A pastor noticed that a parishioner had stopped attending his services.  The parishioner evidently felt he was no longer noticed, loved, or missed by his attendance, so he simply stopped coming.

The pastor gave it some prayerful thought and paid a visit to the elderly man on a very snowy and cold winter day.  He knocked on the door.  The man opened the door, and they had a cordial greeting, but beyond that, neither said a word. 

The man motioned to a chair to join him by the fire. After a good time of only the sound of wood and coals crackling and feeling the warmth of the fire, the pastor picked up the fire prod and began poking at the coals.  He moved a glowing coal away from the fire.  They both sat watching as the coal lost its heat and eventually stopped glowing.  Several minutes went by in silence.  Then, the pastor pulled the coal back to the edge of the fire as they watched it rekindle and glow again, adding heat and luster as the glowing embers glistened off their warming faces. The pastor put the prod down, tipped his hat and walked to the door and let himself out. 

The following Sabbath, the man returned to the congregation.  The pastor welcomed him by name and asked what brought him back.  The man said “Pastor, at my home by the fire, you gave the best sermon I’ve ever heard you give without saying a word.”

This story I recently heard is directly relatable to the epidemic of anxiety and depression in our world today, especially among our youth.  Feelings of anxiety and depression often lead to isolation. The healing process is a two-way street.  Those who notice the dying ember must reach for it and bring it back into the fire.  Those who are the dying ember must allow themselves to be open to authentic outreach and be willing to be moved (both on their own and by the love of the community).

The question is how to begin this outreach.  One of the more evident answers is to do as the pastor did, and not say a word—just listen and be there for each other.

In his book, Happy Mind Happy Life, Dr. Rangan Chatterjee articulated 10 rules for listening to others.

1. Be non-judgmental.
2. Be curious.
3. Practice true sympathy: not “I know how you’re feeling,” but, “I don’t know how you’re feeling but I am here for you.”
4. Take time to really listen; don’t just think about the next thing you’re going to say.
5. Show them you are listening with your body language—posture, tone of voice, eye contact, not being distracted by your phone.
6. Don’t try to predict where the conversation will go next.
7. Embrace silence.
8. Repeat back what they’re saying in your own language.
9. Don’t try to fix them or rush in to tell them what you would do.  Instead, try asking “How did that feel for you?” and then actively listen without interruption.
10. Have no attachment to the outcome of the conversation.

There are also keys for listening to ourselves and surrounding ourselves with people in selective circles of trust. Parker J. Palmer, talks about developing circles of trust in his book, A Hidden Wholeness.  Not surprising, he notes both the need for companionship and community in our journey, as well as being able to live in silence to effectively “listen” for our inner voice.  He writes“….We all have an inner teacher whose guidance is more reliable than anything we can get from a doctrine, ideology, collective belief system, institution, or leader.”  

Becoming acquainted with our inner voice (or teacher) is essential.  Though it is a unique voice for each of us, it still requires community for our inner truth to leave isolation.  This journey toward inner truth, he said, is too taxing to be made solo, too deeply hidden to be traveled without company, and needed to find the courage to venture into alien lands (a new life of fulfillment).

The space we make to discover and listen to this inner voice is highly individual.  No two people may take the exact journey, and that is the beauty of discovering our inner voice It is OUR personal teacher—no one else’s.  It is OUR personal tutor and speaks only to us if we are listening.

For me, finding my inner voice requires peace.  In some recent travels I had a chance to compare total chaos in a busy city to the absolute peace of a secluded lake.  What was the difference between them?  The city was a cacophony of noise with masses of people like salmon swimming upstream. While at the lake, I could sit and hear myself breathe as I viewed the large expanses of mountains and water.  The silence around me brought the peace I was seeking, and my inner voice began to speak to me.  Those trusted friends who were with me were kind enough to watch me breathe without saying a word, until I was ready to reveal some of what my inner voice was telling me.  I extended the same courtesy to them.  This became a beautifully healing experience.

In all my research and lived experiences dealing with these issues, I’ve felt simple observations and suggestions like these are helpful.  The formula that works for me in lowering my anxiety and limiting bouts of depression are these:

• Find a place for peaceful silence without being too isolated; a space to hear the inner voice guiding your next steps. 

• Be with trusted friends and family who have the skills to listen, really listen (sometimes without saying a word), and to enjoy the warmth of their figurative fires to keep the embers of hope alive. 

• Practice the art of listening as you figuratively reach for the fire poker and gather in the dying embers to ignite hope.

Evolution requires reflection.  I hope as you reflect on the impressions of the inner voice, ponder the story of the dying ember, and commit to a being a better listener, you will discover ways to be reignited and experience the glow and warmth you truly deserve.  

In part one of this two-part series, we learned a few steps to increase our focus and purpose in this world of information overload and multi-tasking. In part two, we will dive deeper into the mechanics and disciplines that extend our focus and purpose to a higher level.

The Psychology of Focus

When I left Wyoming to pursue other interests, my mother was distraught. She wanted me to stay on at the bentonite plant until I could be hired by the oil industry where my father and brother worked. In her mind, this was my destiny. I totally respect those who have worked hard in the oil fields, and for many families tied to this industry this is the path to success. This is what they know, and their world other options are not imaginable. At least, that was my mother’s way of thinking.

Many people follow a path of familiarity, because “it’s always been that way.” Traditions become truth, and sometimes these traditions can limit our ability to gain deeper truth and also limit our discovery of how to bring purpose and real joy into focus.

In the early 1980’s, the Harvard professor B.F. Skinner was famous for his study of human behavior. He found that you could train the focus and attention of animals by reinforcing behavior. If a pigeon lifted its wing, and the response was to feed it, that behavior would repeat itself if there was a reward. Skinner suggested that free will was an illusion, believing that human action was the result of conditioning. He believed what he learned from the animals could be transferred to human psychology.

In fact, this type of instant reinforcement is now used by social media companies whose users number in the billions, getting their instant rewards for their actions.  But instant gratification and reward doesn’t always transfer to an ability to focus and think deeply.  In fact it can subdue them.

Mihaly Csikszentmihaly came to America challenging Skinner, believing there had to be a more positive explanation to the psychology of behavior. In part of his study, he observed a group of painters in Chicago working on their paintings patiently for hours on end. He observed that creative people were not so interested in the rewards, but rather the outcome of their work was more important. He observed other groups of people in other activities that required long-term focus, like chess players and rock climbers. He discovered that focus was a result of “flow” and created the concept of “flow state.”  This happens when a person becomes so absorbed in that which they are doing, it carries them forward with pleasure.

Mihaly discovered, not surprisingly, that distraction and multi-tasking kill flow.  Flow can only be achieved through monotasking. Choosing this path of flow requires a clearly defined goal, with meaning to you behind the goal, and working to the edge of your ability.  If the goal is too easy, we go on auto pilot, but if it’s too difficult, we become anxious and do not strike the balance of flow state.  As we progress in our abilities, the edge of our abilities also moves forward, but we need to be in a flow state to get there.  This pocket is a recognizable mental state where we become one with the task. 

When I flew airplanes, I could have the controls in my hands and could feel every axis of the flying experience, or I could put the airplane on auto pilot.  On autopilot, I would easily forget about the immediate tasks of flying; but it didn’t take me to the edge of my abilities.  Interestingly, no pilot keeps the airplane on auto pilot all the way to the runway.  At some point they must have had the experience of having the controls in their hands and knowing exactly how to absorb the conditions around them to fly safely to the ground.  In this flow state I would become one with the airplane – a joyful experience.

The Skinner approach suggests rewards at each step of the process, but does not allow the space to enter deeper focus. The Mihaly approach allows the focus to be derived from the goal and passion, rather than the conditioning for results method of thinking. The Skinner theory rewarded learned behavior sometimes at the expense of focus, while the Mihaly theory discovered the pleasure and joy people experience during periods where focus is fully absorbed. This makes sense to me when I think of the few times my focus was so centered, I really did enter a new dimension and I evolved.

The challenge of our day centers on this question “How do I change my focus to that of a flow state, rather than a “click and switch” lifestyle”?

Here are three considerations to achieve a higher degree of focus and purpose:

1. Get your sleep. The National Sleep Foundation has found that 40 percent of Americans are chronically sleep deprived. Even during off hours and what would normally be sleeping hours, employers now commonly ask their employees to be accessible and expect them to respond to their devices like Pavlov’s dogs. Once the device goes “ding” and the screen comes to life, it takes another 20 minutes minimum for the senses to quiet themselves to achieve sleep.

A lack of sleep destroys the ability to focus, deprives one of creativity, and doesn’t allow one to enter the deepest sleep which heals and restores. You can’t cheat your way through lack of sleep with caffeine or other substances; these stimulants have their own set of damaging issues. 

2. Learn to read again. Gallup found that 57 percent of Americans now don’t read a single book from cover to cover in a single year. Though I read around a hundred books a year – the real hold in your hands books – I find most of my friends either listen to books or read them on devices.

Apparently, the way we read books makes a difference.  Johan Hari in his book Stolen Focus, interviewed Anne Mangen, a professor of literacy at the University of Stavanger in Norway who performed a two-decade study on this.  She found that reading on screens causes us to read differently, with more tendency to skip and skim and not dive deep into the pleasurable immersion of reading from a book. Her research from fifty-four studies has labeled the difference as “screen inferiority,” which concludes that reading on screens diminishes understanding, retention, and the pleasure of reading.  All told, it reduces our ability to focus.

3. Redefine Prosperity. Consider what prosperity means to you. We live in a world where financial wealth and growth is the litmus test for success. If the companies we work for do not grow, we don’t prosper.  Financial wealth aside, If we don’t grow personally, we don’t prosper either. This is where the attention to improving our focus comes in.  In my view, real prosperity isn’t the balance in your checking account (though that can help), rather, it’s the measure of your joy and peace.  It’s the measure of the love that surrounds you.  Personal growth then requires a deeper measure of focus, which in turn increases the reservoir that defines true prosperity.

Imagine a world where we spend more quality time with family, get enough sleep to be restored and healed every night, spend enough time and focus on our flow states, limit our intake, slow our roll, and learn to read again. This is the world I want to live in more fully. I am using these steps to enter and stay in that world. If these are your desires also, I invite you to join me in this journey.

So much information bombards our minds these days. We absorb more information than ever before. Let me re-phrase that. We are fire hosed with more information than ever before, but we actually don’t absorb any more – UNLESS – I’ll get to that in a moment.

In my early married life I had a job at a bentonite factory. I swept the floor from one end of the plant to the other.  I would dutifully sweep in one direction, only to look back and see about the same amount of dust had accumulated on what I had just swept. Then I would turn around and repeat the process. 

I hated that job.  But in my mind it was a means to an end.

After a particular hard day at work I walked out from the plant in boots and mud and my wife picked me up.  She announced as I hugged her, that she was pregnant with our first child, AND, there was no way she was having our baby in Lovell, Wyoming.  At that moment I became acutely aware of my situation and my responsibility as a husband and future father, and I made a conscious decision. Just like Jed Clampett, we loaded up the truck and moved to California.

It was that experience that pushed me forward, out of that plant and into something that caused me to evolve. 

Dr. Roger K. Allen, an expert on personal transformation, says we are not “locked in to earlier decisions; re-deciding requires that you be aware, take responsibility…and then act from a conscious decision.”  The writer James Baldwin opined “Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

The process of moving forward with intention, regaining focus and purpose, or in other words evolving, is not an easy process. Evolving, rather than running on the same hamster wheel all day and repeating, requires intentional decisions. Intentional decisions require focus. HOW to focus amid all the information and distractions is the question. Here are a few observations that may help.

Four Steps To Achieve Greater Focus and Purpose:

Limit the intake. Limiting the intake from the firehose of information available brings with it the usual dangers of detoxing from any other addictions. Often a chasm forms that must be bridged to move forward.  It seems like an oxymoron at first, limiting the intake to move forward. Let me explain.

I had one of the very first car phones (before personal cell phones).  Proudly mounted on my dash, it was a small phone booth-type telephone inside my car. The world became smaller. This was the beginning, I’m almost embarrassed to say, when the world of instant data coming from all directions was not only addicting for me, but it filled the voids of my own loneliness. My focus diminished, but my knowledge of many things was expansive.  I joined the hollow world of becoming a star in my own space. I was a “big deal,” and this mounted phone booth in my car proved it. 

This self-made blanket of security, which built each year to circa 2015,  was suddenly ripped away when I was fired from the company I had built and sold, exposing me to the real world and causing within me an identity crisis. It would, however, become an opportunity for growth and self-reflection. My cocoon of self-made narcissism had to be cracked open to let the butterfly within me get wings to fly. 

Limiting our intake of the noise surrounding us is key to learning the art of focus. It might take a sudden reality adjustment. But the process of detaching from the daily firehose must start.  If we can discipline ourselves regarding this intake of information and fake self-worth, we can then absorb the best life has to offer. For example, putting the cell phone down for dinner with the family, a movie, or a drive with your loved one is a small but important start. Even in church, I observe many people on their cell phones during the service. How did we get here?

Any detox has withdrawals and challenges. But control over the intake is key to evolving and not repeating the same processes of reaching for information every few seconds.  Being unplugged makes the brain think again and the initial blank space is soon populated with the color of a new palette.  

Learn the art of focusing. A recent study found that the average American college student switches tasks every 65 seconds. Adults in an office can only stay on a task for three minutes. This challenge of focus has been going on for centuries, but it has been accelerating in our time. In Johann Hari’s best-selling book Stolen Focus, he wondered if the motto for our era might be “I tried to live, but I got distracted.”  He notes that Professor Michael Posner at the University of Oregon found that if you are distracted, it takes on average 23 minutes to return to that focus. How many times are you distracted in a day? How many minutes are lost?

Understand that “multi-tasking” is a myth. It was invented to help computers. But then it was applied to humans, thinking it would be successful. Professor Earl Miller at MIT discovered through his research that we can only focus on one or two thoughts in our conscience mind at once. It was found in a study commissioned by Hewlett-Packard, that multi-tasking, can lower your IQ by more than ten points. This practice of multi-tasking is also referred to as “switching.”  If you do this, you will be slower, make more mistakes, be less creative, and remember less of what you ought to be focused on.

Slow the roll. Guy Claxton, a professor of learning sciences at the University of Winchester, analyzed what happens to a person’s focus if they deliberately engage in practices such as yoga, meditation, or other like practices that, as he puts it, “shrink the world to fit our cognitive band width.” Slowing our roll nurtures attention and focus, while adding speed shatters it.

I recently joined a group on a sailing trip. Our cell service was spotty, and we were “forced” to slow our roll. What happened? We visited, we read, we had meals together, and played card games at night. We had time to star gaze and ponder life. We nurtured things that otherwise were lost in our hamster wheel world. While sailing, it was impossible to multi-task as our attention was focused on the wind, the sails, the charts, and all that is required to not become shipwrecked. It was a detachment of real proportions from the world we live in.  Magic happens when we slow the roll. We gain focus, get smarter, and gain a portion of this asset we call uninterrupted time.

Remove the mask and reveal yourself. You cannot evolve behind a façade. Our social media world creates a nagging sense of hollowness.  As you detach from social media’s intended addictive conditioned behaviors, and your detox begins, it can create an absence of meaning. My friend who put himself through this detox found that the lack of all the texts, instant messages, emojis, likes, hearts, etc. were devastating—initially. Gradually, without the social web there to tell him how wonderful he was, he realized the shallowness of the substance he had previously counted strongly toward his self-worth.

We will continue this idea of increasing focus and purpose in part two of this series as we learn more about evolving, gaining focus, and purpose. Until then, if we can gain 20 percent more focus and become more fulfilled and happier as a result, isn’t it worth the effort?

I am closing in on 65 years of age.  I’ve had a wonderfully full life, filled with great love, adventure, opportunities, challenges, and loss.  In reflection, is there ever a time in our lives where we don’t pause to evaluate the path we are on and where it is taking us? 

I was visiting with my father-in-law recently, and as I sat in front of him trying to converse with his slipping mind, he asked me for the fifth time, how I was doing?  “I’m doing fine Grandpa Ben. I can’t complain. It wouldn’t be fair.”  To which he replied, “That’s good, no one would listen.” His sense of humor is still alive and well. His standard euphemisms are always at the tip of his tongue.

Then he said as he stared past me in reflection “I don’t do anything; I just sit in this chair all day.”  Realizing he is going nowhere, and reflecting on his current state of well-being, the sad look on his face is one I shall not soon forget.  Even in his diminished state of mind, he was aware enough to pause and evaluate his path.

Following the loss of our son last year, my wife Ginger and I are being intentional in our lives, as our son always admonished. Instead of “aging out,” we are embarking on a journey without a destination; but in a way that we hope to enliven and re-discover our lives.  We are not lost—we are purposeful in our wanderlust. 

Part of our intention includes, for me, studying guitar (Eric Clapton is a musical hero of mine) and hope to learn how to make beautiful oil paintings.  I also have desires to continue to develop my storytelling through writing and effective and relevant communication.  Ginger loves nature and will study photography and take pictures for me to paint.  She loves to travel and explore the beautiful earth God created for us and we hope to visit our friends as often as circumstances allow. We have plans to author and publish a children’s book in the next year.  We are also joining in with a couple of partners to start a new business—once an entrepreneur, always an entrepreneur.  Of course, we continue our beloved involvement with Launching Leaders celebrating the rising generations.  We are aligned with our spiritual center and are entirely trusting our light of faith to lead the way—wherever that journey takes us.

In considering life’s unfolding nature I have been contemplating one of the things Launching Leaders teaches in a process called “The Cycle of Spiritual Guidance.”  The first step in this process is to discover your true identity.  I learned a phrase recently that takes this to a deeper level.  How do we capture the “essence of our identity” — Who am I?  and Where do I belong?  Isn’t capturing the essence of our identity both our daily and life-long quest? Is not discovering the essence of our identity the key to our peace and happiness—the energy to our purpose and quest for belonging?

At any age, this cycle never ends.  We have an opportunity to add to our truth, but the process of discovery is ongoing.  While we discover who we are at the core and live our intentional lives around that knowledge, we ought to constantly recalculate our inner GPS to consider our path and where it is taking us.  I invite you to read the first chapter of Launching Leaders, An Empowering Journey for a New Generation and go on this journey with us.  The associated course is free and can be accessed by visiting LLworldwide.org or emailing our administrative manager in New Zealand, Roselene Walker at Roselene.Walker@LLworldwide.org.

This past year, all of these things have coalesced for Ginger and I—the loss of our son, our aging friends and relatives, our desire to be intentional with our lives, the hope for new beginnings, our quest to truly capture the essence of our identity, and our desire to do some good every day, especially through our work in Launching Leaders.  It’s ironic that all of the principles we have helped shape and provide in Launching Leaders—designed to assist the rising generations in particular—are moving deep into our souls as we live out what we teach.  Indeed, we are Boomers with Millennial hearts.  As we do this, we are more convinced than ever that Launching Leaders empowers any individual who seeks a better life and that these principles never “age out.”

We are embarking on new and intentional journeys with “no end in sight.”  We are rediscovering the “essence or our identity.”  We are evaluating our path before our memories fade into a hazy fog.  Hopefully we can still make a difference every day as we seek to home in on what led us here and what will take us there. 

Final Chapter, Mostly for the Living

In my previous blog posts “Give Life a Chance,” part one and part two, I wrote about lessons learned and lived through our experience of losing our son to suicide.  I shared research, summaries, and ideas that our son wrote through his journal entries.  This final part is a closing chapter to these thoughts on our experience, though our research and learnings continue. 

I’ve scoured my son’s journals—mesmerized by his deep thinking and thoughtful outlook on life’s adventures.  From his recorded experiences, including his travels abroad, he really “found” himself. I stand in awe of the man he is.  It’s been nine months now since our boy’s passing.  

Part of his ashes were melted/molded into the symbol of his nickname “Bear” that sits atop our mantle.  Sometimes I bring him down and kiss him—imagining the bear hug he gave like none other.  As I often read beneath the mantle, I imagine him with me as I ponder life, picture where he now is in my mind, and sometimes have a nice chat with him.  I believe I hear him in the “conversation” and see him smiling upon me.  He knows I miss him so, and I sense he does the same.

Someone asked me recently, “Does it ever get better?”  The simple answer is “Not really.”  Yes, the miracle of healing has occurred in different ways for each family member, but the pain of his loss is constant.  I live with it because I want to.  It’s my way of always feeling near him.  The wave of sadness comes in sets, just like the ocean waves.  Some days I’m wading in the shallow water, sun on my face and reliving the joyous memories; other times I’m gob smacked by waves of emotion and loss.  That’s OK, the ocean keeps moving—sometimes small waves, sometimes large ones, but always cleansing in its own way.

Here are a few of ideas that have come to me on suicide ideation. Perhaps you can build upon these in developing your own thoughts.

1. Don’t ask HOW.  You don’t need to know how a person died by suicide.  Asking them to relive the cause, can activate very real PTSD and cause pain unimaginable. You don’t need to know the cause in order to love, mourn, and embrace.  It’s just insensitive to ask, even though the question obviously didn’t seek to harm—so don’t.
2. Don’t cast judgment.  I grew up in an era where suicide was cast as evil.  It’s NOT.  It’s simply the last resort of a lonely and anguished soul—almost always due to issues associated with mental illness.  As survivors of loved ones who leave the earth in this manner, our lot is simply to love.  Nothing else. Just love.
3. Avoid advice-giving.  Those who participate in grief counseling and other such helpful venues learn to stick with statements that avoid advice-giving.  Share the air and listen intently to those grieving.  You have no obligation to “solve” a situation—just be.  Also, keep conversations shared with you by those who are grieving confidential.  They are sharing with you because they trust you.  Don’t ruin that trust.  It can be harmful on many levels.
4. There are no “grief wars.”  No one’s loss is better or worse than another’s.  Hold space for everyone’s stories and experiences without a need to compare.
5. Joy and sadness are not mutually exclusive.  Be willing to welcome laughter as much as tears.  You can be sad and still joyous, and joyous and still sad.
6. Know that their spirit and essence live on.  I have the good fortune of mingling with many other faiths and faith leaders through our charity work.  I am always buoyed by rubbing shoulders with believers of any kind.  My faith beliefs differ from many of my friends and associates, but we ALL share the idea that our spirits live on. So it is.
7. Live with intention.  In a major study of young people by Springtide National Research, their survey revealed 71 percent of young people say it is important to make intentional time and space to activate the imagination.  It’s so important to not live a life of simply checking boxes.  Rather, take the time to ponder and imagine.  Where this leads is only good.
8. Be authentically you.  Someone once told me, “just be you,” everyone one else is taken.  Those who suffer with a feeling of not belonging are often pushed further into this abyss by those trying to help them, but are doing so from their need to check their own box.  Just be you.
9. LOVE LIVES ON! Though you can’t bring them back, know that for everyone connected, including the one who died by suicide, LOVE LIVES ON!

The number one epidemic in the world is loneliness.  Especially in the rising generations, many are lonely, socially isolated, and stressed.  The Ford Motor Company 2020 Trends report identified loneliness as one of the most pressing issues confronting society now and for the foreseeable future.  Their study found a lack of trust in relationships which removes the bedrock of trust, which also increases anxiety as well. 

One significant antidote to loneliness is having a sense of belonging.  This “belongingness” is not a matter of where, but rather, who.  Family, friends and caring adults are the fountain of belongingness.  When our son was in his last trying months, he pushed his family and friends away, trying to shield his pain.  Don’t allow that to happen. Push back and in. Understand that your authentic and loving relationship requires work, and that work establishes belongingness for everyone—especially those who suffer. 

Consider these three levels of the belongingness process:

I am noticed.  There is not a living person on the planet who doesn’t have a need to be noticed in some way, sometimes.  How can we take the time to engage our loved ones, recognize them authentically, and celebrate their lives continuously?

I am named.  If you are like I am, when I meet someone new, I frequently forget their name, especially if my interaction is a one-time event.  I’ve taken to really trying to know someone by their name, even if I have to ask a couple of times to remind me what their name is.  Then I often write it in my notebook, so I have less of a chance of forgetting.  I can’t tell you how many times those supposedly one-time introductions have blossomed over time simply because I took the time to know their name.

I am known.  When someone is noticed and then their name is known, they feel like their personhood matters—at least to that person who is present and remembered.  We don’t need to be known to have any type of status.  If it’s a pride thing to be noticed, it’s simply not authentic.  Authentic people don’t appreciate fake status.  If you count on being known by the title on your business card, you won’t really be known at all.  But if we are known because of our authenticity, then we are on the road to some recovery from loneliness.

I’m not proposing any of these ideas for what has been, rather they are presented with the hope of what might be.  I’ll continue to walk on my beach of grief, basking in what once was with my hope of what might be—not only for my relationship with my son who has passed, but also for the relationships of belongingness I am reinventing for my family, friends and associates. Those I love.