Today, my guest is Chris Bailey the author of “Hyperfocus: How to Be More Productive in a World of Distraction”
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Shownotes for the Special “Ask Sparky” Episode: Responses to 5 Burning Questions
MIN
1:30
1. It’s hard to pray to God as Father when you’ve had a bad dad. What should I do?
• How do we think about God? (usually like a human person or institution)
• God is Spirit not an old white man in the sky with a long beard.
What adjectives will help you connect with the Being typically called “God”
4:00
Hebrew word for God is a description too (yahweh “I am” a verb) that was not used. Adonai was substituted and that simply means “Master/Lord” and is a term of respect.
4:30
It’s misguided to think that God can be contained or described well using a “Proper Noun”. God can’t be called a proper name/noun…like “Billy” (and that would make Jesus “Billy Jr.”).
Hebrew names are descriptive when referring to people (not how we use names to address people today).
5:00
YAHWEH (Hebrew word), means I AM (or “is”) and works like a verb denoting Presence an Love in Action. It defies typical proper names and descriptions.
5:50
2. On Forgiveness
“What should I do to forgive when I can’t forget?”
6:10
Forgiving is a continual process.
Thinking of forgiveness as transactional–a debt clearing mechanism. Be an accountant and don’t worry about your emotions being on the same page.
7:20
Remembering that you are not your thoughts.
8:00
What Justice is actually (Shalom). Making things right and reconciliation.
8:50
3. What to do about envying others (in this case writers in the field) and being jealous of their success.
9:15
Seeing the negative emotions as tools. Reframing them to use them to find our calling, gifts, and passions.
9:30
Not getting caught up in “should” and “oughts” and comparisons.
9:45
When you can say of your work, “Wow, I get to do this!” you can have enough gratitude to be comfortable with the success of others.
10:15
It’s common and normal to get feelings of jealousy. It’s only when the take over our hearts and mind do we need to reevaluate and recalibrate what we are doing and thinking.
11:00
Deciding that the options of other people and the opinions should have huge power is a choice we can change.
12:05
4. Getting over feeling guilt and shame that keeps resurfacing.
Daring Greatly Brene Brown (the difference between guilt and shame.
• Guilt is important so we can learn and correct and grow and become better people.
• Shame is a belief that something, un fixable, is wrong with you.
Shame whispers lies in your ears. Shame becomes a decision of who we are as person.
14:05
Being put to shame by parents and others.
14:50
A mistake isn’t part of who you are.
Redemption is always possible. You can start anew.
15:10
My caveat.
15:50
5. Church isn’t working for me anymore and I feel guilty leaving the church, but I don’t feel fed.
In the U.S. we often go to church as a consumers and look for what we can get out of it. Church can be piss poor.
17:00
Look for ways to give and minister and find connection in other ways.
18:00
For me, small groups were a starting point that lead me to seminary.
18:50
Bringing back the potluck and sharing life with people.
19:30
Sometimes we sense church isn’t “working” when meaningful connection is lacking.
20:30
“we” is better than “me”.
Thank you for listening and sharing the show with others. If you’ve gotten an enjoyment from Spark My Muse, come back every Wednesday for something new, or save your mental energy and subscribe!
Some of my thoughts on youth, now that it’s in the rear view mirror.
Youth: a chronic condition that ends in time.
teen star (CC file found here)
The stage of Youth: A time characterized by excitement, worry, hope, fear, misplaced confidence, and options (plenty of which are set to expire).
Nothing breathes fresh air into a situation like an eager youth ready to learn, try, fail, and keep trying. It inspires the younger ones and rallies the older ones.
Nothing is more endearing than a youth who prizes earlier generations and lacks the blinding hubris typical to the stage of the development.
and to the god of our age….Youth, Oh the beauty of it. Personified, Venus, her name. (Youthful Beauty…or what nearly every commercial directed at females is about.)
Like a baby unblemished and without scars, youth displays itself on the young like a pillar of potential, a stack of dreams and promises, shinning and magnificent, and frozen for just that moment in time. Though what youth feels this truly? Youth is a self-deluding time: The stage seems expansive when you are in it, and experience can’t bear this out differently because of the great lack of it.
Sustaining this impossibility of sustained youth, this age of supposed perfection becomes the futile and bitter plight for too many. And the fight for it is nonsensical.
Youth is a stage to be enjoyed and then left behind like outgrown clothes, once pristine, but all-too-soon ill-fitting and inappropriate for the rest of the voyage. Ballet slippers are shed for work boots.
How true that Youthful beauty is but one kind.Though who knows this?
By being convinced that beauty has a pinnacle (age 21?) too may rue the loss of this exterior sort of it–never realizing the false conception is not based on much more than societal conventions and symmetry…but it sells a lot of face cream, doesn’t it?
Yes, the flower of spring is glorious (youth indeed), but the whole plant, or tree, is the greater thing. An oak, a tower in homage to resilience, humanity in the full, of which youthful can never assail, let alone master.
The joy and glory of youth is the promise of accomplishment. Like graduation ceremonies and semi-finals matches.
Though what youth sees it this way?
And what about the resentment of youth by the no longer young?
Maybe it stems from the regret of the energy and options lost. The verve the youths possess can seem enviable. Though they (youth) don’t know it, their blatant inexperience and lack of wisdom, from the outside, seems pitiful, just like the weakness and lethargy of advanced years seem like that to the youth.
“What a young fool,” says the man.
“What a tired and bitter old man,” says the youth.
Both under-estimated.
And back to confidence.
Youthful confidence rests in that accomplishments are assured with effort and willingness. (Though it seems different to them sometimes. For them, confidence may rest mainly in feeling the power of mind and body so fully.)
This confidence is often shattered or dismantled within a decade because of the slings and arrows of life. But occasionally not, and never for the narcissist.
Sickness, financial strain, mishaps, circumstances, failure, and the most debilitating – early success – strip out the potency of youthful confidence. With persistence and determination this is replaced by the better things:
stability of character
the resolution of will
fortitude of spirit
But, best of all: the of acquisition compassion necessary for the species to survive, or even–sometimes– thrive.
(Oh, that it is empathic compassion, not pity, is the impetus for acts of goodness.)
And what of maturity of the youth?
A mature youth is only mature compared to his peers or the fools of older generations.
And for good reason. Maturity is a gift, not a certainty. It comes through time, but also by Grace, just as youth and health come. Though who knows this?
A “mature youth” is usually an oxymoronic attribute, as genuine maturity involves accumulating wisdom.
Maturity and wisdom come through testing and testing by the passage of time well-lived and the battles of life well-tested.
Youthful maturity is then only the bud of it which, if it is there at all, is necessarily nestled in humility (knowing well, or in some good manner, the terrible disadvantage of inexperience).
In the end, the unknown exists for all, but the degrees and varieties of it change as time passes and aging happens. Both exciting and terrifying–needing courage and inner strength.
“Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls.”
― Joseph Campbell
“If you do follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
― Joseph Campbell
Campbell wrote “The Power of Myth”, “The Masks of God”, and “The Hero of A Thousand Faces” among many other works and was an American mythology professor, writer, and orator best known for his work in the fields of comparative mythology and comparative religion.
Follow your bliss refers to a path you take. The journey and the making of a hero.
(video is cheeky and humorous summary of what happens in a Hero’s Story)
It’s the journey of every great person and every life well-lived also.
Why? Because nothing’s more active than that (and it rhymes, which is a nice mnemonic device).
This is the name for the moment you cross the threshold to adventure and finding your purpose. It’s when you decide you have a deeper calling in this world and living from your core is what counts most. I’m crafting a book on this right now and it’ll be out this fall. I hope you’ll come back for more details soon.
You will find that once you embrace your passion and gifts and kiss them full on the mouth a switch happens. At that point the sides fall off your holding cell and it turns into a go kart. You pick up speed, scream in delight and your passion is infectious.
Make no mistake: It is a risk.
There is true danger involved.
At the KISS POINT you will gain two things:
1. A following–people you splash with your passion who come for the ride, guide you, or cheer you on.
It is also characterize by new and better-fitting opportunities unveiling themselves and new connections and relationships emerging. You’ll “be on to something” with all kinds of vague but palpable mystery that whispers of the divine. You’ll feel “in the flow” with new energy and a revived sense of purpose.
2. The devils–people (or systems) who are threatened by your passion or jealous of it because they are lacking it and feel empty.
The obstacles will be new too and formidable. You’ll feel a target on your back and a strange level of animosity that has no proper explanation except that which points off the map to something cooperative and moved by the otherworldly trying to thwart you and divert your path. Weird, I know.
When you’re doing a project, starting something creative, or otherwise trying to upgrade your life, sabotage comes at you from many angles.
Think of it as a sign that you’re on the right track.
A little prep work can serve to inoculate you from intentional or unintentional sabotage.
5 Ways Others Sabotage Your Creative Mojo
1. Diversion. Fun opportunities, a needy spouse or friend, or a buzz of busyness will pervade your surroundings splitting your energies, and stretching you too far. Sometimes your focus and determination will draw others to you like a magnet. But instead of giving useable support, they’ll be agents of distraction. Strict boundaries are the best defense.
2. Guilt-trips. Phrases like, “You don’t seem to have time for me.” “I never see you anymore.” “You seem so busy.” give you the sense that you’re not being a good person as you pursue your project. Reassure these saboteurs while claiming ground. Tell them you have to balance your life differently now.
3. Bargain-makers. “If you do “this” for me, I’ll do “this” for you,” type phrases signal that your creative energy or determination is being met with a subtle attack. It’s a way to be manipulated away from your task at hand, too. You might need to clarify you needs succinctly and repeatedly: “I’m sorry I can’y get off-task right now. I’ll be able to do more in a month (or whatever time you decide).
Just in writing this very post, I’ll had to say this to my two children 8 times in the last 15 minutes. The “broken record” tactic sends a solid message like only repetition can. But, you must persist!
4. Punitive Words and Deeds. Be it the “cold shoulder”, the passive aggressive responses, yelling and confrontation, or subtle bullying, when others pushback at what you’re doing you must muster the mental toughness to soldier on. Do it before the punishment comes from them.
5. Threats. When others say, “If you do that, this will happen.” Or, “I don’t think I can support you if you go in this direction,” they may be trying to manipulate your creative mojo off-task for selfish reasons. If/then statements offer a tipoff that all or nothing attitudes pervade your interactions and risk derailing you. Minimize threats with a calm resolved response and carry on.
