Heaven is on the Ground



I've seen the world from upside-down

Productivity is important. We need to work, most of us, in order to live. There is, however, a threshold where productivity must be curtailed, ironically, in order to survive. On the other side of too much work is stress, burnout, heart attacks and strokes.

I have a handle on what it means to be productive and to work hard. A holiday or something to which we can look forward is a light at the end of the tunnel of work. We can draw a line and step away when a task is complete. I also know that there is no such line when it comes to personal development. We can leave work behind, but not ourselves.

I facilitate workshops, for adults and teens, on creativity and the power of searching not for The Truth, but for a better truth. As a life coach, my role is to be radically present as I help my client to find a way forward. My poetry is an investigation into purpose and meaning. A single new thought, a moment of clarity, can change the course of a life.

My search for my own truth has taken me to difficult places. I know that there are times when I could have been kinder. I could have held back on the witty but cutting remark. I could have made more effort to make my nemesis my friend. My life is full of ‘could, would, should’. I went to a Nataniël show recently. In one of his magical stories, he spoke about ‘spyt’ or regret, being the hardest thing to bear.  Sing it with me: ‘Regrets, I’ve had a few…’ and probably not ‘too few to mention’.

We can be our harshest critics. Personal development is not about going to war with ourselves. It’s a reshaping of how we see ourselves and the world. Perception is transformation. Rory Sutherland* believes that the ‘biggest progress in the next 50 years may come not from improvements in technology but in psychology and design thinking’. It’s not what we think; it’s how we think.

I’ll tie this together with a story. I ride a scooter. Just over two weeks ago, a young man in a delivery van turned in front of me. There’s not a lot of dignity in being sprawled in the middle of a busy intersection. The driver, Absalom, came to my help, along with friends who had seen the accident. My overriding memory is of the kindness of friends and strangers and the look of fear in Absalom’s eyes as he said repeatedly that he hadn’t seen me and that it was his fault.

Standing on the side of the road, with a fractured shoulder and a bent bike, I made a choice. If I went the angry route and reported him, he would probably be sanctioned in some way. I have no idea what the ripple effect of that might have been. I told him: ‘Absalom and Ruth are both names from the Bible. It’s ok.’

Does this make me a kind person? No, not necessarily. Have I worked on the skill of being kind? Yes, I try to improve my thinking and my truth all the time.  We are not born being kind, or angry, or helpless. We may have a predisposition to behave in a certain way, but we are also born with choice. Better truth makes for better choices. This is the inspirational teaching of Viktor Frankl, who survived the horror of Auschwitz and dedicated his life to a search for meaning and the power of attitude.

A few days after my accident, I was at a friend’s painting party. The painting, shown here, is awkward, but I needed to capture the words running through my head: ‘I have seen the world from upside-down and heaven is on the ground.’ This is where we can make a difference – in a moment of choice based on how we have taught ourselves to see the world.

Work is hard without purpose. This year has dealt some heavy blows; it has also cleared the space for some wonderful opportunities. All the work that is coming is tied to purpose.

I read this a long time ago and don’t remember the source: If you are holding a glass of water and someone bumps you, what spills out is not the water, but your attitude.

Let’s bump into one another gently. We can all help someone stand up from a broken place.

Sources:
Viktor Frankl: https://preview.tinyurl.com/yxlcknzb
Sutherland, R.2019. Alchemy. The Surprising Power of Ideas that Don’t Make Sense. London: Penguin Random House.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Have The Conversation

On Thursday, I was invited to discuss my poem Black and White with 90 Grade 7s. The poem is about my second mother, Johanna Rapule. At the end of the talk, the girls asked a number of questions about the poem but there is one that has haunted me ever since. ‘What would you say to Johanna if you could speak to her again?’ The easy answer would be to tell her that I loved her. The real answer would be the deep regret that, although she knew my hopes and my dreams, I never knew hers. Growing up in apartheid South Africa, it seemed normal to have Johanna living in the tiny khaya at the bottom of the garden. It was normal to have her cook and clean and iron. I was five; my world was shaped by adults. As I grew up, visionary teachers, like Maureen O’ Gara, awakened me to the injustice that kept Johanna in her place. As a student, I protested and waved placards. We ran from the police down the streets of Benoni. We wrote angry poems, smoked furiously and drank too much wine. ...
Read more

Now is the Time for Courage

Image
A new year beckons. Before you know it we will be challenged by another 1st of January.  It's time to effect the change for which we yearn. Along come all the hopeful resolutions that briefly see the light of day before dying their usual death. Don't make resolutions - again I spoke to a group of people recently and asked them if they had made resolutions for 2020, many of them had. Most were horrified when I told them to ditch their grand plans as they would cause more stress than they were worth. The 1 st of January is like some magical line in the sand – there is a vague hope that we can step across the line and suddenly be all the things that we haven’t been for the last X number of years. The right inspirational moment Things that need to get done, get done. If you amputate a finger while cunningly carving a radish to decorate a salad, you don’t sit on the couch waiting for the right inspirational moment to go to the closest casualty room. You put your...
Read more

Tear Ducts, Onions and Chillies

Image
I’ve had a blocked tear duct for at least two weeks. It looks a little like I’m keeping a giant Easter Egg under my eye. I’ve checked, there’s no Lindt or Geldhof surprise waiting for me, which is a pity. I refuse to visit the doctor for something as puny as an eye duct. When I go, I like to tick off things like back ops, neck fusions, foot reconstructions or the odd skin graft on the troublesome head. Eye will not admit defeat to something the size on a pin prick. I have tried various methods to unblock the duct. Using my powers of deduction (see what I did there?) and Google, I set about finding a solution. Dr Google suggested a hot compress. I heated up a face cloth and reclined on the couch in a tragic pose, calling faintly for tea. The compress did nothing. I’m still hoping for the tea. The next was to try an eye solution. I poured drops into my eye. Nothing helped. Julia did mention that the drops were so past their expiry date that Noah may have dropped them of...
Read more