Addictions and Free Will

Last week I recommended the movie “What the Bleep Do We Know” to my friend, Chris. We were having dinner at the Roaring Fork in San Antonio, TX, and discussing things I enjoy discussing–like waking up. Chris hadn’t seen the movie, so I strongly encouraged him to do so. Chris watched it that night.

We had an interesting email exchange about it. (Not hard with Chris: he is exceptionally bright and articulate and warm.) There is a scene in the movie about addictions that I found quite fascinating. The scene has to do with ‘anything you are not in control of is an addiction: that includes your thoughts and emotions. If you are not in control of your thoughts and emotions, you are addicted to them.’

Chris said this in his email:

“Yes, the conversation about addiction was intriguing; I have been thinking about that and the conversations about how our thoughts are constantly creating at the quantum universe level and if thoughts do that to water, imagine what we are doing to ourselves … you have to wonder why there are addictions to begin with or if they serve some purpose in the larger scope of things …”

Below is my response. I don’t know if it is ‘right’, of course. But if you have some thoughts about this, and it is relevant to what you are seeing in your life half way through this year 2009, please do comment.

Chris,

Finished The Alchemist. Awesome. Thank you for the gift. Just the message I needed just now.

To your point about “you have to wonder why there are addictions to begin with or if they serve some purpose in the larger scope of things …” here’s my hypothesis:

Addictions are necessary because of the principle of free will. I do not know why free will is essential to the grand scheme of things, but it seems to be a very powerful aspect of life. Therefore, I assume it has a purpose.

To me, free will is the opportunity we each have to submit to our soul. When we are in human form, a portion of our soul is used to “light” the form and keep it alive. The other part of the soul stays at the soul level. Let’s call that level mission control. The soul at that point is no longer in full control of the form. Let’s call the human form (mental, emotional and physical bodies)  the lunar landing module.

So, free will is the process of waking up that we are a lunar landing module, of remembering we lost connection with mission control, and in losing that connection (upon birth and the ensuing ‘domestication of the human being’ process, we forgot there even was/is a mission control.

Well, at some point there is the ‘knock of spirit’–some static in the airways we can barely hear through the clicks and beeps of form-life–and we hear a garbled message and recognize it as mission control, and we remember that we once knew there was a mission control… and just forgot. But it is very vague at that point–we don’t fully remember yet, what mission control is–just that there is something familiar about it (that assumes we haven’t soiled our pants when we heard the message and realized that we aren’t alone out there (here).)

Well, in that long time span of forgetfulness of 20, 30, 40, 50 years or more, the little computer in the lunar landing module took on a life of its own, thinking it is THE computer. And we try to get the computer to start honing in on that signal, we have a gosh awful time wresting control away from that lunar landing module computer because it has developed ‘artificial intelligence’–a ‘mind’ and a ‘will’ of it’s own.

That’s where the ‘addictions’ come in. But let’s save that for later…

I suppose–only because I have a prejudice for believing that there is some grand scheme of things–that we have a choice as to what to do when we hear that garbled message. Like one option is to be terrified and to believe that aliens are transmitting on our channel, that we will be annihilated if they find us, and we simply jam that channel and continue bumping along on the moon hitting one lunar rock after another.

Another option is to listen. And to decide to take over the programming of that lunar landing computer and utilize all its wonderful power for a new task–and it is quite sufficient for the task–to hone in on that scary signal and begin to receive it more and more clearly and encounter the reality that we really are not alone out there (here). We can then begin to use it to decide what to do with the message, and to act on the message–to ‘ground’ the message from mission control through our actions.

That’s free will: it is the possibility and potential of making a decision to connect to the signal and to submit to the message, or the decision to not. And, I suppose through the Universal Intelligence watching what happens when one does and when one doesn’t do that, the Universal Intelligence learns something about Itself that it is missing.

That’s the long story. So if following the knock of spirit and submitting to the command of the soul–basically surrendering our human form/vessel (mental, emotional and physical bodies) to the soul is the ‘light’ of the phenomenon known as free will, then the ’shadow’ of that phenomenon is addiction. Addiction is what happens when the ghost in the machine remains in control, and we remain obsessed with anything other than the one thing. The one thing, of course, being to fulfill our destiny, to become Sons of Man. And that requires co-operation between mission control, the lunar landing module, and that mysterious person piloting that fragile and remarkable little vehicle.

With much warmth,

Your friend,

Otis

Leading from Behind

This journey to becoming a leader has taken some unusual twists and turns. It is hard to know where to begin. But the net is, I thought I’d be stepping forward into something. Yet it seems like I am actually stepping backward into something.

Stepping backward is not a bad thing. Particularly if, due to unconsciousness, arrogance or both, you have put your self in a position that is ahead of where you are, where you should be, or both. The net is, in this case it feels right.

Let me make this less obscure by giving you two examples. Mind you, these are just two examples of how my life is changing as I work with One Client, the one client I am on retainer with this year in order to assist myself in the journey to becoming a leader.

For four years I’ve been “leading” this monthly executive team tactical meeting for the CEO. When people gave their progress updates, they’d look to Pamela (my business partner) or me. And typically, I’d be running the meeting, so they’d look primarily to me. This meeting, which should have been one of the most important for the the CEO and his senior leadership team, was seen as “Otis and Pamela’s meeting.” This put us in a unique position in the company–and looking back, a somewhat strange one.

Gary, a C-level executive, handed out a single page at last month’s meeting. It was a quotation by Peter Drucker saying that ‘most of what we call management actually makes it more difficult for people to do their work.’ Gary, a brilliant man, is quite passive-aggressive with equal intensity. This wasn’t unexpected. Gary hates these meetings. In one way or another, he lets everyone know in each meeting. The problem is, Gary won’t tell you why he hates these meeting. He pulls a stunt like that, and the energy bleeds out of the room for 1o minutes.

I’ve known for some time that there is something right about Gary’s reasons for hating the meeting. So, at last month’s meeting, I called his stunt. I told the team–all 15 of ‘em–that Pamela and I would contact each to get their feedback on the meeting… how to improve it, whether to continue it. We told them we’d review the information with the CEO, George, and ask him to make any adjustments he wanted to make. So we did.

There we sat with George last Wednesday, reviewing the findings. We saved Gary’s comments for last. I said to George, “He didn’t straight out say it, but what Gary really feels is that you need to run this meeting.” George looked at Pamela and me over his reading glasses, thinking. And he said, “I think I should. I think when people are giving their updates they should look me in the eyes. That will increase accountability.”

The next day that happened, George led the meeting. Pamela and I shifted into a support role. I stepped backward, and boy was that right. It was their best meeting ever, and given that accountability is actually one of their initiatives this year, the note just got sounded right at the epicenter of the organization… as it should be, as it must be. Otherwise, it wouldn’t work.

It is very important for you to know that this would not have happened had we simply resisted Gary. Gary can be so incredibly annoying that we could have avoided this altogether–no one would have expected us to do what we did. In fact, we likely had the “power” to get one of the two people above him to ask him to back down and fall in line. But my instincts told me to open up and move in to it–to find what was right among all that was wrong about what he was doing and bringing. For example, it was clear to all to see that Gary was actually trying to avoid being accountable for his goals. But I could feel it–and I think everyone else could–that there was something right and he wouldn’t–or couldn’t–speak it.

That one act led to one change that may be a watershed for this organization. The reality is that our role there–at face value–has lessened. We took a step back. In fact, at the end of our retainer, it’s now easier to for them to go one without us. Yet, for me, becoming a leader isn’t about remaining needed. It is about learning and growing and supporting my evolution and the evolution of those around me. So, stepping back was right. Stepping back was powerful. Stepping back was the unknown and the new.

I enjoyed last week immensely, though it was quite exhausting. Which brings me to my second example of how we stepped back last week. But that example will need to wait.

What are you resisting now that–if you were to go in to it by asking what is right about it–would enable you to become a better leader? There are always (and I mean always) the answers we most need stuck right in the middle of what we most resist. Go there. I doubt you will be disappointed. I wasn’t. And if you do go there, please let us know here on this blog. You just might start something. And isn’t that part of what leadership is about?