have ever lived: NOW!
Enjoy more ‘Being’ and you’ll enjoy even more your ‘Doing’
And no doubt you’ll make it your
BEST WEEK EVER!
Steve Luckenbach