Last night on my walk with Juno
I called my daughter Rachel to say hi and to check in with her about a struggle she was having that we talked about recently. Before going into the conversation, I must admit something.
In what one might call Version I Michael, the version who thought he had shit figured out and always knew what was best for everyone, I suspect that I would have, in my mind, in the past, dismissed her struggle as no big deal and something to just get past.
Recall the feedback from my son Max: "I couldn’t tell you anything - all I would hear is buck up, move past it, this is nothing."
To be clear, Version I thinking still breaks the surface of my mental ocean like an Orca whale breaching the surface of the ocean. The difference between now and then, between Version I and what you might call Version II Michael of today? I try hard to just watch the Orca (my snap assessment, judgment, and advice) break the surface of my mind and then let the beast dip back down into the dark silent depths of my neurologic cauldron. I can see the Orca now. Before I didn't really see it. I was fused with it.
When I pull this off well (it is always a work in progress for me), it is Meta-Awareness (definition below) at its best. That awareness gives me the precious opportunity to decide if it is a good moment to deploy the Orca or to let it go back underwater for another time and circumstance.
Here is what the Version I Orca whale would have spouted into the air when it breached my subconscious cauldron: yes, this is a pain in the ass problem, and it's too bad, but just make a decision and move on and get over it. And I still believe this is, in general, a good thing. Except it's not that simple.
Move on and get over it is usually just too big a jump for us humans. We need to talk about things with someone we feel safe with and who can help us unscramble all those Bingo balls rolling around in our heads.
Version I Michael was not aware of the importance of bridging that gap.
And here is another reality I had to face due to my fusion with my Orca: it created distance between me and my children, my wife Lea, and others, because Orca made them feel psychologically unsafe to tell me their struggles and their truth.
This is a deep regret of mine.
Which brings me back to Rachel. Recall her feedback to me about the abusive boyfriend comment: "I hate to say this, but yes - you were rigid, unapproachable, closed-minded; you lacked empathy, and you had a narrow definition of how life should be lived, and perfection was the only option."
Well, with that as the psychological undercurrent of our "relationship," we were a living example of the quote above - "parents and children who don't really know each other."
So last night I ended up talking to Rachel for 53 minutes. A call to just say hi turned into a wonderful conversation where she told me all about the week ahead, the significant challenges she is facing at work, and the struggles of her home life with two kids. She got it all out, and towards the end of the conversation, she had a spring in her voice and energy, and we were both left with that magical feeling of having genuinely connected and seen each other.
It is seriously great stuff.
I also just happened to have revisited the book The Five Invitations by Frank Osteski, the former director of the Zen hospice center in San Francisco, in which he shares the lessons for living that he learned from the dying. And the number one lesson?
Don't wait.
Don't wait for death to come to your door to finally figure out all this stuff out. Embrace our shocking and scary impermanence fully, with courage, and embrace it today and every day.
I'm lucky as hell because of the 2 X 4 of narcotic addiction that whacked me upside the head and forced me to wake the hell up.
At the end of my walk with Juno I sat down on the chair on our front porch outside with Juno sitting next to me. Rachel and I were still talking, and I said something to her that I had just told Lea Ann the other night.
I told her (with a few tears trickling down my cheeks) how thankful I am that I was able to "wake up," drop my transactional way of being with her, and figure out how to better see her and to have a level of connection with her that we never had before.
She agreed.
Don't wait.....
More to come - on the specific skills for all of this stuff.
What is meta-awareness?
Meta-awareness refers to being consciously aware of one's own awareness (weird stuff to say the least). It involves understanding and monitoring how you are developing and maintaining situational awareness, which includes perceiving information, processing it into meaning, and predicting future events.
To have an experience is not necessarily to know that one is having it. Situations such as suddenly realizing that one has not been listening to one’s spouse (despite nodding attentively) or catching oneself shouting, “I’m not angry" illustrate that we sometimes fail to notice what is going on in our own head. Meta-awareness is the difference between having an experience and knowing that you are having an experience (meta-awareness).
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