September 2004

I have quoted directly from the book to capture some of the salient points. Enjoy!

CALLINGS: Finding and Following an Authentic Life
by Gregg Levoy

This book is about putting on a lens through which we can see our lives as a process of calls and responses... Saying yes to the calls tends to place you on a path that half of yourself thinks doesn’t make a bit of sense, but the other half knows your life won’t make sense without it...We find ourselves compelled to follow the sometimes blind spiritual instinct that tells us our lives have purpose and meaning.

The Call to Attention:

The critical challenge of discernment...requires that we also tread a path between two essential questions: “What is right for me?” and “Where am I willing to be led?” The most critical discernment skill is being able to distinguish between the sound of integrity and the sound of its absence. In order to recognize a true call, you must be able to recognize a false one, just as in order to spot a truth you must be able to spot a lie...the discernment process is about being actively patient, using the time we have to submit the evidence we gather to the compassionate scrutiny of the mind, the adjudication of the heart, the gut reaction of the body.

The Cure in Curiosity: Self awareness also requires that we have curiosity about ourselves...We need to resurrect the sort of basic inquisitiveness we had as children, that we usually directed outward, the curiosity that had us down on our knees staring into puddles looking for upside-down worlds, pulling seeds apart to figure out how a tree could possibly fit in there, asking why, why, why.

“What do you love?” As you listen for callings keep such a question poised in your mind to help tune out some of the static...The most reliable test of a calling’s veracity and meaning comes only in the results...What is the feedback your life gives you? Is your energy growing or shriveling? Moving or getting jammed up? Is your life deepening?

...heroism can be redefined for our age as the ability to tolerate paradox, to embrace seemingly opposing forces without rejecting one or the other just for the sheer relief of it, and to understand that life is the game played between two paradoxical goal posts; winning is good and so is losing; freedom is good and so is authority; having and giving; action and passivity, sex and celibacy; income and outgo; courage and fear. One doesn’t cancel out the other. Both are true. They may sit on opposite sides of the table, but beneath it their legs are entwined.

There is a big difference between being divided within ourselves and being divided against ourselves. The former expresses the creative suffering of paradox; the latter expresses only paralysis...The healthiest response to a calling is the one that is informed by all the parts of us.

Receiving Calls:

Passion is what we are most deeply curious about, most hungry for, will most hate to lose in life...it is what matters most, whether we’re doing it or not. By ignoring our passions, we dam up our energies and cut ourselves off from a vigorous source of call, and rather than demonstrating our passions in the world, we put them in the position of having to demon-strate themselves to us. Passions become needs, and if those needs are not met, they become symptoms of one sort or another.

If we ignore dreams we cut ourselves off from the place from which calls emanate. Dreams, like calls, point us toward what we need for growth, integration, expression, and the health of our relationships to person, place and thing. They point us toward a kind of equilibrium. Dreams tell us how we really feel about something. They help us fine-tune our direction and ascertain our calls, show us our unfinished business, and remind us how much bigger our lives are than what we know consciously. Dreaming is about waking up.

Like dreams, body symptoms present information of which we’re unconscious. They are one of the languages the soul uses to get across to us something about itself. In the cosmology of the Iroquois, sickness is often the soul’s way of indicating that something is missing in our lives. We can trust the body to bring us into alignment, and we can trust the soul to speak to us through the body. We are not so much responsible for our illnesses, as we are responsible to our illnesses. The question is not so much what to do about our suffering, but what to do with it. Being responsible to an illness, means being willing to relate to it, have a full-on experience of it, and investigate not just the pain but also your reaction to it.

Heroic people also understand that calls are not just inner experiences - passions, dreams, symptoms - but also outer. These come to us from the world and from the events in our lives, and whether they fling themselves at us like fastballs or follow us around and rub against us like stray cats, they too, require a response.

The things that happen to us are a kind of feedback, and interpreting this feedback is critical to knowing how to proceed. What we each determine is a fitting response is entirely subjective.

Jung believed that synchronicities mirror deep psychological processes, carry messages the way dreams do, and take on meaning and provide guidance to the degree they correspond to emotional states and inner experiences - to thoughts, feelings, visions, dreams, and premonitions. They seem to be related to the growth process called individuation, which is the work of becoming ourselves and making ourselves distinct from our surroundings.

Invoking Calls:

If calls take us toward what we most deeply want anyway - authenticity, integrity, the full complement, the uncut version - then shining a light into the shadow is part of our deliverance to that outcome, part of our passage. We’re going to need all the help we can get in following our calls. We’re going to need every resource at our disposal...our self-interest to admit something is missing in our lives...our blind faith to trust that what we hear is a call...our stubbornness and righteous anger to stand up to the resistance from within and without...separate from the culture of conformity...our insanity to do what might seem insane...our spontaneity and impulsiveness or we’ll never make the jumps. We’re going to need our power to push us through, and our joy to celebrate at the feasts.

Note from Marlena:

Levoy goes on to discuss saying NO to calls and saying YES to calls. Either response is personal to each individual. I have left those chapters for those who wish to read the book and find their own answers.

Personally, I have answered a calling in my own life. I am currently co-authoring, with Donna Martin, a book entitled “Embodying Coaching Skills: using the body as a resource for change”.

Here is an excerpt from our book, quoted in “Marketing Essentials for Coaches”, an e-book written for the ICF by Steve Mitten.

As a coach, you have an awesome opportunity to share in another person’s experience of life. It is an intimate connection. “Who you be” as coach, your personhood, is the most important aspect of the coaching relationship. More than anything you do, your true gift is in your personhood, not in the techniques and skills that you’ve learned to use.

Personhood refers to the essential, authentic, and unfettered aspect of each person, the part of you that can most effectively relate to others, to the world around you, and to life itself. It includes your values, your way of being in the world. People are attracted to someone who is fully in his/her own personhood, and who feels at ease in his/her own energy. Personhood is beingness.

‘Being with’ involves being in the present moment, in the now. When you are in the now, your compassion, your intuition, your curiosity and imagination are more accessible to you. Being in the now quiets your mind so that you can be fully present to yourself as well as with your clients; it is that ability to be with all that is happening in the moment… being conscious and aware of what’s going on inside you, with your client, and in the surrounding environment. Being in the present moment with your clients is a sacred gift.