ACTION ATTITUDES of TRANSFORMATION: Sacrifice

Welcome back Viphilus*

This past week was quite the emotional-ride for many as global economic markets crashed. While much of the world focused on China where beasts of reaction broke off their chains, I was watching with fascination as those beasts broke out in every corner of the globe; beasts driven by one thing: financial survival.

Ironically, the final action attitude I’m speaking about this month is Sacrifice. Why ironically? Because the vectors of survival and sacrifice have polar opposite directions. Survival is selfish while sacrifice is selfless. Ultimately, this is about the vector of service where the vector is either pointing towards yourself (self-service) or towards others (selfless service of others). And, both the direction and magnitude of that vector depends on the other three attitudes that I’ve mentioned so far this month: surrender, submission, and suffering. Whereas, survival seeks self as the beneficiary of the service, sacrifice serves to add value to others. Whereas, survival is about intentionally protecting and sustaining self and self-interest, sacrifice is about intentionally NOT doing that in a direct effort to protect and sustain the life and interests of another or others.

Here’s my thesis. True transformation is where the vector has turned 180° away from self, resulting in the only life where 100% deep soul satisfaction (dare I say, “joy?”) can be achieved. Why? I believe it’s because that’s how we were made by our Creator.

Consider the following, written by the Apostle Paul to the young church at Rome:

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12:1-2)

The text goes on to speak about how this kind of action attitude in our life helps us discern God’s will and it helps us please Him as we put ourselves in proper perspective with everyone else. It speaks about how we are to share all that we have with others, whether it be our abundance our talents or our compassion. It ends with counter-intuitive (counter-survival) advice to become an advocate for our enemy … definitely 180° from anything we would naturally be inclined to do.

Interpreting Paul, full transformation (“metamorphosis” is the word he actually uses) begins with a reorientation of the vector fully away from self, as we offer ourselves as a “living sacrifice,” and it is completed by the ongoing retraining of our minds in a direction away from the worldly-intuitive direction of self.

In the context of daily living, this is where the word “passion” ultimately finds its home. To connect the dots, let me once again restate something from last week’s post, which itself was cropped from my May 25 post:

Our English word, passion, originates from the Latin word, patior, meaning to suffer or to endure. People endure hardships with passion and conviction for seemingly incomprehensible reasons, because those reasons reside in the core of their spirit. To resist {this} crushes the spirit because it is working against called-purpose. To fight the inner calling of passion is debilitating and disorienting and renders most other things to be of little importance.

The expression, “the passion of the Christ,” finds its truest meaning in this context.

Jesus had a deep calling from God to do three things: to teach people what God really meant all along, to train a handful of ordinary guys to carry on His work after He left, and to be the final sacrifice for all mankind (and end the bloodshed of the billions of animals that people were killing in order to please and appease God). That calling was anchored deep in His soul … a purpose to which he felt so drawn that He didn’t just deny Himself a long life by dying for us in his thirties, but He lived every breath of those thirty-three years with the vector pointing away from Himself and towards God and others as He served them.

Passion doesn’t come from an external source; it is intrinsic … calling us from within. And because it comes from something anchored in our spirit, ignoring or resisting that calling will only make our soul restless and sick. But when we surrender and stop fighting that passion, we start to come alive a bit. When we submit and are obedient to what it asks of us, life becomes a completely different experience (a very good one). When we submit to the point where we may actually suffer through the pursuit of its fulfillment, our own fulfillment skyrockets. And finally, when we do all these things fully so that the vector of service is completely away from us in sacrifice, we are enjoying the epitome of human experience (YES … “enjoy” may be a strange word when we consider that suffering may be in the mix).

The paradox
This doesn’t mean that you deny yourself protection; if our airplane depressurizes we are told to put the oxygen mask on ourselves first so that we will remain conscious and able to help the less-capable person beside us.

This doesn’t mean that you deny yourself sleep in order to work around the clock serving everyone who needs you (your spouse, kids, boss, friend, constituents, etc.); if you are sleep-deprived you will be unsociable, you will make mistakes, and you will get sick more easily … not to mention you’ll lose your sense of passion.

This doesn’t mean that you deny yourself emotional pleasures like recovery breaks, vacations and social outings; those very things help you metabolize stress so that it doesn’t build in you and turn to anxiety (which lies at the survival end of the spectrum).

You can do all of these apparently selfish things BECAUSE the vector is pointing away from you. There may come a time when you might be called to make the ultimate sacrifice for someone else and give up your life for them. But don’t worry, you will only actually accomplish that once. The rest of the time, you need to vigilantly maintain your greatest asset for serving others: Yourself. Yes - sacrifice might just mean taking better care of yourself.

An entire book can (and has been) written further on this but I will stop here because I simply wanted to establish the foundation of the 4 action-attitudes of service this month:

• Surrender
• Submission
• Suffering
• Sacrifice

Serve well, and have an amazing life!

Next month I’m going to take a fun look at some of the things that I learned from my Mom, so please take a moment to glance at the weekly topics at the upper right of this page. Also, feel free to browse through any of the previous weekly posts which you will find a little farther down from those topics.

I hope to see you back next Monday.

Blessings Viphilus,

Your friend, Omega Man

OCA Training

* Viphilus means, "lover of life"

ACTION ATTITUDES of TRANSFORMATION: Suffering

Welcome back Viphilus*

Regarding transformation, we have learned that it requires:

SURRENDERING – cease being against something/someone (the emotional part)
SUBMITTING – start being for something/someone (the mental part)

Once again, let me say that these are, “necessary, but not sufficient.” This is an expression I learned from Dr. Hal Ritchie, a world-renowned Canadian atmospheric research scientist and leader. Hal would frequently refer to the necessary ingredients for certain weather phenomena to occur, but that the ingredients may not be sufficient, on their own. Of course, this made perfect sense to me as a hurricane forecaster. For example, hurricanes form only if ocean water temperatures at the surface are 26.5°C or warmer. However, those temperatures alone are not enough; other atmospheric parameters such as the nature of high and low level winds are also critical in the formation of hurricanes.

I have come to understand that this expression is pretty much universal in application … especially when it comes to human beings. It’s necessary, for example, to pay attention to what you eat, if you want to become fit. But that’s not sufficient because you also need to pay attention to activity level, sleep, and your stress load, to name some others. When it comes to the transformation of a person’s character, attitudes of surrender and submission are essential … but they just aren’t sufficient. More is needed.

Let me introduce: SUFFERING.

It is my contention that if surrendering happens at the emotional level and submitting happens at the mental level, then suffering happens at the spiritual level. And by “suffering” I don’t simply mean that we experience pain, anguish, disappointment or hardships. I am referring to the suffering that we willingly permit into our life for sake of a grander purpose … where we set aside all other life-objectives in favour of someone or something. And since it is “purpose” that anchors this in us, I am seeing this happening at the level in us where all things are anchored or rooted: in our Spirit.

If you have willingly endured the challenges and hardships of post-secondary education for the “prize” that awaits at the end, you have nobly suffered. You may be thinking, “but I did this for selfish reasons, after all, even delayed-gratification is a form of selfishness!”  I never said it wasn’t. This is why I believe that there are at least two levels here, one that ultimately serves mostly us (which I call the shallow spiritual level), and another that ultimately serves someone beyond us (which I call the deep spiritual level). Without getting into the semantics of this, let me clarify that, in my belief, even truly altruistic acts have a “selfish” component. Even Jesus’ numerous invitations to “follow me” or, “deny yourself,” or, “be the servant of all,” are greatly outweighed by HIS plethora of promises of something “better” that awaits us when we choose HIM. So let’s be honest … even in suffering and sacrifice there is still something in it for us.

But suffering is something that is willingly chosen only by those who are ready to be transformed. When hoards join fitness programs each January yet only 15% can sustain it past the third week, the “suffering” has weeded out those who aren’t ready to be changed. Passion is the ability to be able to choose to pursue something (or someone) in spite of the suffering inherent in the choice. I wrote in detail about this in my May 25 post {you can read the whole post here} … let me remind you of a bit of what I wrote:

Our English word, passion, originates from the Latin word, patior, meaning to suffer or to endure. People endure hardships with passion and conviction for seemingly incomprehensible reasons, because those reasons reside in the core of their spirit. To resist this crushes the spirit because it is working against called-purpose. To fight the inner calling of passion is debilitating and disorienting and renders most other things to be of little importance.

When we have chosen to pursue passion, whether that purpose is a person, thing or mission, it gets anchored into our spirit. My test to see whether it is REALLY taken root is to see the person's willingness to suffer for the pursuit of it.

Questions to ask yourself:

1. What am I willing to suffer for? Anything?
2. Do I avoid pain (and effort) at all cost?
3. Do I accept the truism, “no pain, no gain,” or do I detest that slogan?
4. Do I see a connection between suffering and growth (character development) or do I only see suffering as a bad thing?
5. Think about some of the reasons (principles or purposes) that someone might endure the following types of “suffering?”
1. Physical – I get up an hour earlier each morning to exercise
2. Emotional – I invite family, friends and colleagues to provide me with hard-truths about myself … the final 10% of what they wished I knew about myself
3. Mental – I give up some of my free time to coach/mentor someone even though I am introverted and need the alone-time to recharge
4. Social – I do not defend myself to someone when they tell me that a 3^rd party has been smearing my name and questioning my motives about everything
5. Spiritual – 3 months ago I committed to giving a fixed percentage of my income to a charity, and then my entire financial situation deteriorated ... but I continue anyway because of the commitment I made to them (and myself)

For each of these questions, if you can see reasons why a person might do these things, then you can see how transformation happens.

Final Points to Ponder

I have not dealt at all with the topic of how we cope with suffering or adversity that is thrust upon us; that is an important, but completely different discussion that I intend write about in a future post. Today’s take-aways are this:

Transformation hinges on you being willing to suffer for the worthy principles and purposes which you have anchored in your life. 

1. if you have no anchors, or if your anchors are not very good, then transformation will be non-existent, not sustainable, or shallow at best; 
2. the depth of your transformation is proportional to the degree to which you are willing to suffer for your purpose/passion. If that suffering approaches the point where it is better to use the word sacrifice because the pursuit is 100% selfless, even to the point of harm or death, then we have found the point where total transformation not only is possible, but it has likely already happened. More on this point next week.

I hope to see you back next Monday.

Blessings Viphilus,

Your friend, Omega Man

OCA Training

* Viphilus means, "lover of life"

ACTION ATTITUDES of TRANSFORMATION: Submission

Welcome back Viphilus*

In last post I said that the S-words were action-attitudes that reside within us (emotions vs. mind vs. spirit):

SURRENDER – this takes place at the emotional level
SUBMISSION – this takes place at the mental level
SELF-DENIAL – this takes place at the spiritual level
            1) SUFFER – this occurs at the shallow spiritual level
            2) SACRIFICE – this occurs at the deep spiritual level (religion might be involved)

I mentioned that for transformation to be possible, surrendering is essential … it just isn’t sufficient; it also requires submission. Let’s get into this emotionally-charged word today. The word, “submission,” has taken a bad rap and is often seen with a negative connotation where one person is sub-servient to another. Of course, this is one possible use of the word, but the single point that I want to make is this: when submission is voluntary it unlocks a powerful potential of achievement within us: a potential that begins with a decision.  

“Submission” can also be used interchangeably, in this context, with “commitment.” My Canadian culture would favour this word over “submission,” but here’s the problem … the word “commitment” is so used … so overused … perhaps even so abused … that it’s lost its power to clarify. On the other hand, the word “submission” still gets our attention because it puts a road-bump in front of us because of that negative connotation … but with some care, it can better aid us in realizing what’s going on.

Where surrendering means to cease resisting, submitting means to actually turn control over to another … or to a thing.  A thing?  YES … a thing like “process.” When I was coming out of my breakdown more than a dozen years ago I realized that I needed to make huge changes in my life so that I could sustainably rebuild myself and move forward. The breakdown provided the breakthrough in that it got me to stop fighting all the things I had been fighting … mostly myself. But it wasn’t until I made a conscious decision to submit to some new processes that rebuilding actually started to happen. Putting it another way; surrendering shows you what you have stopped being against, whereas, submitting shows you what you have started being for. You can’t just stop resisting … you have to actually submit to something and make up your mind that you are going to DO something.

In numerous earlier posts I have spoken about “intentionality.” This invented-word has come into self-help literature along with the whole cadre of writings on leadership and management. Here is my own definition: Intentionality is the discipline of the mind to live an ordered life directed by purpose rather than a chaotic life directed by waywardness. Why bring up this word? Because, the action-attitude of submission is one of the quickest ways to develop discipline and skill, when it is pursued with great intention. Intentionality is the discipline of submitting yourself to accomplishing something and then committing the necessary resources to getting it done. Military types are arguably the finest examples of disciplined / skilled individuals … and the reason is clear; they have trained themselves to quickly surrender and submit to a mission. We are all impressed by stories of special-forces agents who are able to accomplish almost any mission, but we seldom think about why they are able. It’s because they have learned to not just take orders, but when they are given a mission, they instantly ingest and metabolize that mission as if it were their own. They don’t resist it … they embrace it. And they aren’t simply following a commander’s orders … the moment they have been given the mission they make it their own. Why? Because they know that it’s the only way that they can have the sustainable power to accomplish the mission. They set aside the extrinsic motivation of a commander and instead, look to the intrinsic motivation of accomplishing the mission because “failure is not an option.”  THE MAGIC HAPPENS WHEN THE CHOOSING OF THE MISSION IS INTERNAL. This is submission.

Oh, and there’s a hidden bonus in this: a high degree of satisfaction, bordering on (dare I say it?) happiness, awaits the one who chooses to do this … with everything. Submission is a way of life. It’s an incredibly gratifying way of life.

Submission is a great tool for effectiveness, as evidenced by the following summary from the American Society of Training and Development. Submitting (committing) to your intentions can help you turn those resolutions, ideas, and goals into real success. The following list shows the likelihood of a person achieving a task under varying conditions:  

Condition/Situation:                                            Likelihood of Actually DOING It!

You HEAR a great idea                                                      10%

You CONSCIOUSLY DECIDE to adopt the idea                25%

You decide WHEN you will do it                                          40%

You PLAN HOW you will do it                                             50%

You COMMIT to someone else to do it                               65%

You make a REPORTING date with them                          95%

Karl Marx once made the famous quote, “The road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I could write a book’s worth of comments if I wanted to fully unpack the genius in this statement … but I’ll limit myself to one sentence:

The difference between having soul-sucking intentions and spirit-satisfying intentions is this: submission.

Let’s look at the 3 examples from last week as we now add submission to the mix:

1.     You’ve been given good advice on what to do to lose weight and your mentor has given you an eating plan for the next two weeks. Submission is to simply obey that plan … no questions asked for the two weeks. You are still in control but YOU have made the decision to submit to the eating plan because it gits with your broader life mission of losing weight.

2.     You sit down with your boss and tell her that you’ve had a talk with yourself and you realize that the changes are going ahead, with or without you, and you would really prefer it would be with you. You offer yourself as an advocate … not just for the change but also to help the boss bring others along who have also been resistant as well.

3. You’ve coached the kids for a couple of weeks when it suddenly dawns on you that THEY deserve better than a coach with a work-to-rule attitude so you make a commitment to yourself, and to them, to give them your best and help them succeed. In essence, you have submitted yourself to the judges sentence so that you “do the time” rather than letting “the time do you.”

One last point to make … from # 3 above. The moment that we submit ourselves and decide to be a proponent rather than an opponent … whether it’s towards ourselves or others … the time we spend shifts from “time spent” to “character developed.” That’s just the way it works … and everything inside of us gets better.

Next week we’ll delve into the spiritual realm (not religious – don’t worry) to see what happens when we drive the mental aspect of submission deep within us to the point where we may experience “healthy suffering.”

I hope to see you back next Monday.

Blessings Viphilus,

Your friend, Omega Man

OCA Training

* Viphilus means, "lover of life"

ACTION ATTITUDES of TRANSFORMATION: Surrender

Welcome back Viphilus*

Prelude for the August Posts

Who do you serve?  This may be one of the more profound questions you need to answer in your life. Reams of social science data (not religious sources) make it clear that the pinnacle of human experiences comes when we live our lives by contributing to the lives of other people. We are not endlessly fascinated with ourselves and, ultimately, boredom comes from a lack of purpose … specifically … a lack of purpose that involves serving other people. Helen Keller said, “Happiness comes from fidelity to a worthy purpose.” Social scientists have shown us that unless that “worthy purpose” contributes to another person, or a group of people, it will not revitalize us on the inside. The Bible says the same thing but I love seeing how social-science data confirms what was written down thousands of years ago.

We come alive when we can add value to the lives of other people. This is not a religious truth; it is a human truth. Therefore, we need to understand the difference between a life of self-service vs. a life lived for the purpose of serving others. It is a huge challenge to sell this idea because as I have shown in earlier blogs, we are born as hedonists: pleasure-seeking, pain-avoiding creatures who are hard-wired for self-service. I have also shown though that our non-conscious mind (the elephant) can be retrained by the conscious mind (the rider) to override the hedonist in ourselves.

I can make a strong argument that the concept of “free will” makes sense only to a Christian … someone to whom God has given the power of choice. You see, apart from the power of God living inside of you, helping you to defeat the hedonistic self-serving creature within you, that creature will always rule you. (For a moment, let’s set aside the concept of a devil who tempts us and simply go with the teaching of Jesus’ brother James who wrote that we are tempted by the evil desires that we allow to reside within us). I can make a strong argument that you have no power to override the elephant’s instincts, which of course you absolutely need to do in order to be a self-controlled person who experiences happiness and joy because you are “free” to serve who you wish … and not just be confined to serve yourself. (Yes .. most people are “confined” to self-service because selfishness within them has chosen self-interest as their driving motivation).

BUT ... you likely won't even listen to that argument unless two things are true: 1) you are tired of resisting this information which has been coming at you for a long time; 2) you can see that there is definitely a PLUS-side to listening, such as that your life might actually get a whole lot better so that you can experience positive emotions. So let me start with number 2....

Look back at the header to this blog. It is about: Breaking the self-sabotaging blocks of self-limiting, self-defeating, and self-destructive thoughts and behaviours: weekly posts on effective living, managing and leading. If that is your desire then it will require you to develop some new attitudes. And these attitudes are not just ideologies … they are mental actions required for transformation. Here they are:

SURRENDER – this takes place at the emotional level
SUBMISSION – this takes place at the mental level
SELF-DENIAL – this takes place at the spiritual level
            1) SUFFER – this occurs at the shallow spiritual level
            2) SACRIFICE – this occurs at the deep spiritual level (religion might be involved)

The nature and quality of your SERVICE is predicated on whether it is directed towards yourself or towards others, which will, in turn, dictate the nature and quality of each of these action-attitudes. I hope that this month is a transformative one for you as we work through each one.

SURRENDER

Regardless of whether you, the reader, are Christian or not, you most likely will be challenged by this month’s blogs. People across the faith-spectrum have challenged these ideas. And your first challenge … with yourself, not with me … will be the degree of your resistance to new ideas.

People hate change because it forces them to address the unknown, and the unknown scares us because our non-conscious minds dredge up countless scenarios where that unknown somehow diminishes us, hurts us and thwarts the fulfillment of one or more of our basic needs. As a change-manager I’ve been trained to surrender to the truth that people will not readily accept new ideas (regardless of whether or not they are truth) if those ideas are contrary to ideas already existing in their heads. Psychologists call this “cognitive dissonance” and show how it is a powerful defence mechanism to help us remain loyal to beliefs and ideologies. If those beliefs are further supported by strong emotions then resistance will be incredibly strong and any action to change those beliefs will be met with more than simple resistance … they will be met with aggression; there will be a battle.

Your fears (which will appear in the form of resistances, reluctances and reticence) can serve you very well and help you to survive. For example, if you are reluctant to stick your finger into a beehive in order to extract honey, this is a healthy form of fear. You may still do it, but at least your brain is putting a road bump in front of you so you can at least weigh the options before simply plunging you into a potential world-of-hurt (I hope that the honey is worth it).

Your fears can also keep you locked into a safe existence where change is almost impossible. If you do nothing new … think nothing new … experience nothing new … then the old you will be with you to the end of your days. However, if you are reading this blog because you are interested in being transformed (whatever that means to you), then the first battleground you face is at the emotional level … because everything in you will fight against change (let alone transformation). Surrender is the action attitude of ceasing resistance: It is where you STOP FIGHTING!

My change-management trainer told us that until we help people get past their own resistances, change will be impossible for them. We can cast all the wonderful and compelling visions in the world and they won’t mean squat until we help people address the reasons of their resistance. But in the end, all we can do is point them in the direction … they have to SURRENDER to the new idea themselves.

Now, before going a step further, let me clarify one thing that is a huge misunderstanding for many many people. Surrendering is not the same as submitting. Submission (next week’s post) is a mental choice to follow a specific path. Surrendering, on the other hand, is like saying, “I will stop fighting the idea of going down a new path. I will stop running in the opposite direction. I will stand still long enough to carefully consider going in that new direction. I’m not saying that I will go … but I’m also not running away from it anymore.”

Let’s make this super clear. I remember in old war movies how one side would realize that they were going to lose, and rather than be killed, they waved a white flag that told their enemies, “We have stopped fighting – we aren’t shooting anymore – please don’t kill us because we are coming out from behind the rocks now.” If the enemy is a decent sort they will allow them to surrender and they will take them captive and imprison them. The fighting has stopped, but let’s not believe for a second that the defeated ones have now become advocates for their captors. If we are those captives can you see us intentionally doing nice things to help our captors? Of course not. We will comply to their demands and not give them resistance when they tell us what to do, but we aren’t going out of our way to make their life better (add value to their life). We might still secretly harbour resentment towards our captors so we will “serve” them only in a work-to-rule mindset. To actually go the next step and “submit” to them because we have chosen to do that in our minds and heart is a whole ‘nother thing; that’s next week’s post.

For now, we need to see that transformation begins when we stop fighting … stop squirming … stop the hysteria in our heads and calm ourselves so that we can listen to reason.

What might that look like in your life?  Here are three examples (there are thousands):

1. You need to lose weight and you finally have an epiphany or you hit some point of discouragement or self-disappointment (a significant emotional event) where you just don’t have the ability to fight against your need for change any longer. You are now ready to listen to advice to learn how to develop self-control … or you are now ready to become more aware of your eating habits.
2. Your boss has announced that your company is going in a different direction and your job will change. You are embittered and have been highly resistant, which has created tension between you and her … to the point where you might be jeopardizing your job security. You realize this and have a talk with yourself that resistance is not working and you need to stop fighting and start learning how to take the company (and yourself) in this new direction.
3. You have been caught, charged and convicted of drunk driving. The judge sentences you to community service to coach a peewee hockey team (the fact that this sounds exactly like the opening scenes to the movie, The Mighty Ducks, is a complete coincidence … maybe). You show up with a bad attitude but quickly realize that if you are going to get through this at all you need to stop being angry about the sentence and just show up and “do your time” to get it over with.

SURRENDER is only the first step in a series of necessary action-attitudes. Surrendering is necessary for transformation … but it is not sufficient. Surrendering needs to happen before submission can be even possible … but surrendering alone won’t make you happy. Surrendering means that you have ceased active-disengagement, but it doesn’t mean you have become engaged. Essentially, surrendering helps you to take your elephant from picture # 1 to picture # 2.

ACTIVE DISENGAGEMENT

DISENGAGEMENT

I hope to see you back next Monday.

Blessings Viphilus,

Your friend, Omega Man

OCA Training

* Viphilus means, "lover of life"