Sara’s niece, Sara Weir, just came to visit. Among other things, she’s a fantastic photographer. (Her Instagram account is beautiful). We had some great conversations about personal development and the challenges we encounter in our relationships, particularly family relationships. The whole family-thing can really up the ante, can’t it?
“If you think you are enlightened, go spend a week with your family.” Ram Dass
It was beautiful to watch aunt and niece connect. Sara Owens Woodard frequently strives to embody that über rare blend of caring personally while challenging directly. And so it was in some of the conversations I was privileged to join.
Sara Weir consistently did something in these conversations that is so rare. She worked with the challenges the other Sara (for whom she is named) presented even while another part of her was resisting. So often we summarily reject what we most need to hear. And this wasn’t happening.
Watching niece and aunt in this dance had many impacts on me. I feel closer to Sara Weir and now have a very special appreciation of or for her. I feel even more love for Sara, my wife. When I see how Sara loves her family, I fall in love with Sara all over again. And more deeply. And Sara Weir–in her mid-thirties–gives me hope for the future. Bright. Strong. Authentic. Receptive. Just what will be needed for the challenges that my generation–unfortunately–
But here’s the impact I most want to share with you. Sara Weir was embodying three capacities I believe are foundational to personal development. I was watching her intuitively and instinctively do what does not come naturally to most of us. And because of what she was doing, I was watching something evolve right in front of my eyes.
Three capacities can profoundly shape the breadth, depth, and duration of your personal development efforts. I’m afraid to say personal development isn’t for the faint of heart. It requires grit. Yet if you know what you are up against, what these three capacities are, and how they can help, you can fortify yourself for the journey and substantially increase the probability that your personal development efforts will bear fruit. Lots of fruit. So here’s a tip…
Set your intention to cultivate these three capacities right from the start.
And if you lose your way, reconnect with them.
Capacity 1. Expand Your Capacity to Tolerate Your Discomfort
To grow and develop, you need to stop doing certain behaviors you erroneously believe (often unconsciously) will keep you safe. Interrupt these counterproductive behaviors, and you will experience discomfort. If you recoil from the first twinge of discomfort, your personal development will be stopped dead in its tracks.
Open up some space around your discomfort. Even a little bit will give you some wiggle room to withstand the blowback from the inner system driving that counterproductive behavior. You do this by setting your intention to expand your capacity to tolerate discomfort and then bearing the discomfort without retreating.
How do you develop this capacity? There are several ways. Here is one incredibly simple way. Interrupt the behavior or take action even (and especially) when you don’t feel like doing it. It’s a rather Stoic thing. Give up the thought that you will do something only when you feel like it.
Do the work when you don’t feel like it, in spite of the fact that you don’t feel like it. That’s a great place to start. You may find a way that feels more effective to you. But whatever it is, the purpose is the same. Expand your capacity to tolerate discomfort. Personal development involves discomfort. Face that fact squarely, and you are off to an excellent start.
Capacity 2. Turn Into What You Resist
Notice how much of the time you are resisting what is. I bet if you started to notice, you’d find out that you are resisting–even if ever so slightly–what is. We are continually avoiding or resisting certain situations, certain people, certain responsibilities, certain phone calls, certain emails, certain envelopes, certain bills.
To do personal development, you practice making small changes of behavior you believe are holding you back so you can learn about the underlying system driving that behavior. When you disrupt the behavior, the underlying system freaks out a bit. This exposes it. Then evaluate whether the freak-out was accurate or merely a false-flag.
This is the process of ironing the distortions out of your thinking and feeling. You are effectively disindentifying from your thoughts and emotions. In other words, you allow them fully, but your awareness is detached from them. You see them for what they are. Just thoughts and feels. Real, but not necessarily true.
Where do you do this? You need a place to practice this necessary maneuver of disrupting and evaluating. I chuckle every time someone comes to their twice-monthly cohort meeting with no test of behavior change to report “because nothing too challenging is going on.” It is so easy to help someone see past this. Find out what, or who, they are resisting. That’s where they go practice.
But this capacity really should become a way of approaching life. The moment we feel resistance, turn into it. Go head-on into that messy place. How do we do it? We do it. You build the capacity by doing it. You can’t buy this capacity, and no one can give it to you. But then what? What do you do once you’ve turned into what you have been resisting or avoiding? You fully occupy that space. What the heck does that mean? That question brings us to the third capacity.
Capacity 3. Bring Your Full Awareness to What You Find
Ever tried this? When you are suffering, have you ever tried not resisting or pushing away the suffering? This means to be fully present with it, detached from it yet fully sitting with it.
This involves a fantastic combination of present moment awareness, not pushing it away or resisting it, and also not grabbing on to it or wallowing or getting lost in it. What do you suppose happens to suffering when you are fully present to it, bringing the full light of your awareness to it, without losing yourself in it? Will there still be suffering? And if there is, is that all that will be there? And if not, what is there with it, and how does that feel?
This last capacity is the capacity to bring the full light of our awareness into the middle of the situations we tend to avoid, resist, or find difficult… and then watch what happens. This capacity is the hardest to imagine and therefore the hardest for me to describe. Because it involves intentional consciousness, and consciousness lies beyond the reach of words.
How do you build this capacity? Get a feeling for what it might be, and act on that feeling. And do it again and again. You are beyond the reach of your rational mind, literally and figuratively feeling your way in the dark. That’s a bit scary, but never underestimate the power of the light of your awareness. Never underestimate the power of love. When we are fully present, fully aware, fully being here now, fully conscious, there is love. Don’t take my word for it. Work your way there. See if it is true for you. It isn’t necessarily fast, but anyone can learn to do it.
Wrapping It Up
I know the above may seem oblique, fuzzy, impossible, stupid, or scary. I get it. I didn’t get to skip all this, and I’m still actively working to develop these capacities myself. Also, I know these things are 180 degrees from the way most people operate in life. But consider this.
The other way–avoiding or resisting what is difficult, what is hard, or the places that scare us–tends to create suffering and then reify it. Yet we persist in doing precisely this.
We think avoiding and resisting will work, all evidence to the contrary. So why not try something that is 180 degrees different? Why not find out whether 180 degrees different results in less suffering?
Belief is not required. Experience is. Summon courage. Try, fail, and learn. Try, succeed, and feel gratitude. Gain experience. Then you know. You continue with it, or you drop it. But try it at least seven times. Why at least seven, minimum?
You are up against a most formidable force–your ego. Your ego is not going to cotton to these three capacities. It will not cotton to what they involve, what they trigger (fear and discomfort, initially), and what they make you capable of doing.
Expect the ego to resist your efforts left, right and center. So give your ego a hug. “Hey. I know I left you to hold things together while I was away. Thanks for doing your best and for keeping us alive while I was checked out. But I got this now. It is time to thrive. It’s going to be okay. Besides, has the old way resulted in lasting joy and happiness and avoided suffering. No. That’s why we are going to try this a different way. My way.”
The ego is not the enemy: Identification with it is. Disidentify from it. How? Bring your full awareness to your thoughts and emotions and into all situations. Especially in those situations you avoid, resist, or find difficult. Your ego and its rules will keep you alive in such situations. But it will not enable you to grow, heal, and thrive. Only your higher self, your full awareness in the present moment, has that power. It is there within you. Find it. And bring it.
The first three capacities you’ll need to gain traction with your personal development?
1. Expand your capacity to tolerate your discomfort.
2. Turn into what you resist.
3. Bring your full awareness to what you find there.
I think you will find the benefits of these capacities will well exceed the price you will pay while cultivating them. Why not find out for yourself? Then you will know.