I’m writing as I prepare to transition from time ‘out’ of the everyday world to being back ‘in’. Having published Approaching Difference Differently, it was important to regroup, recover and replenish, and I’d planned to spend some weeks on retreat on Holy Isle.
The futility of plans – something I keep having to relearn!
Getting to Holy Isle from Glasgow (one train journey away) involves a train, a large ferry, a bus and a small ferry. The latter is locally owned and run and, as is the way with small businesses (not to mention the West-coast weather), schedules can change. This year, the change was … no ferries until February, with all January retreats cancelled.
The cancellation was a blow. I was very attached to the prospect of this retreat, regarding it as a life-raft that, if I could only reach it, would support me to recover some composure, capacity and clarity. And … the greater our attachment to something, the more we’re unsettled when things turn out differently.
An experience on an ALIA Leadership Intensive helped me to navigate my disappointment. ALIA stands for Authentic Leadership in Action and, in each programme, participants would select a ‘main track’ and a shorter ‘creative track’. In 2010, my main track was Leadership Embodiment – my first encounter with Wendy Palmer – with a creative track exploring rhythm and pulse. In 2011, I chose Theory U and a creative track with Barbara Bash*, a brushstroke artist.
In one of Barbara’s sessions, I gained insight into the nature of attachment. Kneeling in front of a pile of paper and using a large brush and ink, we each drew a circle with a dot in the middle, representing heaven, earth and humanity. Once done, we folded the paper twice and put it in a ‘waste’ pile. Then we repeated the process. The essence of the practice was that the brushstroke was ‘done’ and so, without assessing it, we simply put it aside. The aim was to be present, without attachment to our ‘art’, letting go of any internal narrative about it, such as pride or shame, success or failure.
I found the practice both difficult and illuminating – I realised that I didn’t like to ‘bin’ something that I’d created, feeling proud of my work (whether justified or not). I saw how this tendency played out in my life, work and meditation practice. It was a powerful insight that’s been essential to the process of writing: practising non-attachment is key to editing and refining what I’ve written, much of which ends up on the equivalent of a ‘cutting room floor’.
And so, for my time-out, I set aside my attachment to a particular form of retreat and began to explore what I could do with the space and time that I’d carefully carved out. I created a different kind of retreat, which began in a flat in Glasgow, the home of friends who were away. This location provided a very useful ‘pattern-interrupt’, removing me from all the expedient habits that had built up around delivering the book. The retreat then continued at home, which brought challenges, but also an opportunity to establish new patterns in situ. In both settings, I worked with Buddhist practices, embodied practices, and anything or everything that has ever resourced me, to restore healthier ways of being.
The time-out culminated in a realisation that a retreat on Holy Isle probably wouldn’t have been ideal – in the intensity of publishing the book, I’d reached for the familiar, rather than considering what might most support me.
And now, as I begin to re-engage with the world, I realise that the practice of letting go of what’s past is a central theme for the coming year. To transition into a different rhythm of living, I’ll be loosening my attachment to many facets of my working life – and seeing what arises in the resulting space. In addition, after months of intense involvement in, and attachment to, Approaching Difference Differently, I’ll be exploring how I might disentangle myself from any hopes and aspirations for its onward journey. In doing so, I’ll set both the book and myself free.
* Barbara created the ‘brushstroke’ that appears on the front of Pause for Breath, which was then adapted for my second and third books.
Contemplations
- What plan, aspiration, belief or aspect of your life or work are you deeply attached to? How does this attachment constrain your perspective and limit possibilities?
- How might you loosen this attachment? How might this set you free?
