Lifeletter #176: The Life That Chooses You

Who knows what brings to us these moments, in which we are shaken up, startled, and issued a radical invitation: to step into the life that chooses us. This is our authentic life, not anyone else’s. It’s a life that is much much bigger than our personal agendas. And at the same time, this is our way, which is utterly unique. Not separate, and not the same as any other human being.

Moments like this can be very disturbing. We feel clearly, viscerally, the impact of all of the ways in which we are secretly trying to copy others, where we are still clinging to an image, instead of aligning with what is true and immediate. If we pay attention to this invitation, these distractions, these layers of our counterfeit identity keep peeling away. Even though this process is very disorienting, over time we can allow ourselves, sometimes very slowly, to become more honest, more present, and much more full of feeling. Somehow, bit by bit, we fall into trusting a deeper love and wisdom, without knowing anything. We can allow ourselves to experience the fear of failure, the terror that we have thrown our dreams away, without feeding these stories. Resting, perhaps shaking and trembling in the truth of impermanence, we come to trust in a fluid reality, in which each moment is new and unknown.

This new way of being human infiltrates our work, along with the rest of our life. The nature of our work, our offering to the world, needs to evolve constantly, if it is to remain truly alive. Each one of us is called to new edges in our work, called to leave the comfortable and stifling cocoons we construct, and move into new territory, where the consequences of our actions are no longer predictable. Our work is only emergent when we don’t know what we are doing, or where we are going. When we are no longer standing outside, trying to manage and control the environment–we are inside the change that is occurring.

My only choice here, in this alive, unknown space, is to be open, transparent and courageous, without clinging to any ideal, or any idea of outcome. I may feel alone here, but I am not. As I inhabit this space, it reveals itself as a ‘we space.’ In this shared space of presence I am totally responsible for the wake I am leaving. My choices begin to reflect this accountability, even though I have a deep sense of no agenda and no control.

Michael Bungay Stanier, the Canadian coach, describes this as the place of ‘great work.’ We do good work when we are confident, competent and full of knowing. Good work is something wonderful and necessary, but it needs to leave room for the emergence of great work. Great work happens somewhere else, and it is an opportunity, full of grace, to benefit others, to help this world, from a place that is tender, raw and full of mystery.

Arrive curious, without the armour of certainty,
the plans and planned results of the life you’ve imagined.
Live the life that chooses you,
new every breath, every blink of your astonished eyes.

~Rebecca del Rio (Prescription for the Disillusioned)

with love, 

Shayla