At a conference some years ago, I heard a medical doctor turned spiritual life designer talk about how to live a well-designed life. I bought her book, Well-Designed Life. It's good.
On a recent morning, I sat alone with my green tea and stack of four books on our back porch, a Well-Designed Life among them. My spiritual self likes to have multiple reading options.
But this particular morning rather than rush into a beckoning book, I sat. I listened to the birds, smelled the Spring breeze, watched the squirrels scurrying through branches.
It felt strange and good to disrupt my habit of reading. I put a break on my rush to read and on my pursuit of the next profound insight.
Later that morning, I brought out my Nordic Rune Stones. I’m a novice at this spiritual practice. It can seem like a combination of tampering with voodoo or playing a child's game. It's actually just one more ancient tool for awakening spiritual insight.
Frankly, the process of consulting the stones has been annoying. They’ve been sending a high velocity message to counteract my low motivation for change. They’re telling me things and asking me questions:
“Scott, it’s time to re-prioritize. It’s time for Spring cleaning around my go-to patterns. What do I want to keep? What is serving me and others? What do I need to let go of? What might emerge out of the new space I make in my life?”
Sheesh! No matter how many times I invite clients to reflect on similar things, I still resist hearing these messages myself!
The next morning, these stone’s challenges and question bubbled back up as I as I sat with my coffee and stack of books. So, once again I stepped back from the temptation of books and I just sat. I breathed in the silence.
Into the quiet came a piercing thought:
I'm successful at designing a well-crowded life.
My daily life can be like a train that I board each morning. On it, I cover a lot of ground, do good and meaningful work, and most days it feels gratifying.
But it’s also true that the pace and rush and busyness can be an addicting energy. A lifestyle trance. I can let the push and pull of my routines - rather than my inner spiritual knowing - set my course. It’s easier to just hop back on the train than ask where it is going.
It turns out the ticket to get off this train is just sitting quietly. Breaking the habits of productivity. Sipping coffee next to closed books. And listening to the counsel of stones, birds, and squirrels.
The stones can tell some hard truths. The silence can convert them into gifts and graces and a well-designed life.