Monday Morning Coach Archives - Grain of Sand

A Grain of Sand in My Shell 

There’s a grain of sand in my shell.  Make that several.  I’m not sure how they all snuck in but I am going through a period of extreme resistance and all-out crankiness.  I know I talk about gratitude all the time.  And I know there has to be something about the sand I’m grateful for.  Wait!  I’m grateful that when an oyster gets a grain of sand in its shell, the outcome is a pearl.  I’m waiting for the pearl.  And in the meantime I’m chafing at the sand. 

• Can you relate?  
• How do you stay patient while the pearl development process is underway?

Well, to say I have that one figured out would be an out and out lie.  But I have a couple of strategies I’m working on that show promise.  I share them with you in the hope that whatever “sand” has worked its way into your shell can and will be transformed into a thing of beauty soon.  So here goes: 

1)    Journal.  This is one of the most powerful tools I’ve discovered to keep me processing the crazy stuff that’s floating through my head.  Write it down.  Don’t pretty it up trying to make it sound less “whiny” or negative.  Get it out on paper!  And then—this is extremely critical—don’t read what you’ve written! That’s right, the moment you start to read what you’ve written the “judge” steps in and starts to criticize what you’ve said, how you’ve said it and a hundred other things that your expert “inner critic” knows all about.  So keep writing until you’ve either gotten through the tough spot or get so tired of complaining on paper that something new, crazy creative or beautiful begins to emerge.

2)    Watch your thoughts and the way your mind works.  This is more challenging but ultimately very revealing.  Watch your thinking.  Not so you can grab hold of the thoughts and wrestle them down to replace them with a positive, affirmative thought, but just so you can watch them.  As I’ve become a more avid thought watcher I’ve observed a couple of things: 

a.    Most of what my “mind” thinks about isn’t really thinking, but is more ruminating; running through the same set of tired old complaints and fantasies it has run through a thousand times before—like a cow chewing it’s cud.  By the way that is actually where the word “ruminating” comes from—really, look it up.

b.    Much of my so-called thinking is really projecting onto others or into the future and has little basis or “evidence” in the present to support it.  And it does little to feed the creative present.

c.    A thought watched is often a thought stopped.  Like catching your child with their hand in the cookie jar.  The mere presence of your observing self is often sufficient to stop the steady stream of negativity.  Once you’ve experienced it (Eckhart Tolle writes extensively about this in “The Power of Now”) you can actually begin to laugh at how sneaky our conditioned thought processes are.  Try it and see.

3)    Find something to create.  This is not mere distraction my friends.  I truly believe that one of the great “lies” that has been perpetrated upon we human beings is that only a few of us are creative.  Baloney!  We’re all creative but we are so busy checking things off the to-do list and multi-tasking (neither of which is conducive to creative endeavor) that we never really take the time to explore this piece of the puzzle.  Sometimes this alone is sufficient to manifest the pearl that has been in the works! 

4)    Clean up tolerations.   Tolerations are the little things that we often overlook or “deaden” ourselves to that eventually take up so much energy trying to ignore that they keep us from addressing larger things we really need to handle.  Make a list today of your tolerations:  a messy desk, a closet full of clothes you don’t wear, that picture hanging at an annoying angle in your living room, the junk drawer in your kitchen, the pile of unread magazines on the coffee table.  The list may be long or short but the moment you begin to eliminate these “little” distractions the more energy and vitality you naturally have for the big things in life.  This also has the effect of clearing the space for the pearl to show up. 

Here’s what doesn’t work to help you birth the pearl in your shell:

1)    Burying yourself in the same old, same old.  Workaholism, any “aholism” for that matter (take your pick from working to shopping to sleeping) is a desperate attempt to disconnect from the creative process in the works. 

2)    Resisting.  Disliking is dishonoring where you are.  “I hate this” is a guaranteed ticket to pain and suffering. It really is true that “what you resist persists.”  So unless you want to create more of what you’re resisting, I recommend eliminating this one!

3)    Diverting.  Living in fantasy land, having affairs of mind or body, a thousand possibilities here.  Diverting will be briefly satisfying and in fact sometimes leads you in the direction of the pearl, but may in fact be the source of great pain and is often just one more form of self-medication.  So while medication may soften the labor pains inherent in giving birth to a pearl, I suggest the other strategies for clearing the way for the pearl to emerge.

What would you do or stop doing today if you knew it would help you give birth to that pearl?  I invite you to take a look.  We can continue to resist the sand in our shell or be reminded that it is the necessary friction required to help something wonderful or beautiful emerge.  Our job is to stay present, stay patient and clear away anything that gets in the way of the mystery unfolding.

Have a mysterious, miraculous week!