Reflection - Talk 14 of 25

Topic: The R Word

Theme: Reflection 

Author: Barry Sweet

Date: January 7, 2018

Video Production by Tim & Karen Morse. Morsephotography.com

Ahhh the R word…

Reflection.

One of my favorite words in the English language. My philosophy is… if it doesn't start with philosophy, it is reactionary. And so all of our best decisions are starting from a place of a philosophical center, where we have thought “What do I want it to be like? What do I want my life to be like?  What do I want our experience to be like?” And when you spend that time… it is time so well invested. 

Reflection.

Take some time alone, not with the noise all around. 

The best reflection questions that I have learned, have come from my relationship with Walt McNairy. It doesn't matter whether you've gone through something good or you've gone through something bad, through something hard or through something easy. When you get together with Walt, the first question he asks you is “What did you learn?”  “What have you learned?”

It then takes that hard thing that you've gone through… and teaches you how to get less hard next time… or that good thing you've gone through, and it teaches you how to get even more good the next time. It's the redemptive question. It redeems all things when you ask “What did you learn?” “What have you learned?”

And there's reflection in that… that makes us more deliberate, more intentional more awake or alive. Sharper… than if we just Autopilot through life. From there, we've sort of stumbled into this thing that we've been calling the McBarry question (just because it rhymes with McNairy) and that is “What are you learning?” 

This is what you know (Barry tapping the palm of his hand). This is what you don't know (Barry tapping the back of his hand). I ask you to reach through the veil (Barry reaching with his right hand through the fingers on his left hand), and try to feel that thing that you're learning, that thing that you don't… are not able to articulate yet. That thing that you don't have any words on… try to get the shape of it… the feel of it… if you can get the color of it… or the warmth or coolness of it… Anything! 

Hook a finger on to it, pull it back through and name it and as Einstein says “If you name it you got 51% of a chance of understanding it” and that's our cutting edge… that thing. “What are you learning?” 

That's where we're growing right now… and until you articulate it, it's going to remain that fuzzy, hazy thing… sort of pushing you around behind the scenes, that you don't really understand. By naming it…It's going to bring it out into the open, and then you can make progress on it, make movement forward, on your own personal journey and get to be that person that you want to be, rather than just kind of, being stuck in the eddy being who you always are… over and over and over again. 

Now the R word… Reflection takes some time… where you spend some time alone. 

We've learned from Carlos Castaneda about the “Sit Spot…” Where you find a place that you just go and sit, I don’t care if it’s the forest, or the beach… doesn't matter… wherever calls you…

But for example, one place in the forest floor… will call to you and say “Come sit here… This is the right spot…” and I don't know… maybe I'm a kook. But the energy is just good for you there. It feels good and you sort of become rather than an idea generator… an idea receiver… and you can learn new things about yourself, about your life, about your direction, about where you're going, about what you want, about how you're going to get there… but that time alone… is invaluable. 

And yeah… you get it in community with other people, doing your ideastorming and trying to figure out solutions. But we also have a healthy dose of getting it through and having breakthroughs on those answers by spending time in reflection. I've learned this year that there's a difference between “Being and Doing” And wow, are we caught up in doing… and to be again… What would it take for you to be… just to go and sit for a while… and just be.

I found that I can be… by not doing. And just try not doing for a while… It's unbelievable how we are groomed to doall the time.  But when you find that beingagain…Well, I learned it in a book titled… It's called “Things you can see, only when you slow down”. There is a world of things out there that we're not seeing because we're all moving too fast. One author calls it “The Cult of Speed…” Wow. Because we're addicted to it. We love it so much. I'm not saying to go into the Cult of Slow…  but I'm just making an encouragement and an invitation for all of us to slow down. Slow down. Take some time for the R word. There’s Power there… Magic there… Goodness there. 

We've also learned from Eleanor Roosevelt. Her quote is that “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, and small minds discuss people”.  And we've found such great juice in just discussing ideas.  A whole world of wonderful ideas and sharing them with each other, we can upspin them and become more than we are… and I think that's probably what most of us want. I have another thought just to add on to that… When we slow down we have to stop the noise until the static stops in our head. There's an incredible amount of static goin’ on up there… and stopping long enough till the static stops, may take awhile. But there are huge benefits to slowing down and stopping for long enough to get to that place once again.