Anybody who wants can practice being a difference-maker.
It’s not complicated. Moments of opportunity will come to us today. Many
moments will come to us today.
We tend to think in terms of making a Big Difference—and
then letting the idea go because we’re not sure where to start. Thinking like
this tends to keeps us on the sidelines and out of the game, which is a shame,
because we've all got game, and the Game needs us.
I’ve written about the Sacred Pause before. It’s a tried and
true way to get into the Game. There are many ways to practice it, to do it.
Here’s one—a little four step spiritual practice we can do.
1. Notice your moment.
Maybe it’s a feeling that something’s not quite right. Maybe it’s a sense of
kindness or helpfulness welling up in you. Maybe it’s a sense of frustration or
anger welling up. Maybe it’s a sense of wanting to turn on your heels ‘and get
the hell out of here.’
2. Pause. Stop thinking
what you’re thinking and start noticing what you’re feeling. Do your best to
just notice and feel the feelings. They’re often not that pleasant. But when we let go of the thoughts that come with them it makes it easier
to just be with the feelings themselves. These feelings, these sensations are
often the very things that move us one way and another through our days.
3. Take a quick moment to hold your feelings, whatever they are, with kindness, compassion, gentleness and understanding. Whatever it is you’re experiencing in this
moment is no more or less than what it sometimes feels like to be human, to be alive, to be part of this world.
Smile. You’ve got Big Love to trust. Trust it, brother.
Bring it, sister.
4. Now you’re ready: at
least ready to practice the last step. It’s what these other steps prepare us for.
Go into the next moment with fresh openness. With no bias, no agenda.
At least no other agenda than doing your best to be open, curious, wise, and kind.
There’s no guarantee this will get us ‘what we want.’ The guarantee is that as we keep doing this, we will
come to see that this troubled world we want to help has a million ways to be freshly seen, deeply listened too, kindly smiled upon, engaged and altered
a little bit at a time--many times a day.
And we are altered in the process. We’re in the game. We got
game. Over time it becomes impossible to believe that it's impossible to make a difference.
