In the course of researching my existing material for my forthcoming book, I came across some interesting video chats with the very lovely and fascinating, Nick Williams. So, I thought I would share some…
Nick is a much loved author (his first book is called The Work We Are Born to Do), Coach and broadcaster, sharing fantastic inspiration, particularly to entrepreneurs and within the business sector.
I was amazed to realise that we filmed these videos almost five years ago – just at the beginning of my adventure connecting with some great people via social media and making films of our chats.
In fact, it was Nick who told me about the nifty Flip camera which I subsequently got for myself and have filmed dozens of films on since. (Note, we hadn’t quite mastered the sound at this stage, so it is not the best sound quality).
In this pair of videos, I am asking Nick how he integrates his spiritual life into his practical, business life.
Back in 1998, I was a young mum and an ordained Buddhist living and working in a exciting, modern spiritual community in London.
‘Not getting attached’ is a big teaching in Buddhism and it took me a while to really understand what this means, especially as a new parent – and that
IT IS OKAY TO REALLY LET YOURSELF LOVE!
The following is an article I wrote about these exploration for Dharma Life Magazine. And at the end of the article, a short video I recorded in 2009 with Inspired Entrepreneur, Nick Williams, on the same topic…
An All Embracing Urge
Published in Dharma Life Magazine – Winter 1998, written by Maggie Kay (Srimati)
Motherhood has opened up a new emotional realm for Srimati. But how to love wholeheartedly and continually let go is the ground of her daily practice.
Against the odds and ahead of hard evidence, I instinctively knew I was pregnant. As I lay in the bath there was something magical in the air. I found myself, hand on belly, making a heartfelt pledge in a tender whisper: “If you’re there, you’re welcome and I’ll do my best for you.” This was the beginning of the greatest love of my life. One week into my relationship with this unknown, unexpected being, I was howling with an ancient grief as I bled, and feared it was over. The pain of that love had also made itself felt.
But all was well, and that feeling of love and pain gathered substance during the months of pregnancy. My body surrendered more and more to its task, and love for my unborn became increasingly tangible with the growth of the life in my belly. So did the fears. Dreams of the coming birth were mostly beautiful, but my heart was full of the fragility of human life. I felt I would do anything to protect this life inside me, and yet there was so little I could do to ensure its wellbeing. That was ultimately out of my hands. Even before my child was born, I was learning that maternal love means letting go.
I spent an unforgettable night bringing my son into the world. In the calm and comfortable aftermath of that struggle, I lay stung awake by wonder, gazing at him. The blacks of his eyes shone in the dark, peacefully apprehending his new world as he lay between us, his parents, the very flesh that had created him. A few days earlier I’d dreamt I was begging a Nazi soldier not to shoot me, to give me one more week so I could see the face of my unborn child. Becoming a mother has shown me that the death of a child is the cruelest loss imaginable.
As a practicing Buddhist, (In 2002 I resigned my ordination to embrace all forms of spirituality and no longer consider myself to be ‘just’ a Buddhist) such strong feelings have raised many questions for me. What gives rise to such powerful and self-sacrificing maternal love? To what extent does this love help or hinder us in living a spiritual life?
Some Buddhists claim parenthood is unhelpful from a spiritual point of view, partly because it opens you up to such incredible attachment. It is generally true that the more emotionally involved you are with someone, the more you are liable to be caught in attachment. At worst this can mean limiting, insecure ways of relating, and unhealthy dependence. Attachment is difficult to recognize and can be easily rationalized as something less selfish. For a Buddhist, however, identifying and uprooting this clinging is the very heart of practice and for a Buddhist parent it is no different.
Nevertheless certain Buddhist traditions take the image of maternal love as a metaphor to describe metta, universal loving-kindness:
As a mother watches o’er her child, Her only child, so long as she doth breathe, So let one practice unto all that live An all-embracing mind.
Parenting, especially early parenting, can seem incomparably unselfish — but is it really? What enables such incredible resources to be unstintingly roused in the service of another human being? Perhaps it is because there is cellular identity with the child, especially in the mother’s case: My child is me. There is quite a leap between this and the empathetic identification of a Bodhisattva, the embodiment of compassion, with all living beings; but it is a powerful analogy.
I have come to value the power and vitality of maternal love and motherhood has given me a depth of experience that enriches my spiritual life. I have contacted a huge reservoir of passionate love for my son such as I have never experienced before. Most parents speak of this kind of love for their children. I prefer to see parental love as a spiritual opportunity. The answer is not to back away from the strength of that love, but to dwell deeply in it; to penetrate its nature and the nature of that which you love.
As a parent you have almost no choice but to love your child passionately, and this demands that you find the same intensity of wisdom. The more your heart is open, the more you can allow any wise reflections to touch you and let them transform you.
The story of Kisa Gotami is probably my favorite from the Buddha’s life. Kisa Gotami comes to the Buddha cradling her dead child. She is distraught, even a little crazed, and cannot accept that her child is dead. She has heard the Buddha is a great man, a great healer, and begs him to provide medicine for her ‘sick’ child. The Buddha replies that he will help her. She must find a mustard seed as medicine, but there is one condition: it must come from a household that has not known death.
Kisa Gotami sets out on her quest, knocking at doors. Those who greet her are happy to give her a mustard seed, but shake their heads when they hear of the condition. The living are few, but the dead are many. Kisa Gotami cannot find a house in which no one has died, and gradually a new perspective dawns. She sees the universality of death and this allows her to acknowledge what has happened. She buries her child, returns to the Buddha, and commits herself to the spiritual life.
Kisa Gotami “wakes up” during her quest. She sees that death and loss are universal, so she can finally grieve and let go of her child. This is a deeper engagement with life and death that sees it in a spiritual perspective. In accepting the death of her child, Kisa Gotami gains insight into the nature of human life. Obviously this is challenging ground. Kisa Gotami had the Buddha’s help. But it is not that she stopped loving, just that her love was placed in a much vaster context.
Tibetan Buddhist texts dwell on the mother-child relationship in many ways to evoke the intensity of love that human beings are capable of. The difficulty lies in transforming exclusive love into one that includes all beings. The prospect of loving every being like one’s only child is awesome, but life offers glimpses of such an experience. For example, when one grieves the death of a loved one, the combination of feelings arising from a personal loss, with an acknowledgment of the universality of death, can open up an intense love for all humanity.
Compassion comes with realizing that all beings will one day share this moment in their own way. Similarly, dying people sometimes reach a serenity where they accept impending death and are imbued with a sublime love for their family and for life itself — as if only this fullness of love is important, more important and powerful than death itself. Over the years I have thought a great deal about the nature of human love, ordinary human affection and intimacy with all its imperfections. It is this middle ground between the lofty climes of metta and the grip of unconscious attachment that I am interested in — that is where many of us stand for much of our lives.
When I first became involved in Buddhism I latched on to the notion of non-attachment because I was hurt by loss and death. I was 19 and didn’t know myself well. Although fairly bright and positive on the surface, I was unconsciously on the run from painful experiences. My adolescence had ended abruptly with my father’s illness and death, and I had witnessed the agony my mother suffered in losing him. I felt mature beyond my years, and my world of teenage rebellion became meaningless.
So, too, did my relationship with my first love, who had recently held such passion and promise for me. I had thought he was my soul-mate, the man I’d spend my life with. But my need for him melted away and I felt strangely alone. Suddenly, I found myself telling him it was over and telling my mother that I was leaving home.
Within a few months, my inner searching brought me to the Glasgow Buddhist Center, and I instantly recognized I had found the means to understand life and death that had been invisibly beckoning ever since I can remember. Although my response to the Dharma was largely sincere, I misconstrued some of what I learnt. While I rejoiced in my fortune at having come across the Buddhist path so young and unencumbered, I did not realized how much emotional backlog I had to deal with. It was during this initial phase that I developed a sort of defended pseudo-independence and fooled myself that I was free of attachments.
Fortunately meditation and spiritual friendship sorted me out. I threw myself into the spiritual life, and moved to the London Buddhist Center where I could participate in more intensive situations for practice, and be around more experienced Buddhists. Meditating every day, living in community with other Buddhists and working in a Buddhist Right Livelihood business was like being in a hall of mirrors. Everywhere I looked, my being was reflected back. There was no escape. So the pain of what I had been running from caught up with me. It was a journey into the underworld and I came more deeply into relationship with the love and pain that had been stirred by these losses.
By fully grieving, in opening up my heart to what had happened, the psuedo-independence crumbled. I was heartbroken, and from that broken heart a bigger heart was released. I began to see that non-attachment was not about holding back, being self-contained and trying to limit the inevitable emotional damage that comes through being in relationship with people. Ironically, I’ve found that non-attachment is about loving deeply, letting my love flow, admitting how much friends, family and partner matter. It involves being willing to love them, give myself to them, even though we will one day be parted. There’s nothing we can do to stop death, to end separation. Non-attachment means being prepared to take the pain of losing loved ones because the sheer experience of love is worth it.
My attitude to love began to change as I acknowledged the truth of impermanence, and the inevitability of the suffering implicit in loving. From feeling I made myself vulnerable by loving, I began to experience a greater robustness in my love. What did I really have to lose? I started to see love as giving rather than losing myself. Really to love I must be prepared to give everything and let go of everything. I must learn to release my love, love for its own sake, with no desire for a secure pay-off.
More than a decade later, with a partner and a four-year-old son, those ponderings have a new arena. The issues of attachment are different. I cannot choose whether or not to love my son, whether it is ‘safe’ to invest emotional energy in him. It is absolutely what I must and will do. I am only beginning the journey of loving as a mother, and every time I think I have understood what is involved, it changes.
And yet I sense that the lessons of this decade are the same. Only insight into to my son’s true nature, indeed into human nature in general, can free me from attachment. Every so often a tragic news story rips through the day-to-day illusion that this love is forever, never to be disturbed by accident, illness, separation.
I do not want to have to face what Kisa Gotami experienced in order to wake up to the human situation, but I do want to wake up. I want to feel unbounded love that is passionate, full and wise. Living with the tension of loving fully and letting go is not easy: it involves simultaneously holding two apparent opposites.
But hopefully the tension will allow a larger perspective to emerge. In the meantime I feel it is the only option. Love is not about binding another or oneself to a status quo because of insecurity. That is essentially an impossible task: things change, like it or not. It means taking a stand on a deeper, spiritual knowledge. To love fully is to open oneself to the truth of the human condition.
Robert’s work has always intrigued me and I’ve heard great things about him from colleagues and friends. Reading his article, I remembered that Robert is a good friend of Nick Williams – another warm and inspiring UK coach who I connected with a couple of years ago.
And so, that led me onto reviewing the video chats Nick and I had recorded together. Up popped this one – Nick asking me what steps I advise people to take if they are starting out with a new business idea.
It’s called Tips for Inspired Entrepreneurs and I give three or four really good practical steps that are helpful if you are formulating or wanting to develop a new business – however big or small.
One of the points we discuss is how PERSONAL it is running your own business and how business success goes hand in hand with our own development as a person.
After all, our business is our creation and an expression of who we are. So to make the best of our business, we need to understand and manage how our personal strengths and weaknesses play out in our work .
And it works the other way too – running a business is one of the most character building endeavours we may ever find ourselves involved in. It can be enormously challenging and by the same token, enormously growthful.
So how does it all begin? How do you formulate and launch a new business idea? Have a look…
As it happens, starting new business is a topical for me as I’m planning to attend the Business Start Up Show in London next month.
My friend and colleague Rachel Elnaugh (former dragon from BBC TV Dragons’ Den) will be there to speak on ‘Metaphysical Marketing’ and ‘The Future is Feminine’ – two topics that are close to both our hearts.
Rachel will also be there ‘womaning’ her stall in support of her exciting new TV channel – Imago People TV. If you want to know more about it, have a look at Imago’s new website:-
But to give you a taste, here are Rachel and I having a video chat about telepathic marketing.
And you are welcome to track down our other videos including our discussion on the emerging Feminine Wisdom in business on my You Tube channel, Thrivecraft.
I made this video with Nick Williams a few years ago when we first met. We are talking about inner wisdom and intuition – how to find it and how to trust it – and how it makes life so much easier!
Nick is a lovely guy and we found we had very resonant interests and approaches to spirituality, work and inner life. He is author of several books including his signature work – Discover the Work You Were Born to Do and runs www.inspired-entrepreneur.com– a vibrant community of heart and soul centered entrepreneurs.
You can download Nick’s free guide to discovering the work you were born to do on his website and find out about all the activities and resources on offer.
Here is our video chat where Nick is asking me about inner wisdom and how I use it in my coaching work to shortcut to the real ‘gold’ within us. (Note that Nick introduces me as Srimati, as I was named in those days!)
Well, my lovelies, it seems I’ve had a bit of blog writer’s block! I have continued to write a daily journal and have recorded a few videos for future consumption, but it’s been hard to know what to share with you for this episode of Raw and Real. I’m guessing that this is because I’ve been deep within an inner process that’s hard to write about whilst inside it. It’s still in happening, but it’s now two weeks since my last post, so I thought I’d at least let you know what’s been going on.
I’m writing this from the wild cliffs of Cornwall instead of the wild field in Devon. Pat and I have been here at our caravan on the atlantic coast for a few days – suddenly hungry to be here after a four month block in Devon. We were partly influenced by the change in the weather – beautifully sunny and fine again after an intense spell of rain. It is incredibly beautiful here. The views over the ocean are just awesome and the psychic quietness of the atmosphere totally liberating. It feels like there’s space for your inner world to expand out and fly-dance in the sky.
About three weeks ago I embarked on a 40 day spiritual programme. It’s a simple thing really – daily reading, reflecting and writing on the themes – but the effects have been profound. I’m no stranger to this sort of thing (I spent my twenties engaged in full time study, meditation, right livelihood practice and retreats on the lead up to becoming an ordained Buddhist) but its been a while since I’ve taken up a such a purposeful, purely spiritual, exercise.
Recently, things have been very settled at the wild field. We’ve been there for a couple of months and all the pandemonium is over. Pat’s bad neck is much better, Jamie has been enjoying a renewed social life after his relationship break up and I’ve re-established my coaching, meditation and writing practice. I’ve been waking up every day, looking out over the peaceful meadows, feeling my wonderful family close by and counting my blessings. What a fantastic, beautiful, quiet, retreat-like haven of a life-style! Almost without realising it, I’ve been dropping deeper and deeper into the richness of my inner world.
And so its not surprising that the spiritual programme is biting. I recognise the pattern. At first there’s excitement and inspiration at the juicy wisdom being studied. Then times of uncomfortableness and resistance because an unenlightened part of me feels threatened (usually hanging on to some ingrained and unconscious way of being that’s really not necessary or useful any more).
After feeling tense and unhappy for a while (can be hours or days) it becomes clearer what’s being challenged and what needs to let go. It helps to allow myself to feel my upset emotions (have a rant or a cry or whatever) and talk to someone who understands the process or write it all down in a journal without judgement. Eventually the realisations come and I end up feeling cleansed, renewed and aligned with a more peaceful, happy way of living than ever before.
I’m now 25 days into the programme and having my third wave of uncomfortableness. (I’ve been really happy and carefree in between, honest!) I’m reminded that at times like this the best thing we can do is simply accept ourselves just as we are – and without the need to analyse why we are feeling out of sorts. A great exercise when you feel like this is to write a long list of “I love me when….(and finish the sentence)”. Write about loving yourself – good or bad – until you have a feeling of accepting every last part of yourself unconditionally. For example “I love me when I’m inspired”, “I love me when I’m depressed”, “I love me when I know what I’m doing and why”, “I love me when I’m lost and confused”.
Unconditional acceptance of oneself is always the beginning of the end of unhappiness. It’s so simple. Even when you are feeling utterly wretched it is possible to step outside and look back upon yourself compassionately (just as you would look upon a crying child who has broken a beloved toy). The trick is to remember to do so! Once, when I was upset about something and unable to feel compassion for myself, Pat fetched a mirror and tenderly held it up in front of me. Looking at the poor crying face in there made me feel rather sorry for the girl and my heart melted.
I think Eckhart Tolle’s masterful book, The Power of Now, captures the simplicity of this acceptance process beautifully. I always say that the Power of Now is one of my ‘desert island books’. I have read scores and scores of spiritual and personal development books over the years, but this one captures an essence of them all. If I was stuck on a desert island with only a few books, I’d want this to be one of them. I thoroughly recommend it. Here’s his website:
There’s also a brilliant loving kindness meditation that I learned many years ago and still practice and teach with relish. It’s a Buddhist meditation called the Metta Bhavana, or cultivation of loving kindness. (Not surprisingly, it seems to me that most spiritual traditions have similar contemplations or prayers.) The meditation begins by fostering love for oneself, then a friend, then a stranger, then an enemy, then the whole world. In my experience it is deeply transformational as well as gently nourishing, no matter what state you are in when you begin. You can find a led Metta Bhavana meditation on CD and MP3 on the amazing Buddhist meditation and resource website, Wildmind. (One day I’ll record one myself, but I haven’t so far).
Wildmind was founded by a lovely colleague of mine, Bodhipaksa, a fellow Scot who I first met at the Glasgow Buddhist Centre 25 years ago when we were both rookies. He now lives in the USA with his young family and writes and teaches in addition to running Wildmind. His latest book – Living As A River – is being launched next month. Recently I’ve been guest blogging for Wildmind (so you’ll find a few of my videos and articles on the blog page) and Bodhipaksa has been so kind and helpful in supporting my move towards publishing my books and CDs.
I have written about love (one way or another) a lot. I suppose really understanding what love is all about is the core of my practice and inspiration. Afterall, I have it on good authority that love is a pretty important thing. Once, when Jamie was sitting in his highchair as a baby, I said to him jokingly, “Oh Jamie, what is the meaning of life?” Hardly able to talk at that age, he answered clearly and emphatically, “Love.” – A baby Buddha!
One of my first articles ever published was for the Buddhist magazine, Dharma Life. It’s my story and thoughts on maternal love – having not long become a mother to said baby Buddha. I’d noticed how spiritually minded people were mixed up about what non-attachment means (still one of my favourite topics) and I was extolling us to embrace our love even if it means we also experience loss. Wildmind still carries this article on their blog page, so here’s the link.
And here’s me talking to Nick Williams of www.inspired-entrepreneur.com again (see last week’s blog). This time, he is asking me about the principle of non-attachment and I explain what I think it really means. I quote William Blake’s poem. For me it captures the spirit of non-attachment and unconditional love: “He who binds himself to a joy doth the winged life destroy; But he who kisses the joy as it flies, lives in eternity’s sunrise.”
Well, writing about all this compassionate and love stuff has cheered me up no end! I guess “I love me when I’m deep in challenging process”, “I love me when I have writer’s block” and “I love me when I’m writing inspiring stuff about love” Just a little tenderness does the trick…
That is the question! At least, it’s the question that was asked of me this week: Should I be revealing so much personal experience in my Raw and Real blog? Is it okay for someone in my position – a self-development professional – to display vulnerability? My answer: You betcha!
That’s what I believe anyway. I recognise that it’s not everyone’s approach to coaching and teaching, however, it is totally and absolutely mine. Sharing myself with you like this feels like the ‘signature dish’ of my delightful vocation. I’m just not the aloof, out of reach, theorist type. I’m interested in the applied stuff – the real stuff that makes a difference, that moves us to the core, the stuff that I know from the inside out. As far as I can make out, sharing my own trials and tribulations and the wisdom that I learn from them, helps and inspires you far more than mere academic ideas.
Just the other day, a coaching client said to me “I find it so helpful to know that you struggle too. It gives me hope. If it seemed you were all sorted and I wasn’t, I’d just feel like I was a lost cause. Knowing that you go through it too – and come out the other end – shows me that I can do it too.” And I’m delighted to say that I’ve had such a surge of appreciative and supportive comments and clicks onto my website that I just know that my ‘brave, honest accounts’ are hitting the mark.
I’ve always looked up to others in my field who tell their revealing true stories. Their vulnerability and authenticity inspires me. I can relate to them, to the challenges they face, to how they feel. I can follow in their footsteps as they traverse the wilderness, climb up and down mountains and run for joy through meadows. Their story is not just a dry, dusty road map. The colour and texture of their account becomes a 3D virtual reality experience that I can breathe and pant and sigh within. More importantly, in the process I become equipped to go on in my own life’s journey.
One of my inspirations is Oriah Mountain Dreamer who wrote The Invitation. This little poem, published in 1995, rocked the world with its piercing depth and quickly developed into a best-selling book. You can read the poem and find out about Oriah’s amazing work at www.oriah.org , however the poem begins…
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it…
Reading the book had a profound effect on me back in 2001. I’d just moved to Devon from London and it gave me some crucial inspiration that led to meeting my (now) husband, Pat. I wrote about this incredible experience in an article called Meeting My Match. (Here’s the link: http://wp.me/ps0N4-9U ) Recently, Oriah herself thanked me for sharing this article on her Facebook page. I was thrilled to be personally acknowledged by such an awesome role model!
Ironically, I’ve actually been holding myself back from splurging all to you this week. It’s been very quiet and settled here in the wild field, and I’ve been absolutely loving the retreat-like lifestyle. For the last 10 days or so, I’ve been working on a personal spiritual development programme. However, this programme requires me to “haud ma wheesht”, which is old Scots (“hold my quiet”) for keeping my mouth shut! Now, I have to admit that this is a bit challenging for my personality. When I’m excited about something, I find it hard to contain. But contain it I must as it is vital for the process to work properly.
It’s a case of practising what I preach. As I often advise clients, there are times when we must keep things to ourselves in order to thoroughly internalise a change and contain the energy of our endeavours. Should we share our stories too soon, we risk dissipating our focus, or worse still, invite the shaking heads and wagging fingers of the nay sayers. There’s nothing worse than a negative Nelly to undermine our tender new attempts at positive change.
Anyway, to satisfy the part of me that wants to document my inspiration and teach it to others, I’ve been quietly journaling and filming my progress with this exciting new programme. (I’m also already getting juicy ideas for presenting fabulous future workshops with this material, but I know I need to be patient!) One day, all will be revealed in the ‘Raw and Real’, but not until the time is right!
So, to reveal or not to reveal? Well, with the exception noted above, I say reveal. It is my experience that I am being spiritually guided to be personally revealing in the way I write and speak in order to fulfil my vocation. And I’m not the only one. I am so enjoying meeting and collaborating with a growing network of like-minded authentic colleagues worldwide. One of the kings of authenticity, in my opinion, is the lovely Nick Williams, author of Discover of the Work You Were Born to Do, collaborator in The International Association of Conscious and Creative Writers www.iaccw.com and founder of www.inspired-entrepreneur.com
So, I will leave you with some inspiration – a couple of short videos of Nick and I talking about the role of authenticity in our coaching work.
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