Captain Your Ship
You'll need to unlearn a few lessons first
Dear Ones,
I’ve realized, over the past few months that I’ve been publishing here, that I want to be in conversation with you much more.
At first, I only had comments open to paid subscribers.
My motivation for this was largely because I tend to view this internet behemoth as a bit of a Wild West… and I didn’t really want to leave open the chance that anyone and everyone could comment… because I just didn’t know what might happen or how bad the trolling might get.
But I don’t want to let fear run the show, here.
So I’ve opened it up… to everyone!
I really, really hope you engage with these posts.
Please comment with your thoughts, to help advance the conversation.
And if you don’t have a comment in you, please “heart” the posts, to let me know you’re here and reading along and taking in what I’m saying.
This is meant to be a place for both reflection and conversation… and I’d really like to see the conversation(s) start to develop.
Please do engage with the posts, going forward… and I’ve also opened up all past posts… so if there’s one or more that has really made you think… or stuck with you… please go back and leave a note!
With Love,
Cecelia 💗
PS:
A reminder: the Wisdom Circle for Philanthropy is now available to any and all mid- to later-career fundraisers who are looking for professional development and support and guidance and community.
I’m SO happy to extend this opportunity to you, to your colleagues and friends, and to all of my beloved comrades in this work.
Check it out! And please share it with anyone who you think will benefit.
The virtual “doors” will be open for just a few more days, as the first Circle Gathering is already NEXT THURSDAY, 10/10. (!)
PPS:
As another reminder, I’m now offering group subscriptions to For the Love of Humanity — which allows teams to sign up for the full value here… with a discount.
People told me that they really want to bring their teams into the discussion here, and I hope this helps that happen.
We’ve all been living life on this planet for a few years now.
Yes?
If you’re reading this, you’re probably an adult… and you’ve likely been an adult for several years now… or even several decades.
What has living on Earth taught you so far?
What have been your experiences… and what lessons have you drawn from those experiences? Or in other words… how has life conditioned you?
I really want you to reflect on that.
I want you to find a place where you can truly be alone… to clear away all distractions… and to just sit with yourself.
Even THAT can be hard… yes?
But sit with yourself — alone, quietly — nonetheless.
And reflect.
What has life taught you about life?
How have you been conditioned by your experiences?
I can’t answer that question for you.
Only you can answer it for yourself.
But I can offer some of what I’ve been taught so far….
The Lessons Started Early
When we first arrive here, we are tiny, helpless, and completely powerless. Unlike most other mammals, we are completely dependent at first.
We cannot locomote without help.
We cannot eat without help.
We cannot eliminate our waste from eating without help.
We will waste away and die without love and care from others.
We are truly powerless.
Because of this reality, we are quite necessarily attuned to the world around us. Not only is that world, and the people in it, something we know we need to survive… but we have a built-in survival instinct that needs to be attuned to that world and those people, in order to protect ourselves.
So we are paying attention to the world around us, constantly.
And everything we experience is information for us.
How our caregivers’ voices sound.
The volume.
The tone and tenor.
What we learn, day after day, different tones and tenors mean.
How it feels to be touched. How it feels to be hungry, and what needs to happen when we feel that feeling. How it feels to be sleepy, to fall asleep, to sleep.
We have experience after experience, all of which teaches us about the world… and conditions us to interact with it in certain ways.
I don’t really have any conscious memories of when I was that little.
But I know what I learned.
I learned that I shouldn’t really relax.
I learned that the world is stressful.
I learned to be on constant alert.
I learned that I couldn’t really trust that my needs would be met by those around me.
I learned that the world isn’t soft, or comfortable.
Rather, I learned that the world is hard.
I learned that I was alone.
As I grew, more information and lessons were layered on top of those lessons…
…like that I had to perform to be accepted…
…or that there was something wrong with me…
…or that I was supposed to strive to be on top…
…or that people would have their way with me, if I didn’t fight them…
…or that I was never going to find true love…
…and more.
ALL of these lessons were layered, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year… decade after decade… and, bit by bit, they became my personality, the way I approached the world…
… but really, they were the ways the world had conditioned me to be.
None of it was a conscious choice.
But it was choice, nonetheless.
Choose Your Choices
The world around us is constantly giving us the message that we are powerless…
…that we are victims of circumstance…
… that life is something that happens TO us, mostly.
But.
Do you know how untrue that is?
Do you know how much power you actually have, in your day-to-day, moment-to-moment existence?
There is SO much we can discuss on this topic, and I’m sure we will eventually… but I’d like you to ponder this beautiful and wise remark right now.
Between stimulus and response, there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
― Viktor E. Frankl
In case you’re not familiar with him, Frankl is a Holocaust survivor. He knows a thing or two about oppression, violence, and suffering, wouldn’t you say?
I have experienced my fair share of oppression, violence, and suffering… and I am a straight, cis, married, White, upper-class, highly educated, only occasionally disabled woman living in the United States.
How much more oppression, violence, and suffering have folks experienced who don’t share those privileges that our hierarchical society affords me, because of those identities I hold and where I live?
So I look to people like Brother Viktor to teach me how to be, to share lessons learned from even greater depths of suffering… and being human.
Suffering is universal in humanity.
Suffering is an inherent part of the human experience.
All humans experience suffering.
Those who our society marginalizes for various reasons experience especially profound and powerful oppression, violence, and suffering.
Yet, we all suffer.
And I feel like acknowledging that solidarity we have with each other is the beginning of a powerful shift for all of us.
The society around us has conditioned us to name everything, to quantify everything, to separate and categorize everything, to hierarchify everything.
But what if we stopped doing that?
Especially with each other?
What if we just relaxed a bit, and stopped overcomplicating things so much… and we just realized that there is no “us” and “them” here on Earth… but only “us”?
What if we all started realizing the power we actually hold?
What if we started consciously embodying the power we have… and consciously choosing, every moment, how we will live (as Brother Victor urges)… rather than just unconsciously re-creating the knee-jerk responses we’ve been conditioned for?
Guess what?
We’d be creating a whole new world.
Together.
Captain Your Ship
We are talking about captaining your own ship, here.
I know this is probably a shift in perspective for you.
I know this may seem hard to envision.
How do most of us live, right now?
Most of us… live in a state of powerlessness that we learned throughout our lives… and that we never took the time and attention to unlearn.
Most of us… live like storm-tossed ships on the ocean.
Most of us… react to the stuff that life throws at us, constantly feeling like we are dropping balls… and constantly being overwhelmed by overwhelm.
Most of us… run into chunks of ice in the water constantly… because we never learned how to steer our ship around them.
Most of us… go from thing to thing to thing throughout our days… without really consciously, intentionally choosing any of it.
We’re talking about choice, here.
We’re talking about intention.
We’re also talking about attention.
We live in a time of fractured attention.
I know this.
I’m sure you do too.
As my life has advanced, and as our technology and culture have continued to develop, I have found the competing demands on my attention growing louder, faster, more persistent, and far more distracting.
Keeping my attention on one — and only one — thing these days seems like a magic trick for the likes of Houdini.
But I work at doing just that.
Because I know: my attention is the most valuable thing I have.
Need convincing?
Just think about how much money corporations spend in order to have it! Your attention is what they are all competing for most.
Ponder this.
And start valuing your attention much more — and choosing where you decide to give it away much more judiciously.
The goal here is to captain your ship…
…live more consciously…
… choose with intention….
… actively direct your attention…
… and, through all of these things, to own your power.
I wish this for you.
May it be so.
I leave you with a bit more timeless wisdom today….
Whatever we put our attention on will grow stronger in our life.
— Maharishi Mahesh Yogi