Posted on June 18, 2022
A fascinating dimension of the golf journey has been an evolving search for a connection between a golf stroke and meditation.
The goal of a golf shot is for the golf ball to hit a target; and an available golf shot strategy is to create peak performance conditions by becoming one with the environment, the club, the ball, and the target. The puzzle is how one can deliberately create that “spiritual relationship” with the environment, the club, the ball, and the target, resulting in a golf ball at a chosen target. A conclusion is that the puzzle can be solved by creating conditions for oneness of the physical body and the mind.
Basic meditation guidance offers, “…posture is like a foundation and is quite important for a resting mind: as the body goes, so goes the mind; as the mind goes, so goes the body. Good posture facilitates the easy flow ofthe breath, too.” [Dr. John Edwin DeVore (2006). Sitting in the Flames: Uncovering Fearlessness to Help Others. North Charleston, South Carolina: BookSurge. Appendix A: Basic Meditation Instructions, 199]
Recently, Track Man golf lessons offered the author needed serious work on posture—video told the complete story, upper back, shoulders, and head tipping forward during set-up. After some work during lessons, at the gym, and on the course, playing experiences were noting that the golf game was at its best. A couple mornings ago it dawned on the author that perhaps the answer to the improved golf game could be found in the relationship between set-up posture and a quiet mind, “…as the body goes, so goes the mind; as the mind goes, so goes the body.”
Pre-shot Routine[1]
The Pre-shot Routine ensures that the goal of every shot is crystal clear, and that the motivation is created to sustain the desired result. The typical golfer wants pre-shot routines to be the same for each type of shot from one shot to the next, and each time you go through the routine, you want it to take approximately the same amount of time.
Two tools for pre-shot routine are attention and intention. Attention is the tool of the mental body and is the what of our focus—single-pointed attention on the picture of the physical body in an environment swinging a club at a ball that is moved to a target. Intention is the tool of the emotional body and is the why of our focus. The quality of each shot experience is determined by how consciously attention and intention are wielded. The challenge is to be present to consciously use these tools to serve us physically, emotionally, and mentally for every shot—ground the physical body, elevate the emotional body, and focus the mind.
After typical shot preliminaries—relaxation techniques, target selection, checking the lie of the ball, planning strategies for wind direction and strength, estimating distance, and making the club selection—a sample pre-shot routine might look as follows:
You are now ready for action with your unique ritual.
Ritual
A good athlete can enter a state of body awareness in which the right swing-stroke or the right movement happens by itself effortlessly without any interference of the conscious will. This is the paradigm for non-action, the purest and most effective form of action. The game plays the game; the poem writes the poem; we can’t tell the dancer from the dance.[3]
For every shot, the golfer needs to evolve a ritual for creating a personal teepee where the mind becomes clear and quiet[4] and the programmed subconscious is given absolute trust to deliver a shot. In 1929, legendary Bobby Jones remarked,
The golf swing is a most complicated combination of muscular actions, too complex to be controlled by objective conscious mental effort. Consequently, we must rely a good deal upon the instinctive reactions acquired by long practice. It has been my experience that the more completely we can depend upon this instinct—the more thoroughly we can divest the subjective mind of conscious control, the more exclusion of all thoughts as to method—is the secret of a good shot…After taking the stance, it is too late to worry. The only thing to do is to hit the ball.[5]
It could be argued that pulling the trigger to make the shot is the most critical of all elements of the shot cycle, and it may be the simplest and yet possibly the most difficult because it must be done without thinking and with absolute trust of the subconscious to perform to expectations. As we settle to create the space bubble—the state of relaxed concentration—we are deliberately breathing. The ritual is automatic and is the one distinct stimulus that will trigger and coordinate all the elements that facilitate emergence of the peak performance state. We are empty and the trigger is absently pulled.
This evolving master skill is individually unique and is the state of being present, tension-free, with that which is intended for as long as intended.[6] Summon the inner artist for a remarkable and often indescribable zone experience of spiritual oneness; and be witness to freedom and an intuitive unleashing of a unique, creative, synchronous flow of human physical activity. Simply relax and put your awareness where your deepest natural breathing originates—sensed image approximately 1½ inches below your navel. Let breathing be deep and full, shake loose any tension in the muscles, and trust that as center is experienced, there is seamless unity of body, mind, and spirit, setting the stage for “sweet impact” and zone performance. Well-practiced actions will result naturally without effort. A quick and dirty ritual checklist for every shot must include the following:
Squeeze Trigger. With absolute trust, subconsciously trigger the tension-free swing.
Good set-up posture and a quiet mind can create conditions for optimum performance, “…as the body goes, so goes the mind; as the mind goes, so goes the body.”
[1] Design pre-shot routines that work for you. This routine is offered as only input.
[2]Pelz, 100.
[3] Mitchell, S. 2006. Tao te ching. New York, NY: Harper, viii.
[4] Shoemaker uses “clear and quiet state-of-mind” in Extraordinary Golf. This concept has also been referred to as relaxed concentration (Gallwey) and flow state (Csikszentmihalyi).
[5] Gallwey, 19–20.
[6] Shoemaker, Extraordinary Putting, 8–10.
Posted on June 12, 2022
Reflecting on the January 6 Committee hearings, two impeachments, the Mueller Report, the Senate, Senator Mitch McConnell, a couple of fine reads—The Betrayal (Ira Shapiro) and Fascism: A Warning (Madeleine Albright)—and recent shootings in New York, Texas, and Oklahoma is cause for alarm! Coupled with escalating political hyperpolarization caused by the conflicting ideologies of traditionalists, modernists, and post-modernists, a strong message is that American democracy is in danger. Witness the absence of civil discourse; domestic terrorism and targeted violence by extremist groups; possession of assault-type weapons and high-capacity magazines by a growing number of citizens; continued fanning of the flames about the lack of election integrity; widespread proliferation of misinformation and conspiracy theories; a Senate in need of new rules and new leadership; and public trust of the press and integrity of the First Amendment has eroded.
Folks, we have a great deal to heal and get done in the battle for the roots of the Nation. Our fellow citizens are not our enemies; and we are not “Red States” and “Blue States.” Let us be open to the infinite potential, opportunities, and possibilities for our great country, move forward, and evolve. We are all Americans, and we each have a daily choice to transcend and include others. For dialogue, a “draft” worldview of our “mighty task” might look something like this:
WORLDVIEW
Quality, compassion, common good, and virtue in all we are and all we do.
Strategies
It is time to evolve and move forward from the chaos of hyperpolarization being created by conflicting ideologies of traditionalists, modernists, and post modernists that is being pontificated by politicians and respective tribes. A good cultural worldview for America can facilitate dialogue and transcendence.
Posted on June 5, 2022
Truth and trust matter; and truth and trust are an inseparable duo!
Truth connotes in accordance with fact or reality, or belief that is accepted as true; and trust is about reliance on the integrity, strength, ability, and surety of a person, place, or thing. Moreover, it is about confidence in a person, place, or thing. A personal contention is that trust is a result and is earned; and it seems to be intimately related to honesty, respect, and one’s capacity to influence others to willingly move toward common purposes. In a discussion of leadership for the twenty-first century, Rost (Leadership for the 21st Century, 1993, Praeger, 102) suggests that leadership is a trust-based, influence relationship between the respective leader and the self, and among leaders and followers who intend ethical changes that mirror their common purpose.
During a stint with corporate America, a beautiful person by the name of Hyler Bracey, president of the Atlanta Consulting Group, became part of my life. When Hyler was twenty-eight years old, he drove stock cars. One evening during a race, he was in a serious wreck, and his car exploded into flames. He suffered burns over 40 percent of his body. Today, Hyler is severely scarred, his face is scar tissue, and his deformed hands with stiff bent fingers remind one of brittle burned twigs in a campfire. The amazing thing about Hyler is that in moments after meeting him, one sees through his scars and trauma and is connected to his heart.
All this is by way of sharing that Hyler helped me appreciate that building trust is hard work and a result of action and that single violations of trust by the self and others are difficult to repair. His teaching was that trust is the fruit of a three-step process. First, over time, the parties in relationships make agreements and commitments and keep these agreements and commitments. Second, the mandatory critical first step in relationship maturation leads to the development of credibility and respect; and third, steps one and two create an environment of openness, honesty, and space for willing transformation and change. The fruit of these three interdependent steps is trust, a vital ingredient for quality relationships, honest dialogue, and transformation. Absent truth and trust, trust becomes conditional.
Yes, truth and trust matter; and truth and trust are an inseparable duo! Hyler and three of his consulting associates and friends—Jack Rosenblum, Aubrey Sanford, and Roy Trueblood—have written and published a wonderful book, Managing from the Heart (1990, Atlanta, GA: Heart). The power of positive, heartfelt choice is infinite and can clarify intention, unlock facing everything and avoiding nothing and beckon accepting 100% responsibility for evolving environments on all levels. Listening to the conscience and telling the truth are wonderful gifts; and trust is the earned result. America, it is time for universal background checks, license to carry, red flag law, safe storage law, and a commitment to keep weapons of war on the battlefield. It needs to be illegal for a citizen to purchase, own, or possess assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines.
Posted on May 28, 2022
Let me know how we can make this better!
Reflecting on the recent shootings in New York and Texas, coupled with escalating political hyperpolarization caused by the conflicting ideologies of traditionalists, modernists, and post-modernists; absence of civil discourse; domestic terrorism and targeted violence by extremist groups; doubts about election integrity; widespread proliferation of misinformation; and erosion of the First Amendment have given rise to thoughts about the dire need for leading, evolving, transcending and including, core virtues, values, and worldviews. Today, it feels like a nice place to start is with virtues and values.
Concerning virtues and values, Steve McIntosh offers,
Virtues are traits of moral excellence or strengths of character whose practice can lead to both ethical living and satisfying happiness. Although the concepts of virtues and values are interrelated, there is an important distinction. As we’ve seen, values are magnetic, they provide the aims and goals that attract us toward that which is more perfect, more real, and more right. Values represent the improved future conditions we desire. Virtues, on the other hand, represent the good qualities we presently possess; the acquired attributes of excellence that become engrained into our basic nature through commitment and practice. Values are the best of what we want, but virtues are the best of who we are. Simply put, values are headings and virtues are habits— “habits of the heart,” as they’ve been called. (Steve McIntosh, 2020, Developmental Politics: How America Can Grow into a Better Version of Itself, St. Paul, Minnesota, Paragon House, 130-31)
After contemplating the difference between virtues and values, it was interesting to work through McIntosh’s process (Appendix B: An Exercise for Practicing Virtues: Creating a Personal Portrait of Good, 179-189) and come to grips with a list of virtues associated with perceived obligations to the self, others, and transcendence. With a goal of “peace-of-mind” and purpose and connections created on a foundation of compassion, here is the list of obligations with respective virtues, and am certain it will improve:
Some values that quickly surface are 100% responsibility-life happens because of me, not to me; leadership; model the way; common good; show up as authentic self; mindful and aware; self-restraint; self-discipline; face everything, avoid nothing; process perspective; passionate intent; generosity; patience; skillful means; help others; care about others; quality; true self; practice; transcendental wisdom, et al.
Today, personal virtues that need work are gratitude and courage; and the nice thing about values is that they are life’s work-in-process, simply “aims and goals.”
Folks, we have a great deal to heal and get done in the battle for the roots of the Nation. Our fellow citizens are not our enemies; and we are not “Red States” and “Blue States.” Let us be open to the infinite potential, opportunities, and possibilities for our great country and evolve. We are all Americans, and we each have a daily choice to transcend and include others. Marching forward with core virtues and a desired cultural worldview can create a hope filled picture. A worldview of our “mighty task” might look something like this:
WORLDVIEW
Quality, compassion, common good, and virtue in all we are and all we do.
Strategies
It is time to evolve from the chaos of hyperpolarization being created by conflicting ideologies of traditionalists, modernists, and post modernists that is being pontificated by politicians and respective tribes. Solid core virtues and a good cultural worldview for America can facilitate transcendence. Your feedback to JohnDeVore@aol.com is invited and encouraged. Let’s compare notes, improve this message, move beyond the hyperpolarization, and evolve for the good of Americans and the world.
Posted on May 21, 2022
Some memories never fade!
It was May 16, 1955, early morning, and my dog, Chum, was barking, non-stop. As the family slept, my Pekinese Chum’s bedroom had always been in the kitchen by his food and water on a leash with the red hand loop around the doorknob of the kitchen-basement door. Chum’s non-stop barking was not the norm!!
From the North, upstairs bedroom, I sped quickly downstairs to discover that the kitchen light was on, and the closer I came to the kitchen door, awareness screamed that there was a problem. On the kitchen cupboard counter to the right of the refrigerator was a half full glass of milk, the refrigerator door was open, and Mom, in her nightgown, was lying on her right side on the floor in spilled milk with her head resting against the counter door and the bottom ledge of refrigerator door opening.
Immediately, I beckoned Dad, moved Mom to the middle of the kitchen, and began artificial respiration. Dad went immediately to the telephone and called an ambulance; and, as the two of us traded turns doing artificial respiration and checking Mom’s pulse, we knew it was too late. Dad’s wife, love and partner, and my mom had passed away, suffering a pulmonary embolism. She was 46.
Dad cancelled the ambulance and called the coroner; and when a hearse arrived, Mom was taken to Carlson Funeral Home. At the time, my brother, Dan, was 10, I was 15, and Dad was 46. Life would never be the same for the three of us. Reflecting on the transition after Mom’s death, it has always felt like there were too many things that needed to be done and grieving would come later; or, perhaps, we did not know how to grieve.
My grieving process would not begin for some 20 years later, 1975, at the Personal Arts Center, Golden, Colorado. Visits to the Personal Arts Center had been initiated during transition when my seven-year-old daughter from a previous marriage had come to live with my current wife and me. The topic for one evening was grief. To start the session, participants were seated in a circle and our facilitator requested that we each share an experience of grief. My sharing was of the death of Mom some 20 years ago; and the facilitator immediately detected the anger in my voice about Mom’s death. His request was for a volunteer female participant to play the role of my mom and for Mom and me to have a conversation. In front of the group Mom and I sat on a couch, and with the help of the facilitator, Mom and I began a conversation with her in the casket and while she was doing the Tuesday weekly, family ironing. Wow is all I can say! This conversation had waited for 20 years and was well overdue; and the grieving process concerning Mom’s death was underway; continues today; and the frequent conversations with her are therapeutic and offer a sense of peace and comfort. I miss her physical presence; however, it always feels like she is here with me. Today it feels like proper, timely grieving is essential for peace-of-mind.
In 1987 a work associate shared the SARA grief cycle at breakfast. The associate openly admitted that he was grieving because I had been selected for a position that he felt should have been his. Our conversation was quite moving as he shared that the “S” was shock, the “A” was anger, the “R” was rationalization, and the last “A” was for acceptance. As one grieves, we cycle, and recycle, through the four emotions, each in our own way and each in our own time, often moving from shock to acceptance or from rationalization to anger, and the other combinations of SARA. Awareness of the process and being with emotion experienced is critical for grieving, simply sit in the flames of the tortuous emotion being experienced.
Mindfulness and awareness of the personal nature of the “slinky-like,” SARA grieving process has been fruitful for Mom’s death and other lost ones. Whether it is shock, anger, rationalization, or acceptance, the objective is to be with the experience of the created emotion. Sit in the flames, face everything, fear nothing, and do it in your own way and in your own time. SARA works! Grieving is definitely individual, process, and essential.
Posted on May 14, 2022
Hyperpolarization 101!!! Roe versus Wade, inflation, southern border, Ukraine War, and associated, unfolding midterm elections, political chatter, these have been our recent headlines. An analytical glance will establish the least common denominator to be hyperpolarization accompanied by social regression and anger. Steve McIntosh offers,
Our frustrated, stymied, stalemated, and hyperpolarized political process is stuck in its tracks, and this gridlocked condition is now beginning to cause our social regression. Hyperpolarization is really the mother of all our problems because very few of the serious challenges we face can be adequately addressed until we ameliorate the fractious and frozen state of our body politic…The only way to ameliorate this “wicked problem” is to effectively grow out of it…Although further regression is certainly a possibility, the fractured state of American society also has the potential to catalyze a cultural renewal that can lead to a new era of political cooperation and progress. In other words, the difficult work of overcoming hyperpolarization can lead to a renaissance in American culture. (Steve McIntosh, 2020, Developmental Politics: How America Can Grow into a Better Version of Itself, St. Paul, Minnesota: Paragon House, xiii)
Integral Worldview
…this project of cultivating cultural evolution reveres and integrates the values of traditionalism, modernism, and post modernism, and seeks to facilitate the unique kind of progress offered by each of these worldviews. Moreover, this evolutionary program also seeks to bring about a new and inclusive integral worldview that can effectively include the best and transcend the worst of America’s three existing cultures…It is thus by restoring our common sense of higher purpose and collective destiny that we can grow into a more advanced stage of cultural maturity and thereby save our democracy in the process. (McIntosh, 168)
America!! We have a great deal to heal and get done in the battle for the soul of the Nation. Our opponents are not our enemies; and we are not “Red States” and “Blue States.” Let us be open to the infinite potential and possibilities and unify our great country. We are all Americans, and we can each choose to transcend and include others. A vision of our “mighty task” might look something like this:
Current Reality
As the “run-up” to the 2022 midterm elections unfold; and as we witness the dark divide becoming wider, deeper, and darker, contrasting candidates for political positions can bear fruit for American democracy. It appears the critical decision is to select political leaders who can best close the gap between current reality and a desired vision for freedom in America. How we humans choose to “show-up” in the world can be critiqued by research, examination, and witnessing talents, skills, habits, virtues, identities, and experiences; making observations; and scrutinizing character, personality, mentality, and interests.
In the hyperpolarized environment there are a bunch of tasks that need to get done: non-political voting rights management, women’s rights, technology building, inflation management, infrastructure maintenance and improvement, jobs creation, healthcare, childcare, immigration reform, countering systemic racism, women’s rights, LGBTQ rights, minimum wage, climate control, confronting home grown, white supremacy, terrorism, fair share tax reform, sanely evolving through COVID-19 and preparing for future pandemics, education re-tuning and funding, sane gun control, policing in communities, foreign policy, et al. As the two Japanese characters for crisis offer, with danger comes opportunity. The danger is continued and expanded division and autocracy…control; and the opportunity is to work on our unhealthy personal and collective issues, participate in interactive dialogue and coalitions, and get done what is good for all Americans…freedom.
An opinion is that cultic-tribal addiction—political party sorting—is simply unresolved discomfort within the emotional body, the unhealthy self, or as offered in Integral Life Practice: A 21st Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening (Wilber, Patten, Leonard, and Morelli, 2008, Boston, MA: Integral, page 41, 92-93),
…the shadow or dark side of the psyche, those aspects of ourselves that we’ve split off, rejected, denied, hidden from ourselves, projected onto others, or otherwise disowned…repressed unconscious…because we’ve pushed or pressed it out of our awareness, and unconscious because we are not aware of it…But the fact that we are not conscious or aware of the shadow does not mean that it has no effect: it just expresses itself through distorted and unhealthy means-or what is typically called neuroses…safety and security are sought by bonding together and identifying (fusing) with a tribe in order to persevere and protect against outsiders. Allegiance and admiration are given to the chief…emergence of a sense of self (ego) distinct from the tribe, although it often acts impulsively on behalf of its favored group.
Undoing and reintegrating this repressed and denied unconscious to improve our psychological health is process and is not easy; however, the work can free energy that has been spent shadowboxing with the self, making excuses, spinning, blaming, and telling stories. An initial step is simply a sense of openness and a commitment to face everything and fear nothing, just sit in the flames of the unresolved discomfort and give birth to penetrating insight and skillful means. We are simply witnessing the evolution of the human condition, and with patience, persistence, education, compassion, learning, and spirituality, we can move forward together, not further divided, and closer to autocracy, more lying, zero leadership, an orchestrated overthrow of elections, bypass of constitutional order, accelerated division and violence, racism and white supremacy, direction of a violent insurrection, and committed students of Vladmir Putin and his Ukraine disaster. Individually and collectively, we can grow common good, compassion, mindfulness, awareness, virtue, and self-restraint, and quiet the insatiable, unhealthy ego; and the dampening of anger, egotistical pride, jealousy, envy, doubt, ignorance, attachment, and fear can begin to free energy to nurture peace-of-mind, a foundation of compassion for purpose and connections, and a sense of happiness and joy. Let us get this job done for all Americans, not just a select, partisan few. Casts, conflicting political messages, and deliberate, negative words that separate, attack, and divide are simply wrong.
Gap Closers (Steve McIntosh, Developmental Politics, 169)
Commitment to unfold personal contributions to the evolution of the universe.
Simply create a vision, objectively assess current reality, and generate gap closers to move current reality closer to the vision. We can do this!
Posted on May 7, 2022
Roe versus Wade, Ukraine War, Russia, Vladmir Putin, Donald Trump, inflation, COVID-19 and midterm elections, these have been our recent headlines. An analytical glance will establish the least common denominator to be hyperpolarization accompanied by social regression and anger. Steve McIntosh offers,
Although America is plagued with abundant problems and challenges, most of these problems have pragmatic solutions that are within our power to implement. Almost none of these solutions, however, can be realized within our current political environment. Our frustrated, stymied, stalemated, and hyperpolarized political process is stuck in its tracks, and this gridlocked condition is now beginning to cause our social regression. Hyperpolarization is really the mother of all our problems because very few of the serious challenges we face can be adequately addressed until we ameliorate the fractious and frozen state of our body politic. (Developmental Politics: How America Can Grow into a Better Version of Itself. 2020. St. Paul, Minnesota: Paragon House, xiii)
The only way to effectively solve this ugly problem is to evolve our collective human condition. This can commence by selecting politicians who are leaders. As we do our homework for midterm elections, leadership qualities can be identified.
Core Values, Virtues and Guiding Principles
Leaders
Leadership
LEADERSHIP is an attribute of an individual’s brand; and is an earned, trust based, influence relationship between the respective leader, other leaders and followers who intend ethical and moral change that mirror common purpose. Some key qualities are as follows:
Artificial Intelligence: The theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence-visual perception, speech recognition, decision making and translation between languages.
Individuals matter, leaders matter and leadership matters. If democracy is to prevail, we must select good leaders and hold them accountable for high quality leadership!! The evolution imperative of wholeness and inspired, growing awareness of the human condition, coupled with helping others, can change the daily headlines from an underlying sense of fear, chaos, and domination to love and freedom. Leaders can be grown who create a vibrant civil society where people continue to be free, to live as they choose, to speak their minds, to organize peacefully and to have a say in how they are governed. Steve McIntosh contends, “…the fractured state of American society also has the potential to catalyze a cultural renewal that can lead to a new era of political cooperation and progress. In other words, the difficult work of overcoming hyperpolarization can actually lead to a renaissance in American culture.” (xiii)
Posted on April 30, 2022
As the “run-up” to the 2020 midterm elections unfold; and as we witness the dark divide becoming wider, deeper, and darker, contrasting candidates for political positions can bear fruit for American democracy. It appears the critical decision is to select candidates who can best close the gap between current reality and a desired vision for freedom in America.
How one chooses to “show-up” in the world can be critiqued by research, examination, and witnessing talents, skills, habits, virtues, identities, and experiences; making observations; and scrutinizing character, personality, mentality, and interests. Former President Donald J. Trump offers an excellent example of necessary candidate homework.
Research, Examination, and Witnessing[1]
A track record of business and government failures and absolute chaotic disasters: most consequential president in history; puppet of Vladimir Putin; foreign policy bullying, badgering, and destroying; has abandoned allies; personal business endeavors with several bankruptcies; North Korean nuclear weapons stockpile doubled; pandemic management and leadership non-existent (dereliction of duty resulting in an estimated 250,000 American deaths; and passed buck off to governors who became blame targets); enlisted foreign interference in elections (Russia and China); several obstruction of justice charges; numerous lawsuits; two impeachments; accepts payoffs for positions; and has numerous Trump party cronies—Lindsay Graham, Mitch McConnell, Steve Bannon, Roger Stone, Michael Flynn, Kevin McCarthy, Josh Hawley, Marjorie Taylor Greene, et al—who are lost souls in search of a tribe and chief. Zero leadership: no decisions made based on strategy, makes decisions on how he feels at the time; can handle small projects and sign executive orders; not able to lead projects large in scope. Orchestrated overthrow of 2020 election, bypassed Constitutional order, and directed a violent insurrection to support a coup against the Vice President and Congress. Immigration policy is inhumane and selection of judges and environmental deregulations may be legacy. As Bernie Sanders has eloquently noted, “Nero fiddled while Rome burned. Trump golfs.”
Observations
Donald J. Trump is a genius at networking and using the media to recruit, retain, and fire, at will, addicted surrogates, circles of friends, admirers, celebrity hangers-on, and wannabes who savor and long for safety and security sought by bonding together and identifying with a tribe to persevere and protect against outsiders. Allegiance and admiration are given to the chief and clan. Mystical signs, conspiracy, and desires of powerful spirit beings must be followed for the continued safety and well-being of the tribe. Four years of behaviors revealed the following:
Character, Personality, Mentality, and Interests.
Partisan politics is a dangerous duel of limited and partial truths; and binds party sorted folks to fixed, literal or otherwise limiting beliefs and frames of minds. The trans-rational paradox is quite clear: a fresh breath of hope, empathy, virtues, core values and guiding principles, trustworthiness, leadership, “light,” inspiration, and democracy. W. Edwards Deming remarked, “If a person is not performing as expected, it is probably because they are miscast for the job.” The United States definitely needs a constitutional provision that authorizes the Cabinet, with consent of the Vice President, to declare a sitting president unfit for office.
Pick political leaders who have mastered the authentic self and model the way as persons, in relationships, institutionally, socially, culturally, by caring for and helping others, and putting quality, common good, compassion, and virtue in all he-she is and does. America needs them today and for the evolving future of this great democratic Nation.
[1] Resources list is available with email request to JohnDeVore@aol.com
Posted on April 23, 2022
Let us take out our binoculars and peer down the road, and simply be objective, not self-serving and visualize what would be good for America today and for future generations. America is at a crossroads, a fulcrum, a tipping point, between a democratic republic—freedom—and autocracy—control. As Americans, we each need to decide what type of country we desire; and what each of us can do to facilitate the strategic, competitive, common-sense battle with our principle global competitor, China. Some folks will pitch-in and make things happen; some folks will watch what happened; and some folks will wonder what happened.
There are a bunch of tasks that need to get done: non-political voting rights management, technology building, infrastructure maintenance and improvement, jobs creation, healthcare, childcare, immigration reform, countering systemic racism, LGBTQ rights, minimum wage, climate control, confronting home grown, white supremacy, terrorism, fair share tax reform, sanely evolving through COVID-19 and preparing for future pandemics, education re-tuning and funding, sane gun control, policing in communities, foreign policy, et al. As the two Japanese characters for crisis offer, with danger comes opportunity. The danger is continued and expanded division and autocracy; and the opportunity is to work on our unhealthy personal and collective issues, participate in interactive dialogue and coalitions, and get done what is good for all Americans.
An opinion is that cultic-tribal addiction—political party sorting—is simply unresolved discomfort within the emotional body, the unhealthy self, or as offered in Integral Life Practice: A 21st Century Blueprint for Physical Health, Emotional Balance, Mental Clarity, and Spiritual Awakening (Wilber, Patten, Leonard, and Morelli, 2008, Boston, MA: Integral, page 41, 92-93),
…the shadow or dark side of the psyche, those aspects of ourselves that we’ve split off, rejected, denied, hidden from ourselves, projected onto others, or otherwise disowned…repressed unconscious…because we’ve pushed or pressed it out of our awareness, and unconscious because we are not aware of it…But the fact that we are not conscious or aware of the shadow does not mean that it has no effect: it just expresses itself through distorted and unhealthy means-or what is typically called neuroses…safety and security are sought by bonding together and identifying (fusing) with a tribe in order to persevere and protect against outsiders. Allegiance and admiration are given to the chief…emergence of a sense of self (ego) distinct from the tribe, although it often acts impulsively on behalf of its favored group.
Undoing and reintegrating this repressed and denied unconscious to improve our psychological health is process and is not easy; however, the work can free energy that has been spent shadowboxing with the self, making excuses, spinning, blaming, and telling stories. An initial step is simply a sense of openness and a commitment to face everything and fear nothing, just sit in the flames of the unresolved discomfort and give birth to penetrating insight and skillful means. We are simply witnessing the evolution of the human condition, and with patience, persistence, education, compassion, learning, and spirituality, we can move forward together, not further divided, and closer to autocracy, more lying, zero leadership, an orchestrated overthrow of elections, bypass of constitutional order, accelerated division and violence, racism and white supremacy, direction of a violent insurrection, and committed students of Vladmir Putin and his Ukraine disaster. Individually and collectively, we can grow common good, compassion, virtue, mindfulness, awareness, virtue, and self-restraint, and quiet the insatiable, unhealthy ego; and the dampening of anger, egotistical pride, jealousy, envy, doubt, ignorance, attachment, and fear can begin to free energy to nurture peace-of-mind and a sense of happiness and joy. Let us get this job done for all Americans, not just a select, partisan few. Casts, conflicting political messages, and deliberate, negative words that separate, attack, and divide are simply wrong. If open to the challenge, ready for the opportunity, and in need of a boost to get started: 1) In her Mindfulness Journal, Catherine Price recommends, Buy a pack of small stickers—any kind will do—and place a dozen or so around your home and office in noticeable places, such as your bathroom mirror, your computer, the back of your phone, the wall behind your kitchen sink, your alarm clock, or the cover of (your) journal. Every time you see one of these stickers, STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING, BREATHE, AND BE. 2) Locate a credible meditation instructor, learn to meditate, uncover the silent watcher, and resolve to create self-restraint. 3) Two questions for reflection: What unlocks compassion? What manifests happiness, joy, and peace-of-mind?
There are no regrets in life, just lessons!
Posted on April 16, 2022
Let us go to work and select a golf instructor!
An instructor needs to become aware, understand, and commit to a process that facilitates a student’s learning. A student’s self-awareness of how they best learn can certainly help the instructor optimize instructor-student time together. As a visual learner, awareness and contemplation have evolved to be the author’s superior learning modalities. As a result, a preference is for a good coach. Teachers tell you what they like to have you do: their system. Coaches will uncover what your desires are and help you get there.
Qualities to expect from a seasoned coach are a published teaching-coaching philosophy; a track record of support for a golfer’s goal accomplishment; a willingness to learn, understand, and work with how you learn best; walks the talk of 100% responsibility—life happens because of him-her and not to him-her; committed to integral health, wellness, and wellbeing; is common good, virtues and, values driven; models the way as a person, in relationships, institutionally, socially, culturally and by helping and caring about others; uses dialogue for interpretation; offers a frequency and price of lessons that works for you; and has a process and willingness to provide on-the-course lessons when you are ready. And remember that good coach-golfer chemistry is a must!
An on-the-course, playing lesson might include: 1) a chat with your coach to agree on the date, time, and course for the playing lesson; and 2) discussion and agreement with the coach about a specific shot cycle “game plan:”
Transition. Psychological adjustment from chaos to the golf course.
Preparation. Simply use a consistent pre-shot routine for clear focus and generation of spontaneous potential for peak performance sensations, including feeling confident, calm, fearless, free, fluid, energized, peaceful, and detached. Key: learn to unconditionally trust the subconscious to make the shot.
Action. Stop what you are doing. Breathe. Be. Trust the subconscious, become the shot, one with the environment, the club, the ball, and the target.
Response! Fist pump heaven. Feel the excitement. A BIG YES!
Recovery.
Review lesson results and feelings about the quality of the lesson.
Discuss and agree on next steps.
An instructor evaluation checklist may prove worthwhile: established rapport at the beginning of the lesson; took time to learn about the student’s goals and objectives; asked about physical disabilities and limitations; thorough observation and analysis of the student practicing and playing before discussing options; tailored feedback to student’s learning style and playing ability; clearly demonstrated suggested improvements; was patient and offered alternatives if the student failed to understand the first time; gave the student enough time to practice during the lesson; and provided a wrap-up of what was learned and discussed next steps. Simply having fun golfing!