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Detachment (an excerpt)
Mitch Albom

Master Mindsets
Erika Lyremark Ellis

Fellow Spirits
tom walsh

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Henry Moore

I am responsible for my own well-being, my own happiness.  The choices and decisions I make regarding my life directly influence the quality of my days.

Kathleen Andrus

Today is the day in which to express your noblest qualities of mind and heart, to do at least one worthy thing which you have long postponed.

Grenville Kleiser

The small horrors of his illness were growing, and when I finally sat down with Morrie, he was coughing more than usual, a dry, dusty cough that shook his chest and made his head jerk forward.  After one violent surge, he stopped, closed his eyes, and took a breath.  I sat quietly because I thought he was recovering from his exertion.

"Is the tape still on?" he said suddenly, his eyes still closed.

Yes, yes I quickly said, pressing down the play and record buttons.

"What I'm doing now," he continued, his eyes still closed, "is detaching myself from the experience."

Detaching yourself?

"Yes.  Detaching myself.  And this is important--not just for someone like me, who is dying, but for someone like you, who is perfectly healthy.  Learn to detach."

He opened his eyes.  He exhaled.  "You know what the Buddhists say?  Don't cling to things, because everything is impermanent."

But wait, I said.  Aren't you always talking about experiencing life?  All the good emotions, all the bad ones?

"Yes."

Well, how can you do that if you're detached?

"Ah.  You're thinking, Mitch.  But detachment doesn't mean you don't let the experience penetrate you.  On the contrary, you let it penetrate you fully.  That's how you are able to leave it."

I'm lost.

"Take any emotion--love for a woman, or grief for a loved one, or what I'm going through, fear and pain from a deadly illness.  If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid.  You're afraid of the pain, you're afraid of the grief.  You're afraid of the vulnerability that loving entails.

"But by throwing yourself into these emotions, by allowing yourself to dive in, all the way, over your head even, you experience them fully and completely.  You know what pain is.  You know what love is.  You know what grief is.  And only then can you say, 'All right.  I have experienced that emotion.  I recognize that emotion.  Now I need to detach from that emotion for a moment.'"

Morrie stopped and looked me over, perhaps to make sure I was getting this right.

"I know you think this is just about dying," he said, "but it's like I keep telling you.  When you learn how to die, you learn how to live."

Morrie talked about his most fearful moments, when he felt his chest locked in heaving surges or when he wasn't sure where his next breath would come from.  These were horrifying times, he said, and his first emotions were horror, fear, anxiety.  But once he recognized the feel of those emotions, their texture, their moisture, the shiver down the back, the quick flash of heat that crosses your brain--then he was able to say, "Okay.  This is fear.  Step away from it.  Step away."

I thought about how often this was needed in everyday life.  How we feel lonely, sometimes to the point of tears, but we don't let those tears come because we are not supposed to cry.  Or how we feel a surge of love for a partner but we don't say anything because we're frozen with the fear of what those words might do to the relationship.

Morrie's approach was exactly the opposite.  Turn on the faucet.  Wash yourself with the emotion.  It won't hurt you.  It will only help.  If you let the fear inside, if you pull it on like a familiar shirt, then you can say to yourself, "All right, it's just fear, I don't have to let it control me.  I see it for what it is."

Same for loneliness:  you let go, let the tears flow, feel it completely--but eventually be able to say, "All right, that was my moment with loneliness.  I'm not afraid of feeling lonely, but now I'm going to put that loneliness aside and know that there are other emotions in the world, and I'm going to experience them as well."

"Detach," Morrie said again.

He closed his eyes, then coughed.

   

Mitch Albom had a second chance. He rediscovered Morrie, his college professor from twenty years ago, in the last months of the older man's life.  Knowing he was dying, Morrie visited with Mitch in his study every Tuesday, just as they used to back in college.  Their rekindled relationship turned into one final "class":  lessons in how to live.  Tuesdays with Morrie is a magical chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world.

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Frank, a West Coast film editor was feeling overwhelmed by his fast-paced career.  The rush to succeed left less and less time for the important personal relationships and interests in his life.  He needed to create breathing space in his daily routine.  In short, Frank wanted to maximize his life without fostering an overextended regimen.

Wendy, a Minneapolis attorney, knows all about the challenges of balancing a successful career with motherhood.  A self-described Type A personality, Wendy moved through the world in fifth gear.  She needed help defining what was essential from the “not-so-important.”  She recognized that if she learned to delegate with confidence, both at work and at home, she could take charge and control.

Stacy is a CPA who literally works around the clock during tax time.  The calendar’s looming deadlines seemed like a foe, not a friend.  With such a seasonal business, Stacy had to streamline her in-demand schedule.  That meant spending more time on value-added tasks versus those that brought minimal benefit.

These top-tier professionals wanted to simplify, organize and streamline their lives.  But how do you effectively change your modus operandi?  It’s really difficult, if not impossible, to shift our patterns and step out of old habits all by ourselves. . . . Everyone knows that how we walk through the world starts in the mind, so organizing our thoughts is of paramount importance if we want to move from overwhelmed and overworked to clarity and command.  By removing the chaos and clutter from our minds, we can streamline the entire scope of our lives.

I’ve found that there are several Master Mindsets that together Simplify, Organize, and Streamline people’s lives.  One example:  learning how to Systemize Your Actions.

Systemize Your Actions means creating a dependable structure for things you do over and over again.  A System is anything that is a distinct way of doing something on a continual basis.  Systems create protocol and automate the routine or menial tasks in our life.  Think of a System as an assembly line… you do not need to remember what happens next.  Just follow the System!

Effective Systems reduce stress in work situations.  They bring order to chaos, clarity to clutter.  Systems allow you to take charge by helping you track what needs to be done.  They’re a way of maintaining control and maximizing your time, money, energy, and focus. 

Systems save brain cells.  You no longer have to go round and round in your mind fretting about all the things on your to-do list.  Systems create a buffer zone when you are caught off guard or are under a tight deadline.   Systems keep you on task, on track, in control, and in the right direction.   As kids, we had a daily structure and a system put in place by our parents that kept us on time and on task.  As adults, many times we need a partner to help us set up similar structures of Hardcore Accountability.

Hardcore Accountability is another Master Mindset.  How often do we tell ourselves we intend to do something but never get around to it?  Once you’ve mastered Hardcore Accountability, you will quit lying to yourself.  Hardcore Accountability keeps you on top of your game.  It propels you into action, like the starting pistol at the racetrack.  Put simply, it gets the job done.

Establishing Criteria is a third Master Mindset that streamlines your life.  Being efficient means knowing how to separate the wheat from the chaff, the essential from the not-so-important.  Learning how to Establish Criteria gives specifics, clarity, and a checklist to any area of your life where you are confused, unsure, foggy, unfocused and out of control.  It sets a standard and a guideline for you to follow.  Criteria help you be exact about what you want and what you don’t want in all aspects of your life. 

Knowing how to Establish Criteria is like being able to write a guidebook for your life.  Feeling lost?  Check out your Criteria.  Sailing in uncharted territory?  Chart your desired course with well-defined Criteria. 

Criteria allow for creativity and flexibility; they’re not set in stone.  What you want this year may not be what you wanted last year.  Life changes and so do we.  But having Criteria in those areas where you are struggling will bring clarity and focus so you are no longer frustrated or overwhelmed.  Having Criteria allows you to make your commitments simple and easy.  You will know exactly when to say “yes” and when to say “no.”

After many years of coaching, I’ve found it takes three weeks to break an old habit and another three weeks to start to instill a new one.  It will take hard work and dedication, but it is completely possible for those who are committed to living a Simplified, Organized, and Streamlined life.  In my process, I first help clients become aware of their patterns and then we select short-term methods and weekly challenges to change things up.  Finally we consider the long-term ramifications, the big picture, if things don’t change.  All told, the client gets pushed out of seemingly secure but stale comfort zones and invigorated with new, systematic modes of action that bring major pay-offs.

Most of the high performers I work with are close to living the life they want, but daily tasks and over-commitments often trip them up.  They want change and are willing to work for it, but don’t have a System, Hardcore Accountability, or Criteria to move from here to there.  That’s where the Master Mindsets come into play.  By Simplifying, Organizing, and Streamlining any aspect of your life – whether it’s career, finances, time management, fitness or relationships – you minimize unproductive habits and maximize strengths.  You become conscious of your patterns of thought and behavior, making it easier to chart your desired course.  Then you can have great fun inviting the world in on your own terms, not just reacting to it.

Erika Lyremark Ellis is Principal of Lyremark, a Minneapolis-based coaching consultancy that helps its clients Simplify, Organize and Streamline their lives in a six-week Boot Camp. Contact Erika at erika.ellis@lyremark.com or visit www.lyremark.com.

Eyes Wide Open
tom walsh

Fellow Spirits

Every once in a while I get flashes of clarity.  I'm able to look about myself and recognize the other people around me as fellow spirits rather than as students or teachers or lawyers or cashiers.  I'm able to see them as they truly are, and it's usually a pretty awe-inspiring experience.  For once I don't see them as simply people, but as the eternal beings that we all are, on this planet having experiences as human beings, trying to deal with their emotions and their wants and needs and desires and setbacks and trials and errors.

When I see people that way, I see them in the light of stronger compassion and love.  I see them not for their faults or problems, but for the effort that they're making to live full and fulfilling lives.  I feel the way that they're overcoming obstacles in their lives as they attempt to find out what life and love and living are all about--on their own terms.  I see them as part of a whole, not as individuals who are completely separated from each other--or from me.

It's really cool to see people this way because it changes the way I see the world and the way I see myself in the world.  I see these people as being much closer to me than they or I ever imagine, for I see the things in life that we're truly sharing--the energy, the hope, the ambition, the dreams, the space, the air, the nutrients.  I see the world as a place full of people who are connected to each other much more intimately than they suspect--after all, some of the air I'm breathing right now probably was in someone else's lungs just a few moments ago.  The same sun provided the energy for growth for all of the food that all of us eat, and on and on and on go the things that we share.

You are a fellow spirit.  From one spirit to another, I wish you a beautiful day, a beautiful life, and a beautiful journey while you're here on this amazing planet that we're visiting.  I encourage you to recognize the connections that you have with the millions of amazing spirits that share this world, even if many of them aren't yet aware enough to recognize just how beautiful and amazing they are.  As long as you're aware of your spirituality, then you definitely can help others to discover their own wonder, beauty, and awesomeness.

And as more of us are able to see just how amazing others are, we'll be able to change this world in many very positive ways as we encourage and inspire others to live the true beauty that they are.

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