What’s On Your (my) Mind?

Image from Pawel Czerwinski via Unsplash

About a year ago I read “The Coaching Habit” by Michael Bungay Stanier, and my biggest takeaway was the power of simply asking anyone, “what’s on your mind?”

I’ve found it to be a helpful question in many situations (professional, social, romantic), especially when I’m present, aware, and attuned enough to listen well.

I’m currently on a flight to Chicago and I want to write, but my brain is too battered after a week straight of dreadful sleeps. I don’t think I have it in me to choose one topic to dive into deeply, so I’ve decided just to ask myself, what’s on my mind?

A few things stand out:

Spiritual Warriorhood

I’ve been thinking a lot about Spiritual Warriorhood, a term I’ve come across in several books and podcasts. I feel drawn to it and I quite like this description, by Pema Chodron:

“For practitioners or spiritual warriors–people who have a certain hunger to know what is true–feelings like disappointment, embarrassment, irritation, resentment, anger, jealousy, and fear, instead of being bad news, are actually very clear moments that teach us where it is that we’re holding back. They teach us to perk up and lean in when we feel we’d rather collapse and back away.”

I like to think about myself, and my life, in this way. I like the idea of challenging myself to develop the capacity to feel all of life’s feelings, with as much presence, openness, and fearlessness as I can - so I can feel and see more of what is true, rather than just what is comfortable.

Prayer

This one will likely seem surprising to folks who know me, as it tends to be associated, almost exclusively, with stereotypical religious prayer like the ones in a Catholic Church. But, over the past few years, my idea of what prayer can mean has been expanded by a number of different authors, spiritual teachers, and personal experiences.

To be clear I personally have no interest in asking an anthropomorphized, white-bearded, man-God for extra help building my business or to let me off the hook for having pre-marital sex. Rather, when I refer to prayer, I’m more or less talking about dedicated time in my day to reflect on and remind myself of my own nature as a human, the nature of life itself, the oneness and connectedness of everything, and of the values that I’ve declared important to me.

What I’m finding is that, no matter how many spiritual books or podcasts I consume (and that I am genuinely moved and changed by), without a daily commitment to engaging with these ideas, values, and truths, it’s far too easy to get caught up in and consumed by more secular aspects of day-to-day life, like: status, things, wants, and self-obsession, which always lead to pain and suffering.

I’ve not yet developed a consistent or totally structured approach for how to incorporate this into my life, but I do try - most mornings - to engage in some combination of reading, writing, meditation, and/or mindfulness for 1-2 hours, and the difference in my quality of mind and attention, when I do make that time, is immeasurable.

When I take that hour or two, I feel like I’m in the driver’s seat of my mind and day. When I don’t, I end up feeling like I’m being dragged through the day by my collar.

I also think running, cooking, shaving, or pretty much anything can be treated as prayer, depending how you approach it.

Love

I can’t believe, and it’s sort of embarrassing to admit, that I hadn’t ever thought about what “love” really meant until I was like… 28 years old. That said, far outweighing the embarrassment is the sense of empowerment and possibility I feel in beginning to uncover how flawed and confused my idea of love has been for my entire life, and to develop my own definition of what it truly means, in many different aspects of life (love of self, familial love, romantic relationships, love in friendship, community, work and business).

I think the first book that kicked off this long-overdue investigation was “The Way to Love”, a collection of meditations by Indian Jesuit Priest and Psychotherapist, Anthony de Mello. It’s a tiny pocket book, with short passages. Very easy to read and digest. Very powerful. I’ve probably gifted it to 20 people. Highly recommend.

More recently I was recommended “All About Love” by bell hooks, and it’s also been a total game changer/earth shatterer/mind blower. hooks (I guess she always wanted her name written in lower case) wrote about the importance of having a more well-defined idea of what “love” means, as a society and as individuals, and suggests that it consists, largely, of a combination of “care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication.”

And, while considering this definition, hooks also suggests that we “begin by always thinking of love as an action rather than a feeling.”

I was also intrigued by hooks’ writing about why she liked living in a small town:

“I like living in small towns precisely because they are most often the places in our nation where basic principles underlying a love ethic exist and are the standards by which most people try to live their lives. In the small town where I live (now only some of the time) there is a spirit of neighborliness, fellowship, care, and respect.”

This leads me to one more topic I’ve been thinking about a lot.

Toronto vs. Halifax

I love Nova Scotia and Halifax. There’s no question for me as to where I want to spend (most of) my life and “settle down” for lack of better phrasing. It’s where my family is, it’s where most of the people I love are, and there’s an abundance of what hooks called “a spirit of neighborliness, fellowship, care, and respect.”

I moved to Toronto about 3.5 years ago (while keeping an apartment in Halifax and very much planning to travel back and forth) to open a second office for threesixfive, in hopes of expanding our Canadian presence and clientele, and - on a more personal level - to meet new people, to see and try new things, to be challenged, and to learn and grow.

Despite the fact that two of those years were devoured by Covid, and that I wasn’t able to travel back and forth at all for a year and a half, I can still say that it’s been a worthwhile endeavour. Our business and its national footprint have grown plenty, I’ve made tons of new friends, I’ve tried way too many awesome restaurants, and I’ve had tons of beautiful (and hard) new experiences that have helped me learn about myself, about life, about the world, and also about what I love and miss about home.

For the past 1.5 years, I’ve been splitting my time - give or take - about 50/50 between Toronto and Halifax, travelling back and forth, ebbing and flowing as business, personal needs, and the universe dictate. This is an enormous privilege, to get the best of both worlds, but it comes at a cost and the travelling back and forth can be quite taxing. Between the time spent commuting to airports and on flights, constantly packing and unpacking your life into the suitcase that you effectively live out of, and having to re-establish and re-orient yourself every week or two can be very destabilizing and makes it very difficult to maintain a sense of rhythm, routine, and groundedness.

It’s a choice, though, obviously. I know that. I know I can make the decision, at any time, to either just move home or commit to being away for a while.

But I don’t think I’m ready to commit just yet. I’m enjoying the polarity between the two cities and lifestyles, and the benefits of having access to both, too much right now.

I am taking some steps to make the split feel a bit less daunting though, like getting my own apartment in Halifax again rather than crashing with friends.

It’s hard feeling like I can never give my whole self to either place consistently, but I’m okay with that for now.

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