Monthly Archives: November 2024

Holding Resonance

Posted on by
6

“Resonance over reach.”

Mallon Writers inspire again! For nine months we have Zoomed two Fridays a month to chat, write, and connect, and I always come away nourished. Joan attributed her writing prompt tonight to storyteller Jay Acunzo whose website states, “My premise is that we should all prioritize resonance over reach to grow our businesses, audiences, and causes.” It’s about synchronous vibration: The transmission of energy through particles in an elastic medium.

In my mind, resonance generated well facilitates reach.

The Law of Diffusion of Innovation describes how ideas gain momentum and spread through a population or social system. About 2.5% of the population innovates in any given domain. In that domain, another 10-15% of people are early adopters–those with whom the innovation resonates. From there, about 35% comprise the early majority, another 35% the late majority, and finally about 16% the laggards. The early majority vibrate in harmony with the innovators–their respective particle waves are resonant and consonant–music to one another’s ears.
Once an idea or message vibration is established and strong, it then amplifies outward, creating new harmonies–between early adopters and members of the early majority and so on. Synergy and amplitude of resonance with each degree of distal reach is less intense, but enough to maintain momentum of movement–of adoption.

As I consider my message of openness, curiosity, humility, and connection across difference, this reminder buoys me. I first learned about this ‘law’ from Simon Sinek’s TED talk, How Great Leaders Inspire Action. I was an early adopter of life coaching. I am definitely an early adopter of bridging political divisions through dialogue and personal connection. My job here is to help establish the stable frequency, the harmonic base, like the initial rhythm of a new music composition (think Ben Folds inventing a new song). Creating a memorable and meaningful orchestral masterpiece starts with grounding in a steady beat and key, then adding each instrument section for its own unique contribution for melodious and harmonious depth and texture of sound. This kind of resonance affects not just our ears and cognition, but our very souls, our humanity.

Attuning to resonance is how I sense, discern, and navigate my way through any interaction of political polarization. I seek that rhythm, that vibration in the person/people I’m with, listening for the frequency that I can track to connect. Connection across difference is not for everybody, at least not on the surface. Shouting my message to the masses through a bullhorn wastes energy and likely drives more people away than it attracts. But this quiet yet bold, cadenced pulse that emits from my depths can reverberate with the same, maybe small tone in someone despite and through the noise–the magnet that draws us closer rather than repels. [Funny how it’s electrical polar opposites that attract? It’s a paradox I addressed last year!]

My vibration resonates for connection on the wavelength of possibility.

It occurs to me that I can only sustain this resonance if my rhythm is true to myself–my own innate heartbeat of connection–that which is natural, organic, effortless, and cannot be faked. Because that is the only way I will find those who truly resonate, the only way I will really reach anyone, near and far. So at the same time I effuse, emit, and amplify, I must also insulate. I must resist those who say my message is futile, that the cause is lost, or that I must alter my message to fit some norm or mold. Nope. My fellow connectors and I find one another by sensing our shared deep, steady beat.

I Hold Resonance for Us, my friends. Let us vibe to the rhythms that connect us, the ones that help us trascend the toxic rage of identity politics and oversimplified, overgeneralized, us-them mentality. Let us hold our hearts open for shared humanity to resonate and amplify.

Holding Presence: Patience 2.0

Posted on by
5

“In some blog can you give us more what holding patience etc. means? I was trying to explain to Kate (spouse) and [not] sure I was giving a good explanation. [I] would like to do more of this practice.”

Thanks for asking, Patty! I hope I can answer your question tonight.

Last night I debated whether to entitle the post Holding Patience or Holding Presence. I see these practices as intertwined. It’s about mindfulness, applied to our inner struggles and those of others.

Mindfulness is defined by many as being in and with the present moment, whatever and however it is, without judgement or resistance. It’s so much easier said than done, especially when the present moment is uncomfortable, difficult, traumatic, and threatening. Mindfulness is an allowing, an active rather than passive acceptance–a firm, stable, non-adversarial and peaceful presence, not a resignation.

What I meant to convey last night is that when we are present with our difficult emotions, when their intensity feels overwhelming and we cannot find our way out just yet, rather than deny, dismiss, judge, or try to control them, we simply allow them to run their course, however long that takes. It’s okay to observe our feelings and sense how they impact our thoughts, perceptions, reactions, and interactions. Allowing is different from wallowing. To me allowing feels like sitting on the beach and letting the water come and go, noticing how each wave has both its own rhythm and shape and also shares its nature with every other wave that day, at that place in time. Wallowing feels more like throwing myself into the water, fighting to stay upright as the waves come, immersing in them, barely able to gasp for air in between the onslaughts. I’m not sure this analogy is totally accurate–it’s late and I’m a bit fried from the work week. Allowing exercises agency; wallowing does not.

Holding Patience is about Holding Presence over time, allowing things to unfold and emerge on their own pulse. It’s about mindful self-regulation, compassion for self and others, meeting us each and all wherever we are. It’s so abstract, I know. I picture us each on a path, paradoxically each to our own and also shared with one another. Some of us jog, some stroll, some huddle, some stand. Whenever any of us interact, we each attune to the other, adjusting our gait, speed, energy, vibration–to resonate with the other–so not moving at the same speed or intensity, necessarily, but in ways that complement one another and promote each other’s ways of being right now, rather than hindering or opposing them. I imagine a fluid movement of all of us, breathing, attending to ourselves and one another in mutual respect and reverence.

This Holding allows space and time for tension and agitation, allows for these vibrations to dissipate and dampen in their natural course. No forcing, no pressure. This allows easier observation of the evolution of feelings, thoughts, relationships, conclusions, and consequences in context. It’s a paradoxically first hand, experiential awareness along with a detached consideration.

On election day I wrote:
I hold space for us to RAIN the hard feelings, as Tara Brach teaches–Recognize, Allow, Investigate, Nurture–if we want. I can also simply sit (stand, hunch, squat) with us, hold it all with us, be with us. We don’t have to do anything else right now.

This feels like Holding Patience and Presence to me.

From Tara Brach’s website:

The acronym RAIN is an easy-to-remember tool for practicing mindfulness and compassion using the following four steps:

  • Recognize what is happening;
  • Allow the experience to be there, just as it is;
  • Investigate with interest and care;
  • Nurture with self-compassion.

Maybe we don’t necessarily have to do it in order. We can Allow before we actually Recognize or name anything. We can Investigate in small bites, over whatever timeline we can tolerate or are able. And we can Nurture ourselves the entire time, holding compassion for ourselves and others. And maybe we don’t have to follow any structure at all–just remembering the concepts themselves can de-escalate our sense of urgency to have everything figured out, tied up, closed, and put behind us.

Does that help? I can barely think straight right now, closing my eyes, feeling for the words from the inside, below the neck. It looks like what I mean. Maybe it will look very different in the morning. Thank you again for asking, Patty. Your engagement allowed me to revisit ideas I had put down after I posted last night. How delightful.

I Hold Presence for Us, my friends, because it helps me stay patient and peaceful.

Holding Patience

Posted on by
4

“… casting ourselves into the catastrophic imagined future… not living in the now…”

Kasey’s insight from yesterday, recalled piecemeal here, sticks with me today: Such a wise observation and reminder of human nature. We survive as a species because we are wired to see threat and react instinctively. That instinct is the sympathetic ‘fight or flight’ response: elevated heart rate, elevated blood pressure, dilated pupils, elevated blood sugar. Physiologically it’s meant to last seconds to minutes–escape, conquer, or die. In the world humans have built for ourselves today, we may live in this short-term-designed survival response for decades. So it becomes necessary for modern H. sapiens to develop voluntary physiologic regulatory mechanisms to not just survive, but thrive, even and especially in times of great threat, real or perceived.

Long time readers of this blog may recall that I took about six months off in 2021. My last post before that period was Strategies to Get Through–the reminder to myself for how I’d survive whatever was to come. And I had to do more than survive, because others depended on me to function at my best. It was my first blog description of what many now know as my mantra, ODOMOBaaT: One Day, One Moment, One Breath at a Time.

I forgot to mention last night that my day started off so well because I messaged with the lovely Troy. He asked me how I was.

Me: I’m ok. Trying to figure out the way I want to be and what I want to do…
Troy: What if there is no figuring out? You already know. (He goes on to describe his breath work practice that keeps him grounded in himself)
[Presence. Patience.]
Me: Yes you are right, of course. I’ve been being and doing exactly what I’m meant to—I know it. I just feel more urgency and threat now. Thank you for helping me recognize it better. I have been breathing. Did I ever show you my ring that says ‘one breath’? I got it made (during that time in 2021)…
[How am I so lucky to know so many amazing people?]

Right now, one week out from the election, it’s too much to ask people to put down or let go their grief and despair. We all need time. I continue to marvel at the utterly unanticipated reaction I’ve had in the last 7 days, ‘barely a breath’ since the election, as Donna so eloquently reminded me. So I hold patience for myself and all of us, to process, to be. And so many of us have stressors much more salient and immediate than the election! We will all find our way, all in our own time. We must be gentle and patient with ourselves and one another. This is especially true for the less distressed of us to hold for the most distraught. We all know in our thinking minds that it will not feel like this forever. But we cannot make anyone’s feeling mind not feel. All we can do is be with, hold with, and shepard through. If we live long enough, we will all take turns holding and being held.

So tonight I breathe with one of the grounding questions from the Strategies post:

Are We Okay Right Now?
Previously, in life-threatening situations when I was stunned and dumbfounded and also knew I had to hold it together for others, this was the question that got me unstuck.  Obviously we are not totally ‘okay’ if it’s a crisis.  But when I compare current state, right this minute, to worst case scenario (which could happen, hence the crisis) and we are not there yet, then I can take a breath, regain my wits, and take the next necessary step.

Whatever catastrophe(s) any of us imagines for our future, we are not there yet.

I Hold Patience for Us tonight to pull ourselves out of catastrophization–eventually, eventually, eventually.
I breathe deeply, slowly. I attune to the supple yet strong elasticity of chest and abdomen, the profound adaptiveness of the body, and how it reflects the same qualities of the mind. We are stable, strong, flexible, agile, and resilient. We are human.

One breath at a time, friends.