The Amiel Blog

Meeting-free week #2

During my year-end review in December, I asked myself: how to create more time and space in life for the important-but-not urgent activities like writing, reflecting, extended spiritual practice, play, and reading? One answer: declare one meeting-free week per month, starting with a pilot period from January to March. No client calls or F2Fs, no business development, etc.

Last week was the second one of the year. Several observations:

1. Not all important-but-not urgent activities fit into the "retreat-like" categories listed above. I spent quite a bit of time on finances, bathroom planning (not how to go, or even how to help Jacob go, but what the new one in our house will look like) and processing my inbox like a good GTD (Getting Things Done) practitioner.

2. Once aware of this, I found myself feeling frustrated, even angry. "I'm not doing anything I want to do!"

3. What was evoked was a familiar pattern of interpreting an event in a way that seeds self distrust. Ah, that familiar friend! Is it possible to give the superego the week off, too.

4. A second such seed: I backed Julie's car into a telephone pole, the first one I've hit in twenty years. I was alone in the car, and the bump exerted less force on my body than dumbbells do when I lower them to the ground behind my head. To honor my commitment, I didn't schedule my "meeting" with the body shop until the next Monday (today).

5. Now here lies the genius of the meeting-free week. I had and created (more than the usual amount of) time to feel my emotions, listen to the body sensations, and use meditation to unglue myself from the bodymind's constrictions.

6. Notably, I delved into Wilber, which reminded me of the developmental benefits of meditations other than the kath (my standard practice as part of being a Diamond Approach student) and of the distinction between "pathological" neurotic fear and the fear that all bodyminds have of death, of losing their sense of self. The latter insight relaxed me instantly by suggesting - yet again - that some of my everyday anxiety isn't "bad" but simply human and a subtle sign of Rocketship Amiel preparing to blast off into or beyond what Wilber calls vision-logic (which is transverbal but not transpersonal).

7. The week concluded last night with Julie and I doing inquiry (into our respective moment-to-moment experiences--another Diamond Approach practice). While listening, I did a third-eye meditation and felt more present to her and myself than usual. Remarkably few thoughts cluttered the mind. My inquiry ("monologue") that followed involved mostly exploring the meditative buzz and the visual and auditory sensations through which I felt its expression. Beautiful!

8. Guess what was the first email in my inbox this morning? Yes, a request from a client to schedule something during my meeting-free week in late March. Time for a counter-offer!

February is Heart Month

During a two-day retreat in late January in Berkeley with my friends, Jon and Michael, I had a powerful insight: my heart matters. No, not just the physical heart, but the experience of feeling my emotional heart. The key part of the insight was that feeling love is (a) key to guiding me professionally, because my purpose is shaped by and expressed through love and (b) something I don't want to die not having felt fully.

So I have declared February Heart Month.

This has led to a couple of new practices (yes, there is still space to add more to the day!):

• Daily heart-opening practice. Could be poetry, writing, listening to an inspirational speaker, movie, or music. The Meditations for Thais that I listen to twice (10 min total) after my workout evokes warmth in the heart. But the best practice has been simply pausing in the midst of activity to feel sensations in the heart and send the breath into them and observe the result. For example, last night Jacob took an hour to fall asleep. While I was sitting with him and then laying next to him, I started to notice my heart and granted myself permission to feel it. A warm, silky feeling entered my experience
• Daily wordcentric practice. Worldcentric means embracing everyone in my sense of self. The idea for this came from past experiences reading or listening to inspirational people who call me to my highest self, particularly while discussing what's happening in our world. A piece of writing by Parker Palmer is one example. Ken Wilber's book One Taste is another. Yet I'm finding it difficult to quickly access sources. Interestingly, my own writing seems to do the trick as well as anything...

Experimenting with staying in one place

We're now a week into November, and I just realized what this month's experiment is about: imagining we'll live in Portland for the long term. And not just imagining it but living as if this were the case. A host of factors have led to this experiment:

• Deepening my Diamond Approach practice has helped me get in touch with--and see objectively--some distorted thinking to which I have been prone the past few years. In particular, I've seen the fallacies behind the narrative that "I'm meant to be in the Bay Area because that's where my community is, that's where four or five of my best friends are, that's where I developed a spiritual practice and learned Integral Coaching." It's an interesting story with some facts to support it and many that don't support it. The big "aha" was realized that the people I consider great friends in the Bay Area are not great friends by my own standard, one that includes frequent communication. In fact, the notion that they are great friends is a concept in my mind that, when poked even slightly, falls down rather quickly.
• Developing a whole set of deliberate somatic practices (nutrition, strength training, etc.) has helped me feel present in my body, in my home, and in this city. I actually feel like I'm here rather than thinking about being someplace else.
• We have made investments in our home over the last year, and I've enjoyed the process. These include waterproofing the basement, buying and sculpting a new screen door, getting the exterior window trim painted, putting a cap on the chimney, trimming bushes in the back yard...and the list goes on. Each investment we make, each time I talk to a contractor, and each time I see the physical results I experience myself as someone who owns this home, who inhabits this space.
• Recent reading about being self-sufficient as a family and neighborhood in the event of possible/probably energy and food shortages in the future due to peak oil and global climate weirdness--this reading points to many virtues of not just Portland but the neighborhood where we live. More on this below.
• Three 9-year-old girls in the neighborhood stopped by two weeks ago to offer their "practice babysitting" services. We accepted on the spot, and within minutes they were playing with Jacob in the living room while Julie cooked dinner and I lifted weights. 
• Twice in the past week, colleagues have referred possible clients to me, something that hasn't happened in a while. I suspect the timing is related to the publishing on my newsletter.
• A general feeling of contentedness and ease I feel, even when contemplating somewhat dismal scenarios for the economy and biosphere. This is the sign of a healthy (Enneagram) Six mind: highly alert to what's happening, particular dangers, yet relaxed, confident and trusting about the ability to respond.

The list above is not just what prompted this monthly experiment but also a descripton of how that experiment is unfolding.

Now, let me return to the question of what makes Portland a great place to be in the face of possible food and energy shortages sometime in the coming years? To answer this question, I'd like to quote the most important factors in choosing a place to live from the book Depletion and Abundance: Life on the New Home Front by Sharon Astyk:

• A place that would be good to live not just in five years but in 50 or 100 years
• Water--and lots of it--both for drinking and farming. This rules out places like Arizona and Las Vegas, which may see a mass exodus when U.S. water supplies  decline. Fortunately, never wanted to move there. In contrast, Portland and the Northwest as a whole has plenty of water, not just rainfall but reservoirs and the Columbia River.
• Not sitting on top of major energy resources (e.g. oil, gas). No problem here with that.
• Local food security, i.e. the region can mostly feed itself rather than requiring on imports which in turn depend on intact transport networks and low fuel prices. The Willamette Valley is a great place for growing food.
• Near the people you love. This is where Portland falls shortest. We are lucky Wendy, Bill, Phoebe and Will are just two hours away, but the rest of our families are spread out all over. I'm sad to write this, but the broad spread of our families makes no region any better than any other, unless it is one likely to attract other family members to move there. Perhaps Portland can be one such place, particularly once our country starts to feel the impacts of peak oil.

Portland actually matches up better on most of these criteria than the Bay Area. 

Let me mention a few other dimensions of the experiment happening this month:

• We are starting to explore ways to grow vegetables in our back yard (and possibly in the front yard). My father has agreed to help me do some research during their trip here this weekend
• I had a solar installation company come out to talk about putting PV cells on our roof for either solar electric or solar hot water. Solar electric is practically free, but it requires building a bigger dormer, i.e. one that would be part of a second bathroom project
• I've made connections with two men in the neighborhood who are thinking about home and neighborhood preparedness. 
• I've become more willing to do coaching work that pays less than my standard fees but is local in order to be of service and further embed myself in the community

 

Hat month - the first three weeks

Three weeks into Handelsman Hat Month, I can report the following findings:

• People everywhere notice my hats...and many comment on them. In each case, I've enjoyed the feeling of being "seen" and felt pride when given a compliment
• Several people who previously didn't know who I was now recognize me by sight if not by name, e.g. one of the security desk people at a client site
• At least three of my clients showed delight at seeing a snazzy hat on their coach's head
• The impact of wearing a hat declines the longer I wear it without anyone noticing it. Conversely, every time I put the hat on or take it off, I am aware of this experiment. Ditto for everytime another person reacts to it.
• Some places are easier to bring a nice hat than others. Where do you put your hat in a restaurant? It depends...What if you don't want to wear the hat on an airplane? 
• Jacob has yet to crush any of the nice hats, but it's still early...

September = Hat Month

In the spirit of self-experimentation and inspired by A.J. Jacobs, I hereby proclaim September "Handelsman Hat Month." For the 411, check out this 1 minute video I created:

Download Hat Month 090111